Check out the per capita state tax confiscation in your state. Be aware that, as Stateline.org notes, this is not the entire story:
Because the Census numbers don’t include tax levies by local governments, which often pick up certain state services, economists say a better measure of tax burdens nationwide is a snapshot of both state and local tax collections.
Is your state government making an effort to move up in the rankings?
What’s the key to that spendy pair of jeans:
“Right now you could have a pair of jeans that cost $1,000, and people would buy them,” Lawrence Scott, the owner of Pittsburgh Jeans Company, said last week. What, Mr. Scott was asked, is the indispensable element in the making of a perfect pair of luxury jeans?
“Same as always,” he said. “It’s going to come down to how your behind looks when you pour yourself into them. No matter how good the wash or the detail or the label, if it doesn’t look good on a behind, it won’t sell.”
Well, I don’t plan on pouring my butt into my jeans anytime soon so I’ll be perfectly happy to get my next pair, like my last pair, on sale at a nearby mervyn’s: maybe $30. I’ll find something a little more useful to do with the savings…
Tyler Cowan and Max Sawicky debate estate taxes.
Read and discuss! Which I plan to do this evening when I have a bit more time.
…but just in case you don’t here’s some Carnival stuff:
Carnival of the Capitalists
and
Grand Rounds
Enjoy the reading!
Services like this should be doable at similar prices in dense urban areas of the US:
Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) officially launched its 1 Gbps symmetric service for the residential market. Approximately 800,000 households, out of a total of 2.2 million households in Hong Kong, are wired to receive the service. The 1 Gbps symmetric service is priced at US$215 per month.
HKBN noted that its 1 Gbps service is up to 166x faster downstream and 1,950x faster upstream than the advertised bandwidth of the incumbent’s ADSL service.
HKBN Premium bb1000 service is being offered on the same metro Ethernet infrastructure that delivers the company’s Mass Market bb100 (symmetric 100 Mbps for US$34/month) and Entry Point bb10 (symmetric 10 Mbps for US$16/month) services.
Even the low end blows away the crap that has commonly been labeled residential broadband in the US.
If they are allowed to proceed the Verizon and SBC buildouts, while not quite up to the Hong Kong standard, will be a substantial improvement over current US offerings.