What is credit reduction? Any state that has not repaid money it borrowed from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits is subject to credit reduction. The Department of Labor determines what states will be subject to credit reduction. If an employer pays wages in a state that is subject to the unemployment tax laws of a credit reduction state, that employer must pay additional federal unemployment tax when filing its Form 940. This reduction is calculated using the Schedule A (Form 940).

For 2011, wages subject to the unemployment compensation laws of the State of AR, CA, CT, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, MO, NC, NJ, NV, NY, OH, PA, RI, VA, Virgin Islands, and WI are subject to credit reduction.

It’s funny, we live our lives with just a few contacts of people that we care about and that care about us enough to keep in touch with via phone, email or messenger, either from work or school, but as soon as you have a Facebook, you get countless “friend requests” from people that you may not even remember. These are people that just recognize your name, and probably, truth be known, are just nosey of your life’s situation.

I know a few people that live on Facebook. I mean live. They know every bit of drama that people care to openly share with all of their “friends.” They sit for hours looking through people that they may have only met once, and looking through all of their photos. Friends become one time waiters or waitresses, employees, customers, the list goes on, but it does with the obsession of stalking into their personal lives through what they share online. That usually leads to their friends or co-workers, and before you know it, you see someone that you’ve never seen before in person, and know all kinds of personal things about them already.

Do I have a Facebook account? I do, but these days I use it less and less. It’s become more of the old MySpace, or seemingly so lately. When I do use it, it’s mostly just to catch the news and updates with the 2012 campaigns, and what’s become my passion over the last year, supporting Ron Paul. If I didn’t work on a computer all day and just sometimes wanting to take a break from work, I’d probably have already deactivated my account. If my family wants to know what I’m up to, they should care enough to check on me. And my friends, both local and distant, we stay in touch regularly anyways via other means—the way it used to be.

Now I’m not against Facebook, just how some people get to the point that they begin to stop functioning if they’re away from it, and how it’s used as a tool to stalk people or find out people’s drama. As with all things, it depends on how you use it and how much you use it. That line is different for everyone, but I’ve pretty much laid out where that line is for me above.

A list of the albums I’ve enjoyed listening to during 2011:

Released during 2011:

• Mat Kearney — Young Love
• 3 Doors Down — Time Of My Life
• Red — Until We Have Faces

Released prior to 2011:

• Mat Kearney — City Of Black And White
• Goo Goo Dolls — Something For The Rest Of Us

Drive to work

On our way to work this morning, we pull out of our street and proceed up to an All-Way stop, where there will soon be a red light when the construction is finished. There was a guy on a Harley behind us, they’re crazy enough to ride year-round, and pulling through the stop, he does what they all do, ride your butt. As we approached the next stop light, he cuts through the median to get into the turn lane that is further down the road, and cut us off. There’s not many times that I feel that it’s appropriate to lay on the horn, but this was one of them. Annoyed by the horn, he starts kicking his left foot trying to land on the kick-stand so that he can get off his bike. Now mind you, this is one of your typical Harley guys, which by no means intimidate me whatsoever. I’m not sure why, but when you get a Harley, you instantly become a bad-a, or at least that’s what the majority of the riders believe. They’re usually big, hairy, foul-mouthed, etc., but I’ll still stand my ground with them instead of cower. He walks back, is shorter than me, and in the goofiest voice ever, we have the following short conversation.

• Biker: Is there a problem?
• Chase: Yeah, didn’t you see the yellow line? You went straight through it and tried to pass me.
• Biker: You tried cut me off, d*ckhead.
• Chase: Why don’t you learn how to drive?!

Nevertheless, his idiotic move caused him to miss his green light and have to wait a few minutes for another one. I can’t wait to run into him again though, I’m going to lay on the horn behind him, idiot!

KFC

We’re at KFC for lunch, waiting on our order to be prepared. KFC is NEVER busy, and usually just have a few employees staffed at a time. This elderly man comes in at a time when one girl is refilling the buffet, and the other is fixing another person’s order. After standing at the counter for maybe a minute, he yells:

• Old man: If you’re not gonna take my order, I’m just gonna leave! You need to get someone working in here!

Way to go sir, you just made yourself look like complete idiot. Would I serve you food if you were to come in there again? Heck no, I’d throw whatever you ordered right in your face. Don’t come into a place and start yelling like an idiot, even if you obviously are. That’s not how you get respect, and absolutely not how you get service.

Apparently having that many run-ins with despicable people make it seem like it’s bringing that side out in me. But this is just a very isolated case.

When 3 muppet fans learn that Tex Richman wants to drill under the muppet theater for oil Gary, Mary and Walter set out to find the muppets who have been split up for years Kermit lives in his own mansion depressed in hollywood, Gonzo is a high class plumber at Gonzo’s Royal Flush, Fozzie performs with a tribute band called The Moopets , Miss Piggy is the plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, and Animal is at a celebrity anger managment rehab center in Santa Barbara. Source

I’ll be honest, I really don’t remember the Muppets from when I was a kid. That’s probably because my thing back then was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I do remember Muppet Babies a little bit. We went today to watch the new movie, and given that Jason Segel, who’s hilarious on How I Met Your Mother, wrote it, it was a given that it would be good. And the truth is, the movie was great!

I’m against both of the taxes that are coming up for vote/renewal for different reasons.

I’m against the E-SPLOST because of the way our county operates it’s budget and has managed the previous E-SPLOST. I’m sure many will vote ‘yes’ on this for the sole reason that it has to do with funding going to education. But before one votes to give them another check to spend as they see fit, they need to look at the prior projects that E-SPLOST has provided. It’s almost a running joke around everyone in the entire county how they just can’t seem to ever have enough schools built. I don’t even know the number of schools we have now, because every time you turn around, another $20-30M school is being built. We’re to the point that we’re neglecting the older schools to give way for a future project-that project being to tear down and replace the neglected school rather than go the cheaper route and maintain the school. I went to the school that I’m talking about, and even though it’s been over 10 years ago, there is no way that it would be to the point that it is unsafe for the children if they had not ignored maintenance for so long. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that one of the contractors for all of these new schools has some ties to those that propose these sort of taxes on the voters.

I’m against the T-SPLOST because it’s a regional tax. My county, Whitfield County, would be a donor county, meaning that it’s citizens would be paying more in taxes than they would be receiving back through projects in their own county. This tax only makes sense if you are one of the poorer counties, and even then, it doesn’t make it right. These regional type proposals are nothing but disastrous. They are wealth distribution at it’s finest. If county A has transportation projects, let it introduce a tax for it’s voters only to cover the expense of the projects that they would be taking advantage of. If county B does, then same goes for it, and so on and so forth. We don’t need our officials taking money from one group and granting it to another.

And then in general, I’m against both of these taxes for the reason that it’s a bad time to be imposing taxes on anyone. Taxes inhibit economic growth. By letting the E-SPLOST tax expire, and not allowing the T-SPLOST tax to be imposed on us, there will be a slight bit of relief to the people.

Our county keeps talking about having to take money from reserves if the taxes don’t pass, but let me tell you this. Cut out your pet projects, those projects that are nothing more than favors to get you re-elected, and you won’t have to be raising taxes or taking from reserves. Look at how our population may be on the decline, due both to the immigration law and the pitiful economy, and you may also see that building new school after new school makes no sense, unless you want some vacant school buildings in the years to come.

Not everyone that is protesting is protesting for the wrong reasons. But seeing what some are there for, and their demands, alot of them are. If the movement was protesting the root of all of the problems in this country, our monetary policy, then it could potentially bring about the change that we need. The movement needs to focus on the end of the Federal Reserve, because the Fed is the facilitator of all things that are starving the middle class, and killing our country. It’s ability to print money out of thin air, allows our leaders to lead us into never-ending wars by pretending that deficits don’t matter. It allows the markets to make investments that it would not otherwise make by forcing artificially low interest rates which lead to bubbles that eventually burst, i.e. housing market. The Fed is the problem, plain and simple.

Instead, many of the protestors are protesting capitalism. Capitalism is the greatest thing in the markets, not regulations. Capitalism and true free markets allow companies that make products that are wanted by the populace make profits. And it also allows those that make products that no one wants lose and fail. Occupy Wall Street needs to be protesting crony capitalism (or corporatism), not capitalism. Crony capitalism is what we saw with the bank bailouts. It’s privatized profits and socialized losses. It’s allowing corporations to keep all of their profits, but force the tax payers to keep them from failing with bailouts of tax dollars.

Like bailing out the banks, they are also demanding student loan forgiveness. But, how fair can that be to forgive the loans of those that went to schools that they couldn’t afford, yet those that have worked their butts off, and have been able to pay their loans, not. And besides, student loan forgiveness, when the loans are backed by the government, means nothing more than transfering the debt to the middle class. Essentially another bank bailout type situation.

They are also calling for more taxes, but more taxes inhibits investments into the economy, and less investments mean less jobs. That’s a vicious cycle, especially for the middle class. More taxes are never the answer to fix a broken economy, only less taxes and fewer regulations.

I believe the movement needs to call for the end of the Federal Reserve, immediate withdrawal of all troops from foreign nations and wars, repeal the Patriot Act, and repeal of the 17th Amendment, to see changes that would begin to return our nation to that of one that is prosperous and free, as it was intended to be.