#corporate tax planing

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

Thsu is really important and shouldn't be ignored or looked over, these workers have been underpaid and without health insurance for some time now. What's worse is that people will demonize them for the crime of understanding the value of their labor and wanting better, as usual those people view workers from industrial manufacturers to service workers to be invisible or inhuman beings that do stuff for them. If anything I'm lucky Boeing has an awful reputation right which might sound strange but hesr me out, with everything going on with the suspicious deaths and widespread visible safety failures you'd look really bad defending Boeing in this strike given their current reputation, though you'll always have corporate stooges who love the taste of leather in their mouth. Dontate to the strikers if you can and promote the news regarding it, the more eyes and ears the better, don't let this simply fade from the news cycle!!!

[robinabobin]

"Tax the rich!" In response to the suspicious death of the boeing whistle-blower is the most Liberal thing I've seen on twitter.

[robertreich]

How Trump Killed Every Business He Touched

Trump’s entire candidacy is based on a lie.

TRUMP: I’m really a good businessman. I’m so good at business.

Not true. Trump is a business failure. Almost every business he’s touched, he’s driven into the ground.

RUBIO: You ever heard of Trump Steaks?

TRUMP: Trump Steaks are the greatest steaks, and I mean that in every sense of the word!

RUBIO: You ever heard of Trump Vodka?

TRUMP: It’s a smooth vodka. It’s a great-tasting vodka.

RUBIO: All of these companies that he’s ruined!

It’s true! Trump had a failed board game…

TRUMP: My new game is Trump the Game.

…a failed bicycle race called the “Tour de Trump”…

TRUMP: I think this is an event that can be tremendous in the future. And it can really rival the Tour de France.

…a failed football team.

TRUMP: It’s gonna stay strong. It’s gonna stay strong for a long time.

Trump decided it was a good idea to start a mortgage company in 2006.

TRUMP: It’s a great time to start a mortgage company.

That failed in less than two years. Let’s see, what else was there?

JOHN OLIVER: Trump Magazine, which folded, Trump World Magazine, which also folded…

ROMNEY: Whatever happened to Trump Airlines?

Oh! That was a good one! One of his planes had a crash landing within the first two months, which he insisted was “the most beautiful landing you’ve ever seen.” The business failed within three years.

Trump has even managed to bankrupt multiple casinos. How do you lose money running a casino?

There’s an old joke that the easiest way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one. And that’s exactly what Trump did. Multiple analyses show that if Trump had simply invested his multi-million-dollar inheritance in an index fund and didn’t touch it, he’d be a lot richer than he is now. Think about that. His entire life’s work has been less successful than if he’d done nothing.

And when he was president, Trump ran the country like he ran his failed businesses. He added $8.4 trillion to the national debt — largely through his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.

Trump has managed to survive every one of his business failures by leaving other people on the hook — leaving workers unpaid and shafting his investors.

The whole idea that Trump is good at business was a carefully-crafted illusion — concocted for a reality TV show. And like a lot of reality TV shows, we’ve come to learn it was all show, and no reality.

The only business Trump has been successful at is conning people. Now he’s trying to do it again. Don’t fall for it.

[solrabi]

Rich boyfriend Nanami learning about happiness in the mundane. He is so out of touch with reality, and he’s glad to have you in his life to teach him about it. In other words, you take Nanami to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

For a man who is extremely educated about finance and corporate politics, your boyfriend did not know anything about the real world.

You stared at him as he struggled to flip a pancake. He was insistent on making breakfast for you because he wanted to prove you wrong.

Nanami is the type of man who genuinely does not know how to do his taxes because he has a person hired to do that. He doesnt know how to do laundry because he has a team of housekeepers who baby him (out of kindness because he’s a great employer). He has no idea how to tip so when he’s told to give one, he’ll casually hand out fifty or hundred bucks like it’s nothing.

You’ve had to dig your nails into his arm to prevent him from doing the last one. There’s only so much money one can spend on a simple cup of coffee.

You sighed as you nudged the man to the side with your hips, and took the pan from him. “It’s simple, like this.” And you did a flawless flip, retaining the shape of the pancake.

“I could’ve done that easily.” Your boyfriend grumbled while staring at the pan- his mortal enemy for the past five minutes. “It’s alright, hon, why don’t you set the plates?”

You never realized it but Nanami was embarrassed that he didn’t know how to do simple things. At least not until you saw his red face and downturned eyes. The poor man had more than half the city in the palm of his hand but he still didn’t feel capable enough for you.

You put your hand on his as you placed a stack of pancakes on the counter. “How about we go on a special date?”

“Good, I’ve been meaning to take you flying in one of my newest planes. I found one with a cup holder that can fit your humongous thermos,” Nanami says nonchalantly, like spitting out hundreds and thousands of dollars for an airplane with insignificant amenities is the norm for him.

Which it is, but you just never got used to it, being from a humble background and all.

“No, I was thinking more…. local. I wanna take you to the restaurants I went to when I was in college,” you say as you pour him another cup of coffee (made with beans from an expensive supplier).

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sam Gustin at The Nation:

President Trump’s suggestion last month that the tragic Potomac air crash was somehow the fault of disabled federal air traffic controllers was appalling—but it should have come as no surprise. Trump’s contempt for people with disabilities has been well documented, and it’s that animus, combined with the accelerating MAGA assault on diversity throughout the United States, that has disability rights advocates preparing to defend decades worth of hard-won protections. One month into his presidency, Trump has unleashed a government-wide attack on people with disabilities, from anti-diversity executive orders to proposed special-education rollbacks to threats to slash programs like Medicaid that are lifelines for disabled people across the country. If successful, these actions could have catastrophic consequences for millions of Americans, according to disability rights experts. “This is a crisis for the disability community, and the threat is extremely serious,” Maria Town, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, told The Nation. “These changes have the potential to erode decades of progress that the disability community has fought tooth and nail to achieve.”

