Tag Archives: taxation

January 1, 2026 · 23:15

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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March 14, 2025 · 05:19

All wars are founded on deception

That is a truth that is over 2500 years old. The Chinese gave us the rule, but we were only made aware of this about 600 years ago (right around the time the game Marco Polo became common knowledge). Still the people are unaware of sides of this truth because it interferes with the media collecting on their digital dollars. So there are sides that are not illuminated. 

I have a inkling of standing there, because my premise is set on the sides I have been illuminated on for a few years and it is my understanding that it takes sides on what I believe to be true. You see, one element is that most polarized believes are set around the belief that “President Trump is a moronic idiot” and I do not believe that is true. He is perhaps a bully, he is a megalomaniac but he isn’t as I personally believe a stupid person. You see, as I see it, the exploitative people in New York would have eaten him alive. He was there long enough. And yesterday NPR gave us “The U.S. buys electricity from Canada. Now it’s a focus of the trade war”, this was to be expected. Our brother Canada (I am Australian) takes any opportunity it can get. And over the last few days we were given “Canadian brewery selling pack of 1,461 beers to cope with Trump’s presidency”, a funny sidestep. CBC informed us that they are selling crates of beer (with 1461 cans) so that one crate will last any Canadian with one beer a day until Trump is out of office in 3.84237 years time. The beer is Moosehead and the marketing director Karen Grigg told us that they sold 10 of such crates in 24 hours. The first one in 10 minutes of the announcement. A clever ploy to sell 14.6 thousands cans within a day. I have no idea if the beer is any good, like most American beer some Australian beers are like making love in a canoe (they are fucking close to water). Thank you for that Monty Python ;-).

So as we continue we get the BBC giving us “Trump halts plan for 50% steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada” with the supporting text “Canada has called Trump’s attacks unjustified and announced retaliation, including new tariffs on C$30bn ($22bn; £16bn) of US products.

Ford had announced he would tax electricity exports to the US in an effort to get those tariffs removed. He had also previously said he would “not hesitate to shut off electricity completely” if the US “escalates”.” And at this point President Trump has done a 180 degree turn on his decisions twice. And ABC (Australia) give us ‘Trump announces 50pc tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum in trade war escalation’ with the supporting text “Trump announces 50pc tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum in trade war escalation. He says this is in retaliation for a Canadian province placing a surcharge on its electricity exports into three US states. Tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US are set to come into effect on Wednesday.” Some have the view that this is the economic downturn created to secure to annex Canada as the 51st state. That has the sound of likelihood, because the ‘easiest’ thing to do is to null the tariff the moment he gets Canada. The short sightedness of that is that Canada is part of a Commonwealth. What I don’t like is that (as far as I can tell) Australia and the United Kingdom haven’t outspokenly united behind Canada. Seemingly neither have New Zealand and India, so there is that. ABC reported ‘Anthony Albanese invokes ‘Team Australia’ in pitch to buy local after Trump tariffs’ with the supporting text “Anthony Albanese has suggested Australians should buy Australian goods instead of American ones, invoking “Team Australia” in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs. The PM yesterday accused Peter Dutton of taking the Trump administration’s side over Australia’s, after Mr Dutton said he was “hopeless” and that he could secure an exemption himself if elected.” Not one word of unity behind Canada. The setting becomes that the Commonwealth needs to unite. If I am correct that is essential and the UK needs to bo the same. The BBC reports ‘Starmer says ‘all options on table’ on US tariffs’ and here the subtext is different. “Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK will “keep all options on the table” as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum take effect. The UK exports hundreds of millions of pounds worth of steel to the US every year, which will be subject to the 25% levy. The EU, facing the same tariffs, said on Wednesday it would impose counter-tariffs on €26bn (£22bn) of US goods, and Canada also responded with countermeasures, in an escalation of the wider trade war.” This makes me believe that there is more going on and the lack of Canadian support is disgusting. If there are so many billions on the table, the idea that the Commonwealth isn’t talking to China is frowning to say the least. There is almost 100 billion on the table from Canada, the UK and Australia. These three countries need to secure infrastructure and a lot more for a little over 136,000,000 people. So is this the way it will be? Insecurity and inaction whilst (until recent) an Ally is attacking the economy of these nations? 

