IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Student Loans and the IRS, Part 2 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

When I heard that discussion on the Brian Lehrer program with a telephone caller who was caught by surprise owing a capital gains tax in connection with a student loan, I also put that story on a neighborhood bulletin board.

One responder, a CPA I believe, provided a lengthy write-up of related tax issues. It was quite a  lot to absorb. However, another responder left some remarks from which I think the smoke may not yet have cleared.

Some of that second person's choice of vocabulary was quite unexpected. It included phrases like "entitled brats", "free income", "favor high taxes on OTHER people" and more. With no knowledge of the radio caller's identity or history or personal circumstances, there was a willingness, even an eagerness, to invoke negative judgment. To me, that kind of reaction signals what I see as profound cynicism.

So what is a cynic? Consider the following made-up rant which might shed some light on that.

"You think you can pull one over on me?? Oh, yeah??? Well, you can't fool me, not even for a second. I know all about your kind. I know what you want to do. I know what your game is. I know what you're planning and I'm not going to let you get away with it. No sireee!! I'm way too smart to fall for your tricks. See??"

This kind of recitation, (Something very much like this was once actually aimed my way.) reveals a reflexive quickness to judgment and betrays a profound overconfidence in the cynic's assessment of personal analytic ability. For a cynic to truly know what this rant avows to be known would require telepathic ability. No member of our species has ever been shown to have that.

A sad aspect though is that such a cynic can carry that thought pattern into every aspect of life. Whether at work or at home, I don't think anyone who is predisposed in that way can ever experience being peacefully happy. There will always be something coming to mind that is either threatening or offensive or both.

Such perpetual tension means that for some people, happiness is self denied.

When - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

When the first color television sets went on sale in the mid-1950s, their key element was their picture tubes, their tri-color cathode ray tubes. Electron beams had to be aimed at color dots very precisely in a chore called "convergence".

Attaining convergence was a difficult challenge. I remember reading lots of articles in television repair magazines instructing the reader how to achieve convergence. Sometimes the described processes had to be repeated several times over.

"When ya gonna buy a color TV, huh???" was a question I seemed to hear over and over with the usual answer being "When they get it perfected." 

Around 1964, there was a whole lot of hoopla about introducing europium into the color picture tube phosphors. Suddenly, as I recall reading, colors were brighter, more vibrant, more stunning and all kinds of other superlatives.

I still heard the same Q and A though.  "When ya gonna..." followed by ".... perfected."

Eventually I guess, some level of perfection was achieved because nobody of my acquaintance still watched black-and-white television, even before the advent of HDTV. For all of that multi-decade history, the worst consequence of imperfection was making Perry Como look like he had a greenish complexion. There was nothing dangerous about perfection's absence.

Today, we have a similar situation, but one fraught with real danger. I refer to electric vehicles and their lithium-ion batteries.

Issues of vehicle range, issues of charging problems, issues of tire wear, issues of lithium metal availability and so forth are making the news but the real issue to me is lithium-ion battery fires. Tesla's vehicle fires, Tesla's battery factory fire, E-bike fires, the Chevrolet Bolt fires and its discontinuance and then its re-introduction (Trust us. We got it right this time.) are to my mind all examples of an immature technology very much paralleling the immature color TV technology of yore.

Nobody was ever harmed from watching a mis-converged television picture, but battery fires have indeed done harm.

Will I ever personally purchase an electric vehicle?

Maybe when they get it perfected.

Student Loans and The IRS - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I was listening to radio station WNYC this morning, 8/21/2023, to the Brian Lehrer program. There was a substitute host and an interview guest discussing student loan forgiveness. A listener called in with a disquieting story. I will try to summarize it.

This young woman had a student loan with an outstanding balance of $23,000. Her loan provider offered to clear the account in totality if she could make a payment of $3,000. By much effort, the caller amassed that smaller amount and made the requested payment for which the provider did indeed close out the account. This was all well and good.

The surprise came when the caller learned from the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS) that the difference between the original outstanding balance and the payment she made would count against her as a capital gain on which she then owed the IRS a capital gains tax amount of $6,000.

Upon hearing this story, the interview guest's response (my paraphrase) was "Oh, yes. The IRS does treat those amounts as capital gains." which reply was delivered very matter of factly. The assumption seemed to be that of course this would be so and that everyone knows that.

The caller didn't know that and I certainly would not have known that either.

If you or anyone you know is in a similar student loan situation, I very much caution you and/or yours to be aware of this and to check out the tax implications, preferably with professional guidance.

"Oops - Something Went Wrong", Part 5 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

The following is an excerpt of my recent letter to The New York State Office of the Attorney General:

Good day.

I am writing to report a fraud being committed by LinkedIn Corporation.