Within 48 hours of taking office, Trump signed two executive orders targeting what he called “illegal” diversity programs—commonly referred to as DEI or DEIA—in both the federal government and the private sector. Trump and his MAGA minions claim that these programs, which promote the worthy goals of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility throughout American society, discriminate against, well, them, and so they should be abolished. At a time when Elon Musk and his DOGE henchmen are racing to “delete” entire federal agencies and fire thousands of government workers, diversity programs have become a convenient target for the drastic budget reductions that Trump seeks—under the bogus guise of “waste, fraud, and abuse”—in order to cut more taxes for rich people and corporations. Hence the MAGA/DOGE crusade to demonize and scapegoat diversity programs for all kinds of calamities, from plane crashes to wildfires to train derailments. Thus far, most of the focus on Trump’s diversity rollback has been on “DEI,” but it’s the “A”—for “accessibility”—that has alarmed disability rights advocates.

“The hard-fought-for acceptance of people with disabilities in society is compromised every time Trump uses DEIA as a bogeyman for everything that’s wrong in society,” said Michael Rembis, a professor of history at the University of Buffalo and director of its Center for Disability Studies. “This purge of federal employees is in part designed to remove people who are perceived to be unproductive for both racist and ableist reasons from the federal government.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders roll back more than three decades of US policy since then——including executive orders signed by Clinton, Obama, George W. Bush and Biden—aimed at bringing more people with disabilities into the federal workforce and the private sector. From hiring and job training to career development and workplace accommodation, these policies have given many disabled people new opportunities to thrive, and a new sense of dignity after generations of mistreatment in American society, from ostracization to institutionalization to forced sterilization. Those advances are now at risk, and the impacts are already being felt nationwide, as funding cuts loom for community organizations that provide crucial services and support systems for disabled people, from home modification to job coaching to transportation and personal attendant services. “We’ve heard from many organizations across the country that are having to think about cutting their staff, reducing their services, or even closing their doors,” said Town. Disability rights advocates warn that Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders are just a prelude to even more draconian attacks. For example, Trump’s avowed goal to eliminate the Department of Education could jeopardize special-education programs for roughly 7.5 million students—15 percent of the US student population. Trump’s plan to cut billions in grants issued by the National Institutes of Health threatens long-term research and development focused on life-saving—and life-improving—treatments for millions of Americans. And, of course, any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and particularly Medicaid—and let’s face it, the GOP wants to eliminate or privatize these programs altogether���will disproportionately affect millions of disabled people who rely on the programs to survive.

[...] The Trump administration’s assault on government policies and programs that benefit disabled people is not just a scheme hatched in the bowels of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 anti-government boiler room—although it is that, too. It’s also the natural evolution of Trump’s long-standing prejudice against people with disabilities. Trump’s disdain for disabled people is well known, from mocking reporter Serge Kovaleski and insulting wounded veterans to reportedly telling a relative with a disabled son that “maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

[...] It’s no secret that Trump is obsessed with genetics, as demonstrated by his preoccupation with bloodlines and frequent comments about “good” genes, “bad” genes, “low IQ individuals,” immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America, and other bigoted remarks. In 1988, Trump famously told Oprah Winfrey that people must have “the right genes” to become rich. Since then, he has repeatedly compared his family to purebred “racehorses.” In 2020, Trump again invoked the “racehorse” theory to assure a mostly white Midwestern audience that “you have good genes in Minnesota.” And just last year, he intimated—outrageously—that immigrants commit murder because “it’s in their genes.”

[...] It’s worth noting that disabled people were among the earliest victims of the Holocaust, condemned to death by a Nazi program called Aktion T4, which involved the systematic murder of some 300,000 people in psychiatric hospitals in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Europe. Stramondo doesn’t expect anything remotely like that to happen in the United States, but he pointed out that sterilization and murder aren’t the only ways to advance eugenic goals. “You can practice and enforce eugenic ideologies that result in lots of people suffering and even dying just by doing something like eliminating Medicaid,” he said.

The Nation reports on Donald Trump’s attacks on DEIA polices and its impact on persons with disabilities, which goes along with his long record of ableism.

[yourlocalmeta1head]

I hate seeing these fucking videos of people who voted for Donald Trump regretting voting for him. If they had just done more research and didn't vote for him just because then the can "afford gas and groceries" they would've learned that if you are the average American your taxes will be higher and you will have larger bills. Donald Trump's tax plan does include a few cuts for the middle class but 83% of tax cuts that are included in Donald Trumps tax plan go to the people that are making over half a million dollars a year. Kamala Harris's tax plan would've been better because 100% of the tax cuts in her plan would go to members of the middle and low class.

Donald Trump has also reported "not being associated with project 2025" and "having nothing to do with project 2025" which is obviously false seeing that many people who are involved in project 2025 have served Donald Trump in one way or another. For example; Paul Dans, who is a former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personal Management under Trump is leading the project. In addition, Trumps campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has appeared in Project 2025 promotion videos.

Here are ways project 2025 could affect you and your personal life. Project 2025 would stop people from earning overtime pay. He wants to undo recent policy that made over 4 million people newly eligible for overtime. Project 2025 also wants to weaken child labor protections. In quote "The young people should be able to work inherently dangerous jobs" and work in rolls that are not allowed thanks to protections from the department of labor.

