Is it true that the super-rich pay higher tax rates? My understanding is most of them have great accountants, and the salaries they pay themselves are generally very low. They use loopholes (intentional or unintentional by the government) to avoid the high income tax rates. Which is why I find the whole fantasy around raising income tax rates to tax the rich to be a smokescreen, and not very well researched. It'd hardly affect the super-rich. The top 1% will mostly be salaried people who can't use the loopholes.
CA has a capital gains tax, also an AMT. And it's generally not possible to escape much of CA taxes (most SV founders/CEOs anticipating a big payday shift domicile to FL and similar tax-free jurisdictions for this reason).
The state also extended the eye-wateringly high top tax bracket for another decade or so, I think... Even with all that, with this year's debacle, CA has probably blown through its rainy-day surplus and then some.
The numbers do not lie. CA taxes the high-earners and rich quite heavily (to practically Scandinavian levels).
I don't understand CA's taxation as much, except the income taxes are very high with little in terms of actual quality of life improvements. I do understand Canadian and UK taxation somewhat and most rich people don't pay themselves a high salary. There are "City of London" loopholes people can use to form a company and not pay tax. There's another one in the UK, where income not sourced inside the UK isn't tax, and that can be used in creative ways. Which means you can form a company in a tax haven and move your revenues there. In Canada, the corporate tax rate is like 15% and goes down to 9% for small business. And of course there are other avenues through which people form charities for tax avoidance and what not that I haven't dug deeper into. A lot of companies in the US also use the double Irish (closed now) and other similar schemes, don't they? I might not know as much here, so would love to know more. I highly doubt millionaires and billionaires pay 50%+ tax rates anywhere. They would be using loopholes I think. Kind of why I believe income tax is for the most part a failed scheme if you want to tax the rich. Tiered sales taxes might actually achieve more fair taxation.
CA is a first-world country (comparable), whose politics and governance are closer to a third-world populist state (India comes to mind). Insane giveaways and voter-mandated initiatives that take budgetary decisions out of elected representatives' hands (this one is both too much democracy and too little democracy at the same time!)
As far as taxing people effectively is concerned, I do not think there are simple answers to be found. As you yourself know, it's possible to clean dirty money simply by setting up complicated ownership structures in jurisdictions such as Jersey. But that only works for the substantially rich. The large majority of high-earners who are very successful professionals at or near the top of their fields end up shouldering a lot of the burden as far as income taxes are concerned. These people can not afford the advice needed to shelter their assets, so they end up getting caught in every revenue raising scheme.
High sales taxes are a terrible idea. CA taxes sales heavily (no VAT, but very high relative to other states), but it ends up being heavily anti-poor, because most poor are the working poor, and they must spend the majority of their incomes on essentials such as food, shelter and transportation. The sky-high gas taxes and surcharges also affect the poor the most in a similar fashion. If the goal of the taxation system is to be progressive, then sales taxes are the direct opposite of that. As are payroll taxes, for the most part.
Langar doesn't have to be in a Gurdwara. The purpose of the meal is to serve food to all (especially the needy), and for even the privileged ones in the society to sit down and have the same food in the same conditions (even the richest person should be in the same queue and have Langar with people from all strata of society) to promote a sense of equality. One of the major Langar charities, The Midland Langar Seva Society (https://www.midlandlangarseva.org/), does it on the streets, as do many others. The first ever Langar by Guru Nanak (the founder of the religion) was on the street as well.
But, it's kind of hard to tell (without more details) whether what you had was langar. And, it doesn't really matter whether it is Langar, because it serves the same purpose, and the people doing that are definitely doing a service to the society the same way.
When it comes to using charity as a tool to lure people into some ideology is what puts me off. Ideally, charity should be done to help others, and not for self-promotion or for the promotion of an ideology is what I've learnt as a Sikh, and would like to retain the same belief even if I'm not a Sikh some day.
