Good enough for me, good enough for GE

The alternative minimum tax (or AMT) is an extra tax some people have to pay on top of the regular income tax. The original idea behind this tax was to prevent people with very high incomes from using special tax benefits to pay little or no tax. The AMT has increased its reach, however, and now applies to some people who don't have very high income or who don't claim lots of special tax benefits. Proposals to repeal or reform the AMT have languished in Congress for years, but effective action does not appear to be on the horizon. Until Congress acts, almost anyone is a potential target for this tax.  fairmark.com 

Pre-retirement, I was subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax a few times.  (I don't enjoy paying taxes any more than you do, but I recognize them as the price to pay for living in a civilized society.)  But if we are going to treat our individual citizens that way, it seems only fair to me that our corporate citizens be subject to the same system.  There were 30 corporations that paid no income tax from 2008-2010, on total profits that exceeded $160 billion.  In fact, they actually got refunds of over $10 billion. That amounts to a negative rate of 6.7%.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm happy that these companies did well.  They employ lots of people and make valuable things or provide important services.  But outside of that I'm just not aware of what enormous contribution to the greater public good General Electric made to justify us all writing checks to them totaling $4.7 billion over the past three years. Or $681 million to Wells Fargo, $951 million to Verizon, and $9 million to Mattell.  And it did come out of our pockets.

I see no reason why corporations shouldn't have to play by somewhat the same rules as the rest of us citizens do.  So let's see what a corporate AMT might look like.
We can continue with GE as our example. Let's say the trigger level for a corporate AMT was profits of $1 billion, (That's surely high enough to exempt any small business, by any definition) and the AMT rate on profits above this figure was just 2%.  On their 2010 profits of $11.7 billion, GE would owe a minimum of $214 million.

One hears the phrase "no skin in the game" from some folks when the topic of income taxes for persons with low incomes is discussed.  Stated in those terms, a corporate AMT seems more than fair to me.

Wordplay

10 words that sound like they should be the names of diseases:

Golf

Cornucopia

Claptrap

Thesaurus

Gluten

Spank

Gymnasium

Stucco

Filth

Dictation

Sunday Photos 10/23/11

All photos copyright of Tim Lundberg

Sunday Photos 8/7/11

Three selections from my recent trip to Minnesota.

Meanwhile, I was still thinking

I'm mulling over a much more substantial post, but in the mean time here are a couple photos.

New Jersey

(Thanks for reminding me of this one, Don.)

Kansas

In The Newspaper

Budget Package Stripped Of Pork, Cost Still Too Big To Calculate

Washington, DC - Senator Grant Hickeys (R-KS) emerged from a Capitol Hill conference today with bad news for his constituents.  “Dinner is most definitely not on us this year.  The provision to give every man, woman and child in America 8 pounds of bacon has been removed from the budget package.  We had the entire Congress working on the bill, adding up the costs, but when we ran out of fingers and toes, something had to give.”  Local reaction was mixed,  “Get the hell off my porch”, said Angie O’Plasty, a retiree in Belton.  Mr. Moo of Olathe believes “there is a bologna in my carburetor.”   A USDA spokesman reminded citizens that government cheese remains available in many areas, and should for some time, since it does not decompose naturally.

Buck Passed

Crawford, TX – Former President George W. Bush expressed his relief today at having “passed the buck” to his successor, Barack Obama.  “You know, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be”, opined the former Commander in Chief in a rare interview. “Two wars, recession, all that stuff.  It’s all his now.  I don’t know what Harry Truman was so afraid of.  It’s not like passing a kidney stone or something.”

Personals

Stinky - Hey, I got rid of the rash.  Bring your jar opener.  Misty

Main Street -  Get off my foot.

Jim – The smell from the storage locker is becoming intolerable.  Call the lodge with the lock combination PLEASE.

If I could fly I would already have your money.  The orangutan was a nice thought though.  Good luck! Crackers

Tall, green and handsome: we shared a malt at the NASA cafeteria, you dropped your laser.  Meet me at Lowes,

Lost dog – It’s been a while now so I don’t really remember what he looks like.  Write to Box 88.

Denise – We dance every day.  We move together in ways I don’t understand, even when distance separates us.  I lead, you lead, step, look, leap, swirl, rest.  Together.  Always together. Sometimes I think I am alone in the darkness, but then you touch me, remind me that we are partners, and that all I am seeing is my own shadow.  Clear or cloudy, warm or cold, fast or slow, we dance.  Reach, touch, breathe, stride, you lead, I lead.  Together.  Always together.

Love, Tim

Sunday Photos on Monday

Been a while, I know.   I've been working in New Jersey, which has given me some photo opportunities not normally available in Kansas.

As always, the best shots are on my website.  The link is over there on the right side of the page.  And since we're talking links, be sure to check out the excellent work at WWVB.