Project 2025 also says that they will quote "Secure the border, finish building the wall, and deport illegal aliens" Donald Trump is planing on doing mass deportations. He declared that once he takes office that he will use military to do mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

They want to make it harder for women to get abortions by removing it from laws and taking away approval for abortion pills. They want to stop some services that give out birth control and instead suggest less reliable methods. That might take away funding from clinics that provide abortions which could also affect other services those clinics offer. They want to promote traditional roles for men and women. They will take away protections and programs that help gay people, thus making it harder for them to be treated fairly and get the support they need. They might cut back on programs that help poor people get healthcare and other support meaning it could be harder for poor families to get the help they need.

These are some of the ways project 2025 will affect the climate. Project 2025 would rewrite the most legal tool we have for protecting wildlife in ways that would harm imperilled species. For example, it specifically calls for removing protections from gray wolves and Yellowstone grizzlies. They also propose to repeal the Antiquities Act, which would strip the president of the ability to protect the public land and waters of national monuments. Project 2025 would have agencies that manage the federal lands and waters to maximise corporate oil and gas extraction. Speaking of oil, the agenda directly aims to expand the Willow Project which the largest proposed oil and gas undertaking on the U.S. public land. This also calls for drilling into Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and mining into Minnesota’s Boundary Waters wilderness.

If you go to a public school congratulations. You are now required to take the military entrance exam. Page 134/ 135, "Improve military recruiters’ access to secondary schools and require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery—the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding." "Increase the number of Junior ROTC programs in secondary schools"

If you voted for Trump I promise you will regret it in the next 4 years.

Edit from after the election: Donald Trump is not lowering gas prices and adding tariffs to companys that import goods and to make up for that he will be increasing the price of these goods.

Trump has aslo started mass deportations and ICE has been spoted waiting at schools, breaking down doors, and there have even been reports of ICE deporting people who are AMERICAN CITIZENS. People should not be scared to do basic things in fear of being deported by ICE.

edit: here is a link to the project 2025 document where I got my sources from

[commandermeg]

What Star Trek Prodigy Means to Me

October 28th, 2024

Today is the third anniversary of the show premiere of Star Trek Prodigy! It's an exciting day for the fans as we celebrate the show and everything we like about it.

But it's also a day we celebrate our victory over the corporation who tried to axe the series for a tax write off, attempting to delete it from history much like Disney did to 'Infinity Train' - leaving only pirated copies for viewers to enjoy.

Thankfully, Paramount Plus' attempt was futile - because the fans fought like hellcats to save the show. Internet brigades, petitions, gatherings, podcasts, protests and videos… you name it, the fans have made it.

We've even flown planes over Los Angeles twice in the name of the show. We've made fandom history.

So what is it about Star Trek Prodigy that garners such a loyal fan base?

To me, it's simple. It's The entire message of the show.

Hope.

Hope is a weapon. Hope is a key to unlock opportunities and new ideas. Hope is the kind of glue that brings massive amount of people together in dark and trying times.

This show premiered during a very dark time in my life, and it brought in much needed hope. I've made friends for life through Prodigy, and the entire adventure with saving the show has taught me many things.

With a group of former slaves escaping to freedom and finally finding themselves traveling and exploring the stars - to me, Star Trek Prodigy is the core of what makes Star Trek actually Star Trek. Adventure, family, and hope.

Star Trek Prodigy is the hope for Star Trek's future - a show that brings together the old, the young, and the in-between. The fact that the execs wised up and gave it to Netflix means that, even if Paramount sets it's own pants on fire time after time again - our little show will be there in the future.

Not locked away in a vault for a tax write off.

So, Netflix? Don't repeat Paramount's mistake. This is the perfect time to renew the show.

And to the fans - streaming, buying merch, and even just posting about it, all help the show.

Much love! Meg -

@netflix

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The impoverished imagination of neoliberal climate “solutions

This morning (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

There is only one planet in the known universe capable of sustaining human life, and it is rapidly becoming uninhabitable by humans. Clearly, this warrants bold action – but which bold action should we take?

After half a century of denial and disinformation, the business lobby has seemingly found climate religion and has joined the choir, but they have their own unique hymn: this crisis is so dire, they say, that we don't have the luxury of choosing between different ways of addressing the emergency. We have to do "all of the above" – every possible solution must be tried.

In his new book Dark PR, Grant Ennis explains that this "all of the above" strategy doesn't represent a change of heart by big business. Rather, it's part of the denial playbook that's been used to sell tobacco-cancer doubt and climate disinformation:

https://darajapress.com/publication/dark-pr-how-corporate-disinformation-harms-our-health-and-the-environment

The point of "all of the above" isn't muscular, immediate action – rather, it's a delaying tactic that creates space for "solutions" that won't work, but will generate profits. Think of how the tobacco industry used "all of the above" to sell "light" cigarettes, snuff, snus, and vaping – and delay tobacco bans, sin taxes, and business-euthanizing litigation. Today, the same playbook is used to sell EVs as an answer to the destructive legacy of the personal automobile – to the exclusion of mass transit, bikes, and 15-minute cities:

https://thewaroncars.org/2023/10/24/113-dark-pr-with-grant-ennis/

As the tobacco and car examples show, "all of the above" is never really all of the above. Pursuing "light" cigarettes to reduce cancer is incompatible with simply banning tobacco; giving everyone a personal EV is incompatible with remaking our cities for transit, cycling and walking.

When it comes to the climate emergency, "all of the above" means trying "market-based" solutions to the exclusion of directly regulating emissions, despite the poor performance of these "solutions."

The big one here is carbon offsets, which allows companies to make money by promising not to emit carbon that they would otherwise emit. The idea here is that creating a new asset class will unleash the incredible creativity of markets by harnessing the greed of elite sociopaths to the project of decarbonization, rather of the prudence of democratically accountable lawmakers.

