Will the check be in the mail? ($800 per individual taxpayer?)

My Fox Tampa Bay ^ | 1/19/08

[Libloather]

Will the check be in the mail?
Last Edited: Saturday, 19 Jan 2008, 1:47 PM EST

TAMPA - Cash can be like a jolt of caffeine to a national economy. In 2001, the federal government sent every income taxpayer a $300 rebate check. It ran up our debt, but also helped end our last recession.

Now President Bush and Congressional leaders want to try it again. This time they may send every income taxpayer a larger check. Economists say that could stimulate our economy again if recipients spend much of their rebates on products.

"Letting American people keep more of their own money should increase consumer spending," said President Bush. That could potentially pull us out of the credit and mortgage mess that's hurting the entire U.S. economy. For this to work, federal leaders need to act soon.

"A stimulus must be timely—if it comes too late, it can interfere with a recovery," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

President Bush also wants tax credits for small businesses that could entice them to expand and hire. Congress may also increase unemployment benefits, and increase food stamp allotments.

On the downside, big rebates can drive up debt and inflation over the long run, which takes money out of our pockets. But our government is focused on a temporary stimulus, to address the problems we have today.

[Nathan Zachary]

To add to your educational experience:

Depending on the engine/exhaust, the car may have a resonant frequency that's kinda displeasing to most drivers. The factory will put a resonator in to kill or change this, so the resonant frequency is either much higher in the rpm/speed band and gets masked by other noise, or disappears completely. It's not a muffler, just a change in the exhaust shape to kill any reinforcement sound waves may get at some speed. W/o one, the car may be noticeably louder at some speed/rpm.

[Libloather]

Then it’s called a resonator.

Then? Didn't you call it a catalytic converter? You say potato, I say potato.

VOLKSWAGON VW JETTA GOLF MID MUFFLER RESONATOR

[Nathan Zachary]

"It amounts to $448,000 for every living person in the United States."

There are quite a few varying amounts using either the average household (whatever that is), or individuals. Every man, woman, and child, or the working population.

[Blood of Tyrants]

What does that have to do with a plan by the government to hand out $800 checks? Get on the right thread and right subject.

[Nathan Zachary]

"It amounts to $448,000 for every living person in the United States."

The figue I gave was from a every man woman and child article.

[Irish Queen]

What I need is a laptop for a writers’ conference in March. I need one that will hold a fairly large amount of material [book manuscript capacity]. Any suggestions?

[ShadowDancer]

Giving a small amount of the money stolen from the wealthy to the general public

Excuse me? We paid taxes, too.

[Farmer Dean]

Sounds like you’ve read enough SWAT team entry horror stories too.

[Nathan Zachary]

Yep. That's because most American made v8 autos don't use a resonator, just a catalytic converter and a single muffler on a single exhaust system. WHy? because they don't rev as high to produce that annoying sound.

On imports and small higher revving "American made" 4 bangers (whose engines are usually imported anyways), you will see a catalytic converter, a resonator, and a muffler. But NEVER 2 mufflers on a single pipe system.

[Last Dakotan]

We can borrow the money from the Chinese to buy Chinese stuff.

[MarkL]

Back in the day, Puff Daschle said that wasn't enough to buy a muffler. And you'll never guess what fell out from under my car the very week I got that check.

I remember that quote... I sent the puffster an email telling him that for many of us in "the real world," $300 is actually a useful sum of money. In my case, at the time, it was a month and a half's car payment, or more than 1/2 of my monthly mortgage payment. If he didn't have any use for HIS $300 tax rebate (which was, btw, considered to be taxable income, so we did have to pay taxes on the rebate! lol), that he was welcome to send me his check.

Needless to say, I never heard back from him.

Mark

[dalereed]

Don’t spend it all, save enough to pay the state and federal income taxes tht you will owe on it!

[MarkL]

If they wanted to help this economy they would repeal the gasoline tax for a year or two. Fuel costs are what what is driving this economy down right now.

This is our government and they're here to help us. Which is why, instead of repealing the federal gasoline tax, they're talking about adding on an additional .40 a gallon tax. Come on, get with the plan!

Mark

[Nathan Zachary]

"VOLKSWAGON VW JETTA GOLF MID MUFFLER RESONATOR"

The manual doesn't call it a "mid muffler" just the person who posted that does. The parts manual lists 1). a catalytic converter 2). a resonator 3). a muffler.

[MarkL]

Yup. I'm coughing up $40,000 to $70,000 each year in FIT.

Are you looking to adopt anyone?

Mark

[Nathan Zachary]

"VOLKSWAGON VW JETTA GOLF MID MUFFLER RESONATOR"

You can call it a "mid muffler" if you really want to, since it does in fact eliminate sound. But the mechanic/parts counter person will still look at you funny. They tend to call parts according to what the parts manual calls them or by their proper functional term.

as far as resonators go, you seldom have to change them as often as your muffler, since they are merely a shaped tube which reflects the harmonic sound wave back on itself. A muffler has baffles which burn/ rot out.

Of course, some cars have crappy factory exhaust piping which burns out even faster than the muffler does.

You get what you pay for in most cases, the cheap disposable commuter car probably won't have agood stainless steel piping like the higher end car does.

[tiki]

I think giving people their own money back is always a good idea. Most of them will spend it and someone will be making it and pay taxes on it next year.

[DuncanWaring]

The figue I gave was from a every man woman and child article.

In that case, the article's hosed.

$448,000 for every man, woman and child works out to roughly $135 trillion.

The worst-case figure I've heard is $53 trillion if all the unfunded liabilities are accounted for.

[Libloather]

What I need is a laptop for a writers’ conference in March. I need one that will hold a fairly large amount of material [book manuscript capacity]. Any suggestions?

Asus M70S laptop has 1TB hard drive
January 3, 2008

Asus hopes laptops with 1TB (terabyte) hard disks will become the norm for multimedia enthusiasts this year, and plans to show off its first model featuring two 500GB drives at CES.

The Asus M70S includes two 500GB Hitachi Travelstar 5K50 hard drives, also announced today, and offers a digital/analogue TV tuner and video recording capability as an option to help users make the most of the extra storage space.

Asus M70

The M70S also includes a 17in widescreen display at either WXGA+ (1,440 by 900) or WUXGA (1,920 by 1,200) resolution, an Intel Core2 Duo processor (either the T7700, 7500, 7300 or 7100), an ATI 3650 graphics card, webcam, fingerprint reader and 1GB of memory.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=1504&blogid=18

[Nathan Zachary]

The number in the article was $38,000. I never bothered to check how accurate it was. Since no one really knows what our actual national debt really is, I figured it was a waste of time. Besides, it wasn’t the point of the article. the point of the article was government spending is out of control and debt isn’t being paid down.