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How about if 67% of a state budget was paid out in payroll, and about 13% was paid for retirement? What does that tell you about benefits? Too high? Too low? Is it unsustainable?

Fair enough. How about if 80% of the budget goes to payroll and retirement?

So even after having been slapped in the face with it, you won't answer that the analogy is accurate? Really? Are you so tied to your position that your ego won't let go of it? It's only one graph, but you can't even admit that even that one graph is a bad graph? That picking random years...

Okay, how does a percentage of a budget communicate that? Let's say I have a restaurant and 80% of my budget goes for labor and rent and only 20% for food -- what does that say about the quality of my food, or the benefits received by my employees? (The answer is "nothing at all" by the way.)

Some do, undoubtedly, just as some religious fundamentalists brainwash their children. So what does that have to do with anything? (I like the little icon, by the way -- it's very funny.)

Sorry, if that's the best you can do you'll have to do better. Even 100% of a budget going to payroll and retirement doesn't mean anything whatsoever regarding the benefits received.

Well it might be okay, or might not -- I'd just like one of you guys to explain why it isn't.

Okay, why is the analogy bullshit? What in your selective measures of regional temperature data averages for erratic years is not similar to discerning a trend in the DOW from IBM's average prices staggered randomly?

LOL.

So you see 80% of a budget going for payroll and retirement as evidence that the employees have their jobs created for no reason and that have cadillac benefits. Did you know that 78% of Calpers retirees receive $36,000 or less? There is no "Cadillac" in that...

That's a good ad. Don't tell me -- you think the environmentalists are suggesting that people actually hang children.

What's wrong with that?

Well I realized that my analogy wasn't quite stupid enough to reflect your global warming denier "evidence."

:) I'm quite intrigued as to how these folks do in the markets. (And I'm not convinced that they do poorly, either, they might do quite well given their drive, or perhaps their absolutism causes them to be unable to learn from error. Either way it would be fascinating to see actual evidence...

I've been thinking of taking up quilting, but then I also enjoy smashing rocks. :) What are your hobbies? Or your opinion of FAS versus SPY?

I searched for both, actually. You can make this easy, of course. You could just tell us all what page has your incorrect CBO graph. You could only BS so long, my friend, before everyone caught on.

Why didn't you read the article which specifically addresses corporate taxation?

:) Yeah, I didn't think you could find it because it's not there. I downloaded the entire budget as a pdf and did a search for "projections" and the White House budget projection is significantly better (unsurprisingly) than the out-of-date and incorrect CBO projection that you posted...

No, the US does not have the highest actual tax rates in the developed world. That's the kind of boogeyman that Republicans use to scare their children before they go to bed. And if it WAS true (which it isn't) then it would give a lie to the "Socialist countries have high taxes" mantra...

LOL. So if you want to know where the market is going, you pick the DOW average from 1977, 1979, 1985, 1986, and 2008. You must be a great trader! :) (EDIT: Sorry, I mean IBM's average, and then generalize to the entire DOW.)