Technophiles on the Loose

How Our Economy REALLY Works

Nepharia — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:49:21 +0000

Bar Stool Economics

Nepharia — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:16:04 +0000

I found this on the internet. I’ve heard it attributed to diferent people, but like it regardless of the source.

Suppose that every day; ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59……… Combined equals $100, are you with me so far?

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. He said, “Since you are all such good customers, I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.”

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men — the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share”? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay!

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”

“That’s true!!”shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2 ? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up any more. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

700 B-I-L-L-I-O-N Dollars

Nepharia — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:33:47 +0000

It sounds like the punch line from an Austin Power’s movie.

Do we really even know how much that is? I lifted the following from Snopes.com to help you put ONE BILLION into perspective:

A billion seconds is about 31.7 years

A billion minutes is approximately 1901 years.

A billion hours represents a bit over 114,000 years.

A billion days ago is about 2.74 million years.

A billion dollars ago: If the U.S. federal government were spending a billion dollars every 8 hours and 20 minutes, its total yearly expenditure would be a little more than $1 trillion. In the last few years, the budgets approved by Congress have been about double that amount, or $2 trillion per year.

So how much does the federal government get to spend every year? Approximately $2.4 trillion, give or take a billion.

You may be thinking that we seem to have enough for the $700 Billion bailout. However, consider this: before the bailout, the government expected to spend $2.8 trillion dollars, which is $400 billion more than it had to spend to begin with.

And just where does it get that money to overspend? That same place your or I would get it: they borrow it. This year, they will have to borrow over $1 trillion (existing $400 billion deficit, plus the $700 billion just added with this new bailout bill).

Please bear in mind that as of last year, our government had to allot 10% of their income just to cover interest on the existing deficit — this money is owed to real entities in the world.

Does this sound like a responsible government to you?

Interesting Reading

Slashdot

Nepharia — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:10:35 +0000

Geek Haven

Slashdot or “/.” as it’s also written, is actually very hard to describe. It’s news from all over that readers think is important and then submit to Slashdot to be shared with the world. Got it?

They have essentially harnessed the power of all their readers to comb the internet and submit geek news to them. As a result, they get a lot of interesting — albeit eclectic — set of information. But very informative. Check it out.

Beginner’s Necessities

Nepharia — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:13:39 +0000

My Favorite Web Browser

Oh, PLEASE don’t tell me you are visiting this site with that icky old Internet Explorer web browser? Bad, BAD reader. I know it may take some getting use to, but the most secure way to surf the web is with the Firefox 3 browser. You can even import your bookmarks from IE once you install it.

Get it. Install it. Now.

Like TinyURL Except Better

Well, actually, it does the same thing with one tiny twist: you can track how many clicks on that link you get.

The company is not real sure how much the service will cost to sign up for the analytics part of it, but for those of you trying to keep track of all your marketing links, this is one tool, you can’t live without.

It’s free to sign up and free to use during beta. So go check it out.

BudURL by LiveOak360

Learn Web Programming!

Want to start making websites of your own? Maybe you just want to change an existing site or blog but don’t know where to start.

8 years ago I was introduced to this site: w3schools.org. It taught me a lot about HTML. Now it has a lot more, and I still reference it when I forget syntax for any one of several things (HTML, PHP, CSS, etc.)

Take a look at it when you have time.

W3School.org

Today’s Article Recommendations

Nepharia — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:42:38 +0000

Why Is the Internet So Infuriatingly Slow?.
Bandwidth capping and charging for bandwidth overages by ISPs. Related article: Does Comcast Want To Put Bandwidth Hogs On A Diet? Sounds Good To Us

FCC plans to go through with DTV test in NC. Yes, Virginia, all-digital television is really happening.

Have any questions or recommended research topics? Let me know. Email me at nepharia@nepharia.com