I'd say this is not entirely correct. There is no sect of Sikhism that shuns the turban to the best of my knowledge. And, I think there is this gross misunderstanding that you have to wear the turban to be a Sikh. As a Khalsa, you have to have unshorn hair, and turban is a practical way to cover it up. In fact, turban isn't mandatory when looking at the technicalities (there are a lot of Sikhs who might disagree with me on this). The Kes (unshorn hair) are. And, that too is a requirement only for Khalsa. I'm a Sikh (not Khalsa), but I keep unshorn hair and wear a turban because I like it. And, there are a lot of people like myself. A lot of non-Khalsa Sikhs wear turbans as a step towards the path to becoming a Khalsa.
There is a channel called Basics of Sikhi on Youtube. It was started by a Brit called Jagraj Singh, and it is one of the golden resources to get started. Jagraj is no longer alive and succumbed to cancer, so the channel might not be as active. But, it should still have relevant content, as the age of the content shouldn't really matter.
This is one of the concepts I like the most personally. The plan was to remove discrimination as the emphasis is on an egalitarian society. It also ensures women don't change their surnames after marriage (if they are practicing Sikhs). The religion is pretty egalitarian in that respect, and there is no role the women can't take up in the religion. Since most of the Sikhs are Punjabis, and Punjabi society still isn't quite feminist, you don't get to see this as much in practice as you should. As in, I don't know of a female Head Granthi in major Gurdwaras. For context, a Granthi is a reader of the religious text, employed by the Gurdwara for daily services. Anyone can read the book though, just to be clear. Some people might use the word priest for Granthi, but that's incorrect because Sikhism doesn't have priests or bishops, as everyone is equal, and positions of power that wield influence aren't supposed to be present, as Sikhism doesn't believe special titles like priests or bishops bestow any special capabilities. I do hope that as the Punjabi society progresses (or we see more people from other ethnicities taking up these roles), we'll see more involvement of women in such roles, as the egalitarian bit and no degradation of women is something I've always liked quite a bit personally.
I'm a Sikh, and that's very correct. Sikhism discourages living as a recluse or retreating from the world. You are supposed to actively participate in the society, while continuously learning how to become a better person. That's the literal meaning of the word 'Sikh' - a disciple or learner.
Protestant Christianity is the same. It doesn't preach living apart from the world.
Not entirely sure about Catholics. Orthodox have always struck me as living apart to some extent but I may be wrong and would be interested in hearing from a follower of Orthodoxy.
There are thousands of protestant sects. Just about any generalization you make about them is going to be wrong. Many of them teach that the secular world is sinful and to be avoided.
I do agree with you, but sadly many Christians do ignore the fact Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors, and generally mocked the "perfect" moral police (for their hypocrisy).
But individual Christians are like every other human, imperfect.
Some quick googling turned up this page, which most Evangelical Christians I know would nod along with, and many arguments from it I have heard directly from them:
That's talking about being set apart in behavior, not physical / social isolation.
Moderation is a pretty consistent thing throughout the Bible.
Just as an example, that page mentions "drunkenness", which is explicitly bad. At the same time, it's perfectly okay to have a glass of wine or a drink now and then as long as you're not getting drunk.
Granted that comes with some caveats, mostly boiling down to good judgement and self control. You don't want to make someone stumble, such as encouraging people to do things that they may struggle with (whether it's alcohol, meat or anything else).
"Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall." - 1 Corinthians 8:13
If you have a friend who wants to have a tough conversation over a beer...by all means it's the right choice to go have that beer to talk to that friend. 1 Corinthians 9:19-22 makes that pretty clear.
"Though I am free of obligation to anyone, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), to win those under the law. To those without the law I became like one without the law (though I am not outside the law of God but am under the law of Christ), to win those without the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might save some."
There are a lot of things that people have "heard in church" or have been pushed as part of church culture that are either misunderstood or not biblical at all. There are far too many people who nod along rather than reading the Bible on their own.
I always try to drill into people, you cannot be mislead if you've read.
By far the largest denominations do not teach that.
I am sure 0.0001% of the world's 1 billion protostants like the handful of westbro baptists nut cases might believe that. You can find extremists in every religion.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) is a pretty big denomination.