Memorial Day 2011

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Life and Death

Air. Water. Warmth. They make life possible.
But they are also the food of the monsters that come down from the thunder and stride the earth without mercy.

These images were taken today outside Piedmont, Oklahoma.  But no photograph or video can capture the feeling of fearful wonder at the power evidenced by the broken landscape.

Stately trees and fields of ripening wheat are stripped of leaf and grain, leaving only spindly stalks that point like accusing fingers toward the source of their doom.

PS - I found it an interesting coincidence that a town called Piedmont is also a key site in The Andromeda Strain, a novel about a form of life that transforms energy directly into matter.

Doubleheader

More pretty pictures to make up for missing last Sunday.

Sunday Photos 5/15/11

Yeah, I skipped a week.
These were taken in Pleasant Hill, MO.

The good stuff is at my photo website. 

What's It Take?

Love. Joy.   

  Nowadays when inquiring about your vocation people will usually ask, "What kind of work do you do", instead of the question more common from my youth, "What are you?"  But although the question is different now, many times the answer is still couched in the old terms. "I am a doctor." Or in my case, it was "I am an Air Traffic Controller."

Peace. Patience. 


  Air Traffic Controller is one of those jobs that, when people find out what you do, usually leads to several more questions.  The most common one is, "What airport do you work at?" (Given the average person's limited understanding of the profession the question is not unexpected, but it's annoying none the less to the thousands of us that work in, or retired from, an en-route center.)  Other common themes are stress, and particularly recently, sleep.  Something else I've been asked a couple times this week is "What kind of people become controllers?"  I answer that there are many kinds of folks doing the job, but we all share a rare and hard to define aptitude for the work.

Kindness. Generosity.


  The casual conversation usually ends there, but I began to wonder about the details.  What traits are encouraged and rewarded in a controller?  I suppose it seems self-evident, but 'control' is the name of the game. One has to truly command the sector to be successful. Everything is black and white. Mental agility is a must, but decisions are quick and compromise is not tolerated.  We develop a 'my way or the highway' attitude.  So it should come as no shock to learn that a room full of people like this, doing a fairly stressful job, might have disagreements now and again.  Or have trouble dealing with people anywhere that seem to fall short of our standard of 'perfection is normal'.  It was my increasing inability to deal well with these feelings that largely led to my decision to retire early.  I came to realize that I hadn't just developed a short fuse, I had no fuse at all. Just a 'pin' that got pulled all too often.  My year away from the job has helped tremendously, but in many ways I still think and act in the ways I did for 22 years at the radar scope.

Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.


  This all came to mind again yesterday when I was asked to reflect upon what kind of person I wish to be remembered as, and if I was living that kind of life.  Don't get me wrong. I am proud of the work I did and my service to the country.  But I wonder about what it may have done to me as a human being.  I wonder how much of my success as a controller was due to what I brought to the job, and how much I changed to adapt to it.   I wonder how much of the nine traits listed between the paragraphs above are a normal part of my existence. I do know this: If the job did change me, I can change again.  And if the job only served to let the real me come out, well, I can work on that too.  Just hope I get a ways down that path before it's time to 'remove strips' on my flight plan.

Sunday Photos 5/1/11

A couple from my location scouting today for an upcoming portrait shoot.

Stagecoach Park, Olathe, KS

Arboretum, Overland Park, KS

Don't forget to visit me at vortacphoto.smugmug.com

Sunday Photos 4/24/11

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them,

 “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 

He is not here; he has risen!"

He is risen indeed.

Memorial, 4/19

The blast in Oklahoma City claimed the lives of 168 people, 

including 19 children under the age of 6.

Sunday Photos 4/17/11

Drought

 Lake Hefner, Oklahoma City

Evergreen

Henderson, Indiana

Today's Top 10: Injury Bugs

Top 10 strangest injuries and ailments that will put Major League Baseball players on the disabled list this year:

10. Heffa Lumps


9.  Check Swing Dribbler


8.  Tommy Jaundice


7.  Wii Knee


6.  Pulled Pork


5.  Unleaded Gas


4.  Magic Jack


3.  Helmet Itch


2.  Liver 'n Onions


1.  Hanging Curveballs

It's April 12. Where will we go tomorrow?

Today marks the anniversary of a couple of important events in the history of space flight.  On this date in 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first person to travel into outer space.  Also on this date, in 1981 John Young and Robert Crippen flew Columbia on the first Space Shuttle launch.  I believe it is only right that we salute these pioneers, the ones that take the first, dangerous steps of a journey so that we may follow.  The men and women that faced the challenges of exploring that new frontier will always have a special place in my heart.

The Wright brothers made the first powered flight in 1903.  Less than 58 years later man orbited the earth.  Only 8 years passed before Armstrong walked on the moon.  And just 20 years after our first small foray into space a re-usable space plane went to work.  I grew up during the space race.  After watching the phenomenal achievements of both the US and Russian space programs, it seemed only natural that our progress would continue to accelerate.  While we might not get to Jupiter in 2001,  in 1970 I was certain that in the far off future of 2011 we would certainly have visited Mars, and have a regular presence on the moon.

