finknottle
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Posts posted by finknottle
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They don't pay income tax to DC because apparently this region isn't as !@#$ed up as yours. I think the better question is: why the !@#$ do you pay income tax to MN if you don't live there?
There is a reciprocity agreement between MD, VA, and DC, but...
I work for and own a MD-based S-corp, but live in VA. My company pays taxes in MD, while through reciprocity my earnings are taxed by VA (just like you would expect). However, the Peoples Republic of Maryland has found another way to tax me. The way an S-corp works is that any company profits flow to the shareholders and are taxed as personal income. So I pay federal and VA taxes on salary+profits. But what Maryland does is have a special tax on non-resident profits... so in effect, my company profits are taxed twice!
My accountant says this situation is common, and all you can do is aim for zero company profit each year, or restart the company in Virginia. (Yet another example of how dumb tax policy can hurt a state.)
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You do raise an interesting point about the draft, and one that I was wondering about too, in that how are they even holding a draft. The short answer is that they can hold it because all of this began under labour laws. The fact that no rookie can be signed until an agreement is in place (or they're forced to hold games) I would assume is also due to this agreement by the owners.
My non-expert understanding is that this is correct. Courts will generally allow entities to continue after an expired CBA with labor policies that were agreed to under it. But if the NFL implements dramatically new policies - such as a rookie wage cap - a challenge is more likely to be upheld.
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Want to slash gov't waste?... Start with the military complex.
Who said this?:
~"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. those who are cold and not clothed."
Yep... It is no other than that Republican icon and 5 star general Dwight D. Eisenhower. The same guy, who as prez, taxed the rich at a staggering rate compared to what people are whining about today.
If you replace military complex with police services, isn't the heart-wrenching statement still true? Or the arts or education for that matter?
Let's face it: every burger made could have been 50 day's of algea food for starving vegetarians. Shouldn't we start by outlawing the foods at the top of the pyramid?
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I would love to see replacement players again.
That said, if you relly want replacement owners then what the players should do is this:
Form their own player-owned league, with the playeers playing where they are now, and go up agains NFL replacement teams. They would instantly have a credible product, far more so than the replacement teams, and would get media-love unheard of in sports. The players could pool their personal money and use it for administration and insurance, and play for equity in the league. They will be playing in second-rate facilities, but since when has stadium attendence ever paid salaries? I have no doubt they would get a national television coverage from somebody for minimal money - and if they last a year or two, it would become big money and they would start to cash in
If the quality of the players is truely as important to the business of football as they believe, and having their quality versus the guys who get cut in August really makes a difference to fans (as most here would have us believe), the players will succeed with their new league. But if after a year there is no discernable on-field difference between the NFLPA league and a relacement-filled NFL team, they will fail.
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BillsVet is wrong and so are you. This is not a "union question" at all, it's a business partners dispute.
Imagine if, when you started your stores, you did so with a partner. Let's say the agreement acknowledged that you were really good at marketing and sales, and your partner was really good at the mechanics of running the business, so those were the areas each of you focused on. At the end of the year, your partner writes you a check for what he says is 50% of the profits. Do you take him at his word? Or do you say, "Let me see the books, partner"? And what if your partner tells you to take a hike, he's not going to show you the books? Do you fold and accept his word, or do you start looking for another partner?
That's the deal the owners made with the players years ago. And the players are essentially saying, if we're you're partners, let us see the books. And if you don't want us to see them, then we are no longer partners.
IMO, the problem with that scenario is that it doesn't happen in the real world *unless* the partner has an equity stake, in which case it may be appropriate to share the books. And even then, they typically don't unless there are serious questions. For example, an S-Corp returns all the profits to the shareholders in proportion to their shares, and you leave it to the accountant to figure it what that is. So yes, in your example you might as well take your partner at their word. A company that lies about its books is committing accounting fraud, not just to you but to the IRS as well.
Most 'profit sharing' arrangements with employees (in particular, non-shareholders) are not for a percentage of the profits. Rather, the company decides to give everybody a fixed percentage of their salary. (More precisely, they decide how much profit they want to reinvest and how much they want to give back. They divide the latter by total payroll to compute the percentage.)
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You're telling me that if your employer paid you a percentage of the revenue the company earns, you'd agree to take a pay cut (which is what they are asking) without asking to see how much revenue is actually being generated? No sane person would do that.
Once again, you confuse revenue with profit. If you were paid a cut of the revenue, then it would be simple and non-controversial to show you the revenue. This is done in the business world.
Getting paid a cut of the profit is almost never done. (If nothing else, takes away your incentive to cut costs and increase the profit margin.)
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And the ridiculous statements made by the NFL after the decertification (that they agreed to meet all the NFLPA's numbers) is an outrageous, bold faced lie. The players are paid a percentage of revenue. Yet the owners are unwilling to show what that total revenue number ACTUALLY is. So, without showing what that number is, how can they agree to anything?
Opening the books is not the same thing as showing the television revenue. The TV revenue is straight-forward.