On the bright side, they are gradually adopting more progressive views - black people are no longer cursed by God (as of 2013), and drinking soda is no longer forbidden (as of 2017, at least on BYU's campus). Tea and coffee are still haram, however.
The LDS Church doesn’t teach to retreat from the world but rather teaches that some of the natural tendencies of people are self destructive and should not to be indulged in.
Now to correct some of your bright side points:
- The church never held as a belief that black people were cursed. There were some leaders that did not have the authority to speak authoritatively about doctrine that expressed that belief. [1]
- Drinking soda has never been forbidden. You may be thinking of caffeine, though that was never explicitly forbidden but BYU did act like it was.
- Tea and coffee. Yes, we avoid drinking these and also alcohol.
"In the following year, Smith taught that the curse of Ham came from God, and that blacks were cursed with servitude.[83] He warned those who tried to interfere with slavery that God could do his own work.[84] Without reversing his opinion on the curse of Ham, Smith started expressing more anti-slavery positions starting in 1842.[85]:18[86]:18–19 After Smith's death, leaders of the LDS Church continued to teach that black Africans were under the curse of Ham and that those who tried to abolish slavery were going against the decrees of God, although the day would come when the curse would be nullified through the saving powers of Jesus Christ.[87] In addition, based on his interpretation of the Book of Abraham, Brigham Young believed that, as a result of this curse, negroes were banned from the Mormon priesthood.[88]"
>and drinking soda is no longer forbidden (as of 2017, at least on BYU's campus). Tea and coffee are still haram, however.
Wow, that's really backwards. Tea and coffee are known to be healthy in moderation (especially green tea), while soda is basically poison and is a major contributor to making Americans fat. There's literally nothing healthy about soda.
In the mid 19th century people were becoming aware of the addictiveness of caffeine in the light of the emerging science of modern chemistry.[1] Joseph Smith took that trending concern and ran with it.
I don't know if Smith personally knew about caffeine as a specific component, but I think that was the background context--the mainstreaming of chemistry kick-started another cultural cycle of prescriptive living. The trend ultimately grew into the widely popular Clean Living movement in the latter part the 19th century, so Smith was way ahead of his time. See also Seventh Day Adventism and John Kellogg.
I don't mean to belittle the disciplines of the LDS church by putting them under a microscope. I just find the history interesting. Religious disciplines are obviously products of their environment, but that doesn't mean that's all they are. Anyhow, there's still good reason to avoid caffeine, depending on your priorities and concerns.
[1] Doing some Googling to confirm my memory and that I'm not completely talking out my a--, it seems caffeine was first isolated in 1819. The Clean Living movement (which I didn't remember by name until Googling), was later than I seemed to remember.
That's very interesting of course, and explains the history, however it's been well over a century now since this stuff, so people should know better about relative safety of different foods and not just stick to what John Kellogg said. We see here that the Mormons are now OKing soda, which wasn't around in the 1800s, despite us now knowing just how horribly unhealthy it is, yet they don't want to reverse their stance on tea, which has been used for many centuries starting in Asia and later spread to every corner of the planet, and isn't really associated with any significant health problems (in fact, green tea is consumed in large quantities in Japan, which has the highest life expectancy in the world).
There are about as many Mormons as there are Southern Baptists, which most consider "a pretty big denomination" of Protestantism. To my knowledge, BYU has not re-banned caffeinated soda. Regarding the Curse of Ham:
"In 1931, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote on the same topic in The Way to Perfection: Short Discourses on Gospel Themes, generating controversy within and without Mormonism. For evidence that modern blacks were descended from Cain, Smith wrote that "it is generally believed that" Cain's curse was continued through his descendants and through Ham's wife. Smith states that "some of the brethren who were associate with Joseph Smith have declared that he taught this doctrine." In 1978, when the church ended the ban on the priesthood, Bruce R. McConkie taught that the ancient curse of Cain and Ham was no longer in effect.[9]:117
General authorities in the LDS church favored Smith's explanation until 2013, when an LDS Church-published online essay "disavowed" the idea that black skin is the sign of a curse."
