The Gaming Den

It's worse than that, because those 21% are not near retirement age, and those 24% are.

What they did is interview two different age groups, find out that about 20% would quit in each age group, and then proceeded to declare that 20+20 is 40.

If they had interviewed 3 age groups it would be 60, and if they did 5, they would discover that over 100% of doctors would be quitting.

And the fact that they are that stupid/manipulative makes me question the viability of their actual 20% number anyway, since they clearly have a dog in the race, and it probably bled into their choice of subjects/question phrasing.

I had wondered that too. I didn't know the specifics of the survey, so I didn't know if I could call foul on that or not.

Yeah, I always love that tactic. I forgot her name, but the main woman responsible for the anit-D&D movement in the 80s did the same thing once. She stated that 8% of men in some town were Satan worshipers (or something along those lines). When the reporter asked her for more specifics, she responded that 4% of young men responded yes and 4% of middle-aged men also responded yes, and proceeded to do the same 4 + 4 = 8 trick.

The reporter even called her on that, and she responded with something stupid to the effect of "Whatever. It was a conservative estimate anyway."

Conservatives still have trouble with facts and base their arguments not upon evidence, but feelings.

*sigh*

-Crissa

PS: Well, they have 'respondents'. That means 'doctors who filled out our survey'. It doesn't specifically say that it's at all a representative sample of doctors - in fact, it can't be; only a tiny portion of doctors refuse Medicare as is. So it's plausible that 45% of doctors willing to respond to them are willing to quit, but it's not plausible that this represents anything else.

Although, the way they said it, it was 20% of the total, and then 20% of the remainder, which is 80 percent, which would mean 36% of their total is stupid.

RobbyPants wrote:I had wondered that too. I didn't know the specifics of the survey, so I didn't know if I could call foul on that or not.

Yeah, I always love that tactic. I forgot her name, but the main woman responsible for the anit-D&D movement in the 80s did the same thing once. She stated that 8% of men in some town were Satan worshipers (or something along those lines). When the reporter asked her for more specifics, she responded that 4% of young men responded yes and 4% of middle-aged men also responded yes, and proceeded to do the same 4 + 4 = 8 trick.

The reporter even called her on that, and she responded with something stupid to the effect of "Whatever. It was a conservative estimate anyway."

I think there was one of those insane Chick Tract comics that claimed that there were something like 50,000 human sacrifices in the US per year by Satanists. IIRC, according to the FBI, there has been 1. Not per year, in the entire time the FBI has existed.

Crissa wrote:Although, the way they said it, it was 20% of the total, and then 20% of the remainder, which is 80 percent, which would mean 36% of their total is stupid.

It wasn't even that. It was 24% of the people responding who were "near" retirement age said that they intended to retire before the official normal retirement age (66 years), if the public option passed. Then, 21% of respondents who were "nowhere near" retirement age said that they intended to quit medicine, if the public option passed.

Missing information:

• What percentage of the respondents fell into those two groups? Were there any other groups? Was there a "kind of near" to retirement group?
• What percentage of respondents intend to retire before 66 or quit medicine if the Public Option does not pass?
• Of the people who said they intended to stop practicing, what time frame did they intend to do that in? I for example, intend to stop practicing after about forty years.
• Who exactly was being sampled?

With the normal retirement age being 66, 24% of old doctors saying that they intended to retire before 66 seems like a pretty normal number. Actually, it seems like an incredibly low number. For example, in the general population, the number of people retiring early increased by 22% this year.

So far from being 45% of doctors intend to go Galt, it appears to be indicating that Doctors intend to stay in medicine longer if a Public Option is available.

-Username17

Only 4% of Teabaggers willing to answer a survey at the capitol rally were able to correctly answer the multiple choice question, 'have federal tax rates increase, decreased, or stayed the same since President Obama took office?'

-Crissa

C'mon, Crissa! They've made up their mind! Don't confuse them with the facts!

