Monthly Archives: January 2026

I’m the Taxman

Today I got some news from initially the San Francisco Chronicle but I couldn’t get to that because of a paywall. So I found news (at https://abc7news.com/post/ca-billionaire-tax-proposal-peter-thiel-gavin-newsom-silicon-valley/18335032/) Where ABC 7 News gives us ‘Tech moguls threaten to leave CA as billionaire tax proposal gains support among unions’ and I agree as I have warned the people about this. This is not something new, it has been going on for well over a decade. I gave the setting in 2013 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/02/06/it-hurts-every-time-but-we-love-it/) where I wrote ‘It hurts every time, but we love it’ then again in 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/05/06/new-world-order/) when I wrote ‘New World Order’ and last in 2021 when I wrote ‘Utter insanity’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/04/utter-insanity/) there is something wrong with political America. For over 25 years the tax laws needed to be overhauled, but they are unwilling to do that, so now they grasp at the bank settings of billionaires. Taxation is about justly taxing everyone and I agree, the Billionaires have been given a nice little ride, but overhaul of the Tax-laws is the only way it will ever work. Perhaps leaving the Apple tax rebates of the shelf. They don’t need 535 retail stores, especially when you go into a store and you have to specify on a website how you want that configuration. It gets made and after 2-3 weeks you get your new Laptop, Ive been through that setting twice in the last decade and I think that it is vulgar that they get all the tax rebates and also make it 100% tax deductible. Why does a presentation room get that (535 times). I get that it is smart, but should that be rewarded? Perhaps 50% of these stores could be made redundant, or perhaps better fully taxed. And that is merely one of dozens of cases where the American tax laws (European too) fall into a adjusted setting of ‘who cares’. So as we now see ABC 7 News, we are given “A proposal to tax billionaires in California could raise up to $100 billion to close the gap on federal health care cuts. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is now backing the campaign. Meanwhile, some big-name billionaires have reportedly threatened to leave the state.” And so they should. Perhaps there is something for them in Texas of Florida? And consider that these billionaires also take the bigger part of revenue out of California. So how long until that state is drying up? So whilst we get San Francisco State University Labor professor John Logan state “Most tech billionaires — who could easily afford to pay this 5-percent one-off tax– are not going to upend their lives, move to Austin, Texas, move to Florida, move to other parts of the country, given all the advantages they enjoy” is he certain that he wants to take that gamble? Texas and Florida are banking on that and when these people leave there will be a larger setting of a collapsing Californian economy. And for that mater, he might be setting the term of a ‘5-percent one-off tax’, but knowing America it is never a one off and when these people set sail to a ZERO TAX nation, the stage of fear will truly ignite, all whilst both Democrats and Republicans couldn’t be bothered with the tax overhaul, which would apply to ALL Americans. Personally I think that only former President Clinton gets a pass on this guilt trip, his books were in the green when he left. And as I see it, the ones that follow have had their hand in the debt we see now. More so as these administrations avoided dealing with a levy on roughly 9 trillion dollars (Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon, Netflix) and a few more players. All because the administrations were unable to overhaul the tax system. So there!

And better believe that I have data even preceding 2013, but that was before my blog, so that doesn’t really count, but it sets the station of avoidance to roughly a quarter of a century and that is out in the open. I don’t care what excuse they give, but at present America is broke and deliberately taxing billionaires is not the way to go. Proper taxation is and no one seems interested in doing that.

Have a great day. And enjoy the first day of the year as much as you can (nearly all timezones are on January first now). 

