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The Professor Nedley Series
Some Facts and Opinions
June1, 2007
This page offers some stray and unrelated facts and opinions that may be difficult to tell apart. They are the Professors and no one else's. If you disagree there is an email on the Home page and it may be posted or absorbed at the webmasters sole discretion.
Divorce Rate: Those of us from Point Loma High School, Class of "56, recently celebrated our 50th anniversary of graduation. As a long time family law attorney and judge I couldn't resist the temptation to look at marriages and divorces. We've all heard that the divorce rate is 50% or stated differently that half of all marriages end in divorce. The problem is that there is really no finite point at which to do this calculation. Do you calculate the statistic after 5 years? 10 years? or when? Well I figured that after 50 years of being of marriageable age (a few jumped the gun) you could actually do a legitimate calculation. There should be few divorces after 50 years to distort the statistics. Of the people that responded to the reunion book there were 118 marriages (out of 125 people). Out of those 118 marriages there were 74 divorces (some contributed more than others, they know who they are) for a divorce rate of 63%. High? Probably not, pretty consistent with the population would be my guess. Remember these are folks out of the old school. We are actually Pre-Boomers. These statistics may be quoted without fear of contradiction. Therefore this goes down as a fact.
Taxes - How Much do You Really Pay?: Let's just say for the sake of discussion that a person has taxable income of $75,000 annually, is single and is a W-2 wage earner.
| Federal Income Tax | $15,200 | 21.2% |
| State Income Tax | $6,975 | 9.3% |
| F.I.C.A. | $5,775 | 7.7% |
| Sales Tax (7.8%x$37,500) | $2,925 | 3.9% |
| Gas Tax (667 Gal'sx18.4c) | $123 | 1.0% |
| Beer ($18/Barrel) | $108 | 1.0% |
| Hotel Tax ($12/Night) | $120 | 1.0% |
| Wine ($1.97 Gallon) | $102 | 1.0% |
| Cigarettes (Stupidity Tax) | $100 | 1.0% |
| Airfare (9%) | $100 | 1.0% |
| Telephone (3%) | $50 | 0.5% |
| Your Choice | $100 | 1.0% |
| $31,678 | 50.1% |
Fact or fiction? Your call. I took the rates right out of the book.
The Iraq War: Five years ago I thought, as I was listening to the morning news and hearing about "Shock and Awe" - "Migod we're invading a sovereign nation". My basic thought has never changed. "What on earth are we/were we thinking". The decision in court would have been simple - we have no jurisdiction to proceed.
Couples & Families: