Void where prohibited by angry monkeys, it's...
T H E J U I C E A N D G I N
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Term XL, Issue 16 (#193)
Weather outlook:
Enjoy it while it lasts.
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* Contents *
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- Editor's Blurb
- Ongoing Events
- Greg's DTK
- Humour
- General Info
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* Editor's Blurb *
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Hey all
The Winter 2006 term is slowly winding down to its inevitable
conclusion, collapsing in a messy heap at the end of the driveway after
a long night of heavy drinking, ready to be hauled away by the next
garbage truck that passes by looking to collect discarded long-winded
run-on sentences. Because who needs those? Well, editors will space to
fill, for one. But you already knew that, smarty-pants.
Loyal readers may notice that this week's edition of the fabulous
60-minute Juice and Gin was delayed one whole day. The primary reason
for this was to let our editorial board complete their ungodly pagan
rituals, although this time I think there was apple pie involved. Which
is always good.
Non-loyal readers will have already deleted this message, so it really
doesn't matter. Which is why I can start making fun of them now: you
smell and your mother dresses you funny. And my bike's better than your
bike ever was.
Until next time,
Which one of the two of us is going to burn this house down?
Michael (mailto:nutsinfo$yahoo.ca)
And now, the rest of the story...
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* Ongoing Events *
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[See the Event Calendar on the web site for full descriptions.
--Ed.]
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Pool League
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Mondays
http://nutsevents.topcities.com/events/index.html#Monday
Contact: Dave and Michael (pool$solutionsatsource.com)
View the current players' statistics at:
http://nutsevents.topcities.com/events/pool/index.html
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Indoor Rock Climbing
====================
Thursdays
Contact: Andrew (akpallek$hotmail.com)
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* Greg's Deep Thought Korner *
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Are you overtaxed?
Of course you are! You're Canadian! We're all horribly overtaxed and
we can never get nuttin' for it!
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/taxcalc.asp
Every year, the Fraser Institute releases a report on "Tax Freedom Day"
and tells Canadian living in various provinces that they are paying
approximately half of their income to the government. Go ahead, run
your income through their calculator. (Warning: they don't have enough
data to calculate your tax burden if you make $20 000 or less in a year,
but you people don't really count, do you?)
So I went and had them calculate my tax burden for my salary. Now I'm a
pretty hard core budget keeper when it comes to my personal finances.
The fact that everything possible is electronic makes this a lot easier
than it used to be. I know what I pay in annual income taxes. I know
my property tax bill. I know what I spend, monthly, on non-groceries
and therefore what my GST/PST tax is at for the year.
For some reason, though, the Fraser Institute has me paying 10% more of
my income to taxes than I have when I add up those numbers. My "Tax
Freedom Day" (a misleading term I could go on about for days) is not at
the end of June, but more toward the middle of May. Of course, 38%
isn't as exciting a number as "almost 50%", is it?
How did this happen? If a guy is making $50000 a year, is he paying
$15k or $22k in taxes? Does he have $28k or $35k to spend as he
wishes? This is where the game gets tricky and a conservative,
anti-tax, anti-social-services think tank can look at things one way
while your left-wing newsletter editorialist looks at things another way.
Read down to the bottom of the web page to see what is included as taxes.
CPP and EI: debatable but I'll accept it for now and I included them as
"taxes" in my own calculations.
Auto and fuel taxes: fair enough, assuming you mean GST and PST on gas
and cars, but do not include gas guzzler taxes.
Motor Vehicle License Taxes: I don't know what this means. Is it a
portion of the money I spend at the MTO or are they counting the whole
cost of the license, the ownership renewal and everything? Since
liability insurance is mandatory when operating a motor vehicle, why
doesn't that count as a "tax" as well?
Then we hit "Import Duties". Now we're talking about hidden costs. If
you bought Canadian goods, there wouldn't be an import duty but the item
would be more expensive. Since most people buy things from China, Haiti
and Singapore, the goods are cheaper but come with an import tax
designed to encourage multinational corporations to treat their workers
better (it doesn't work). I don't count this as a tax. You'd have less
purchasing power if you took the non-taxed version of the product.
How about "Natural Resource Levies"? You pay a utility bill. In that
bill is a cost associated with the fact that you're taking oil, water,
wood, coal, natural gas etc. out of the ground and using it. It's a fee
associated with a resource to discourage the overuse of that resource.
It's merely the cost of the item in question and I wouldn't count it as
a tax either.
So, in the end, the major problem is that I didn't count my utilities,
car license fees and miscellaneous imported goods costs as taxes.
Perhaps if I did more research I could match their number. The point
is, however, that the whole "Tax Freedom" thing is a bit misleading
unless you examine what "Tax" you're getting "Freedom" from.
Maybe next week we'll talk about "Health Care Freedom Day" or
"University Education Freedom Day", both of which are moving later and
later in the year, every year.
Greg.
[Send responses to DTKs or new Editorials to nutsinfo$yahoo.ca]
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* Humour *
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[Forward any good jokes or interesting web sites you see to
nutsinfo$yahoo.ca]
[Disclaimer: The Humour Section may contain content that includes dirty
words, adult situations and jokes that make fun of politicians. Viewer
discretion is advised. --Ed.]
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Aerial Photography
==================
Thanks to Linda G.'s Lightly-Buttered Comedy Cracker
A photographer from a well-known national magazine was assigned to cover
some recent forest fires. The magazine wanted to show the devastation
of the blaze as it was being fought by firefighters.
When the photographer arrived, he realized that the smoke was so thick
that it would seriously impede or make it impossible for him to
photograph anything from ground-level.
So he requested permission to rent a plane and take photos from the
air. His request was approved, and arrangements were made. He was told
to report to a nearby airport, where a single-engine plane would be
waiting for him.
He arrived at the airport and saw a plane warming up near the gate. He
jumped in with his bag and shouted, "Let's go!" The pilot swung the
plane into the wind, and within minutes they were in the air.
The photographer said, "Fly over the park and make two or three low
passes so I can take some pictures."
"Why?" asked the pilot.
"Because I am a photographer for a national magazine," he responded,
"and I need some close-up shots."
The pilot was silent for a moment; finally he stammered, "So, you're
telling me you're not the flight instructor?"
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* General Info *
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Contact the NUTS Committee:
nutsinfo$yahoo.ca
The NUTS Website is:
http://nutsevents.topcities.com/
http://torpedo.ca.newbridge.com/mirror/ (for people within Alcatel)
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