Bingo

 

A picture worth a thousand words

Corporate profit: Gold
Corporate income tax: Blue

Blankfein on the third rail

 

He's gonna get exiled from the upper class talking like that.

But wait...

[Bernie] Sanders took offense when [Lloyd Blankfein, longtime CEO of Goldman Sachs], in a 2012 segment on “60 Minutes,” said, “You’re going to have to undoubtedly do something to lower people’s expectations” that they will get their full Social Security and Medicare benefits because “we can’t afford it.” Blankfein advocated an increase in the eligibility age for both programs as well as other cuts because “entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.”

  The Intercept

What happened to make Lloyd sing a different tune?

Well, if you listen to that clip, the murder of the ultra wealthy health care CEO has billionaires worried that the rubes will "come after" them "with pitchforks."  They're sensing a Marie Antoinette moment coming.

Rare bird

Let's see what Bill has in mind

 

“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates, who turns 70 later this year, wrote. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”

[...]

Gates announced on Thursday that he now plans to distribute “virtually all” of his wealth — around $200 billion, he estimates — within the next 20 years, before shuttering the [Gates] foundation on December 31, 2045.

[...]

Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus on three main goals: ending preventable deaths of moms and babies, eradicating deadly infectious diseases and lifting hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty.

[...]

Gates accused fellow billionaire Elon Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” because of his work at the Department of Government Efficiency cutting US international aid programs. In an event in New York on Thursday announcing the commitment, Gates said he met with Trump in February to express his concerns, in particular, about cuts to USAID.

  CNN

I guess that fell on deaf ears. I wonder if that spurred his decision to handle his wealth in this way.

Gates wants to accelerate the foundation’s work on global health and equity initiatives and hopes the move will set a model for other billionaires, he said in a blog post published Thursday morning. The pledge builds on Gates’ track record of promoting philanthropy. He, along with ex-wife French Gates and Warren Buffett, launched the Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage wealthy individuals to donate most of their fortunes to charitable causes either during their lifetimes or in their wills. It now has more than 240 signatories.

[...]

The $200 billion he expects to give away through the foundation over the next 20 years will come from its existing $77 billion endowment and his personal wealth, including any earnings from ongoing business investments such as TerraPower, the nuclear power company he founded.

[...]

The announcement comes weeks after Microsoft, now worth more than $3 trillion, marked 50 years since it was founded by Gates. “It feels right that I celebrate the milestone by committing to give away the resources I earned through the company,” he wrote.

See a pattern?

 

Also, guess what year Citizens United (allowing corporations to be considered people for the purposes of campaign contributions) was passed.

Yep.  2010.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the real "wealth redistribution" in this country.

And they're just getting started

 

Out loud, no shame

Jesus Christ.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The obscenity

While people go homeless and hungry.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The rich are killing us

Rather than reduce carbon emissions from factories and power plants, the Forest Service is considering piping them to national lands and storing the C0₂ underground.  Don't think that's a good idea? 

The Forest Service has opened public comments on the proposed rule change until Jan. 2, 2024.

  NPR

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Inflation isn't the real problem

I won't excerpt this Robert Reich article, because I think it's all worth reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The rich get richer...

Raw Story has uncovered a secret IRS tax favor for the super-rich—authorized when Donald Trump was president—that will take effect on Thursday, July 1. President Biden can stop it with one phone call. Will he?

The Biden White House was unaware of this Trump tax favor—disguised as a crackdown on wealthy tax cheaters—when Raw Story asked about it on Friday.

That's not surprising because the IRS remains under the control of Charles Rettig, a holdover from the Trump era. Before Trump named him IRS commissioner, Rettig was a Beverly Hills tax lawyer who helped the super-wealthy escape taxes and—if they got caught cheating—negotiated secret settlements that avoided public humiliation while minimizing taxes and penalties.

[...]

What makes this Trumpian scheme diabolical is that on the surface, it appears to be a 50% increase in enforcement of gift and estate tax law, areas where cheating is rampant. Actually, it's the opposite.

[...]

Detecting these tax avoidance tricks and then figuring out how much tax is due requires sophisticated skills, especially in understanding legal doctrines and court decisions. The new hires need only minimal training, none of it in contract law.

So, while it appears the IRS is beefing up its auditing power, it is simultaneously moving to assign the work to employees less likely to detect cheating and when they do much easier to dupe. Imagine your local police department announcing it would no longer hire homicide detectives but instead assign future murder cases to patrol cops.

  Raw Story

Continue reading.

Tax cuts for the wealthy have long drawn support from conservative lawmakers and economists who argue that such measures will "trickle down" and eventually boost jobs and incomes for everyone else. But a new study from the London School of Economics says 50 years of such tax cuts have only helped one group — the rich.

  CBS

The whole idea was bullshit from the start. Surely nobody ever thought otherwise.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Brilliant move by the rich

As the rich have rushed to escape to their luxury retreats, local officials are reporting a disproportionate rise in Covid-19 cases and getting increasingly angry and worried about cases overwhelming small local hospitals.

In Ketchum, Idaho, the nearest city to the luxurious Sun Valley ski resort, Mayor Neil Bradshaw warned that the region was not the a place for a “virus vacation”.