Carbon offsets have not worked: they have been plagued by absolutely foreseeable problems that have not lessened, despite repeated attempts to mitigate them.

For starters, carbon offsets are a classic market for lemons. The cheapest way to make a carbon offset is to promise not to emit carbon you were never going to emit anyway, as when fake charities like the Nature Conservancy make millions by promising not to log forests that can't be logged because they are wildlife preserves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/18/greshams-carbon-law/#papal-indulgences

Then there's the problem of monitoring carbon offsetting activity. Like, what happens when the forest you promise not to log burns down? If you're a carbon trader, the answer is "nothing." That burned-down forest can still be sold as if it were sequestering carbon, rather than venting it to the atmosphere in an out-of-control blaze:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/26/aggregate-demand/#murder-offsets

When you bought a plane ticket and ticked the "offset the carbon on my flight" box and paid an extra $10, I bet you thought that you were contributing to a market that incentivized a reduction in discretionary, socially useless carbon-intensive activity. But without those carbon offsets, SUVs would have all but disappeared from American roads. Carbon offsets for Tesla cars generated billions in carbon offsets for Elon Musk, and allowed SUVs to escape regulations that would otherwise have seen them pulled from the market:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

What's more, Tesla figured out how to get double the offsets they were entitled to by pretending that they had a working battery-swap technology. This directly translated to even more SUVs on the road:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.#Misuse_of_government_subsidies

Harnessing the profit motive to the planet's survivability might sound like a good idea, but it assumes that corporations can self-regulate their way to a better climate future. They cannot. Think of how Canada's logging industry was allowed to clearcut old-growth forests and replace them with "pines in lines" – evenly spaced, highly flammable, commercially useful tree-farms that now turn into raging forest fires every year:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

The idea of "market-based" climate solutions is that certain harmful conduct should be disincentivized through taxes, rather than banned. This makes carbon offsets into a kind of modern Papal indulgence, which let you continue to sin, for a price. As the outstanding short video Murder Offsets so ably demonstrates, this is an inadequate, unserious and immoral response to the urgency of the issue:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

Offsets and other market-based climate measures aren't "all of the above" – they exclude other measures that have better track-records and lower costs, because those measures cut against the interests of the business lobby. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, Yale Law's Douglas Kysar gives some pointed examples:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/climate-change-and-the-neoliberal-imagination/

For example: carbon offsets rely on a notion called "contrafactual carbon," this being the imaginary carbon that might be omitted by a company if it wasn't participating in offsets. The number of credits a company gets is determined by the difference between its contrafactual emissions and its actual emissions.

But the "contrafactual" here comes from a business-as-usual world, one where the only limit on carbon emissions comes from corporate executives' voluntary actions – and not from regulation, direct action, or other limits on corporate conduct.

Kysar asks us to imagine a contrafactual that depends on "carbon upsets," rather than offsets – one where the limits on carbon come from "lawsuits, referenda, protests, boycotts, civil disobedience":

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/aug/29/carbon-upsets-offsets-cap-and-trade

If we're really committed to "all of the above" as baseline for calculating offsets, why not imagine a carbon world grounded in foreseeable, evidence-based reality, like the situation in Louisiana, where a planned petrochemical plant was canceled after a lawsuit over its 13.6m tons of annual carbon emissions?

https://earthjustice.org/press/2022/louisiana-court-vacates-air-permits-for-formosas-massive-petrochemical-complex-in-cancer-alley

Rather than a tradeable market in carbon offsets, we could harness the market to reward upsets. If your group wins a lawsuit that prevents 13.6m tons of carbon emissions every year, it will get 13.6 million credits for every year that plant would have run. That would certainly drive the commercial imaginations of many otherwise disinterested parties to find carbon-reduction measures. If we're going to revive dubious medieval practices like indulgences, why not champerty, too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty_and_maintenance

That is, if every path to a survivable planet must run through Goldman-Sachs, why not turn their devious minds to figuring out ways to make billions in tradeable credits by suing the pants off oil companies?

There are any number of measures that rise to the flimsy standards of evidence in support of offsets. Like, we're giving away $85/ton in free public money for carbon capture technologies, despite the lack of any credible path to these making a serious dent in the climate situation:

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/072523-ira-turbocharged-carbon-capture-tax-credit-but-challenges-persist-experts

If we're willing to fund untested longshots like carbon capture, why not measures that have far better track-records? For example, there's a pretty solid correlation between the presence of women in legislatures and on corporate boards and overall reductions in carbon. I'm the last person to suggest that the problems of capitalism can be replaced by replacing half of the old white men who run the world with women, PoCs and queers – but if we're willing to hand billions to ferkakte scheme like carbon capture, why not subsidize companies that pack their boards with women, or provide campaign subsidies to women running for office? It's quite a longshot (putting Liz Truss or Marjorie Taylor-Greene on your board or in your legislature is no way to save the planet), but it's got a better evidentiary basis than carbon capture.

There's also good evidence that correlates inequality with carbon emissions, though the causal relationship is unclear. Maybe inequality lets the wealthy control policy outcomes and tilt them towards permitting high-emission/high-profit activities. Maybe inequality reduces the social cohesion needed to make decarbonization work. Maybe inequality makes it harder for green tech to find customers. Maybe inequality leads to rich people chasing status-enhancing goods (think: private jet rides) that are extremely carbon-intensive.

Whatever the reason, there's a pretty good case that radical wealth redistribution would speed up decarbonization – any "all of the above" strategy should certainly consider this one.