Orthodox here, there's a couple distinctions. Unlike our friends the Catholics, we maintain that physical bodies and the physical world are good and natural. Eating delicious food can bring you closer to God, exercise can bring you closer to God, admiration of nature, etc.
There is a separate concept of "living apart from the world". My understanding of this is not "go live in the woods" bur rather "don't be complacent". It's striving for the best possible value system regardless of how people choose to act around you. Society can (and should!) be improved.
Some of the healthiest, longest living, most joyful and expressive societies are traditionally catholic. E.g. Italians. I think you are confusing Catholics with Calvinists, but the Swiss are pretty good at enjoying themselves also. If you are going to rampantly stereotype, then maybe it's a north south thing, but I doubt that too as the Swedes love their saunas and can certainly have a good time.
I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're trying to make. Most (reasonably practical) religions do not expect everyone to become a hermit. The notion that Eastern Orthodoxy is some kind of super-worldly religion of communing with a tub of ice cream just doesn't strike me as very accurate at all.
I'm not saying you're trying to portray it as anything (especially since my comment was in reply to someone else), I'm saying that as a branch of Christianity, the Monastic tradition has lasted longer than in the Eastern Orthodox churches than in many others and this is not a particularly difficult thing to notice. It pops out at you if you decide to, say, inflict The Brothers Karamazov on yourself or read news like:
I don't know much about Protestants, despite having lived in England for a while. I live in Canada and regularly travel to the US, and still don't know about Protestantism deeply. The little bit I do, has generally led to a positive opinion, as it aligns somewhat more with what I'd believe in.
Some Orthodox monks deliberately sought isolation from worldly life to better practice spiritual virtues, like most monks of any faith.
Some other Orthodox monks practiced the reverse: living among regular people and keep their monastic status secret. The latter was (is) considered a more difficult feat.
I agree that Protestant Christianity ought to be the same. In practice, books like 'The Benedictine Option' suggest that Protestants are not of one mind about the matter.
I'm thinking of all the Protestants I know who have it on their bookshelves. I only have it on mine to try and understand what's gotten into their thinking.
Dreher is an (ineffective) algorithm oligarch types have latched onto to try to bring right wing christians under social control. As far as I can tell, Dreher's career consists of being a consumerist hipster (muh microbrews, muh foodie whaddevers) and pretending to be a right wing christian. He's not actually any more Christian or right wing than any other hipster type, and is certainly not conservative at all, despite the outlet he writes for. His psychological furniture is precisely that of a hipster atheist; just a particularly chicken chested one with certain prejudices he finds convenient to excuse with religion. He's changed religions ... I think 3-4 times now, for what amounts to hipster "not cool enough" reasons. Actually religious people in America such as your protestant friends think completely differently. I mean; actually religious people die for religious conviction; Dreher changes religion like a preppie changes ties that go out of fashion. There is no fear of God's wrath in Dreher, no wonder at the mystery of life and the universe; he just thinks gay people are icky, and modernity is kind of groace. His Benedict book is preposterously shallow; it is abundantly obvious he's barely skimmed the history of Christianity, even Benedict's rule: his book is basically a glorified 23 year old hipster's blog post. If you really want to understand protestantism; study the 30 year's war and the paintings of Cranach. Or the Taliban. At least they actually believe in God.
Source: I'm not particularly religious, but I know Dreher, and was at one point considered a thinker in this domain.
That sounds like a plan for a better world, a world where all people reach fulfillment and die in peace. Im curious, do people convert to your religion often? Are Sikh an inclusive religion?
