Life musings

Dropped off the docs to the tax preparer today. I make very little money and even *I* hate the way the tax system screws me over. I’d hate it even more if I actually made big bucks. i really do think we need a simple flat tax. 15% oughtta do it. It wouldn’t be so bad except that the tax codes aren’t even about rasing money to run .gov…it’s gotten into social engineering. They want people to own houses, since that presumably makes for a more stable and docile population, so they jigger the tax code to encourage you to own a house. Or to give money to approved charities. Or whatever other thing .gov wants to ‘encourage’.

Some Treasury secretary once opined, “What this nation needs is a tax system that looks like it was designed on purpose”. And it’s true. The tax code is the Winchester Mystery House of regulations. They never take anything out, they just add and modify whatever is already there.

I’ve been studying accounting and taxes for a few months now and let me tell you what I’ve learned: cash businesses rule. Seriously. Go open a car wash, pizzeria, adult bookstore, video game arcade, laundromat, or newsstand.

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Springlike weather has been going on here and i suspect that we *might* be done with the snow. This winter was a spectacularly annoying one. Not because it was harsh or anything, but rather because it kept doing a snow-thaw-refreeze cycle over and over. It got old real fast. Time to put air in the bike tires and get back to rising my bike around town.

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Saw Leupold’s new thermal imager today. It’s interesting but I wasnt terribly impressed. I was inside one of those big box stores and was playing with it. You could read residual heat signatures on objects, which was neat, but the effective range at which people registered as bright blips was a little short. I suspect it’s because the temperature in the building was a bit warm. Outside, at night, when it’s cooler the temperature contrast would be more pronounced. However, I could see this being a handy device for tracking wounded game or scanning your immediate area to make sure no one was laying in wait for you. It would probably also do a bang up job of seeing if a vehicle had been recently driven.

Interesting and would definitely be fun to explore, but not for the price. Resolution of the digital image was horrible, but I suppose that’s to be expected at this price.

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Also got to handle some newer guns….the CZ Bren rifle looked real nice, and I got to handle an MP5 clone from Zenith firearms. At $2k MSRP for either one, I’d probably stick with the AR15 for my .223 needs. The MP5 copy was cute, but for that price I could get three CZ Evo’s that would fill basically the same role. But…there’s just something so ’80s about the MP5….

9 thoughts on “Life musings

  1. that’s so weird. just thursday i spent half the day ogling the hk clones after i found an original pre86 import hk94 on gunbroker for 3500 starting bid. i had one in the 80’s, paid 600 bucks for it. traded it for an ar15 to get more range, that i thought i needed. had 10 german hk 30 round mags with it. several months later bush 41 banned them, why i don’t know. i keep hearing they will be imported again so i passed on the 3500 one, but it was tempting. i loved that little gun…

    • Good luck. Remember, HK hates you.

      As a side note, at a gun show recently I saw my first Springfield SAR-8 in the wild. I didn’t even bother asking for a price because, “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

      • ha! thanks for the reminder. i bought a colt 9mm rifle years ago as a placeholder for hk, never use it. that should tell me something. maybe i should sbr one of my carbines instead, save a lot of money.

  2. “The tax code is the Winchester Mystery House of regulations.” Perfect description.

  3. I’ve purchased two Armasight Zeus scopes in the past two years. The resolution is great. I can see large animals, and usually distinguish types, at approximately two miles, day or night. The first one I bought had the faster processor, which is completely unnecessary. The second had the slower processor with greater resolution capabilities. It made a huge difference. I love them both, but the second one is heads-and-tails above the first one. They will both bleach the background signal sometimes, but you can always see and distinguish your target heat source.
    Germanium is priced like diamonds, but it’s what focuses the heat into a signal that is then processed in the guts of the optic. Buying a bigger lense and better digital enhancement is the way to go!

  4. C Zero

    I bought a CZ EVO S3 Carbine awhile back at Cabelas on sale for 980.00. Seemed high but it was co cool looking,mouth the faux Silencerco suppressor on it just had to get it. Put a Vortex Sparc AR on it and this thing rocks! Fun to do drills with and as I reload 9mm fairly cheap to shoot. Less noisy than an AR for shooting around my retreat location which is always good.

    I too love the MP5 look. But to get one is really pricey.

  5. Now see, I’d like something like that Nikon, but mount much like the PVS-22 I so desperately want. I figure a thermal shouldn’t set me back as much ($5k) as the PVS-22.

    Anyone know where I can find one?

  6. I love the flat tax idea. Add to that, no deductions, none, nada, zip. If you lost money in a business venture, your bad. No mortgage deduction, it would be hard at first, but in the long run it would change people’s spending/saving habits for the better, in theory. I like fairtax.org, good ideas. I believe one version is a flat tax with your first 20 or 30K tax free, to help those who are really hurting or young or living on the cheap. The downside of simplifying the system is that all those accountants will be out of work. Is that a bad thing?

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