Kysar's written a paper on this, entitled "Ways Not to Think About Climate Change":

https://political-theory.org/resources/Documents/Kysar.Ways%20Not%20to%20Think%20About%20Climate%20Change.pdf

It's been accepted for the upcoming American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy conference on climate change:

https://political-theory.org/13257256

It's quite a bracing read! The next time someone tells you we should hand Elon Musk billions to in exchange for making it possible to legally manufacture vast fleets of SUVs because we need to try "all of the above," send them a copy of this paper.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff

[bea-l-zebul]

Pride Month is almost upon us once again folks, and I’ve been reflecting on that. I have some thoughts.

We’re not safe in the USA anymore

Not a huge revelation I know, most of us have been paying attention because we don’t have the choice to opt out.

If you didn’t know though, The ACLU just released a travel advisory for Florida. If you are a POC, a woman, or LGBTQ+ (especially Trans/Non-binary) it is not safe or advisable for you to travel to Florida.

Florida has already made it clear that they will kidnap Trans Children from their supportive parents and place them into abusive foster situations.

Apparently a trans person has already died from DeSatans newest law which allows doctors to discriminate and deny care to people based on “ethical or moral” grounds.

Florida has fully embraced the genocide of Trans and Non-Binary people. Full Stop. They have started eradication efforts through denial of medical care.

Pride can’t be about celebration this year. Not with this going on. We don’t have equality or equity, we shouldn’t be celebrating a “win” that doesn’t exist.

Pride needs to go back to its roots, it’s gotta go back to being a protest for our right to live life as we see fit, without fear of dying. Not some corporate block party tying to appeal to the cishets fragile heteronormative sensibilities.

If it causes “ally’s” to leave, fine, that means they were performative and were most likely causing division within the community anyway.

Pride should be a protest.

Im also suggesting we start boycotting products from Florida.

In the 1970’s when Anita Bryant started her “think of the children” shtick, the LGBTQ+ community boycotted Florida Orange. Gay Bars started serving “Anita Bryant’s” instead of screwdrivers, which used apple juice in place of orange juice.

Guess who inevitably lost her contract?

We need to bring the boycotts back, not because of a bigoted spokesperson, but because of where the tax dollars from purchasing these things goes.

Boycott Florida Orange, do not buy anything that contains orange juice, do not buy oranges.

Boycott Airlines that use parts in their planes from Florida, better yet don’t fly at all if you can avoid it

Same thing with smartphones, do not upgrade your smartphone “just because”, most smartphone parts manufactured in the USA are made in Florida.

Do not buy anything that is made in and/or shipped from Florida.

Do not go to Florida for Disney World, Sea World, or Universal Studios, in fact don’t vacation in Florida at all, do not let your money fund their tourist industry, which is (obviously) paying taxes to the state.

Protest This Pride and Hit Florida Where it Hurts for however long this takes.

[misfitwashere]

Strong winds

ROBERT REICH

DEC 12

Friends,

I’m sitting in the United Airlines terminal at the San Francisco airport. The plane I was scheduled to travel to Newark, New Jersey, has already been delayed three times. It was scheduled to depart at 1 pm. It’s now departing at 4:40 pm. 

They’re blaming strong winds in the Northeast. But another United scheduled to depart at 2:30 pm just took off on time. I asked the service attendant why the 2:30 pm to Newark had departed despite strong winds. He explained that the real problem wasn’t strong winds; it was a lack of air traffic controllers in Newark. My suspicion is United is trying to minimize the number of late flights; rather than risk two, it sacrificed my 1 pm. 

I asked the attendant if he thought my flight will actually depart at 4:40, because I have to get to a Hilton Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey by early enough to get a few hours sleep before attending meetings tomorrow morning. The attendant said “there are no guarantees. This flight could depart anytime, or it could be cancelled.” 

When I phoned the Hilton Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to tell them I’d be checking in very late tonight, I got a menu that told me to “press 2” to change or modify a reservation. When I pressed 2, an automated voice said I could not change my current reservation but could make a new reservation. The automated voice also said if I was experiencing any difficulty I should go to the Hilton website. 

I found the Hilton website, which asked me to fill in reservation number. But I didn[t have a reservation number. When I reserved a room, Hilton had given me a confirmation number but not a reservation number. I typed in the confirmation number but the website said the confirmation number was incorrect. 

I spent the next half hour trying to find a human being at the Hilton Hotel to ask them to keep the room for me despite my lateness. Finally, I connected with someone who didn’t understand what I was asking. I asked them where they were located. They said they were not permitted to say. 

It’s now 3:35 pm and I’m still sitting here in the United terminal in San Francisco. The customer service person I just spoke with told me the plane “may or may not take off.” I’m about to phone the people I was to meet with tomorrow to tell them I won’t be there. 

I relate this to you because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the frustrations that might drive people to vote for a strongman who promises to “shake things up” even if he’s intent on destroying our democracy, or might cause people to cheer for someone who murders the CEO of a giant health insurers. 

United Airlines is one of four remaining national carriers (there were ten in 2000). In the third quarter of 2024, had pre-tax earnings of $1.3 billion, with a pre-tax margin of 8.7%. In other words, it’s doing fabulously well. 

Hilton Hotels is almost as profitable. In fact, its net operating profits have shot up from what they were a year ago. It’s also doing fabulously well. 

Big American corporations are doing better than ever. The stock market has hit record highs. CEO pay is hitting new highs. 

But American workers and consumers are being shafted with lousy service at ever more expensive prices. 

Something’s got to give. Right?

