It looks like the American Academy of Pediatrics is playing politics. They're attempting to build a database of firearms owners by asking patients and storing it in medical records (something anti-2nd amendment activists desperately desire, because it is always the first step for any country that bans firearms.
The AAP makes the following recommendations, which reaffirm and expand on the 1992 policy statement71:
1. The AAP affirms that the most effective measure to prevent firearm-related injuries to children and adolescents is the absence of guns from homes and communities.
a) Firearm regulation, to include bans of handguns and assault weapons, is the most effective way to reduce firearm-related injuries.
...
2. The AAP urges that guns be subject to safety and design regulations, like other consumer products, as well as tracing.
TRACING? What does tracing have to do with heathcare?!?
By comparison, the AAP's position on swimming pool safety linked me to an outside webpage
It appears that much of their safety suggestions just went offline, but nowhere does it mention eliminating swimming pools. So now there are reports of doctors refusing to treat patients based on a parent's decision to not answer questions of whether there are firearms within the home.
Back in 1995 when I visited France they were still using the French Franc as currency. As suggested in a post above, they already did most of the rounding by including it in prices. IIRC the franc was worth, at the time, about 1/5th of a dollar, and the 1 franc coins were carried around like we carry around quarters. During a week's stay the only time I saw centimes (french equivalent of cents) was at the currency exchange counters.
The price for everything, tax included, came out exactly to the franc. It was awesome, because you didn't have to take anything else into account. No figuring out extra tax, no distortion or attempt to sucker people into buying something for $2.99, it was all up-front, and you only had to carry around 1 type of coin. After a few days the centimes stayed at the bottom of my luggage bag back at the hotel.
So this has already done, and apparently proven to be a big success considering that all shops and restaurants across Paris and beyond were doing it, so I'm sure Dunkin Donuts can too.
claiming that the distribution center is owned by a subsidiary, rather than by the e-commerce firm itself (yeah, nice try).
Ownership does not mean presence a presence in a state. For example, if I bought Microsoft stock, that does not mean that I suddenly have a presence in Redmond Washington and I would be subject to their taxes.
that means other states like AZ, NV, WA, PA, OK, KY, IN, FL will all need to charge taxes... Amazon has distribution in all of those states.....
Doing business with a distribution company does not mean having a presence in those states. For example, if I ran a home business and shipped all of the products that I made by FEDEX, then it doesn't mean that I have a state presence in all the states where FEDEX has a presence, and I would still only have a presence in my home state.
This just sounds like a desperate tax grab by states that are in financial trouble when online companies have become efficient and profitable, in contrast to the states themselves which have become bloated and more costly during the same time period.
I am willing to personally rate these investments, while also taking the liability if the investments go bad. But the speculators won't be happy with my ratings. It's not going to be the Triple-A Awesome ratings that they were hoping for. Instead, it would be low ratings that hedge for the risk.
This legislation isn't poorly designed; it is an intended consequence to get those financial institutions who need a high degree of certainty out of unknowable risks. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
[soapbox]
I'm sure that investors would love to play with the pensioners' money, with huge funds to make huge bets, and they don't want to be personally liable. But then we don't have the heart to say to the retirees "Sorry, your fund manager lost all your savings, so you get to live on $600.00/month SSI for the rest of your life. Thanks for playing". And there's where we get the "too big to fail" mentality and the taxpayers get stuck footing the bill.
Downgrade the ratings on this junk until your ratings agency can't lose. The laws for certain financial institutions require high ratings because the taxpayers don't want to bail them out, so they need to abandon this market to other groups or individuals who can take on the risk and are willing to lose big. And afterwards if no one steps up to the plate, then it's not a useful market, but instead is proof positive that it was just a scam all along to speculate with a larger pool of money by re-rating junk bonds as triple-A. You can't have it both ways and consider it to be a safe investment even though you can totally lose your shorts, while the big boys aren't willing to sink their own money into it.
[/soapbox]
Re:
It looks like the American Academy of Pediatrics is playing politics. They're attempting to build a database of firearms owners by asking patients and storing it in medical records (something anti-2nd amendment activists desperately desire, because it is always the first step for any country that bans firearms.
From the AAP's own website:
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;105/4/888
The AAP makes the following recommendations, which reaffirm and expand on the 1992 policy statement71:
1. The AAP affirms that the most effective measure to prevent firearm-related injuries to children and adolescents is the absence of guns from homes and communities.
a) Firearm regulation, to include bans of handguns and assault weapons, is the most effective way to reduce firearm-related injuries.
...
2. The AAP urges that guns be subject to safety and design regulations, like other consumer products, as well as tracing.
TRACING? What does tracing have to do with heathcare?!?
By comparison, the AAP's position on swimming pool safety linked me to an outside webpage
http://www.healthychildren.org/english/safety-prevention/at-play/Pages/Swimming-Pool-Safe ty.aspx?nfstatus=401&nftoken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000&nfstatusdescription=ERROR% 3a+No+local+token
It appears that much of their safety suggestions just went offline, but nowhere does it mention eliminating swimming pools. So now there are reports of doctors refusing to treat patients based on a parent's decision to not answer questions of whether there are firearms within the home.
re:
Back in 1995 when I visited France they were still using the French Franc as currency. As suggested in a post above, they already did most of the rounding by including it in prices. IIRC the franc was worth, at the time, about 1/5th of a dollar, and the 1 franc coins were carried around like we carry around quarters. During a week's stay the only time I saw centimes (french equivalent of cents) was at the currency exchange counters.
The price for everything, tax included, came out exactly to the franc. It was awesome, because you didn't have to take anything else into account. No figuring out extra tax, no distortion or attempt to sucker people into buying something for $2.99, it was all up-front, and you only had to carry around 1 type of coin. After a few days the centimes stayed at the bottom of my luggage bag back at the hotel.
So this has already done, and apparently proven to be a big success considering that all shops and restaurants across Paris and beyond were doing it, so I'm sure Dunkin Donuts can too.
re:
This just sounds like a desperate tax grab by states that are in financial trouble when online companies have become efficient and profitable, in contrast to the states themselves which have become bloated and more costly during the same time period.
Re:
I am willing to personally rate these investments, while also taking the liability if the investments go bad. But the speculators won't be happy with my ratings. It's not going to be the Triple-A Awesome ratings that they were hoping for. Instead, it would be low ratings that hedge for the risk.
This legislation isn't poorly designed; it is an intended consequence to get those financial institutions who need a high degree of certainty out of unknowable risks. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
[soapbox]
I'm sure that investors would love to play with the pensioners' money, with huge funds to make huge bets, and they don't want to be personally liable. But then we don't have the heart to say to the retirees "Sorry, your fund manager lost all your savings, so you get to live on $600.00/month SSI for the rest of your life. Thanks for playing". And there's where we get the "too big to fail" mentality and the taxpayers get stuck footing the bill.
Downgrade the ratings on this junk until your ratings agency can't lose. The laws for certain financial institutions require high ratings because the taxpayers don't want to bail them out, so they need to abandon this market to other groups or individuals who can take on the risk and are willing to lose big. And afterwards if no one steps up to the plate, then it's not a useful market, but instead is proof positive that it was just a scam all along to speculate with a larger pool of money by re-rating junk bonds as triple-A. You can't have it both ways and consider it to be a safe investment even though you can totally lose your shorts, while the big boys aren't willing to sink their own money into it.
[/soapbox]