September 16, 2021

83% of this County voted to recall Newsom.

Lassen County, CA


Has anyone EVER heard of them?? A little bit of Alabama in Northern California?

Seriously though... what makes it so GOP? As far as I can tell, it's not full of Golf Clubs and such things... and doesn't seem like a "Sundown Town" either... why so RED? Idaho for people who want to live in Sandpoint but need California State benefits?

September 15, 2021

CNN Poll finds Americans angry and dark...

A few highlights (lowlights):

74% of Americans say they're "very or somewhat angry" about the way things are going in the US today. Includes 88% Republicans, 70% Independents and 67% of Democrats.

69% of Americans say that things in the US are going "Pretty or Very badly", including 91% of Republicans, 72% of Independents and 49$ of Democrats

77% of Americans say it's important that the US Gov't "stops the movement of undocumented immigrants into the US" including 95% of Republicans, 76% of Independents and 52% of Democrats.

77% of Americans say they're worried about the economy, including 85% of Republicans, 76% of Independents and 70% of Democrats.

70% of Americans say they're worried about COVID-19 including 49% of Republicans, 67% of Independents and 89% of Democrats

69% of Americans say their views are "not too or not at all well represented in DC" including 90% of Republicans, 77% of Independents and 45% of Democrats

57% of Americans are "worried about the risk of crime" including 53% Republicans, 56% Independents and 61% of Democrats

56% of Americans worry about the "impact of racism" including 31% of Republicans, 53% of Independents and 80% of Democrats

CNN/SSRS survey of 2119 US Adults 8/3-9/7


This needs to change or 2022 will turn into a temper tantrum of epic proportions.

September 13, 2021

Hear me out... Corporate Tax Increases are a coup-out vs taxing the wealthy.

This is going to take a few minutes here. Please read it all and wait to pass judgement.

Summary:

You're squeezing money out of the wrong people, primarily the consumer, the employee and the shareholder.

A link from Harvard Business Review for those who don't believe me:

https://hbr.org/2014/08/who-pays-corporate-taxes-possibly-you

Ok... in my own words.

So Apple taxes are going up... that means that rich bastard Mr. Apple will whip out his checkbook and write a big check to the US Treasury, right?

Oh wait. There IS NO Mr. Apple.

You see... Apple is a Corporation. That means that it's a business that is quite literally cut up into 16.7 Billion little pieces called SHARES.

Each of those shares is worth around $148 as of today.

But WHO owns those shares you ask... some rich bastard right?

Chairman of the board Art Levinson does indeed own 4.6 million shares of Apple. Tim Cook owns 830k shares. And the COO Jeff Williams owns 490k shares.

But wait, WG... you said Apple is split into 17 BILLION shares, right??

Well... Vanguard owns 1.3 BILLION shares of Apple.

Oh wow, Vanguard! Isn't that the same company that runs my company's 401k and investment accounts? Yes sir.

BlackRock, Berkshire Hathaway... etc

But wait, there's more. CALPRS the largest California State pension fund holds more than $4.5B of Apple stock. CALPRS pays the retirement benefits of retired firefighters, school teachers and cops...



So bottom line it. Who pays increased Corporate Taxes?

Remember how I said Art Levinson owned 4.5 million shares of Apple? Art doesn't give a shit if Apple's Corporate Tax Rate goes up. In fact, he PREFERS it compared to the alternative.

Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. They will adjust their business plan and operations to maintain a level of profitability. 17 billion shares of the stock are relying on that value to be preserved and expect it to go UP.

Remember how Taiwan Semiconductors just announced a 10-20% increase in chip pricing? What will Apple do? Will they eat the price increase of the chips and reduce profitability? Or will they increase pricing on products or cut labor costs or reduce infrastructure costs?

One thing they sure as fuck WON'T do is eat the cost.

Corporate Taxes? It's just another business expense. No different than the cost of chips, Gorilla glass or Chinese labor.

There are 3 alternatives for Corporate tax increases:

1) Consumers pay more for products, aka consumers pay increased Corporate Taxation.

2) Apple reduces the workforce or cuts back salary to compensate, aka employees pay the tax.

3) Apple allows the profitability to drop, lowering the value, aka the stock price... hurting investors including school teachers and firefighters.

Back to Art Levinson...

He doesn't give a shit.

iPhone prices will go up, the cost of AppleTV will go up and maybe iCloud will become more expensive but HIS shares will continue to appreciate and he pays SHIT in taxes.

Corporate Taxation is a cowards move. We need to go and get the money where the money IS.

Wealth Tax, NOW. Per-Transaction Wall Street fees, tax all Capital gains as regular income, 50%+ top marginal rates, etc etc... you should NOT be able to make $50K in an afternoon on the golf course while the stock market is up and pay 15% tax rate...

What are politicians afraid of?

And making the $5M+/yr pay more taxes?? So the guy making $4M/yr is fairly taxed? Wtf????

September 11, 2021

One Woman's Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia

https://www.wired.com/story/one-womans-mission-to-rewrite-nazi-history-wikipedia/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Just a fascinating article... an interesting look inside Wikipedia and the water-cooler politics.

I certainly admire her but am unsure about her "Karen Editing..." literally deleting entire entries of people because... Nazis.

History is the ONE place that Nazis and Klansmen and Confederates and Genghis Khans horsemen can exist.

I think I can see her Soviet upbringing shining through.

September 8, 2021

Should Political Affiliation receive Title 7 protection as a Protected Class?

Just throwing this out there.

I would need to read more opinions and summaries to form an opinion.

I know it's popular to support punishing political adversaries at times... but should it be OK?

Here's an interesting paper

https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/jlp/vol26/iss2/4/

As the political climate in the United States becomes increasingly divided, more and more employees are fired for their off-duty political speech. Political speech is highly protected from government interference under the First Amendment, but it is not
well protected from discrimination in employment matters.

This is despite the fact that employers can be just as powerful and influential as the government. Although employee political speech is not currently protected at the federal level, there are a myriad of state statutes that protect employee speech from employer retaliation. Some of these state statutes protect speech on a broader level, others protect only political speech, and some states do not protect any employee speech from retaliation.

Because state statutes can vary so widely, a comprehensive federal statute protecting off duty political speech (that includes a framework for addressing speech made on social media) is a better approach to protecting employee speech. This Note proposes the inclusion of political ideology and speech as a limited protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to protect applicants and employees from discrimination based on their off-duty political speech.

September 5, 2021

Misinformation alert... SCOTUS did NOT rule on Constitutionality of TX law.

So many people think that SCOTUS just ended Roe v Wade.

They did NOT.

They ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing or some shit to challenge the Texas law.

That's all.

There ARE currently lower Court cases in the works... eventually SCOTUS will be forced to judge the actual Constitutionality.

Don't give up!! Don't mope!!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/us/supreme-court-texas-abortion.html