Dr. Frank's What's-it

yeah, the self employment tax is pretty ridiculous. i'm not sure how i'm going to afford to pay it...

Buy a house, Frank -- that way you can write obscenely large checks to the bank instead of to the gov't.

Taxes here in the states - regressive, anti-lower income and favoring people of wealth like yourself - are lower than in any developed nation in the world. You should be thankful that you are not working class like some of us. The payroll tax...now that's a "red menace." If no taxes, no infrastructure is what a person is looking for, go move to Biafra or Ethiopia.

Ha! I'd bet I'm lower-income than you, buddy.

Not a chance, not even without the book deal. On my pay, I can only afford to live in a little midwestern town. If I tried to live in Berkeley or London on my pay, I wouldn't be able to afford a box.

Here, here!

Is bragging about whose poorest just another bay area thing that I don't understand?

"You should be thankful that you are not working class like some of us."

Writing ain't workin', Dr. Frank...you capitalist, exploiter of a robber baron pig.

Mea Culpa, JB. Just like the black helicopters that apparently circle overhead on a a round-the-clock basis...and that I have apparently failed to observe, I should have known that sitting around in a Berkeley coffee shop for a few months out of the year typing "literature" is the same thing as hitting the concrete for eight to ten hours per day. I guess I should also keep in mind that referring to this great country - for which millions have given their lives in defense of - as a communist country is a perfect analogy. Stupid twits you. I've had bloody enough of this site, though I respect this writer's wit and the years that he toured around the country, making me laugh, and making each day one more day not to give it all up. It's sad what we have come to. I guess its tough to spend all those years at the Bottleneck in Lawrence and at Gillman earlier on in my life, and then witnessing this incessant trashing of anyone to the left of Atilla the Hun. Tough break.

And by the way, JB, I wasn't trashing "writing" for a living. It's good work if you can get it (and Frank is definitely good at it, as long as he leaves out the politics and mystery angles). I don't begrudge people who are good at what they do, such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Barbara Streisand, or Frank. But I do resent this whining about taxes, and anyone who suggests that the self-employment tax is more oppressive than the kind of taxes some of the rest of us pay. makes some of us a bit queasy. Ok I am out of here.