Tag Archives: Juvenal

A few days ago 

A few days ago we had the impact of the ban of Jimmy Kimmel and that impact it had. Disney need to raise all awareness flags because like the little weasels they seemingly are, the subscriptions were cut. According to some sources almost $4 billion in subscriptions were lost. Some will howl with laughter, but the impact is a little bigger. You see, soon after that (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/disney-subscription-increase-1.7641020) we are given by CBC that ‘Disney+ is raising subscription prices for the 4th year in a row’, one could say this is exactly why I prefer physical media, but Disney wants people to ‘embrace’ Disney plus forever. That Will never do for me. So as the CBC is giving us “Starting Oct. 21, the ad-supported Disney+ plan will increase by $2 US to $11.99 US per month, while the ad-free premium tier will rise $3 US to $18.99 US a month. Annual premium subscriptions will jump $30 US to $189.99 US. Bundled packages combining Disney+ with Hulu and ESPN+ will also see price hikes, according to the company’s website.” This makes them more expensive than Netflix. We see all the iterations and the settings that others bring, but the short and sweet stuff is that there is a case to be made for owning physical media. You see, what these streamers seem to forget is that the subscription will have two sides. The subscription and the price of internet streaming. Some providers have ‘a tentacle’ setting that those bytes are disregarded from your internet subscription. Yet as I see it, when the going gets tough, those ‘arrangements’ will fall flat and the prices really will add to the equation. And as we are given “The price increase also appears to apply to Canadians. An email sent to a Disney+ subscriber and reviewed by CBC News shows that the cost of a premium subscription will jump from $119.99 to $159.99 on Oct. 28, though it’s unclear if there are other Canadian price increases” we see this setting (optional) in “it’s unclear if there are other Canadian price increases” but we need to reconsider some streaming solutions and weirdly enough. I raised that very topic in ‘Choice, can you choose?’ which I brought to you on January 9th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/01/09/choice-can-you-choose/) and there we see the setting evolve and I was only 4 years ahead of the rest. I also (not there) raise the setting that someone brings is a collective of these channels, because there is the setting that people are willing to pay $20 a month for both Disney+ and Netflix, optionally a little more for others to be included. So when you have Netflix $18 + Disney Plus $19. Would it be an idea to get BOTH for $25? (I personally would prefer $20), but that is where the setting is set. At present the setting does not allow BOTH to be included and in this time where (especially the Americans) will have to live on the Roman setting of Bread and Games which was opted be the Roman Poet Decimus Junius Juvenalis and as I see the setting where “Roman government used free food and public entertainment to pacify the populace and prevent revolts, a practice now used to describe any form of mass distraction that diverts attention from societal grievances” is pretty much what the American government needs at present (my speculated view). And as we see the settings of Army deployments in America, ICE dressing up like bank robbers and a whole range of other settings gives rise to my point of view. 

So will Disney evolve? Will we see the Blu-ray version of the Mandalorian? Or will we see the settings of accumulated streaming? Tune in next week when you will hear nurse Piggy say “Oh doctor, he is not 5G compatible” we look back and see how relaxing and entertaining the Muppet Show really was and we still remember that after 50 years these 5 seasons are still on the minds and in the hearts of millions of people. Well done Jim Hanson and Frank Oz.

Timeless humor is truly timeless. Have a great day and don’t get your coffee from the Swedish chef. I ordered it with the music of the Beatles and got a handful of those critters in his cup of Covfefe.

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The media as enforcer

It is a thought, it is my thought and I wonder if there is enough that I am correct? You see, most people are crying foul, blaming rich people. Making noises on the need to tax the rich and the media is helping out. That is the operative part, the media is helping out. To show you just how far they go, let’s take a little trip.

Search by Google
When you search for ‘Charles P. Rettig’ you see two results. One by LGBTQ Nation, one by Mondaq. Consider the following parts
1. Charles P. Rettig is the Commissioner of the IRS.
2. Taxes are on the plate of responsibility of the IRS.
3. The media has nothing to report on the IRS? They are merely all flaming the tax the rich part?

