I arrived home last night after a softball game (we lost, but had a great time) to find a few hilarious, but highly irritating things in the mail.
The IRS is apparently sending my family a stimulus of $2700, despite the fact that I didn't pay any federal income tax last year. (lots of FICA, no income tax.....child tax credit works wonders) I'm guessing I'm going to end up paying most of it back next April. Thanks for complicating my personal finances, IRS.
Chevrolet has come out with a hybrid Malibu that gets all of 32mpg on the highway. The standard version gets 30mpg. Thousands of dollars extra for 2mpg gain? Hybrids are a scam to begin with, but this is incredible.
(might be good for a taxi driver or courier in the city, but for the rest of us?)
My local car dealer is offering insurance to those who buy a car with little or no down payment. The purpose? If you crash it and total it, it pays the difference between what you owe and the value of the car when you total it. Apparently, the concept of putting enough money down to avoid being "upside down" on your loan hasn't occurred to a large portion of car buyers.
When it comes to finances, America is sadly stuck on stupid.
Hot Gear Friday: The Swiss Army Guitar
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The word “iconic” is overused these days. I try to avoid it. It’ll be hard
in this next bit. If you are not a guitar player, and someone says
“electric gui...
15 hours ago
9 comments:
Forget the Chevy Malibu.
http://www.afstrinity.com/
The tax stimulus is not taxable income.
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=179211,00.html
Thanks--I'm still going to tick of the Keynesians who came up with it and see if I can find some decent investments for it instead of just spending it.
On the other hand, there are those nice bikes, or a lever action .44 mag calling my name....some even made in the USA....
Would a dumb financial decision be excused if it annoyed Barack Hussein Obama and the Brady Campaign? :^)
...who cares if it's made in the USA?
New water heater, new sewing machine, savings for chillerns... pistol would be nice...
although savings isn't probably the best idea because the inflation the $s cause will soon follow them, it keeps Momma happy...
Shawn, great question; for me it's a simple issue of "do I want to have no domestic manufacturers of firearms, when virtually every government in the world is messing with them politicially?"
...with something as simple to manufacture as firearms, and the extreme fungibility of ammunition itself, and the unlikelihood of our going to war with absolutely everyone (that currently supplies guns) at the same time, I'm still not seeing the need to do so.
It may be that we have a comparative advantage in firearm manufacture...as it seems that it's either relatively simple with some heavy design/engineering component (your run of the mill handgun), or highly technical (m4 variants), the majority of the work seems to be in the design, rather than the manufacture...but once we've got the design done, couldn't we get the parts produced virtually anywhere?
I don't know that it's that simple, Shawn. For example, when Kimber started making 1911s, they contracted with S&W to make the forgings--so if there should be a need in the future, I don't know that it's something that could be done that easily and quickly. Certainly it's difficult to keep hidden from anti-gun authorities.
Straightforward to make a black powder rifle with cast iron, but modern pistols & rifles with ordinance steel? Nope.
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