As I personally see it America is beyond broke. They need Canada for resources, Electricity and water. They are running out of these matters and that is as I personally see the larger issue. And the media isn’t reporting on these parts for at least 5 years. You see one source gives us “The federal government currently has $36.22 trillion in federal debt” and another source gives us “As of February 2025, of the total public debt outstanding ($28.91 trillion)” these two messages are not three months apart, as such how can ANYONE make a somewhat clear oversight of more than 7 trillion ($7,000,000,000,000)? That is a lot more than several nations have as a national budget. But I digress. A debt of $36,220,000,000,000 has interest, Australia has currently a 4.1% interest setting. America will have less, but I reckon that 3% is an acceptable amount, this means that America needs to pay $1,448,800,000,000 in interest on an annual base that is crippling America. In 2023 they collected $2.18 trillion, that means that almost 50% of all collected tax goes to the payment of interest. That is almost 50% of all revenue collected. I warned of this well before I wrote ‘Is it that bad?’ On October 15th 2023 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/10/15/is-it-that-bad/). So for over 2 years the media was kept quiet by media stake holders, are you even troubled in the least over this?

When the media has to report all income from stakeholders the bough breaks (I assume), because the media doesn’t do this service for free and it is likely hidden in ad revenue piles. As such I believe my view to be a decent one and as I started this story, all wars are set to deception and America doesn’t like to be seen as weak, so they started a media tariff war. I am not dismissing the 51st state ploy and the silence from Australia and the United Kingdom give rise to that. But in all honesty, do you really want Australia and England to be your ally when that part is proven to be correct? As I see it the Commonwealth needs a stronger ally and that is where China comes in. As I see it America cannot be seen as an ally when it resorts to these tactics against an ally and in the second place there is a sneaky kind of joy when these tactics result in having their ‘arch-enemy’ China a few miles away for about 5,525 miles. The fun part is that America only needs to build a second Chinese wall a mere 42% of the first one. How much will that cost? And that also implies that three states will have to burn the woods they have left to keep warm, fortunately they are entering summer so they have a few months to build two nuclear reactors and that, oh wait a minute, that takes years. So no luck for America there either.

The tariff wars was as I personally see it the dumbest thing they could entertain, but according to the Beijing Daily, President Xi Jinping has been heard howling with laughter the last few days. Could there be correlation with the acts of President Trump? 

So tune in next week when you will hear Nurse Piggy say: “Kermit where is your credit card?” And the answering silence was deafening. Have a great day or as they say in China “祝你有美好的一天，傻兔子”, or as other say “Whatever makes you happy” (paraphrased)

Have a great day.

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December 17, 2024 · 20:27

The meme of nothing

Something made me pause this morning. The actor Tim Russ (Tuvok, Star Trek Voyager) had sent a meme over Twitter. Now in itself this is nothing new, actors and actresses do this to entertain the fans and for the most show their commitment to issues. The meme below was send.

