OT - Saw "Super Size Me" today

[Steve_HOCP]

The tax breaks are the only thing that I have a Serious problem with.

 

 

I say give me MORE tax breaks.

 

The only real AND fair solution would be to DROP all income tax all together and simply have a National sales tax. Like say a 5% sales tax ( no other tax ). Quit taxing people just for the right to live.

 

 

For a national sales tax to work, it'd have to be around close to 25%... not the 5% you're throwing around. We already pay over 8% sales tax in California.

 

5% was a pretend number to make a point.

 

BUT 25% is still WAAAYYYY better than what we are paying right now by a long shot. Give me 25% any day. Through the Clinton era we were over 40% (give or take a point). I am now at 33%.

 

 

and remember, a national sales tax is only on items you BUY...not a tax on ALL your earned income. Big difference. 25% of everything I make or 25% of what I spend on merchandise in a year...I chose the National sales tax!

 

...or if someone has a better idea.

Bring on the tax break!

[sckao]

BUT 25% is still WAAAYYYY better than what we are paying right now by a long shot. Give me 25% any day. Through the Clinton era we were over 40% (give or take a point). I am now at 33%.

 

 

and remember, a national sales tax is only on items you BUY...not a tax on ALL your earned income. Big difference. 25% of everything I make or 25% of what I spend on merchandise in a year...I chose the National sales tax!

 

...or if someone has a better idea.

 

Bring on the tax break!

 

Actually, I was wrong. That 23% figure was a 1998 figure proposed by a conservative Texas based group in 1998. The real figure would exceed 40% for the 1998 figure just to break even and be even more at today's levels of spending. (over 60% probably if you drop lower-income families and discount the hard-to-tax items like care for veterans, financial services, etc.)

 

Here's a clip from the net:

 

William Gale, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institute, a public-policy think tank, estimates that proposals to replace virtually all federal revenues with a 23 percent tax-inclusive national sales tax rate are based on assumptions that real government spending would decline by $480 billion per year, and that there would be no tax avoidance, evasion or political erosion of the tax base.

 

"Correction for these assumptions indicates that the required tax-inclusive rate would be over 50 percent," he writes in a 1999 policy paper.

 

(That was a year before the stock market collapsed and the economy started tanking.)

[Apotheosis]

I just wish they would tax everyone the same. I know there are problems with a "flat" tax, but there must be a way to get it implemented. Just seems that things would be more "fair" if everyone paid the same 30% tax or so. With an even tax then nobody could complain about others getting better benifits.

 

and now that I've gotten WAY OT...

 

Super-size is bad

[Aman619]

oboy, now were all gonna tackle the income tax problem! Thats a hornets nest. IMO its so complicated and unfair partly as a result of lots of smaller decisions to make it "fairer" over the years. And Fair to all is a formula that just wont ever be calculated.

 

Hey Apoth, I was a bit harsh in how I wrote my reply to you about WMD. But it seemed to me that the acronym was pretty common practice after awhile. Probably only on all those useless "talk news" shows that never solve anything except getting guys who write books a little free air time!

[Apotheosis]

no problem

[Steve_HOCP]

and now that I've gotten WAY OT...

 

Super-size is bad

 

don't feel bad....taxes are more interesting than the movie super-size. I had a friend that was invited to a screening of the movie, took me along.

 

I would certianly not pay money to see it or even buy the DVD, this is a straight to cable or HBO kind of mockumentary. Discussion after the screening was really fun though...it all depends on the group you see it with.

[Illiterati-migration]

and now that I've gotten WAY OT...

 

Super-size is bad

 

don't feel bad....taxes are more interesting than the movie super-size. I had a friend that was invited to a screening of the movie, took me along.

 

I would certianly not pay money to see it or even buy the DVD, this is a straight to cable or HBO kind of mockumentary. Discussion after the screening was really fun though...it all depends on the group you see it with.

