Exposing how the rich avoid taxes

The invaluable investigate journalism organization ProPublica has started releasing analyses of tax data of wealthy people that it received from a source that reveal in great detail what we have always suspected, that the rich find all manner of ways to avoid paying taxes. Their receipt of this confidential information was likely made possible because of the ways that media organizations created in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations that enabled sources and whistleblowers to anonymously transmit confidential information to trusted media sources with the media source not knowing where it came from and thus unable to reveal them either accidentally or under coercion.

ProPublica is not disclosing how it obtained the data, which was given to us in raw form, with no conditions or conclusions. ProPublica reporters spent months processing and analyzing the material to transform it into a usable database.
…

We then verified the information by comparing elements of it with dozens of already public tax details (in court documents, politicians’ financial disclosures and news stories) as well as by vetting it with individuals whose tax information is contained in the trove. Every person whose tax information is described in this story was asked to comment. Those who responded, including Buffett, Bloomberg and Icahn, all said they had paid the taxes they owed.

This first report is eye-opening.
[Read more…]

Biden’s State of the Union speech

I did not listen to Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech because I find these kinds of set-piece political theater to be long-winded and not that interesting. It appears that the SOTU events are becoming more like the UK’s Prime Minister’s Questions time in parliament in that members of both parties behave boisterously and give loud cheers and groans as they feel like. At Tuesday’s event, Republicans shouted “Liar!” when Biden said that they were trying to cut Social Security and Medicare and that goes much further than what is heard in parliament. A far as I am aware, British MPs are prohibited from making personal attacks and if they do the Speaker can force them to withdraw their remarks under threat of ejection from the chamber.

This is not the first time that such a charge has been yelled at the president. Some may remember the occasion when a Republican congressperson Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” during president Obama’s address in 2009. That outburst was met with disapproval and Wilson later apologized to the White House. However, things have deteriorated since then and there is no chance that Greene and her fellow crazies will apologize to Biden. Being ignorant and obnoxious is their brand.

But it seems like Biden got good reviews like this one for his performance, perhaps because people did not expect much from him.
[Read more…]

Stop ‘honoring’ people using stereotypes

February is Black History Month in the US in which greater attention is paid to the role and achievements of African Americans in history to make up for its long neglect. The month is often used by schools and other institutions to create events relating to the history of that group. It is one of a slate of heritage months, most of which are listed below.

African American/Black History Month (February)
Women’s History Month (March)
Arab American Month (April)
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Month (April/June)
Asian Pacific Heritage Month (May)
Jewish American Heritage Month (May)
Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15)
National Disability Employment Awareness Month (October)
Native American/American Indian Heritage Month (November)

An even more comprehensive list of heritage months can be seen here.
[Read more…]

Greedy old people

(I was recently reminded about an angry rant that I wrote many years ago when I turned sixty and decided to repeat an edited version of it for those who did not see it then. Some of the links no longer work, though.)

I recently turned 60. I don’t pay much attention to my birthdays but this one is a little special because it signifies that by almost any measure I am now officially an old person, a member of a group a subset of whom has been annoying the hell out of me for a long time: greedy old people.

Let me make it quite clear whom this rant is targeting. It is not aimed at old people who after many decades of hard work are even now struggling to make ends meet on their meager savings and social security checks, some of whom have to continue working well past normal retirement age at dead-end and physically demanding jobs which take a toll on their bodies, in order to obtain the basic necessities of life, such as food and shelter. Those people can leave the room because my words are not aimed at them.
[Read more…]

How ‘died suddenly’ has been exploited by anti-vax ghouls

There is a new tactic being exploited by the anti-vax conspiracy theorists. They seize upon any news item about the ‘sudden death’ of someone (whether that person is a celebrity or not) to pump into action and spread rumors that the death was caused by the covid vaccines.

Results from 6-year-old Anastasia Weaver’s autopsy may take weeks. But online anti-vaccine activists needed only hours after her funeral this week to baselessly blame the COVID-19 vaccine.

A prolific Twitter account posted Anastasia’s name and smiling dance portrait in a tweet with a syringe emoji. A Facebook user messaged her mother, Jessica Day-Weaver, to call her a “murderer” for having her child vaccinated.