Since October 22, 2010, I have been a paid subscriber to premium services of LinkedIn Corporation. As such, my subscription privileges include the ability to post essays to LinkedIn groups of which, at this writing, I hold membership in forty-nine such groups. I have made many topical posts over the years. My total to date is just over 1200. Recently however, LinkedIn chose to impose a new set of posting "limits" which may be referenced at:

https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a544801

By virtue of that newly introduced list, I am at this writing now blocked from making any posts whatsoever to thirty-five groups out of that forty-nine group total despite my having regularly paid for full posting privileges as a premium subscriber.

Full posting access is not being "limited" as LinkedIn has claimed. Instead, full posting access is being denied. It is analogous to purchasing a one gallon container of milk in a grocery store but receiving only eleven ounces. One could drink the eleven ounces, but it would be improper to have been fraudulently denied the remainder.

When an attempted LinkedIn post fails, this message appears: "Oops - something went wrong. We were unable to post at this time. Please try posting again." but trying again is never of any use. Trying again never works. I can find no correlation of that to the so-called "limits" chart at the above URL.

My attempted posting subjects have included mathematics, medical issues, engineering and scientific topics, anecdotal materials and so forth.

An example of blockage is shown as follows:

So far, LinkedIn staff has refused to accept this denial of services problem as a legitimate complaint despite their accepting my monthly payments for their services. Instead of being responsive to my input regarding this matter, I have been rebuffed, I have subjected to attempted deceit and I have been subjected to attempted misdirection. Each of those three can be described in further detail if useful.

A request I made for assistance from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) in mid-July has also come no avail. Having made their own inquiry to LinkedIn, LinkedIn still refused to provide remedy. That agency has therefore informed me that my unresolved issue is simply to be made a matter of BBB record and that the case there is closed.

A request I made for assistance from the Federal Trade Commission in late-July regarding LinkedIn has so far yielded no response.

I assert that the LinkedIn denial of posting privileges for which I am a paid premium subscriber constitutes a commission of fraud by LinkedIn Corporation. Further, it is my supposition that I am not the only LinkedIn victim.

I seek full and permanent restoration of those paid for posting privileges and I request your assistance to that end.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Changing, Changing - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I stumbled into an old Mutt and Jeff cartoon the other day which looked particularly familiar, even knowing that all of the cartoons under that title have long since been published.

Please check out these two dates and look very closely at the images at their respective URLs:

From January 3, 2015:         January 3, 2015

From August 12, 2023          August 12, 2023

Although the line drawings seem unchanged between the two dates, please note the extensive revisions of color and especially notice the almost completely rewritten text. Although the color changes seem arbitrary and I find it difficult to imagine why those changes were made, some of the text changes may have significance.

In the older first panel, Jeff's new beloved is referred to as a "midget" while in the newer first panel, she is referred to as a "dwarf". Although some websites consider the two words to be synonymous, some mention can be found that "preferred terms vary by person and community, according to the Little People of America website."  Maybe this was a response to perceived sensitivity.

In the older second panel, we find the expression "fit as a fiddle" while in the newer second panel, we find instead the expression "a-one". Maybe this represents accommodation to an evolution of slang. There are other examples of altered phrasing in the succeeding panels as well.

Nothing stays the same, does it. Change is everywhere, expected or not.

Monosodium Glutamate - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

There is an item sometimes found in food products called monosodium glutamate (MSG) which has been written about from time to time, sometimes by writers asserting that MSG is a harmless ingredient which can enhance the flavors of most any meal and sometimes by writers who refer to MSG as something to be very carefully avoided. I subscribe to the latter viewpoint.

Please see:  Search Result

I have personally known two people who having consumed an MSG bearing meal, were affected by severe dizziness, one of whom actually fainted. A third person I know reports severe diarrheic reactions each and every time MSG has been unknowingly ingested.

Two incidents related to this issue are worthy of note.

1)         I once went to a Chinese take-out store whose menu looked interesting but before placing an order, I asked if MSG was used there. The answer was "Oh, yes!!! We use it in everything. It makes everything taste very good." to which the clerk detected my adverse reaction and then said "We can leave it out if you like."

The intensity of that first response left me distrustful. Even if it were promised to not be used, there could be a temptation to put just a little of it in there (We would never know, right?) and then we at home would be dealing with the after effects.

I left without ordering anything. A few months later, that business had closed and was gone.

2)         A new diner went into business where we stopped in for what we anticipated would be our first time. As we went in and were greeted by the proprietor, we asked if MSG was used in their kitchen. The response was startling in its intensity.

"Oh, no!!!  If you have any special food needs, you don't belong here. You can just go and find someplace else to get something to eat!!!"

We did and we never went back.

That diner is still there though.