[taxblgs]

Budget 2024: Key changes to corporate tax rate you need to know

In the Union Budget 2024, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a significant reduction in the corporate tax rate for foreign companies, lowering it from 40% to 35%. This move aims to enhance the investment climate in India and attract more foreign direct investment (FDI)

Need Expert Guidance? Consult a tax professional! Contact Taxring now to navigate the complexities of corporate tax and optimize your financial strategy.

Consult a Tax Professional - Click here

[ophilosoraptoro]

"You will own nothing, and you will be happy" has two meanings - one for the wealthy, and one for the rest of us.

The wealthy rarely own anything. Their cars, real estate, boats, private planes, furniture, appliances - none of it is purchased in their name. It's usually owned by a corporation, an LLC, or a subsidiary within a subsidiary, and loaned to the individual. That way, if they ever have to declare bankruptcy, or if the government confiscates their property for taxes, they have no property to confiscate or sell off, because they don't actually own anything.

For the rest of us, it means everything is rented, or a subscription service, which we have to pay for indefinitely, and we only have access to it as long as we stay on the good side of those in power. You'll be happy, either because you'll be fed brainwashing propaganda to convince you that you are, or all the unhappy people will be eliminated in some way. They could always drug you into happiness.

Don't get me wrong, it's a smart way of protecting your property if you are wealthy. That said, people like Klaus Schwab and George Soros have no interest in letting the peasants in on their secrets. They're content to let you struggle while telling you that there's something wrong with you if you're not happy. They live the capitalist lifestyle, and demand the rest of us live in socialistic serfdom.

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Eris' Tax Shelter

This one is both timely and a PSA for anyone wanting to make use of their Legendary Shards prior to the launch of TFS. So I give this to you here. Direct link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56339362

ACCESS: RESTRICTED DECRYPTION KEY:0GLVP1A437$IKO-006 REP#: 303-DERELICT-AUDIO AGENT(S): AUN-326 SUBJ: VIP#1316 AND ERI-223 INTERACTIONS - POTENTIAL BRIBERY, ILLEGAL LOBBYING & MANIPULATION OF TAX LAWS

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

"Finally, someone I actually want to check up on me!"

"I am observing some very strange Guardian behaviour on Luna and believe it may fall under your area of expertise, Rat."

"My area of expertise? How so?"

"It seems financially motivated and of questionable legality."

"Ha! This doesn't sound like a conversation we should be having on Vanguard comms. Why don't you come over for lunch?"

"Hmmm... you are probably correct. Will you make... the sticky rice?"

"Sticky rice needs to soak for several hours before I cook it. How about sandwiches for today and you come over for sticky rice lunch tomorrow."

"I enjoy your sandwiches. Unfortunately, I will be on Mars tomorrow."

"I'll bring it to ya. You coming over now or what?"

"I will be there soon."

.

"So, do tell me what Guardian behaviour requires my... what'd you call it? Expertise?"

"They are lined up at my Lectern of Enchantment to purchase Phantasmal Fragments at a rate and volume that is... extreme. I cannot imagine why."

"Oh! I do know all about that, actually."

"You do?"

"So, city administration just passed a law. Tax law. Goes into effect Tuesday. War effort stuff."

"I knew they were doing... something... I had not paid attention to what."

"Course not. Doesn't affect ya on the Moon, but that is, in fact, why it is currently affecting ya on the Moon."

"How does city tax law have any impact on the Moon?"

"It's the fact that it don't that's the impact. You, oh beautiful, three-eyed, former god of vengeance, happen to live in a zone which has never been part of city or Vanguard taxation."

"I am well aware. At one point the Cryptarchy attempted to claim some sort of jurisdiction over Sanctuary on Luna. Thankfully Ikora was able to put a stop to... whatever that bureaucratic ridiculousness was."

"Good thing too. You know those bits of legendary weapons everyone gets from disassembling shit they find lying around?"

"The shards, yes. That's what they are using at the lectern. They are not generating fragments with glimmer."

"Right. Come Tuesday, all legendary shards become property of the city to help with the war. They need the components to help fight off the pyramid forces on the ground, shore up the ADU's, build weapons for civilians, generally help keep shit movin' an' functional."

"This makes sense, although would that not render the shards financially useless?"

"Exactly."

"I can understand why they would spend them now then, but why on the Moon?"

"In addition to bein' outside any city taxation zones, and therefore, not technically by the letter of the law evadin' anything, your Phantasmal Fragments take up very little space, Moondust. And several places will still exchange 'em for glimmer, in particular the Cryptarchy and our friend who likes us ever so much, Rahool."

"Rahool is terrified of me and he loathes you."

"He and I have a uh... complicated relationship. But yeah.  Because the Moon is where it is, legally-speakin' there ain't any laws being broken.  And your fragments are super portable."

"I would assume so. They are ethereal whisps of nightmares manifested from the Ascendent plane. Their corporeal instantiation is minimal. They are barely quantified concretions from the energies of phantoms which only manifest fully under specific circumstances."

"Pieces of ghosts. Not like... Guardian ghost-ghosts, but actual ghost-ghosts."

"That is one way of putting it."

"And ghosts don't take up much room."

"I do not follow."

"They use your table to turn the shards into Phantasmal Fragments and then they can keep the fragments and sell them for glimmer later, rendering the soon-to-be-useless shards, useful, long after they cease to be able to be used."

"Hmmm..."

"People've been calling it 'Eris' tax shelter' on Vannet."

"The Lectern of Enchantment is something I built and utilized to harness the vile magic of the Hive in order to transform the negative energies on the Moon into components which can be used to fight the forces of the Witness. It is not a tax shelter! I must inform Ikora."

"You can do that, sure. But they are still using it as intended. It's just that its current intended use for this specific purpose happens to currently be... profitable."

