The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Word has it Twitter will soon increase its character limit from 140 to 10,000, which has many long-time Tweeters/Twits/Twitterers (or whatever) up in arms. My initial reaction is, "Well, that's interesting. Let's see how this plays out..." That's how I've learned to be when it comes to most big changes. While I can understand those who both do and don't initially like the move, what's really the point of lauding or criticizing it until we actually see it go into effect? It took me a while to get into Twitter. I prefer to not have my thoughts and posts condensed, which is why I favored blogging, as well as Tumblr and Facebook, to Twitter initially. I've also never got into the abbreviation craze, because it provides me with both a migraine and stomach troubles to even think about typing something along the lines of, "Luv u 2." However, after giving Twitter a second chance, I realized it could be a useful platform for business purposes - ...

The Charles Koch Foundation doesn't appear to be very good with numbers, which is kind of odd considering Charles Koch is estimated to be worth $34 billion. In a recent ad by Koch's conservative non-profit group, it asserts that if you make $34,000 or more, you're in the top 1% of earners (worldwide). In the United States, where Mr. Koch resides last I heard, one must earn approximately $352,000 annually in order to be among the top 1%. $34,000, $352,000 - those numbers are so similar, I may have to re-watch the film Twins to make certain Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are not identical. In actuality, $34,000 is just 9.7% of what it takes to make it into the top 1% of earners in this country. Making matters even worse for the Charles Koch Foundation and their odd math is the fact that the top 1% of earners in this country earn an average of $1.12 million. The $34,000 mentioned in the ad is just 3.0% of $1.12 million. How far off are the numbers presented in...

President Obama’s American Jobs Act seems to contain one component which has riled Republicans in Congress and that’s increasing taxes on families that make $250,000 or more per year. They have commonly referred to this component as “class warfare,” to which I have to chuckle. As it states at FactCheck.org, approximately 1 in 50 families bring home at least a quarter million per year, so that constitutes just 2% of the population. With the jobs bill, Obama would be raising taxes on the top 2%, while 98% of the population wouldn’t see their taxes increased. I’ve heard many members of the GOP state that the top 2% are the job creators and it would harm the economy if we were to raise their taxes. With the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy in tact, the unemployment rate is around 9.0% currently. When Bill Clinton took office in 1992, the unemployment rate was 7.5%. Clinton increased taxes to 39.6% and left office with unemployment being around 4.2%, the lowest since 1969. Under Clinton, 22.7...