Miniglean

• The program to help Nevada's poor pay their skyrocketing electricity bills is currently funded to the tune of a relatively paltry $2.4 million and about to run out altogether (Sun). No doubt the nanny-state liberals will complain that here again is yet another example of how Nevada's safety net is threadbare and riddled with gaping holes. But consider this: That $2.4 million is nearly half the $4.9 million that former Sierra Pacific/Nevada Power CEO Walt Higgins was paid in 2007. And what other state's energy assistance program is so generous as to equal half the salary of an individual utility executive, hmmm?
• In his latest weekly memo, Lord High Chancellor Jim Rogers argues that people don't understand how much university professors work because he pays the anchors on his TV station $300,000 a year. Wait. What?
• The nation's worst governor jokes about being a pathological liar who improperly uses the influence of his office and commits fraud to avoid paying a few thousand dollars in taxes (RJ). Well, it is pretty funny.
• Bitchy Little Area Megalomaniac Sheldon Adelson has decided that he doesn't need to build a casino in Kansas because Missouri is going to loosen betting limits and let problem and pathological gamblers lose all the money they have as well as all the money they can borrow or steal just as fast as they can (CNN). Now, clearly, is no time to raise the gaming tax.
• Congress isn't going to do anything meaningful until President Obama moves in so Harry Reid decides to take full-on slack-jawed yokel and dumb Okie Tom Coburn out to the parking lot and kick his ass for him. Hell, it's just something to do. RJ

Comments

[Dave404]

Gibbons has issues with taxes? How about Assessor Joe Aguirre's remarkable luck with taxes?!

He's got an acre of land in Logandale that has had a stable taxable value of $175,000 from 2007 right on through 2009. He paid $51,500 for it in 2004.

Mesquite are you short of property tax income?-just look at how the Clark County assessor values property in your town! Joe Aguirre just bought a brand new Pulte home in Mesquite last month for $270,640 and already the taxable value of the land and improvement has plummeted from last year's $192,000 to $105,000 for 2009. That's a 157% percent decrease in value from what Aguirre just paid! In JUNE! Lucky Joe, he'll be paying his property tax on an assessed value of $36,750 (that's less than what I pay on just my .15 acre of land, never mind my home and I live in the same County!)

Man, they said property values were dropping but I didn't think it was by this much!

clarkcountyassessor

[Not Bob]

Saying its a partisan attack was of course the predictable response to an ethics complaint filed by the Democratic Party. One has to presume that the state party "braintrust," so to speak, anticipated that response and must have wanted it to be perceived as a partisan issue.

I suspect "we're not Jim Gibbons" is going to be the basic theme of the Democratic state campaign this fall, just as "We're not George Bush" is going to be the national campaign theme. Pretty good position to be in, so long as the opposition can't find a way to distance itself from its own leaders, as well.

Which the republicans easily could by joining the ethics complaint.

Ball's in your court, Senators Beers and Heck.

[Fifth grader]

If the value of something drops by 100 percent it would be worth zero. If it drops by 157 percent it's worth a fancy negative number. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Fith-er;

It's all how you look at it....$105,000 x 2 is only $210,000, which is still another 57% less than his purchase price of $270,640.
Thus 157% less.

If something cost $10 and now it cost $20, one could say the price has doubled, but when I was negotiating multi-million dollar contracts we would call it a one-hundred per cent increase. $30 is a two hundred percent increase.

[temujin... khan of the yakka mongols]

...So if oil is 20 dollars a barrel in 2000 and 200 dollars a barrel in 2009...that is ten times the earlier cost.. what is the percent increase...???
thanx

[That Anonymous Guy]

Time for a quick math intervention:

Our fifth-grade friend is correct. You can easily have increases well above 100%, but any decrease exceeding 100% gets you into negative territory. To get a percentage change, you divide the amount of change by the original number (not the new number).

$192,000-$105,000=$87,000
$93,000/$192,000=0.45 --> 45% decrease

Or, if you use the $270,640 purchase price, you end up with a 61% decrease ($270,640-$105,000, divided by $270,640).

I apologize to the Gleaner community for my descent into math geekdom.

[That Anonymous Guy]

Don'tcha love when you have typos in your math formulas...

What I meant to say was:

$87,000/$192,000=0.45 (or 45%).

[temujin... khan of the yakka mongols]

...20 oil to 200 oil is 500 percent...???

[That Anonymous Guy]

$20 to $200 is 900%.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

[temujin... khan of the yakka mongols]

..And don't forget Dickie boy...

[temujin... khan of the yakka mongols]

Anonymous Guy are you still here.? Oil will close today at 125 a barrel....What does that look like percentage wise...??

[temujin... khan of the yakka mongols]

math check...??

$20 to $125 is 52.5%.....??

[temujin... khan of the yakka mongols]

...oops 525%...??

[The Dude]

Fuck it Dude, lets go bolwing.

[The Dude]

Bawling? Bowling?

Obviously I'm not a golfer.

[Dude]

Someone is totes stealing my identity. I can spell "bowling."

[Elmer Fudd]

Remember kids..."bolwing" is not wegal in Cwark County.

[Dude]

But it is in Pawump.

[8th grader]

3-1 would be a negative number?

[temujin... khan of the yakka mongols]

....Now cut that out....!!!

[Dude]

Geebus you guys are funny. Here's how the pros do it: They take the first number, the second number, and post it here:

http://www.newsengin.com/percentChange.php

It is never wrong.

[Goldy]

No one cares about poor people any more than they care about the CEO of NVP...

[Bob Beers]

Looks like an accounting convention in here, Hugh.

The Universal Energy Charge that is the primary funding source for this program transfers more than $11-million per year from tax payers to tax consumers. There's another $5- or $6-million per year in federal funding.

The $2.4-million you're referring to is cash-on-hand. But I'll bet even though all'y'all are complaining about $2.4-million, you're going to complain even louder about only $17-million per year in funding.