"Are you using it?"

"Me? Nah. Do I currently have several high-density containment units filled with your Phantasmal Fragments? Yeah. But I've had that for a while. I got components for everything. You've seen what's on my ship. I ain't currently buying any from ya right now, nor am I gettin' anyone to buy 'em for me as a favour, if that's what you're wonderin'. I do enough things of... questionable legality already. Tax evasion is such an easily proveable activity. And since I am not a Guardian, when I'm not on the Moon hangin' out with you, I am, technically, under the jurisdiction of the city and subject to its tax laws as a resident thereof. I run a business outta the tower after all. I got several shipping crates of legendary shards just waitin' to be turned over to city authorities. And all the paperwork for it prepared too. Ol' Drifter's gonna be on record for being among the biggest donors of legendary shards to assist with the Last City's war preparations. Can't do that if I convert 'em."

"Hmmm... You are not an altruist, Rat. Why aren't you using this... tax shelter?"

"I am an altruist on paper, Moondust. That's where it counts."

"Why?"

"Different aspect of city tax law. Thing called tax credits. You donate in certain approved ways, you get a credit to count against taxes you'd otherwise have to pay. Gambit's been making quite a lot of glimmer for me. The more tax credits I get, the less tax I pay. If this goes the way it's movin' now, city's gonna end up owing ol' Drifter quite a lot of cash. They won't be able to pay, of course, so they'll need to work it out with me some other way."

"The entire city is going to owe you favours?"

"Hypothetically, yeah. That's one of the reasons why I may have... hypothetically... suggested it to the council in the first place, yeah."

"Wait... You're on the city council?"

"Not officially. I'm a... what you'd call an unofficial adviser. Very unofficial. In theory, purely in theory, mind you, some of the higher ranking members of city council might, hypothetically, owe me some favours and every once in a while I might ask 'em to vote a certain way or put forth a specific idea. Hypothetically, of course."

"You're manipulating the socio-political structure of the Last City to your own ends."

"If I were, not sayin' I am, mind you, but if I were, I would not be doin' it in a harmful way, nor in any way that could be considered illegal on paper."

"How many city politicians do you own? Hypothetically."

"In theory, enough to swing a vote in my favour if I need one. Definitely enough to offer clemency or a pardon, if yours truly was ever caught doing something that might need to be pardoned. Not that I am in the habit of gettin' caught, mind you, but it's always nice to have a backup plan, just in case."

"So the reason all these Guardians are buying Phantasmal Fragments on the Moon right now is because they are about to become useless due to tax law you helped to put in place?"

"Hypothetically."

"And you did this because you needed to lose money on paper so that you can pay less taxes on your Gambit earnings?"

"Now, don't go spreading that theory around. Lotta people are pretty pissed about the whole devaluing of shards thing, especially Spider. Mithrax won't let him use your tax shelter."

"It isn't my tax shelter!"

"House of Light is hoping to be the number one group donating legendary shards to the war effort. Should give 'em very, very good optics in a very direct and undeniable way. Help 'em out quite a bit, politically, and will definitely soften quite a few people's hearts toward them as a whole. It's exceptionally good PR. Not the best for Spider's finances though. Although, what with all that money that up and disappeared for rebuilding the Eliksni quarter, it is kinda poetic that Spider's about to take a hit in the finance department. Strange, that. Couldn't see that coming. Spider sure is pissed over it. Can't imagine why."

"This has nothing to do with your taxes. You are helping the House of Light."

"Oh, it has everything to do with taxes, and anything pertaining to mine is pure conjecture, but if it does end up also helping the House of Light, why that's just another happy accident. And something it does help, undeniably and un-hypothetically, is the city. It's good for them. They need this."

"Fascinating."

"So... that's why everyone's lined up on Luna buyin' your fragments, Moondust. Eris' tax shelter is the talk of the town right now."

"I see."

"And you could pull in the Vanguard, tell Ikora about it, have her and Zavala put a stop to it, but you know how the Vanguard is with policies and procedures. By the time the bureaucrats and administrators actually manage to agree on something it'll be long past Tuesday. And, to be honest, preparing to go into the Traveler's probably a much higher priority for everyone right now. So what if some guardians end up making a bit of cash? Who does that hurt?"

"Aren't the shards they are spending something that could be used to improve the city's defenses?"

"I don't think you're aware of the scale involved in this one, Moondust. Guardian's don't have a lot of spare room in what they carry around. That's the whole reason why anyone has those legendary shards in the first place. Ya get 'em from disassembling guns and armour. They do that because they got no where else to put 'em. Whereas someone like yours truly or the House of Light, we've been able to stockpile some significant amounts. City's gonna be doing just fine for shards. Trust. What's goin' on over on Luna is just a drop in the ocean compared to what's about to be infused into the city infrastructure. It ain't hurtin' no one, except maybe Spider's pocket book, and he's been lining that with other people's glimmer for a while. 'Bout time he was required to be more... generous for a change."

"As usual, our conversations regarding your areas of influence never cease to be simultaneously both impressive and concerning."

"Any day I can manage to impress you is a good day in my books, Three-Eyes."

"Tsch."

[END TRANSCRIPT]

[robertreich]

Why Are There Fees on Everything? 

If there’s one thing that brings our divided nation together, it’s our hatred of junk fees.

Junk fees are extra charges you don’t know you’re paying until you get the bill. They hide the true cost when you buy a good or service, so it’s impossible to comparison shop. For example…

Say I want to travel to go see my favorite musician Dolly Parton play at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry.

When I book my plane ticket, I have to fork up extra cash to bring luggage or change my flight. My grandkids are more into Blippi than Dolly — so they won’t be traveling with me. Otherwise, I might have to pay a fee just to sit with them.

