JediWing

Is the union preventing teachers from going into the school? Is it not OK for the union to have a position on the matter and communicate it to their members?

Why is it ok for the administration to say "we prefer but don't require you to come in" but not ok for the union to say "actually, we prefer but don't require you to stay home"?

A unified front is EXACTLY the purpose of a union. The threat of collective action by the entire workforce is what unions derive their power from.

This isn't a power trip by union leadership/ "the organization of the union itself" though?

It's a real concern about the safety and working conditions, and how a lack of a unified front can lead to fissures when negotiating that could actually hurt a majority of union members.

The unions members probably mostly prefer work from home due to safety concerns. Should the school district wish to demand all teachers report to the building, the negotiation position of the union is significantly weakened if the administration can say "well 25% of your membership is already in the building" as a justification for denying hazard pay, further health and safety precautions, etc.

The rubber room story that is trotted out all the time is the exception, not the rule.

The very existence of teachers unions has probably kept tens or even hundreds of thousands of people from being out of work without healthcare during a global pandemic.

In my experience, having a teacher as a spouse, discipline of even union employees is not rare when warranted.

Not an epidemiologist, but from my laymen's understanding: No, because vaccines will be available to the whole/most vulnerable population, so if you spread you have a fairly high degree of confidence others are immune with zero harm having been done to them.

Masks are primarily to protect others, so the concern is not the mask-wearer catching it, but rather the mask-wearer spreading it.

There are two concerns related to post-immunity spread: First, the accuracy of tests, and second, the ability to spread despite immunity.

I believe that some studies have shown you may still be able to transmit the disease if exposed, even though you yourself are immune.

I don't have sources handy, but that is a starting point for your own research.

It sends a signal that you don't want to risk asymptomatic transmission to others, even if the likelihood is low, because the cost to you in infinitesimally small.

Virtue signaling? Honestly?

People should just shut up and wear a mask. (And social distance. And wash their hands. And refrain from touching their face. And, and, and)

If there's even a 0.000001% chance that you could prevent the spread of a rampantly spreading disease that has hospitals in many regions at or above capacity, by putting a damn piece of cloth over your face, then just do it. It's not burdensome.

I think about past generations in the US that had to sacrifice mightily in the great depression or WWII, and then I look at today and how many people are whining over petty nonsense like this, and I shudder at what the country has become.

Google Play Music worked perfectly well for me, and I used it as a Spotify alternative, not even for the music library features.

The switch to YouTube Music has been terrible.

Dead simple things don't work: my son would listen to a specific white noise track at night over his Google Home Mini.

Previously, we could tell it to play the song, then say "repeat on" and it would repeat indefinitely until he woke up and turned it off.

YouTube Music simply doesn't work repeating over a speaker.

What's even more maddening: I can repeat a song indefinitely on the Android app, but once I cast to the Mini, THE OPTION TO LOOP IS CANCELLED AND DISAPPEARS.

The only solution: I had to make a playlist that plays the same song for hours.

From what I've read, it seems to me like this shift to YouTube Music is primarily a licensing issue. Rather than pay for streaming rights to music tracks, Google seems to be using the library of music it has on YouTube to retroactively backdoor a streaming service that plays the YouTube videos without the video.

I suspect the repeat restrictions are a side-effect of this, somehow.

I would switch to Spotify (and may still do so) but I'd still be held hostage to pay YouTube the same price to run without ads (the primary reason I bought the package in the first place), so my choice is to switch to Spotify and make my kids watch YouTube ads, or pay double.

RIP Google Music indeed

Wouldn't this be the first mRNA vaccine approved for the public?

I know very little about the pharmaceutical underpinnings of mRNA vaccines and how theoretically likely adverse long-term results are, but I do think caution by laymen is not unwarranted for a new type of vaccine that has been fast-tracked through trials (albeit for good reason!)

Your link seems to me to clearly define this as double taxation

> Double taxation is a tax principle referring to income taxes paid twice on the same source of income.

and later

> Double taxation also occurs in international trade or investment when the same income is taxed in two different countries.

This state/federal dichotomy for the purpose of taxation is really no different than two countries taxing the same source of income.

Two entities are taxing the same income, and both must be paid. This is double taxation by the definition of the source you brought into the discussion!

> What? This would only be the case if total taxes on your income exceed 100%. And typically, that would then be up to the courts to decide who is the senior creditor that deserves to get paid.

No, it's true regardless of how much I've paid to my state. The 5K is gone. I don't have it. It's deducted from my paycheck. It never hits my bank account. I'm being asked to pay taxes on money I've used to pay taxes.

> I disagree that you truly earned $95k. You earned $100k.

You're probably right that earned was an imprecise phrasing for this. Received, perhaps? Regardless, the point still stands.

And to be clear I'm arguing from the standpoint of what I believe the principles ought to be, not of what the law is. As you state, when asking for money that I truly don't have due to contradicting demands on my income, courts would decide who receives what. I'm just arguing that the law ought to define that hierarchy, and any money already used to pay taxes ought not be taxed again by the secondary payee.

Variable from person-to-person based upon the quality of housing they choose to live in, not variable month-to-month.

Should someone living in a luxury penthouse suite at 15K+ a month get to deduct his rent at 100%, as well as closet-sized studio apartment? If not, where is the line drawn?

This is what I mean when I talk about value-based judgements based on variable rates.

Should I be able to deduct only what is literally the cheapest rent in my city? What if the cheapest apartment is full, and there's no way I could possibly get that rate? Should it be the cheapest AVAILABLE rate? Would this then impact prices knowing that the lowest rate drives tax-deductibility for all citizens?

This is the labyrinthine decision tree that opens up when deducting things like rent, food, clothing, etc.

Also, if SALT deductions truly incentivized punitive state taxes, why are so many states still charging 0% tax rates?

> But you can move to avoid state and local government taxes to stop paying them.

You overestimate how difficult this would be for the vast majority of people.

> imagine 49 states introduce a 100% income tax...

So your solution is to ask the citizens of states with 100% tax rates to pay > 100% of their income in taxes? How would this work?

Again, the issue of fairness comes down to what the base is, not what the rate is.

What if my rate is 51% + 51% = 102%? (Unrealistic, yes, but gets to the heart of the "fairness" argument)

How am I suppposed to pay 102% of my income? Is that sustainable?

But if my state taxes me 51% of 100k, and there is SALT deduction, my federal taxable base is 49K instead of 100K, and I am now actually paying 24.9K instead of an impossible 102K.

Taxes are NOT service payments, they are a legal obligation, a good portion of which (rightly) pays for things you may not directly benefit from. It's in a completely different category than for-service healthcare, at least in my opinion.

Its amount is not also directly tied to how much money you make. If you know your income you could theoretically budget for such expenses.

Also, I believe healthcare premiums are in some (most?) cases tax-deductible, though this is somewhat besides the point.

It's a lot easier to move state-to-state than to move out of the country and renounce American citizenship.

High federal brackets make sense.

To my mind, how much (rate) the federal government taxes your income is orthogonal to what (taxable income) the federal government is taxing. (Though obviously good policy need to consider how they interact)

Overall I believe the wealthy are not taxed enough, but I think that even though SALT deductions benefit the wealthy, a taxable base should still be calculated rationally and fairly. It's more of a principle-based than result-based argument.

All of these are also highly variable, and it's impossible to say how much is "needed" as a deduction. That gets into the government having to make value judgements on individual spending.

With a deduction for state tax, it's a lot more cut and dried "hey I don't have this money anymore because the state whose laws you officially sanction by virtue of their being part of your union is going to throw me in jail if I don't pay them".

I'm arguing that having the same income taxed twice due to a quirk in the structure of the US government is unfair, that is all.

Edit: it's not really on the income taxed, it's on the money already spent to pay a seperate income tax.

What other service providers throw you in jail if you don't pay?

SALT deductions (at least on Income Tax) are essentially meant to prevent double-taxation.

Why can the federal government tax money that can only possibly be in my pocket if I've committed tax fraud against my state?

If I make 100K and my state takes 5%, I now only have 95K. There's no option for me not to pay 5K to my state.

(and no, for most people uprooting yourself for tax purposes isn't a tenable option)

Now, I have to pay the federal government. Why should I be on the hook to pay taxes on 100K in income, when I truly only earned 95K?

With sales tax, you could theoretically not buy things subject to sales tax. With real estate tax, you could in theory just rent.

Yes, in practice it's not like taxes are so punitive that > 100% of my income will be demanded, but it seems unfair to levy such taxes.

This assumes, of course, that the state has the first dibs on a person's income. I'd be just as happy if the federal government amended the constitution saying that all states levying income tax must deduct federal taxes paid from taxable income amounts.

Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders Can Fend Off Perseverance Toward Life Goals

It's worth noting that in medical culture, knowingly implementing a process that does not aim to eliminate all type #1 errors as much as possible would violate the spirit of the Hippocratic oath, whereas #2 would not.

I mean, there's also the option to directly bribe the representatives, who could view their selection as an opportunity to cash in, if they lack scruples and/or are in need.

Probably a lot easier to regulate than election spending, but still game-able.

Perhaps to some extent, but I think the larger demand is for remote-education platforms, rather than educational content.

The shortcomings of platforms such as Google Classroom, SeeSaw, etc. are being laid bare both from the side of the educators and the side of the students.

I think we may see a huge opportunity for a new remote learning ed-tech platform to really run away with things in the near future.

It is textbook slippery slope.

Because grandparent said they would sacrifice a realistic tax increase to save lives in the COVID-19 outbreak, the parent asked about a confiscatory 99% tax rate and asset seizure, which would be wholly unnecessary for paying for the current crisis.

Slippery slope fallacy. We are nowhere near that point.

But we are nowhere near that point. Issue some Fiat money to businesses most heavily impacted. Reduce the spread of the virus. Save lives. Worry about the money later.

Is that why now two countries have had mass quarantines?

It's a balancing act between lowering infections/death and economic impact.

> The reality is probably closer to the fact that there isn't anything governments can do about it.

They can proactively close schools, government jobs. They can roll out bailout programs to encourage business closings that would otherwise cause the businesses to go bankrupt. They can aggressively close borders, and enforce quarantines with military force. They can mandate the production of respirators, testing kits and other medical necessities.

Government can do A LOT that no other actor can, so I don't quite get where you're coming from with this statement.

I get that this is how it works in the real world, but the argument that transaction fees are necessary for the credit company to cover the risk of the cardholder not paying is a bit feeble, because to my non-banker mind: that's what the interest rates are for. If someone is risky, simply don't approve their application, or raise their rate. Am I missing something?

Yeah I agreed that this call-out seemed out of place. I wouldn't even categorize it as passive aggressive. I see it as attempting to give input as to what ought to be prioritized. The intent seems positive to me as long as it's not pushy.

Now, maybe the maintainer doesn't want this form of input, or prefers to have the input in the form of issue voting, etc. Overall though I don't see the action as inherently rude.

Then again I'm not a major project maintainer.