WellPoint still scum, says reporters. Alas, our lack of surprise makes this less newsworthy. But let's give them clickthroughs for actually following up on the story.

-Crissa

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online
Ruling: State Can Dump Non-Sex Offenders Into Registry

Fucking what?

Crissa wrote:Only 4% of Teabaggers willing to answer a survey at the capitol rally were able to correctly answer the multiple choice question, 'have federal tax rates increase, decreased, or stayed the same since President Obama took office?'

-Crissa

Despite my hatred for Tea Partiers, that article is rather disingenious.

Because NOBODY fucking understands the current tax systems in this country.

And that includes the people writing that article.

For example here's one of their errors:

Forbes wrote: These include the Making Work Pay Credit, which reduces federal taxes for all taxpayers with incomes below $75,000 by between $400 and $800.

Link to actual form they didn't bother to read

As you can see, the Making Work Pay credit is only up to $400 per individual taxpayer, and only applies to taxpayers with earned income (wages, tips, self-employment). As you can also see, it's a refundable credit, so it doesn't just reduce tax burdens, it actually pays out.


************************************************************

Moving on, I'll take a stab at answering their questions myself:

Tea Partyers were asked how much the federal government gets in taxes as a percentage of the gross domestic product.

I have no clue, but it's gotta be well under 100%

To follow up, Tea Partyers were asked how much they think a typical family making $50,000 per year pays in federal income taxes

In D&D terms. That's like asking what a fighter swinging a sword's chance to hit a giant is. You can answer "better than a mage with the dagger", and I can say "more than the same family if they were only making $40k, but without some more specifics you cannot give a numeric answer.

I have no clue what a typical family is these days. But assuming a couple who is married filing joint for tax year 2009 with one child under age 12, has income solely from wages and salaries, no business loss, did not contribute to nor withdraw from IRAs, paid no alimony, paid no student loan interest, was not eligible for any education credit, paid no foreign taxes, paid nobody to babysit and had no other misc penalties nor credits and had the appropriate amount withheld during the year (and a half dozen other rarer such assumptions )

the answer is going to be that they were liable for $3316 in federal income tax on their taxable income of $27,650, but they would be eligible to apply a $1000 child tax credit towards that for a tax bill of $2316, or about 4.6% of their 50k income.

However Social Security and Medicare are both federal programs funded by payroll taxes. Social Security is a 6.2% tax on (most) earnings and Medicare is a 1.45% tax on (most earnings). And with the stipulations in my example both would apply fully, so this couple would be paying another $3825 in FICA taxes - which are federal taxes on their earnings, but not in the strictest sense "federal income taxes"

But Wait the FICA taxes are also imposed on the couple's employers at an equivalent rate. And while most accountants would count those as taxes paid by the employer, I have had more than one economics text tell me that "a tax on buyers is equivalent to a tax on sellers". And in this case, the federal government is getting another $3825 in taxes because this couple earned 50k.

So as an off-the cuff verbal answer to a poll in the street, numbers approximating 2316 (about 5%) would be the most correct, but something close to 6141 (about 12%) would be a reasonable response and even 9966 (about 20%) wouldn't be totally crazy.

All of those are way off from the article's source claiming it's under 2% - so I'm guessing my assumptions about the typical family excluded some adjustments and credits that lower the family's tax burden.

They were asked whether they are higher, lower or the same as when Barack Obama was inaugurated last year.

Uh, that is also a loaded question.

The correct answer is that the federal rates for personal income tax have remained the same from tax year 2008 to tax year 2009, however most taxpayers will qualify for more new and expanded tax credits and adjustments (such as the brand new Making Work Pay Credit, the change to the First Time Homebuyer's Credit which makes it a flat-out refundable credit instead of an interest free loan and the expansion of the Hope Credit to the American Opportunity Credit.). Thus most taxpayers will have lower tax liabilities for tax year 2009 than they did in 2008.