 

I bet you didn't invite any diabetics to your little viewing party, damn health supremacist!

 

NEEDLE JOCKEYS UNITE! STAMP OUT THE TERROR OF THE WELL-FUNCTIONING PANCREATIC OPPRESSORS!

[Ze-man]

don't feel bad....taxes are more interesting than the movie super-size. I had a friend that was invited to a screening of the movie, took me along.

 

 

Please tell me you at least went for the "Ultra Jumbo" Bucket of Popcorn when you went to this.

Just to show "The Man" who was really in charge of your dollar and wasitline.

 

And not to mention what other movie patrons were eating when they saw this at the Theatre.

 

 

And I am more then amused that this was on todays ABC news website.. the same day we are talking about Supersize.

 

Americans cant say no..

[lighthouse]

I have no doubt that I have eaten more McDonald's than anyone on this board... I would venture that it's not even a close race...

 

When I ran cross-country in high school, I was logging just over 60 miles a week, year-round, and my lunch every school day my junior and senior years was exactly the same. Big Mac meal super-sized with Coke and a Quarter-Pounder meal super-sized with Coke. That was my lunch, every school day for two years. My senior year I was eating breakfast there in the mornings too, a Bacon-Egg-And Cheese Biscuit Combo with a large OJ and three more BEC Biscuits. Dinners were typically not fast food but were still sizable portions.

 

The day I graduated from high school I was 6-3 and weighed 163 lbs... 38" chest, 30" waist

 

During college I ate McDonald's about three times a week, though typically only one combo, not two.

 

The day I graduated from college I was 6-5 and weighed 185 lbs... 42" chest, 32" waist

 

After college I started working the trade show business. My typical day would involve walking shows the size of the San Diego Con from end to end around 30 times, sometimes moving equipment, sometimes just checking in at 40-50 different booths eight or ten times each. I tried wearing a pedometer a few times, and the results are hardly scientific, but the days I measured it was showing between 8 and 17 miles of walking. During my time there, I ate McDonald's around nine times a week (sometimes two meals in a day) usually a super-size combo plus an extra sandwich.

 

Seven years later when I retired, I was 6-7 and weighed 218 lbs... and had been between 210-220 for four straight years... 48" chest, 34" waist

 

Since then I have been working to get back to running 35-40 miles a week, but back problems have made that an off and on thing. I ran 30 miles a week last fall, but a back problem kept me from putting in more than 10 miles a week for most of the winter. When I am getting my miles in, I eat McDonald's about six times a week. If I'm not, maybe twice.

 

Today I am 6-6 and weigh 226 lbs... 48" chest, 34" waist

 

I sat down one day with a buddy... and as near as we could tell, I have eaten somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 Big Macs, around 2400 Quarter-Pounders, around 3000 Super-Size Fries... plus a few hundred Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Biscuits...

 

Had I been a "typical" sedentary American during that time I would likely weigh over 400lbs. As it is, my body fat is about 5% higher than I would like it to be, which is about 11 extra pounds I am carrying. The fact is, if the fire is hot enough, anything will burn cleanly. That's true of my wood stove, and it's true of the human body. If the metabolism is burning hot enough, you can feed it any fuel you like and things will be just fine. But if I have a low fire in my wood stove and throw in a bunch of unseasoned wood, the burning won't be complete and there will be crud all over the inside of the chimney. If the fire is low, it will only burn well if you give it exactly the right fuel. An Olympic swimmer can get his calories from darn near anything and it won't matter, the fire is hot enough to burn anything cleanly. Hand a bunch of junk food to a couch potato and you're gonna get crud all over the inside of the chimney...

 

I might be the only man in the country to have eaten 2500 Big Macs and have 400 bottles of wine in racks...

[Illiterati-migration]

But what about your heart and other various innards?? What sort of shape are THEY in?!?!?!

 

R.I.P, 'House.