Opening the books means showing the individual finances of each team, from how much the ball boys make to how much they spend on catering. Suppose a bunch of teams are in the red, and a large part of the reason is because they have bloated non-player payrolls and high overhead. Will the union say "that's ok then," or will the next step see them telling those franchises how they should run their businesses so that the players can get what they think they deserve?
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I am sorry.. I didn't mean it to sound like that. True, you know my beliefs... Again, I didn't mean it to be taken negative. It is what it is I suppose. Most money is made through inheritence and in sales... It feeds itself. If one wants to really get ahead... Hawk something. Hawking "something" could be anything.
Telling somebody else that: "All it takes is hard work." Is a bit misleading.
"Work smart not hard" does have its place. People in all professions still earn their wages.
I think you are confusing obtained with created, and focusing unduly on the source of individual wealth.
It is certainly true that a great deal of wealth is inherited - the percentage of those whose assets qualify them as 'rich' are disporportionately inherited. But if you actually track it, you see that most inherited fortunes dissipate over time.
On the other hand, consider the wealth of the nation. It increases over time. Not because another founding father kicked the bucket and left the nation an extra trillion dollars, but because of the creation of a net trillion dollars worth of goods, new companies, IP, etc. Nor is that new wealth generally created through sales - sales gets you a paycheck, but usually at the expense of a competitor. After you account for the zero-sum stuff, new wealth is created by intrepeneurs and inventors, and innovation within existing businesses.
So if you really mean to ask 'how do I obtain wealth,' the best answer is to be born rich. (I'm a little skeptical about ones overall chances in sales.) But if you mean 'how do I create new wealth,' you should invent something or start a business. And in my personal experience, the richest people (factoring in differences in initial wealth) have been those who have spent time doing the latter, whether as entrepenuers or simply working for startups.
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The rich also have an easier time screwing hotter chicks so they should be taxed on that as well...
It's called income-based alimony.
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As a tax paying citizen, you should be far more upset that 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005 (that's on 2.5 TIRLLION in income) than over the fact that some local municipalitities decided to invest in an NFL stadium.
My guess is that the League response will be "blow me, Senator".
Put another way, you find it outrageous that 57% of US companies had at least one unprofitible year between 1998 and 2005? Shocking! You'd have thought there was a tech slowdown or a national calamity or something. I thought companies were money making machines...
Seriously, do you know what the tax bill is supposed to be when you don't make money? Or do you believe companies always make a profit every year?
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The problem is that 95% of people don't agree with you and gladly put up with airport hassles for quicker travel. Out of the dozens of people I've known that regularly travel between BOS-NY-WAS, exactly one of them routinely takes the train. And you are simply never going to have a 250 mph train blasting through densely populated NJ, CT, MA, MD, VA, etc.
Make that two. I always take the Acela when I travel between DC and NYC.
Which is not to say I think government-driven expansion of rail is a good idea. I am fully sympathetic to the localities who find they cannot maintain the public transportation (whether rail or metro) that others decided it would be a good idea to saddle them with.
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The issue isn't whether a team should draft a sure-thing franchise QB, it is whether a team can identify a franchise QB. If they see
one and are sure, then they absolutely should draft him regardless of other needs.
One problem. Is anybody in the league 100% sure how a player will pan out? I mean, other than internet posters?
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With all the talk of the importance of having a franchise quarterback, how you can't pass up the opportunity to draft one when you have the chance, and where you are most likely to get one:
I'd like to see a precise definition of "franchise quarterback," so that we know what to look for in the draft, and the difference between it and "starting caliber quarterback."
I'd also like to see a list of the FQ's in the league so that we can sort out just how rare they are and how their teams performance compares to non-FQ's going forward. Debating the neccessity of getting one seems an unproductive discussion if we actually give the title in hindsight. Sort of like arguing the importance of drafting hall-of-famers.
So humor me. Define franchise quarterback, and tell me who is and is not one.
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Exactly. The owners aren't in the business to make some profit each year. They own a team for the long term gain. They buy it at 500 mil and expect to sell it for almost double it's value down the road. They'll gladly operate at a minimal profit for that long term payoff.
Really? Why exactly do they want to renegotiate the deal, if they are not interested in making a yearly profit?
If there were any doubt that this was a pro-union piece, it is dispelled by this straight-faced answer:
Are the players willing to bend on any issues?Yes. The NFLPA proposed changes to the rookie wage scale that has been in the works for over a year. The union for the players offered up what they call a “Proven Performance Plan”. The proposal would reduce rookie contract lengths to a max of 3 years. According to the NFLPA, that would reduce spending on rookie salary by approx. $200 million. The proposal would then take those savings and divert $150 million to players who signed relatively low contracts either as rookies or veterans, but whose performance has been much greater. The rest of the balance (approx. $50 million) would be devoted to a fund for new retired player benefits. The proposal is also seeking the league to match those funds creating a $100 million pool for retired player benefits.
So the NFLPA's solution to spiraling rookie contracts is to reduce the length of time you can sign a rookie for, AND take the money you would have paid them in the fourth and fifth years and add it to money going to other players and the retirement fund. Oh yes, and kick in some extra matching money for the retirement fund too.