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The games we cherish

We (namely gamers) have a weird knack. When we go ‘gaga’ for a game we cannot help but try to improve upon it in our minds, optionally create new IP based on that game. In 2012 I created Elder Scrolls VI (now basically VII) and after Bethesda was bought by Microsoft, I thought it might be better to put parts of this on my blog, but now ‘altered’ to fit new IP and I basically handed it to anyone making games for non Microsoft systems. I thought it was a good idea to create new IP to cater to the new game designers. I also came up with a new idea of setting a larger combat setting, so that we would not fall for the usual culprits (by stepping out of that combat area, a new way to increase the deadliness of the NPC and I used an idea that Vint Cerf created and gave it new life, but now in gaming. I reckon that this was never done before, so there was a nice niche for that designer. This background was slightly needed as I created an idea for the upcoming (somewhere in the future) of Hogwarts Legacy 2, there is no real timeline, but several sources tell bye that Avalanche Software is on the ball. That didn’t stop me from slapping my mind about for some quick fixes and I wrote about this in the past in two blogs I gave Avalanche Software the ideas, free of charge. I did put one small barricade in place, because as I see it, Hogwarts is the IP of JK Rowling and I have no idea how this is set in the corridors of Avalanche Software, as such the small barricade was that they get it (still free of charge) only with the approval of JK Rowling. 

It seems flimsy, but I believe that IP is holy, messing with it is not my forte. As such I keep some ideas and they go straight to JK Rowling, because she owns that IP. As such I cover myself in some protection and no-one can come and go with the setting “But he gave this to us”. To prevent that, all Hogwarts related idea become property of JK and if she doesn’t approve no harm was done. 

Anyway, I was thinking or speculating on what HL2 would be like, and that is a waste of my time, so I thought that it might be an idea to set a threshold in place. As such we get a condition if you transfer you HL character. And if done splendidly, you get to do that 4 times. And that was how I came up with the setting of a part (could be a DLC) where your Hufflepuff character could become a junior wand-maker (at Olivanders) the small scene at Azkaban gave the idea that people from Ravenclaw could get one of three jobs at Azkaban, Slytherin gets to be a ministry of Magic employee and Gryffindorians become Aurors, it came with a few ideas. First it shouldn’t impact the game, so it might be either DLC, or unrelated at the end of the game where you could get into that phase after you do the main story (or graduate from Hogwarts) in any way, it shouldn’t interfere with the main game (because that would be a pig move) the added benefit is that you get a lot more if you have to replay HL to get into the other houses, but I reckon that most Harry Potter Fans have played it for every house already, so that makes the threshold rather slim. 

There was some idea where there were more jobs, and the idea was that one is perfect for the house you were in, but there would be the setting where Hufflepuff students could get a smaller function in Azkaban (the Ravenclaw choice) as would the Gryffindor student, on the other side we have Slytherin they are fit for the ministry, but there Gryffindor and Hufflepuff could get a smaller job. And so on, as such you get to play 3 jobs (not at the same time). It was merely a thought and it would enable larger lore to be created and given a larger setting towards the magical world. I took this idea and put it here for Avalanche Software to capture the idea and make it their own (if JK Rowling approves). I am adamant about the latter part of this as I consider JK Rowling to be the owner of the original IP, then as I got into this stage of Harry Potter there were more sides that I was thinking of, but in this case I will refrain from (for now) as I have no idea what Avalanche is doing. And I have no intent on getting into their fairway. 

In that same setting I had (before Microsoft bought it) an idea for Fallout 5, not the story, but a wrinkle to connect your Fallout Shelter profile to fallout 5 and it would transfer up to a shelter (your active shelter) to create that shelter in Fallout 5 as a standalone mission, and the programming needs to transfer that shelter into a 3D image and as it is a 2D presentation, there needs to be a setting where the corridors are automatically created, I had some ideas on that too and when you get that, you can have your own shelter in Fallout 5, with some additional safety (security) settings and a few security gimmicks. All part of the idea and that is merely what my mind was up to and there is a lot more, but I wanted to start the new year thinking of games, not on the political disasters playing now. This is not the day to make that happen, but gaming can be done any day of the week, including day 1 of 2026.

So have a great day and enjoy yourself either already in the new year of following us when you get there. Enjoy the festivities today.

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