[s-man]

I just had McD's for lunch and I cant imagine eating it each meal for even a week, much less 30 days...and I love junk food!! The man mustve had an iron stomach!!

[lighthouse]

But what about your heart and other various innards?? What sort of shape are THEY in?!?!?!

 

R.I.P, 'House.

 

Quite good actually...

 

I had a minor cardiac event two years ago which resulted in more tests that you can possibly imagine. They eventually determined that I have a genetic condition that is common in people my height that effects the thyroid gland.

 

They did four ultrasounds of the heart, and both technicians kept asking me if I was an Olympic athlete. My resting rate is just under 50 beats a minute, blood pressure is normal, cholesterol numbers are all stellar. There are probably thirty people here who are in better shape than I am, but my heart is doing just fine.

[Illiterati-migration]

But what about your heart and other various innards?? What sort of shape are THEY in?!?!?!

 

R.I.P, 'House.

 

Quite good actually...

 

I had a minor cardiac event two years ago which resulted in more tests that you can possibly imagine. They eventually determined that I have a genetic condition that is common in people my height that effects the thyroid gland.

 

They did four ultrasounds of the heart, and both technicians kept asking me if I was an Olympic athlete. My resting rate is just under 50 beats a minute, blood pressure is normal, cholesterol numbers are all stellar. There are probably thirty people here who are in better shape than I am, but my heart is doing just fine.

 

Do you buy what you're selling?

[lighthouse]

Do you buy what you're selling?

 

Yes, but I give myself a discount. Don't tell me, okay?

[Red Hook]

House,

 

Ever read a book called "Once a Runner", by John L. Parker? It's a great unknown novel about a college miler. It's so much more than that I won't even get into it, but there is one part of the book where the runner acknowledges that his metabolism is stoked up so high from doing 80 mile weeks that it doesn't matter what he is putting into the furnace.....big macs, steaks, tofu, whatever, it just immediately ignites and gets burned as pure fuel.

 

Anyway, sounds like you are doing great! PM me your age, just curious, if you aren't into posting it here.

 

Anyway, the book is a must read. I've read it about six times over the last 25 years.

 

Brad

[Stronguy]

The fact is, if the fire is hot enough, anything will burn cleanly. That's true of my wood stove, and it's true of the human body. If the metabolism is burning hot enough, you can feed it any fuel you like and things will be just fine. But if I have a low fire in my wood stove and throw in a bunch of unseasoned wood, the burning won't be complete and there will be crud all over the inside of the chimney. If the fire is low, it will only burn well if you give it exactly the right fuel. An Olympic swimmer can get his calories from darn near anything and it won't matter, the fire is hot enough to burn anything cleanly. Hand a bunch of junk food to a couch potato and you're gonna get crud all over the inside of the chimney...

OT -

This "fact" is total BS. You are correct in stating that you can feed an active person anything and their body will burn it but that's about all. The rate of your metabolism has nothing to do with how your body processes lipids. You may burn the calories you ingest but you body can still react negatively to the presence of certain fatty acids. It's all genetic.

 

You, for example, are going to be thin regardless of what you do (within limits like not eating 2000 Big Macs). I, on the other hand, will blow up like blimp if I ever become sedentary. If you and I both ate the same diet and exercised the same you would alway be thinner than me.

[lighthouse]

You, for example, are going to be thin regardless of what you do (within limits like not eating 2000 Big Macs). I, on the other hand, will blow up like blimp if I ever become sedentary. If you and I both ate the same diet and exercised the same you would alway be thinner than me.

 

Not sure I am ready for the Tuna Shake diet...

[Joanna]

'House, you hanging around waiting for the 500,000th post?

[deathlok]

'House, you hanging around waiting for the 500,000th post?

 

he's certainly not filling orders for forum members....

[lighthouse]

'House, you hanging around waiting for the 500,000th post?

 

he's certainly not filling orders for forum members....

 

well not at the moment...