Stimulus tax credit, WG at FC, and Twitter brandjacking

[mortonfox]

I finally got a chance to take a look at the House Stimulus Bill (H.R. 1), not the 647-page full text but at least the summaries. Just like last year, there is a tax credit. It's $500 for individuals with a phase-out starting at an AGI of $75K. So once again, I'll get nothing. Same old story. Then again, folks like me are always tripping over bags of money</sarcasm> and therefore need no special incentive to go out and buy those big-screen TVs, right?

Speaking of money, I didn't attend Further Confusion this year but apparently, one of my Where's George bills did. It's really cool that the user note actually mentions the con. I was wondering how it got there but then I remembered that foxwell and jbadger had some of my bills from when we met up and did a mascot gig in December so that's probably it. Thanks to both of you for getting the bills out there.

And finally, it appears that someone is starting sh*t on Twitter by brandjacking Furcadia, following every furry on Twitter, and posting a whole bunch of nonsense. I was just going to ignore that but there were two things to note. First is the 16 follow-backs. I have to ask why. I guess some have auto-follow turned on or are less discriminating in who they follow. Eh, their choice. Second is there do seem to be quite a number of folks from the fandom on Twitter now, which is quite a change from the days when only I and a few others were tweeting.

Comments

[wildfox34.livejournal.com]

So if I read this right, we get $500 tacked onto whatever our tax return is for the year? I'll take it!

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

By all means, enjoy. :)

[digoraccoon.livejournal.com]

On the flip side of that coin, I make about a third of that $75k and have a wife and child to take care of, neither of which bring in an income. By no means am I at the bottom either, there are much worse out there (One father of 5 killed his entire family out of depression). So while I can understand that it sucks not getting anything, at least you're not in as bad a situation as you could be. :)

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do realize that there is a lot worse out there but once again, legislators have failed to take into account that people have to make more money in the NYC area because the cost of living is higher. $75K here doesn't go as far as $75K in... say... South Dakota.

[digoraccoon.livejournal.com]

That part is true, but how can we formulate some way to measure that Cost of Living so that people in expensive areas can be given a fair break? Sounds really complicated, but I'm sure it's doable. Maybe it should be handled by states?

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

There are two fair ways to do this: Give it to everyone or give it to no one. Assigning income caps by region would be nightmarishly complicated and susceptible to fraud and manipulation.

[digoraccoon.livejournal.com]

It would be the ultimate fairness to give everyone the same check, but then the problem is how to convince Americans that it's okay for Uncle Sam to give the corporate CEOs who make millions a $500 check (Which I guess to them is just spare change anyway). :)

[schnee.livejournal.com]

So, you're not getting the 500 bucks because you make MORE than 75k USD a year?

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

Yes. The other way of looking at it is I'm paying over $40K in taxes and not getting any tax relief.

[the-mcp.livejournal.com]

That's because you're one of those Evil Rich Capitalists, don'tcha know. :D You obviously have more than you "need", so you deserve to have it taken away from you and give it to someone more deserving of it. (Besides, you probably stole it from them or cheated them out of it somehow anyway.)

[note: this post has been closed-captioned for the sarcasm-impaired. :D ]

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you're not one of those who really *need* a tax break to begin with.

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. Then again, there are lots of things I'm doing without at the same time and it would be nice if they'd throw me a bone once in a while. But that's not going to happen.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Yeah, well, I certainly can see why you'd like a tax break - extra money is always nice. :)

[frith]

Speaking of capitalism, there isn't much in the way of stock market communities on LJ, is there? Like, I was thinking Dearborn Bancorp is looking interesting and US Steel is bound to rebound with the proposed preferential treatment. If only Fannie Mae would stop sitting at 62 cents and go _somewhere_!

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

wallstreet is supposed to be one such community but it doesn't seem to be very active. Generally, I don't go to Livejournal for stock chatter.

[frith]

Yes, it looked really quiet. Maybe I'll go have another look as it's the only one.