Not quite.  Next year NASA will retire the shuttle fleet with no solid plans to replace it.  I understand the arguments against spending money on exploration when we have plenty of problems here at home.  I just fear that if we cease to look outward we will have lost an opportunity to take important steps in our journey as humans. An opportunity that will take a generation to regain.

Sunday Photos 4/10/11

To go along with my recent focus on politics and to also note the upcoming tax filing deadline, here are some shots from our nation's capital.

Don't blame the bus

Not surprisingly, given the current situation in Washington DC, I am hearing comments again about how the system is broken.  Some even say it is beyond repair.  I disagree with this notion.  I think blaming "the system" for our current troubles is like blaming the bus for being late when the driver oversleeps.

I listened to an interview today of a historian of government policy (whose name unfortunately escaped me).  He said the USA is apparently unique in the world in its ability to put itself in the situation of shutting down the government almost completely, which greatly puzzles his friends around the world.  When asked how he explains this oddity, he said he tells his friends that the government in America was, in a way, designed not to work.  Our founders were so afraid of centralized power after their escape from the clutches of King George that the government they formed would be extremely difficult to command entirely by one person or faction.  This makes it fairly likely that situations like today's would crop up now and again.

Sounds about right to me.
Which brings me back to our bus.  When we hire responsible, intelligent drivers the bus gets us where we need to go pretty nicely.  But it would seem we haven't been careful enough about who we've put behind the wheel lately.  And so if there's anything in or system that needs some examination I think it would be how we go about deciding which gals and guys we let drive.  I hope to have moron more on that subject before the bus gets much further.

An Open Letter to The President

(It is with great hope that this letter reaches the person I voted for in 2008.  I am not at all certain of his whereabouts, but the last address I had was 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW)

The Honorable Barack Obama,
  With all due respect Mr. President, it is time to stop trying to win the hearts and minds of the Republican leadership.  There are proposals afoot that would have been laughed at as the ravings of the lunatic fringe not so long ago.  Your response has been to seek compromise and to work around the edges, instead of calling "Bu##sh##", and laying out a clear and strong counterpoint.
  I applaud your instinct to seek bipartisan solutions to our problems. In the long run that is the only way to make real, lasting progress.  But what you don't seem to understand is that the people in charge on the other side of the aisle right now are not interested at all in compromise and bipartisanship.  To put it bluntly, they hate you. There is nothing you can do or say to change their minds or to convince them that working with you in any way might help the country move forward.  So it's time to stop trying to get them on your side, even a little bit.  Forget about trying to win over the minority of people in this country that reflexively scream "Socialism!" at every word you say. It's time to say to Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Michelle Bachmann and Rand Paul, "You are just dead wrong."  It's time, Mr. President, to stand up for the millions and millions of people who voted for you.  It's time, Mr. President, to remind us that you are on our side.

Dr. King

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an 

inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. 

 Letter from the Birmingham Jail

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

"I Have a Dream" speech 

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Speech at the Mason Temple, April 3, 1968 

Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

Intermission, plus Sunday Photos 4/3/11

Man, life in the real world really had me by the throat this week.  Or at least I let myself feel that way.  Stuff to do, NOW. Frustrations. Schedules. Expectations. Did I mention Frustrations?  I couldn't even let myself really enjoy the time I had scheduled for fun.  Bleh.  But today was different.  I didn't just sit on the couch.  My daughter and I got some painting done in her room, and I've accomplished a few minor tasks here and there.  But the day has had an entirely different feel from the rest of the week because I decided going in that today would be devoted to unwinding the tension that I had let myself get wrapped up in. A day of pausing to reflect upon how truly I am blessed, and to give thanks.  Which brings me to my point today.  Even if your beliefs don't place you in the Judeo-Christian fold, I think there is truth, and something to be gained by everyone, in the idea of Sabbath.  Call it Intermission or The Pause That Refreshes™if you prefer.  But no matter what you call it, or whether or not you include God in it, taking time to truly pause in your life to reflect, meditate, pray, or just be quiet is of tremendous value.  And if this was a great idea a couple thousand years ago, back before the technology of today that sometimes has such a tight grip on us, just think how much more important our Intermissions are today.  (Yeah, I wrote this blog entry today, but it was part of my Sabbath reflection. So there.)

On to the photos.
Some aviation related shots in honor of those of you still on the front lines "pushing tin".

Tango Golf.

Shameless Self Promotion

  After many months of threatening, I have finally launched my photography business.  I'm on the web at www.vortacphoto.smugmug.com.  (Note: No, I don't shoot weddings.)  Don't know if this venture will take me anywhere, but as I like to say, "We may be lost, but at least we're making good time."
 And now the Sunday photos...