In reality, the Ohio kindergartner had experienced lifelong health problems since her premature birth, including epilepsy, asthma and frequent hospitalizations with respiratory viruses. “The doctors haven’t given us any information other than it was due to all of her chronic conditions. … There was never a thought that it could be from the vaccine,” Day-Weaver said of her daughter’s death.

But those facts didn’t matter online, where Anastasia was swiftly added to a growing list of hundreds of children, teens, athletes and celebrities whose unexpected deaths and injuries have been incorrectly blamed on COVID-19 shots. Using the hashtag #diedsuddenly, online conspiracy theorists have flooded social media with news reports, obituaries and GoFundMe pages in recent months, leaving grieving families to wrestle with the lies.
…

The use of “died suddenly” — or a misspelled version of it — has surged more than 740% in tweets about vaccines over the past two months compared with the two previous months, the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs found in an analysis conducted for The Associated Press. The phrase’s explosion began with the late November debut of an online “documentary” by the same name, giving power to what experts say is a new and damaging shorthand.
…

The “Died Suddenly” film features a montage of headlines found on Google to falsely suggest they prove that sudden deaths have “never happened like this until now.” The film has amassed more than 20 million views on an alternative video sharing website, and its companion Twitter account posts about more deaths and injuries daily.

This is despicable. The death of a loved one is already hard for people to deal with, especially when it is sudden and the person is young. To add to their grief by spreading falsehoods about them is unconscionable.

Such a whiner

Congresswoman and nutcase Marjorie Taylor Greene has been whining about how hard it is for her to live on her government salary of $174,000.

Earlier this week, the Republican representative from Georgia appeared on journalist Glenn Greenwald’s podcast and expressed concern about her congressional salary, which according to public records is $174,000 annually.

Greene told Greenwald: “Becoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money before I got here. I’ve lost money since I’ve gotten here.

“It’s not a life that I think is like something that I enjoy because I don’t enjoy it,” added Greene, who had previously owned a CrossFit affiliate gym in Georgia before being elected to Congress in 2020.

Additionally, Greene complained about the amount of time her congressional work consumes, saying: “The nature of this job, it keeps members of Congress and senators in Washington so much of the time, too much of the time … that we don’t get to go home and spend more time with our families, our friends … or maybe just be regular people because this job is so demanding. It’s turned into practically year-round.”

[Read more…]

Why no freakout over sugar reduction recommendations?

The US government has proposed new standards for school meals that seek to reduce the amount of sugar (and salt) in them.

U.S. agriculture officials on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries.

The plan announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible.

The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said.

“School meals happen to be the meals with the highest nutritional value of any meal that children can get outside the home,” Vilsack said in an interview.

I am bracing myself for the right wing freakout along the lines “OMG! The government is coming to take candy away from our children!” although that is not at all what is being proposed. I am surprised that it has not happened already.
[Read more…]

Small steps towards Irish unity

The question of what to do about the open land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland has plagued the UK ever since Brexit, since Ireland remains part of the EU bloc while Northern Ireland, being part of the UK, is now out of it. Irish people on both sides are adamantly opposed to introducing a customs and border barrier that would interrupt the free flow of goods and people that they have enjoyed ever since the Good Friday peace accord that was signed in 1998 that brought an end to the long standing conflict.

The agreement acknowledged:

  • that the majority of the people of Northern Ireland wished to remain a part of the United Kingdom;
  • that a substantial section of the people of Northern Ireland, and the majority of the people of the island of Ireland, wished to bring about a united Ireland.

Both of these views were acknowledged as being legitimate. For the first time, the Irish government accepted in a binding international agreement that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Constitution was also amended to implicitly recognise Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom’s sovereign territory, conditional upon the consent for a united Ireland from majorities of the people in both jurisdictions on the island. On the other hand, the language of the agreement reflects a switch in the United Kingdom’s statutory emphasis from one for the union to one for a united Ireland. The agreement thus left the issue of future sovereignty over Northern Ireland open-ended.

[Read more…]

Making retirement age eligibility fairer

France is experiencing unrest over President Macron’s proposal to raise the retiring age, when workers can start collecting their pensions, from 62 to 64 by 2030. Nationwide strikes have been called over this issue. As Kevin Drum points out, the unfairness of fixing by age when people can retire is true for the US too, because people whose work involves manual labor typically start work at an earlier age than those who go to college and get advanced degrees. Not only do the latter they put in fewer years of work, the work they do takes much less of a toll on their bodies and, crucially, they live longer.
[Read more…]