I mean even unimplemented nonsense like the Fuck You! Josh_Kablack credit lowers aggregate tax bills

Healthcare just passed. Watch the House live.

http://cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:Healthcare just passed. Watch the House live.

http://cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx

Maxus wrote:

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:Healthcare just passed. Watch the House live.

http://cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx

Passed house + reconciliation, needs to pass senate.

Maxus wrote:

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:Healthcare just passed. Watch the House live.

http://cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx

Still gotta get the jellyfish/Harry to pass it in the senate

Draco_Argentum wrote:
Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online
Ruling: State Can Dump Non-Sex Offenders Into Registry

Fucking what?

Ugh. Between the sex offender registry and the no-fly list, I predict that within 20 years those Americans that aren't in prison either won't be allowed to do anything or to go anywhere (or both).

Tea Party Protests: N1gger, [EDITED] Yelled at Members Of Congress.
Glad to see the Teabaggers are making it even clearer what their protests are REALLY all about.

That's disgraceful. Stay classy, teabaggers.

Tom Delay (you know, the guy that runs FreedomWorks, is behind the Teabagger movement, and was tossed out on his ear because of his corrupt involvement with Jack Abramhoff) is on Fox talking about how the Democrats "burned the Consitution" tonight. Because secret prisons and the elimination of due process is TOTALLY COOL, but universal health care? EVIL SOCIALISM.

cthulhu wrote:Still gotta get the jellyfish/Harry to pass it in the senate

No, the first bill they passed was the bill the Senate already passed. That's a law as soon as the Pres inks it. That's a done deal.

The second bill they passed was some tweaks for the Senate to put in through reconciliation. But the heavy lifting is done.

I suppose it missed most people's attention, but there was a larger anti-war, pro-soldier march at the Capitol yesterday at the same time as the Teabagger event.

-Crissa

This is off the subject, but on Facebook, someone was posting extreme anarcho-capitalist objection to the health bill. I was polite and used facts, and he deleted the post rather than continue.

Did I just win an argument? I can't tell. I've never actually respectfully disagreed. With anyone. That didn't end in me being told to "shut the fuck up".

Alright, I was a little brusque at one point. Said person said businesses allocated resources to the most productive. I pointed out that we worked at Target with me until he graduated college. I said that I don't understand how anyone who worked in a box store could say that and not laugh so hard he shit himself.

Hey guys, remember way back when when I said this?

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Hey, now, Bill O'Reilly once ran a segments on an epidemic of lesbian rapist gangs with pink guns trolling high schools.

When Glenn Beck exceeds that kind of crazy then we'll talk.

Well, as it turns out, Glenn Beck recently exceeded this level of craziness and no one noticed.

Slacktivist wrote:Yesterday, Beck told his radio listeners to "look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. ... If you find [them], run as fast as you can. ... They are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

As Joe Carter noted at First Things, taking Beck's advice would require all Roman Catholics to leave that church, since "Social Justice" is -- for Catholics as for almost every longstanding Christian denomination -- an integral aspect of the church's teaching. ("Social Justice" is, in fact, the title of Section One, Chapter Two, Article 3 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)

Glenn Beck continued his attack on "social justice" today, arguing that it entails "a perversion of the gospel" and is "not what Jesus would say" (MediaMatters has the audio).

That's weird. And, really, I don't know how he'd claim it's "not what Jesus would say." I thought Jesus was pretty blatantly a communist (or at least close to it; more so than capitalist).

Yesterday, Beck told his radio listeners to "look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. ... If you find [them], run as fast as you can. ... They are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

So Glenn has seen the Fnords now? Why am I not surprised that it would come to this?

Glenn Beck continued his attack on "social justice" today, arguing that it entails "a perversion of the gospel" and is "not what Jesus would say" (MediaMatters has the audio).

Wait, I recognise this!
This is right before the part where the Pope has his albino love-slave assassinate Glenn Beck!

...Glenn, you traitor! You sold out America by associating with that French girl!