Looking at the media
The BBC gives us another flame article on how ‘How billionaires pay less tax than you’, yet no one is looking at the simple fact that people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other billionaires are doing what they are allowed to do, and it is not “special strategies to avoid paying income tax, say experts”, it is “Merely paying what Tax laws and tax codes are telling people how much to pay”. A setting that comes from the office of Charles P. Rettig, the people who were there before him like John Koskinen, Daniel Werfel, Steven T. Miller, Douglas Shulman, Linda Stiff, and Mark Everson a collection of people that were there for almost 20 years when nothing was done to overhaul taxes, and the media is not reporting on it, is it not news or is it part of the filtered information that some people do not want you to have. Yes, I am focussing here on the US, yet the mess in the EU is not better, it is actually worse as they got well over 20 nations to do NOTHING!

I am not stating that Elon Bezos and Jeff Musk are innocent (or was that the other way round?), I am stating. I am saying that they use tax laws as they are ALLOWED to be used, in black letter setting (meaning: literal interpretation) all whilst the media is shouting about the spirit of the law, the spirit of the law is not in writing, in writing we find “A tax code is a federal government document, usually numbering thousands of pages, that details the rules individuals and businesses must follow in remitting a percentage of their incomes to the federal or state government”, yes, and then the politicians added tax codes, exclusions, tax write-offs and that results in people like the ones we see mentioned as well as the Koch Family ($113,000,000,000), the Walton family ($220,000,000,000) and the Mars family (not the planet) with $127,000,000,000 we do not see these names do we? Just like Charles P. Rettig we see very little on them, we see houses bought and sold and two weeks ago we see ‘Influential Koch network rocked by an alleged affair scandal, donor departures and a discrimination lawsuit’ and I only see the CNBC mention, the other papers seemingly left it alone, why is that?

So whilst we see all flames we do not see anyone (including media) invoking the need to overhaul tax laws, no one seems interested in the essential step that is required. 

More important, no one in media is taking that step either, why is that? You still think that they are free to speak their journalistic minds, or does the hierarchy of Shareholders, stake holders, advertisers starts making sense. To realise that you the reader are a mere 4th place in any media source, how does that feel?

It is not a setting where the rich pay less, it is a setting that non-overhauled tax laws benefits the rich more and this is not semantics, consider that CNBC gave you “So if you want to find a way to lower your taxes like the rich do, it could be a good idea to meet with a financial advisor or CPA”, for a really rich person a CPA ($119,000 annual) is nothing, and they KNOW what tax laws are there to aid and which ones are not. And it was simple, it has been for decades and no one seems to focus on that part, they merely advertise the scream ‘Tax the Rich’ which is funny, because it goes nowhere and gets people nothing and when you realise that the taxation laws were the problem for decades, when will you see that the politicians and their IRS commissioners were part of the problem and never any part of the solution the USA desperately needs. So whilst the news is all about ‘Biden signs legislation raising US debt limit, averts potential default’, now consider your own situation. How much upgrades can you get on your credit card until is gets blocked, banned and retracted? How many upgrades can you get until you show more income? That is the stage; that is also why tax laws need overhaul. It is not names like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, it is the stage that the USA has according to some sources 614 billionaires. You still think that there is no gain in overhauling tax laws? Oh, and when we look at those with a value that tops $100,000,000 you get to a number of people that is slightly surpasses 5000. When you consider all this, do you think it makes sense that the media has zero interest in people like Charles P. Rettig? Consider that he should be in the targeting view of EVERY American media outlet, but he is not, why is that you think?

I am starting to believe that the media is nothing more than an enforcer that uses the old premise of panem et circenses, a stage introduced by the poet Juvenal. Decimus Junius Juvenalis (his original name) was around in the age of Nero and Galba and a whole lot of other emperors, including the year when they had 4 of them (it is a hazardous job). A stage we see now exploited by media, politicians and rich people. Making us all watch where they want us to look, not where we need to look and the US (EU too) is running out of time. When the US defaults, what do you think will happen to the Yen and the Euro? So when you get angry at Jeff Bezos, wonder why the media is so focussed on giving him the limelight and they are actively avoiding the limelight on a whole group of 614 equally filthy rich as Jeff Ross (sorry the other comedian) Jeff Bezos and we do not see their names, not ANYWHERE, why is that? Consider that for a moment before you start shouting ‘Tax the rich’. Let’s be clear I have nothing against taxing rich people, but that is what tax laws are for, to tax all 5000 of them, not the three overly mentioned in media and there is the rub, that is where the media needs to ask people like Charles P. Rettig and the tax laws makers behind him very serious questions, but the media is not doing that. Why is that?

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