People do convert to Sikhism, but Sikhs don't focus as heavily on getting people converted. The religion is inclusive, and is generally quite welcoming, but there's hardly any appetite for forcing it upon others. This is primarily because the religion is secular at its very core. It had a pivotal role in standing up for rights of other religions during the Mughal rule in the Indian sub-continent. And, there's also the belief that just by putting on the 'Sikh' label, you don't really gain anything. The ultimate purpose is to just become a better human being (the barometer here being the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib, which is generally quite humanistic in its approach. The authors in fact include a number of non-Sikhs). As long as you're a good human being (as in help others, meditate and earn honestly to be basic), it doesn't matter what label you are, is one of the core beliefs. Converts aren't looked down upon, because almost everyone really converted at some point in time, as it's around 500 years old as a religion. On a side note, you'll sometimes hear its 300 years old, but that's incorrect, as that event refers to the birth of Khalsa. A Sikh should generally aim to become a Khalsa. Becoming a Khalsa is kind of similar to baptism, but it's voluntary and mostly done when you grow up and feel you're ready for it (some teens do it under the influence of parents, but I, along with many other Sikhs probably, tend to believe that is against the spirit of the religion. People in early teens don't have a full understanding of what they want, and that's why parents shouldn't do it for them IMHO). I'm in my late 20s and not a Khalsa, for example. And, there are many (probably the majority) like me, not Khalsa but just Sikh.
An example is - I studied in two different schools. The first school was Catholic, and I studied there for 12 years. The management used to heavily encourage conversion. For students, there were some benefits like no tuition fees, and maybe some other stuff. For teachers, it was probably a better career. I spent another 2 years in a Sikh school. In that school, rewards were totally independent of religion. If you scored above 90%, you'll get your tuition fees waived. If you were a single girl child (due to female infanticide in the region), I think they did something as well. There was no focus on converting non-Sikhs. This is not to diss on Catholicism, as I've respect for Christians in general and I personally know many good ones, it's probably just that my school didn't do it right. I just find being charitable only to people who are the same religion as yours, not a great idea. Religion shouldn't be a consideration during charity (and in conduct towards people otherwise too).
In today's internet, very, very rarely, do you get to read something that really makes you aware of this big humanity that we're all a part of. I'll save your note and read it to myself every once in a while so that I never forget that lines are drawn by people. So that I can try to become a better human too.
I'm glad you liked it. Exactly! All those lines are artificial, and it's sad the world hasn't yet left behind discrimination, and it's a major problem in almost every society in one form or the other.
Amazon Web Services | Senior Software Engineer; Senior Software Engineer in Machine Learning | Vancouver, Canada; Seattle, WA | Full-time | ONSITE, VISA |
RDS is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our team working on AWS scale big-data analytics problems. RDS Performance Insights team is working on a new and as yet unreleased service which will reshape the way that customers use databases and redefine industry expectations of what a modern, enterprise grade cloud-native database provides. Leveraging a number of AWS services including Kinesis and EMR/Spark, our mandate is to provide actionable insights into underlying database performance and push the boundaries of product and technology innovation in this area. As the only big-data, analytics and ML focused team in RDS, our greenfield project is worked on by a tight knit devops team, owned, and operated entirely from the new Amazon office here in Vancouver, Canada. If you’re a snowbird in the winter, love long summers and beaches, and want to work on a very engaging, highly impactful product with extremely high customer demand, endless learning and collaboration in a world-class group then get in touch!
- Lead the design, build and operations of our application stacks
- Ability to influence adoption of capabilities built by the team to AWS teams outside of RDS
- Continuously discover, evaluate, and implement new technologies to maximize development and operational efficiencies
– Have a scope of influence in development practices, methods and approaches across the team and RDS organization
Please feel free to directly contact me (I'm an engineer on the team) [MyHNUsername][AT]amazon.com, or my manager pimmel[AT]amazon.com for any questions that you might have.
Amazon Web Services | Senior Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer in Machine Learning | Vancouver, Canada; Seattle, WA | Full-time | ONSITE, VISA |
RDS is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our team working on AWS scale big-data analytics problems. RDS Performance Insights team is working on a new and as yet unreleased service which will reshape the way that customers use databases and redefine industry expectations of what a modern, enterprise grade cloud-native database provides. Leveraging a number of AWS services including Kinesis and EMR/Spark, our mandate is to provide actionable insights into underlying database performance and push the boundaries of product and technology innovation in this area. As the only big-data, analytics and ML focused team in RDS, our greenfield project is worked on by a tight knit devops team, owned, and operated entirely from the new Amazon office here in Vancouver, Canada.