I need a rental car once I land, so I’ll be stuck paying an extra fee to pick up the car at the airport and another fee they never told me about to cover the rental company’s costs for disposing old tires. Seriously?

When I pay my hotel bill, the price is way higher than I thought I’d pay when I booked the room, to cover wi-fi, pool access, a gym, state and local taxes and other special fees.

Before I get to the show, I better look at my checking account balance if I want to buy a record. Even if I see that I have enough money to make a purchase, the timing of other charges hitting my account could result in me getting slapped with a surprise overdraft fee. It's a simple mistake, but could make a $20 record end up costing $50.

Oh and don’t forget the concert tickets themselves. Major ticket sellers like Ticketmaster tack on fees to attend shows, which can drive up the final ticket price as much as 78% percent higher than what I was told the initial price was.

It’s all bait-and-switch. You thought you could afford to see Dolly Parton, but it turns out it’s gonna take a lot more than working “9 to 5”.

Corporations often label these types of charges “convenience fees” or “service fees.” Probably because they “conveniently” “serve” to pad their bottom lines, costing Americans at least $29 billion dollars a year we didn’t expect to pay. This is a huge problem spanning many different industries — not just the ones I’d encounter on my trip.

But there’s good news: President Biden has urged Congress to draw up legislation to prevent these outrageous fees.

Turns out, one of the few things as popular as Dolly Parton is tackling junk fees. 

It’s time for Congress to act.

[tomorrowusa]

Corporations pay their CEOs extravagantly while trying to cheat on taxes.

It would be one thing if, alongside the exorbitant executive pay, the quality of American CEO-ing was going up. But these executives are making off with bigger bags of boodle despite their persistent incompetence: Media executives keep running their businesses into the ground, tech firms are laying people off because of vibes, the planes keep nearly crashing, and examples of insane eye-popping greed—like Rite-Aid’s decision to claw back severance paid out to laid-off workers on the same day they handed their CEO a $20 million bonus—keep on coming. So it may come as no surprise that there’s a robust connection between the overindulged CEOs and the firms that are most flagrantly dodging their fair share of taxes. For a report released Wednesday, the Institute for Policy Studies teamed up with Americans for Tax Fairness to spelunk into the balance sheets at some of America’s best-known tax scofflaws between 2018 and 2022. What they found was pretty consistent: The firms took home high profits and lavished their top executives with exorbitant pay, all while stiffing Uncle Sam. The excess is stunning. “For over half (35) of these corporations,” the study reports, “their payouts to top corporate brass over that entire span exceeded their net tax payments.” An additional 29 firms managed this feat for “at least two of the five years in the study period.” Eighteen firms paid a grand total of zero dollars during that five-year span, 17 of which were given tax refunds. All in all, the 64 companies in the report “posted cumulative pre-tax domestic profits of $657 billion” during the study period, but “paid an average effective federal tax rate of just 2.8 percent (the statutory rate is 21 percent) while paying their executives over $15 billion.” Which firms are the worst of the worst? You can probably guess the company that tops the list because it’s the one run by The New Republic’s 2023 Scoundrel of the Year. During the five years of the study, Tesla took home $4.4 billion in profits as CEO Elon Musk carted off $2.28 billion in stock options, which, since his 2018 payday, have ballooned to nearly $56 billion—a compensation plan so outlandish that the Delaware Court of Chancery canceled it. Tesla has, during that same period of time, paid an effective tax rate of zero percent through a combination of carrying forward losses from unprofitable years and good old-fashioned offshore tax dodging.

Elon Musk is either the world's richest or second richest person. But he still wants more. Give him credit for pathological greed.

In all fairness, Musk is not alone when it comes to enriching himself while screwing workers.

What sort of innovations have these CEOs wrought from this well-remunerated period? T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert presided over the Sprint merger that led to $23.6 million in stock buybacks and 5,000 layoffs. Netflix’s Reed Hastings poured $15 billion in profit into jacking up subscription rates. Nextera Energy has devoted $10 million in dark money in a “ghost candidate scheme” to thwart climate change candidates. Darden Restaurants has been fighting efforts to raise the minimum wage. Metlife has been diverting government money meant to fund low-cost housing into other, unrelated buckraking ventures. And some First Energy executives from the study period are embroiled in a corruption scandal that’s so massive that even Musk might find it to be beyond the pale.

These oligarchs are going to spend lavishly to elect Republicans who would give them even bigger tax breaks.

Fortunately, they can't literally buy votes. If we return to old school grassroots precinct work then we can thwart the MAGA Republican puppets of billionaire oligarchs.

One to one contact is a more important factor than TV or online ads in convincing people to vote your way. It takes more effort, but democracy was not built by slacktivism in the first place.

[probablyasocialecologist]

For all the talk of the end of fossil fuels, the boom in electric vehicles and the rise of renewable energy, the role of oil in the UK economy remains vitally important. As things return to ‘normal’ after the pandemic there are still as many trucks on the road and almost as many planes in the sky, there is still as much plastic in the kitchen and pesticides on the fields. Yet the control of this bloodstream of our society is now in the hands of a very few wealthy men entirely hidden from public view, beyond the reach of politicians, trades unions or civil society groups.

Those that own the private equity companies want from Britain the highest return on their capital and the lowest taxes possible, with the least stringent regulations. The last thing they desire is for limits to be put on the sale of fuel as a way to tackling climate change. Whereas the heads of BP, Shell and other corporations may profess a commitment to decarbonise to appease an alarmed public, the private equity men are hidden from view and pressure.

James Marriott and Terry Macalister, Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation