Archive for February 10, 2014

Who Pays More in Taxes, You or the NFL?

washington_redskins_helmet-10153

Leading question of course, the answer is you (if you paid anymore than $0 in taxes). The NFL is a tax exempt, not-for-profit organization.

Granted it’s not quite that cut and dry, revenue collected from merchandising and the NFL network falls under NFL Ventures which is taxed as well as the fees the NFL League Office collects from the 32 club teams. I will also be the first to admit that I am far from being an economist but there still seems to be something wrong and shady here.

The NHL and PGA also fall under this status (the MLB gave up the status in 2007 and the NBA has never been tax exempt) and the Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation recently estimated that taxes collected from the NFL and NHL would be more than $10 million a year.

I learned about this incidentally because some members of congress are trying to levy this status as a pressure for the NFL to change the racist name of the Washington Redskins.

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“Most Important NFL Commercial to Date!”

This is a pretty great commercial for all those who think the whole sports mascot racism isn’t an issue and too much of a fuss is being made over it. This spot speaks for itself, watch to the end. Kudos to the National Congress of American Indians (around since ’44) for putting this together-

Found via EverythingYouLoveToHate

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Slap-dash Friday Night Put-Together Links

Theater Gates: The Rise of an Unconventional Art Star
Twitter accounts
Magic Pics
How to Grow an Avocado Tree from an Avocado Pit
Taking the Waters: the Sulfur Baths of Tbilisi
The Stories Behind 11 Regional Soft Drinks

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Five Years After

It’s hard to believe it has been five years since J Dilla passed. Phife from a Tribe Called Quest remembers him with a new song.

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“Girls” or Life Imitates Art

Like the need to gawk at an accident, I’ve watched the HBO series “Girls” and as my fiancé will attest I often comment on how ever character in show is a shallow, horrible person and I wonder if people like this really exist.

Today while reading a psychiatrist’s analysis of “Girls” it hit me, there are people truly this horrible and to find them all you have to do is watch any of the shows on Bravo. When Kelly watches an episode of the “The Real Housewives” and I’m in the room I have to do something that involves the use of headphones or leave the room entirely. The people on Bravo made me realize that “Girls” is life imitating art and there are people who are that horrible that deserve my visceral contempt.

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What it Really Means CVS Edition

I’m not a big fan of CVS. At peak customer times every store seems to have 10 people stocking shelves filling the aisles with bins with only one person working the register creating a line of customers twenty people deep. CVS recently announced they will no longer sell tobacco as a move to become more of a health store. As the article points out they still sell a lot of very unhealthy products in their store. My cynical guess is that they found that they weren’t making a lot of money cigarettes and they didn’t work well enough as a loss leader. This move has more to do with getting a marketing bump while eliminating a marginally profitable product than it has anything to do with creating healthier customers.

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