Requirements (Senior Software Engineer):
- Comp Sci, Engineering, Stats/Mathematics BA/MA/PhD
- 8-10+ years professional experience in software development
- Experienced technical leader. For more information and to apply: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/392408
Requirements (Senior Software Engineer in ML):
- Post-graduate level Computer Science, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics or a related quantitative field with up to 5 years of related work experience
- 10+ years professional experience in software development
- Ability to independently define and execute against a technical vision and roadmap
– Recruitment, coaching and mentoring of other engineers
– Strong will to adhere to best practices in OO development and a need to leave well–structured code in your tracks. For more information and to apply:
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/425454
You can also directly contact me (I'm an engineer on the team) [MyHNUsername][AT]amazon.com, or my manager pimmel[AT]amazon.com
Amazon Web Services | Senior Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer in Machine Learning | Vancouver, Canada; Seattle, WA | Full-time | ONSITE, VISA |
RDS is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our team working on AWS scale big-data analytics problems. RDS Performance Insights team is working on a new and as yet unreleased service which will reshape the way that customers use databases and redefine industry expectations of what a modern, enterprise grade cloud-native database provides. Leveraging a number of AWS services including Kinesis and EMR/Spark, our mandate is to provide actionable insights into underlying database performance and push the boundaries of product and technology innovation in this area. As the only big-data, analytics and ML focused team in RDS, our greenfield project is worked on by a tight knit devops team, owned, and operated entirely from the new Amazon office here in Vancouver, Canada.
- Post-graduate level Computer Science, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics or a related quantitative field with up to 5 years of related work experience
- 10+ years professional experience in software development
- Ability to independently define and execute against a technical vision and roadmap
– Recruitment, coaching and mentoring of other engineers
– Strong will to adhere to best practices in OO development and a need to leave well–structured code in your tracks.
For more information and to apply: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/425454
You can also directly contact me (I'm an engineer on the team) [MyHNUsername][AT]amazon.com, or my manager pimmel[AT]amazon.com
Senior Software Engineer (Amazon Web Services RDS) | Vancouver, Canada; Seattle, WA | Full-time | ONSITE, VISA |
RDS is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our team working on AWS scale big-data analytics problems. RDS Performance Insights team is working on a new and as yet unreleased service which will reshape the way that customers use databases and redefine industry expectations of what a modern, enterprise grade cloud-native database provides. Leveraging a number of AWS services including Kinesis and EMR/Spark, our mandate is to provide actionable insights into underlying database performance and push the boundaries of product and technology innovation in this area. As the only big-data, analytics and ML focused team in RDS, our greenfield project is worked on by a tight knit devops team, owned, and operated entirely from the new Amazon office here in Vancouver, Canada. If you’re a snowbird in the winter, love long summers and beaches, and want to work on a very engaging, highly impactful product with extremely high customer demand, endless learning and collaboration in a world-class group then get in touch!
- Lead the design, build and operations of our application stacks – Deliver industry disruptive advancements driven from a customer focused technical product development approach in your work – Deliver aspects of critical path code - Ability to influence adoption of capabilities built by the team to AWS teams outside of RDS - Continuously discover, evaluate, and implement new technologies to maximize development and operational efficiencies – Have a scope of influence in development practices, methods and approaches across the team and RDS organization.
Requirements: - Comp Sci, Engineering, Stats/Mathematics BA/MA/PhD - 8-10+ years professional experience in software development - Excellent written and spoken communication - Deep and broad technical experience - Experienced technical leader - Ability to independently define and execute against a technical vision and roadmap – Recruitment, coaching and mentoring of other engineers – Strong will to adhere to best practices in OO development and a need to leave well–structured code in your tracks – Strong analytical and problem–solving skills – Experience developing for multiple platforms a plus. For more information and to apply:
Please feel free to directly contact me (I'm an engineer on the team) [MyHNUsername][AT]amazon.com, or my manager pimmel[AT]amazon.com for any questions that you might have.