Swell.
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I think it's unusual for an NFL owner in this day and age to insist that his head coach be available to him for a weekly "fireside chat." That is what the GM is for.
I think it would be unusual if they didn't.
Sure, one school of thought say's the head coach reports to the GM, and the GM talks regularly to the owner. But how many head coaches in the NFL see it that way? How many are content to say they work for the GM, and have their fate decided by the GM rather than the owner?
I think most teams view the GM and the head coach as semi-equals. They work together, but both report to and are judged by ownership.
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wanna let us al know what $50000 investment we can make now will be worth $900 mil in 50 years?
Tell that to the investors in the USFL, WFL, etc and see what they say.
I suggest you take your money and invest it in lottery tickets. Where else can you make millions off of $1?
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Meanwhile, in the real-world world, here's a piece from the Japan Times contrasting the development of China and India. There is an interesting passage relevent to this discussion, on Chinese Premier Wen's visit to India two weeks ago.
Wen arrived with great fanfare, as if trying to prove that anything that the United States, France or Britain could do, China could do better and bigger. All four countries have paid court to India in recent weeks looking for business deals. President Barack Obama took 215 business leaders; Nicolas Sarkozy led more than 60; and David Cameron was accompanied by 40 British business executives. Premier Wen took 400 executives, including bosses from Shanghai Electric, SinoSteel and telecoms firms ZTE and Huawei.When Wen left after a packed three days, China and India had signed 50 deals for power, steel, wind energy, telecommunications as well as food and marine products, altogether worth about $16 billion, much bigger than the $10 billion worth that Obama and his business leaders left with. The two neighbors also agreed to increase their trade from $60 billion to $100 billion by 2015.
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So if I understand it correctly, the point of the story is that often times when foreign governments are considering multi-billion dollar purchases, our diplomats try to persuade them do business with companies in our country? Kind of like when a Governor tries to persuade a company to build its plant in his state? Is that what's been "exposed" here?
Next we'll get a story "exposing" the theory that Congress is posturing for the next election...
Too late.+1. Stupidest thread ever.
But I do find it revealing that the idea that diplomats are trying to get export business for US compaines provokes a response that it is about giving more money to the rich rather than about jobs.
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if the Bills had not drafted at all in 2010. the team would have been no different and would have had the same record.
Don't forget the extra cap space.
Spiller signed a 5 year $25 million dollar contract with incentives bringing it up to $37.5 million. What would that get you on the free agent market?
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Interesting - not much comment about what I see is the crucial point.
With a 16 game season, you still have many teams alive for the playoffs going into the final two weeks. Expand the season to 18 games, and you have added two more weeks for the separation to occur. Statistically, you are more likely to have more berths locked up in the final weeks.
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We will see how Bradford pans out. He might be great or he may never do better than this year. But one thing is for sure: he will always get the benefit of the doubt because of where he was drafted.
PTR
And to be clear: benefit of the doubt means the team will stick with him as a starter for the next two seasons no matter if he improves or regresses. They are committed because of his draft position.
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Football has always been, and probably always will be, a primarily blue collar game for both the participants as well as the fans (pansy indoor corporate boxes aside). Lets face it, you aren't going to find too many doctors, lawyers, or CEOs face down in their own vomit at the Ralph on any given Sunday. Chris brown epitomizes that and is acknowledging, in his own way, that there is room in football for someone with more than a "paper or plastic" level IQ ... just as long as he doesn't act superior to the others.
As an historical aside, the situation around the world used to be the opposite. Prior to the rising sports salaries of the past few decades, soccer was generally considered a blue collar game while rugby was considered elitist. Why? Because the last thing that the working class wanted after a hard week of work were the demands of a contact sport. But if you were a professional or part of the leisure class, a weekend spent knocking heads while playing rugby scratched that physical itch. They could *afford* some heavy lifting, bruising and an occasional broken bone.
Even today, if you look at club-level rugby in the US you will find them disproportionately populated by doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. Partly because club players are usually college graduates to begin with, but also because a genuine 'weekend warrior' lifestyle is a luxury better afforded by professionals who have the week to rest up.
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Are you guys really this dense? How will the Buffalo Bills ever know if Brohm is good enough to even be a back up if he doesn't play?
Probably the same way they know I'm not good enough to sign and start, even though they haven't seen me in an NFL game.
They might be wrong of course, but it is their job to separate those worth trying from those who are a waste of time.
Best QB Prospects Using "The Parcells Rules"
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted · Edited by finknottle
I think you are missing the larger point.
It's all about winning the Super Bowl, not landing the greatest possible quarterback. There are those who believe that to contend you have to land a Manning when you draft a quarterback, and you have to keep plugging away year after year until you get lucky - fine. Parcells arguably believed that the best way for a franchise to win Superbowls was to build a strong team and draft good quarterbacks conservatively - get a strong player with minimal risk of setting the team back by being a flop.
One can argue whether his strategy is relevant in today's NFL or not, but he had a pretty good run with his boring but above-average quarterbacks.