[...]

As of Thursday, there were 351 confirmed cases in its county, which is home to only 22,000 people.

[...]

Sun Valley is in Blaine county, which is now host to nearly half the statewide total of cases. The outbreak there has overwhelmed the region’s only hospital, which has one ventilator and was partially shut down after several of its doctors were quarantined.

What is happening in Idaho is reflective of a national trend. Rural counties with recreation economies show higher coronavirus infection rates, according to an analysis by the rural news site Daily Yonder, with rates that are more than three times higher than those of rural counties with other kinds of economies.

An analysis in the Salt Lake Tribune showed that these areas had some of the highest cases per capita in the country, rivaled only by New York City and New Orleans.

The two rural recreation counties with the most cases in late March were home to the popular ski resort spots Vail, Colorado. and Park City, Utah.

A cluster of cases in Vail has now been tied to cases in Mexico, after 400 people, including business executives, took two chartered flights to visit the resort from Guadalajara. At least three high-profile executives tested positive after returning from Vail.

In Park City, home to the Utah’s largest ski resort, city leaders urged people to stay away.

The town, which helps draw more than 4 million skiers to Utah each year, was the first place in Utah to see community spread of coronavirus and has had an especially high concentration of cases.

[...]

New York City residents fleeing the coronavirus for upstate getaways and homes in the summer hotspots on Long Island are also angering residents. “Put the National Guard right at the damn Hudson River or other points, nobody crosses that line,” wrote one upstate New York commenter. “Think about our families too, STAY DOWN THERE.”

  Guardian

Yeah, they don't care about YOUR families.

Palm Beach county in Florida now has the highest death rate from Covid 19 in the state, 27 out of 144 deaths across the state so far. Palm Beach is home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

Unless your money can buy private doctors and ventilators to install in your resort suite, you should stay the fuck at home.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bingo

This is in regard to Michael Bloomberg's bid for the presidency, but it's a basic reality for all.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The upper crust: horders and money-launderers

A US congressional report in 2013 estimated there were 3,500 free ports across 135 countries, hosting tax-free zones spanning from car production to fine art storage.

One of those zones, and a potential model for the UK’s post-Brexit future, can be found at the end of a motorway, in a warehouse backing on to Luxembourg airport.

This is no ordinary warehouse: Le Freeport is a maximum security centre for the super-rich to store art, fine wine, vintage cars and other treasures. Roughly the size of three football pitches, Le Freeport has four bullion chambers, space for 750,000 bottles of wine, and airport landing bays designed for armoured vehicles.

The squat four-storey building is designed to look like a jewellery box, not an obvious feature to the casual viewer looking through the barbed wire fence and metal gates.

The interior is said to be luxurious, with chic rooms for wealthy clients to arrange sales or simply contemplate their treasures within the confines of the thick walls.

[...]

The draw for super-rich clients is not having to pay import taxes, VAT or capital gains tax on anything stored or sold within its confines. Promoters say clients benefit from lower insurance premiums and the easy access to the airport tarmac.

[...]

“In 2015, the government decided to evaluate the free port in Luxembourg and came to the conclusion that there were indeed money-laundering risks,” said Djuna Bernard, co-president of Luxembourg’s Green party in a statement.

[...]

Since 2015 the three logistics firms licensed to work in Le Freeport have been obliged to keep records of the beneficial owner of property stored in the warehouse. Luxembourg customs officers inspect everything that arrives through the doors.

[...]

The European parliament thinks Le Freeport remains a money-laundering risk.

[...]

Luxembourg’s Indirect Tax Office (AED) found Le Freeport to be “high risk in relation to money laundering”, according to evidence collected by the European parliament.

[...]

Companies working at Le Freeport also say strict laws have cost them clients.

The unexpected introduction of anti-money-laundering rules put Le Freeport at a “competitive disadvantage”, one Freeport logistics operator told the European parliament. “Clients like their privacy and are thus reluctant to provide their data. The same goes for merchants and dealers,” said the operator, who estimated Luxembourg’s tougher rules cost them up to 30 clients, who went to rivals with “more discretion”.

[...]

There are dozens of free ports inside the European Union, but all have to abide by EU law, including an update of anti-money-laundering rules that comes into force in 2020, obliging free ports to carry out due diligence on clients.

  The Guardian

Leaving a rich possibility for less scrupulous governments. The rich don't like being told what to do. But can they trust the security in third world countries? I foresee a dilemma for the one percent.

After Brexit or a Brexit transition period, the UK would no longer be obliged to follow EU anti-money-laundering rules.

Saved by the Brexit.

Kellyanne and Junior weigh in

What about the dozens who weren't Hollywood actors, Kellyanne?

And then, Junior...

No sense of irony at all.

And he deserves all the shit he got.

Such as...

Awww.  He didn't know.

UPDATE:

The rich are not like you and me

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:







UPDATE:

No sense of irony at all.

And he deserves all the shit he got.

Such as...

Awww.  He didn't know.

What Fox viewers didn't get to see

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Fairness ideology is ruining this country

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Taking on Davos

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.