I have seen similar memes for some time and the setting is fine, it is just a useless meme. Like all those people shouting tax the rich. You see America is a nation of laws and there are all kinds of laws. This impacts tax laws and an overhaul has been overdue for over a quarter of a century. I made mention of this as early as June 8th 2014 (over aI made several more mentions, even earlier at that. In this case I wrote “The US gets through taxation a mere 14% of where the debt is at. How is any of that realistic? So, the total collected taxation, before any other cost is taken into account (like paying government staff and utilities), it only amounts to 14%, after all that is done 0.1% is left if the US government gets a fitting budget (something that has not been achieved since president Clinton was in office).”, the debt now is close to 50% larger. So wonder if you will, what is the use of taxing the rich if the law prevents discrimination? Moreover we might want to blame Billy bad boy Gates (Microsoft), Sergei sneaky Brin (Google), Larry Scoundrel Ellison (Oracle), Jeff paperback Bezos (Amazon), Tim the shifter Cook (Apple) or even Andy off-the-books Jessy (Also Amazon). We can call them names, we can blame them. The truth is that they did nothing wrong. They adhered to tax laws, a black letter interpretation if you want, but the problem is not them, it is the people who wrote the laws, the stakeholders that influenced the lawmakers and the politicians who weaselled out for all kinds of selfish reasons. There is no Democratic or Republican blame, they are all to blame from Bill Clinton onwards. The last president in the existence of America who had a surplus in the treasury. It has been that long and and I wrote about it over a decade before, I am pretty sure I raised it a few times before that, but the story should be clear. A setting that has been known for over a decade and the media loves the tax the rich flames. They love cashing in on flames per digital dollar. The rest not so much. So wonder something simple. Am I more intelligent than 334,925,763 Americans? I don’t think so. I am definitely not more intelligent than the five mentioned above and a few dozen more. They knew what was going to happen and as such they aren’t innocent, but they were not guilty either. Guilt should be sought in Washington DC, amongst the lawmakers. They catered to the mess America is in now and these meme’s are entertaining but incorrect. One might surmise that some of the wealth of Jeff Bezos comes from the fact that he can safe on shampoo. A bottle of that stuff costs  £390 in Harrods, so that is money saved in the bank. The rest has hair (as far as I know). 

You think I am making a joke, but there is a hidden flaw in that. You see, shampoo is something we all get to buy, I have no doubt that they have all kinds of expenses that a doctor misses out on. Tax deductions are the game for some and that is pretty much all they can be gotten on. The rest is corporate and that impacts Amazon, Apple, Google, and all other corporations and that is set in law and the lawmakers gave these corporations a huge discount all over the place. So when you go in ‘tax the rich’ mode, consider how useless that mode is. 

As someone told me, when you get access to web camera on Tiananmen Square,

tilt the camera from centre 24.5 degrees to the left and 15 degrees up, you might (might is the operative word) see President Xi stating ‘對富人徵稅’ howling with laughter (I have no idea what he says, I do not know Chinese. But I reckon they are grateful for the easy victory handed to them by American lawmakers no less.

The simplicity is that America gave the world away by giving tax breaks to corporations. And there isn’t much time left, there might not be any time left. As I personally see it, in the age of President Trump the corporations will clean house, give the bonuses to the board of directors and they will all split to a zero tax place with no extradition. You might call me out on that, but that is how I see the world change and they will leave whatever is left behind to clean up the mess. It will go gradually, but I reckon that these five people will have at least one apartment in Monte Carlo, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Nassau or Lichtenstein and they will get some diplomatic status so that they cannot be extradited to America. 

You want to doubt this, fine. But the reality for over a decade will have been clear. The taxation does not show or warrant the amount of debt America has and Economists all over the world either never said anything or the media kept it quiet. Your choice in what happened. I actually cannot tell. I can only see the numbers, not the reality behind that. I am not an economist, but I reported this for over a decade, so I feel fine. I leave it up to you to dig into the matter how others (with economic degrees) didn’t see this. And when the next bubble comes (the thing they refer to AI) and the so called trillions of revenue, that bubble is as I see it an excuse for some on whatever mattering reason to remain in denial that it was a simple error (in stead of that it never was possible) and they will walk away with whatever they can afford. 

Bubbles are only useful as long they are still presented when that falls down (I reckon within 1-2 years) the setting changes from what they think is bad to actually severely disastrous. And it was never going to be solved via memes.

As I see it the meme doesn’t lie, but the impact goes in the wrong direction and has been going in the wrong direction for over a decade. There was an urgency for my selling my IP and I would rather be in a pace with some actual money then be thrown in the midst of desperate people seeking someone to blame, but that’s just me. 

Have a great day.

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December 5, 2024 · 17:07

The price of debt.

That is what I am looking at, the price of debt. You see, they are all hailing that the US economy is strong. One voice (Goldman Sachs), the one that lost it all in 2007 told the world that America would be strong at 2.5% (somewhere I read it). To all it sounds nice and I like nice, but I also query a system that is to my (non-economic view) is rigged. As we see images all over the place on how good things are supposed to be, consider:

We see the setting as tax collected. For 2023 is was “The US government collected nearly $4.7 trillion in gross taxes during the 2023 fiscal year, which is a 15.5% decrease from 2022. The IRS collected taxes from a variety of sources”, now for some it is a little more then milk money. And that sounds nice, but the other side has “As of October 2024, the United States government’s monthly interest rate on its debt is 3.3%. The average interest rate for 2024 is 3.32%, and the total debt is $35.46 trillion.” Consider the simple setting of 3.32% of $35.46 trillion. This gives us $1,170,180,000,000 dollar annually. Which would be ‘liveable’ were it not for the simple fact that this is ONLY interest. The debt remains. And now we have a problem. You see the interest is is a simple 24.89% of the entire taxable revenue and it was 15.5% less from 2022. Do you now see the problem? 25% of all taxable revenue goes to the banks that carry the debt. The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in FY 2022. This means that they spend over 30% to much, more than they had and if there was no debt we could argue, but at this setting we are faced with the simple fact that $6.75 trillion was spent over an available amount of $3.5 trillion, which is getting worse and worse. As such we could surmise that the debt will increase with a little over 3 trillion over spending over last year alone. As I see it America is done for. And the setting worsens with the optional crushing of Google in 2025 (by breaking up that firm) which give Huawei their first global win. Then the defence industry is losing more and more revenue to China and this sets a larger premise. In that setting we see on one hand “The A&D industry generated $425 billion in economic value, representing 1.6 percent of the 2023 nominal GDP in the U.S.”, yet in this we already seeing revenue shifting to China in this year alone and more revenue goes to Europe. For Saudi Arabia alone this sets the bar at “In 2024, the Saudi Arabian defense budget is worth $71.7 billion and will grow at a CAGR of more than 8% during 2025-2029.” Yet other sources give us that “Saudi Arabia estimates military spending will be 15 percent lower than budgeted this year” as such we could surmise that this implies that Saudi Arabia by itself would spend $10 billion less. Not a biggie you say, but the other side is that China now has a little over 10% on that slice of delicious gunpowder baked pie. Making the loss for America more. As such we see an annual loss of $16 billion in one year alone from one customer. As such, what would be the books on India, Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan and Indonesia? If we see these picture, we see a dangerous escalation towards some fictive nil revenue for America. Fictive because that will never happen, but as the largest players seek economic stability they will spend less and take other jobs ‘in-house’ as the expression goes and America has been too reluctant to appease to that state of mind. And now China will step in to offer just that. As I see it, the question on the dollar setting was wrong. We are given “As of March 2024, over half (52.9%) of Chinese payments were settled in RMB while 42.8% were settled in USD” against the tariffs threat by president elect Trump. The actual question would become “How long could the US Dollar keep standing?” You see, as the debt becomes a millstone around the neck of the US administration, we need to consider that some nations will seek shelter from the fallout that this setting. In 2017, on March 17th I wrote ‘The finality of French freedom’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/), I set the comparison of the Euro like a barge kept in balance by 4 strong economies. UK, France, Germany and a combined economic anchor. The UK was lost and there was a setting when the French anchor would be lost too. The Euro could not survive a setting with two anchors. A simple equation. Now with the Dollar under attack the Euro could face near certain scuttling. As such the Dollar has an influence there. China seemingly doesn’t care, but the other players who make up a combined anchor might switch sides when they merely look at their own currency. And the debt? They will not care. And as such the dollar faces a lot more than the bully tactics of choice. They will need to up the game by a lot, because when one goes, so will the other and that puts the livelihood and liveability of 784 million people at the markers. 100,000 of them will do fine, but that represents a simple 0.01275348% of people who are likely to make it (outside of the EU and USA), so when were that good statistics? 

The price of debt was always there, but the media has been eager and willing to hide those facts through BS and spin and soon when the people catch on (the other 99.987% of people), the live of playing the media courtesan will be one of the most dangerous of them all. People remember. And it was a simple equation for the media. “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time but you can never fool all of the people all of the time” A simple setting I knew to be true as early as the early 80’s. So how long did they have at most? Some are already falling in the bad light and when the people realise that they weren’t eating potatoes, but turnips. They will become massively enraged. 

A simple setting I have known to become reality at some point. So when are we given the goods? When the interest of the debt of America is shown as a setting against the budget and at this time it is around 25%, Americans need to realise that budgets need to diminish by at least 30%, so at what point do the people realise that the simplicity of the matter is that their money is about to be gone?

Have a lovely day.

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November 17, 2023 · 19:09

It’s that time again

Yes, America has Thanksgiving, they have Christmas and now they have stopgap (4 times a year). You see, yesterday the news was given (at https://arab.news/vysbu) with ‘US Senate passes stopgap funding bill to avert government shutdown’ I made mention of this on October 2nd with ‘An altering stage’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/10/02/an-altering-stage/)where I gave the readers “I expected it would, but I also expect that this might go wrong in the future and the next shutdown is a mere 45 days away and US businesses are setting this new marker as the disaster moment” and I actually got it exactly right. Yes,. There was a stopgap now, but that is not a budget, as such Americans face the same dance around December 29th, just as the year ends. So when the stopgap isn’t coming through things will turn bad really really fast. Consider the thought that the bulk of approximately 2.79 million civil servants will be set out in the cold just after Christmas. As such how deeply disturbing will this become? All this because for 25 years America decided not to overhaul the tax laws. Lets be clear, this was ALWAYS going to happen, but with overhauled tax laws they would have had an additional year to get their act together, now their end of game moment comes in stages of stopgaps. All to stop the government from falling over. We might see the populist setting from others with their ‘tax the rich’ but it is a farce, a joke that has no way to go. A complete overhaul was the only option and now with BRICS and China pushing in on the little revenue they had left, they have no options now and their competitors are moving in on whatever revenue they had left. Is it doomsday speech? To some degree, but it is laced with reality. The debt of $31,000,000,000,000 is real and that interest will exceed $310,000,000,000 annual, all whilst we see articles that America is a mere 18th on the list. Yes, it is flimflam presentations. We get that Japan is in deeper waters, but not by much. We see the flimflam approach towards % or GDP, but when you look at the outstanding interest and the simple setting that 100% annual taxation in America doesn’t even cover the interest bill, the larger stage is seen that this is a decliner with no escape. And all that is before we see the impact of infrastructure bills (like paying civil servants). The stage is not a nice one, but America did this to themselves and as the rich and the large corporations become ‘transient’ out of America could be the killing nail that shows the stupidity of several administrations that refused to overhaul tax laws. And when this goes south fast, debts will implode and those owning US treasury bonds will lose whatever they thought they had. That is the nightmare scenario that is showing to become an optional reality ever 45 days from now. Until when? Until it goes wrong. 

Enjoy the day, it is Friday here now. The weekend is starting for the Pacific, the west needs to wait the better part of a day.

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November 8, 2023 · 23:23

Is it bigger than a hotel room?

That seems like a question, but if you have been on the web and if you have been on YouTube you will have seen a AirBNB advertisement. I personally do not trust them. That is nothing against them, I for the most do not trust anyone. If my mother would call me promising me a solution that gets me  1000% return on investment, I would not trust her (she dies decades ago). 

The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67341051) gives us ‘Italy to seize $835m from Airbnb in tax evasion inquiry’, it sounds simple and cozy. Yet I believe the all over setting is less simple. We see this with “Prosecutors say the firm failed to collect a tax from landlords on around €3.7bn of rental income. Landlords in Italy are required to pay a 21% tax on their earnings” and here lies the rub. Italian tax laws are not simple, but a lot less complicated than some and this was there in all the writings upfront. AirBNB might be “surprised and disappointed at the action announced by the Italian public prosecutor” but this was a simple application of Italian law. And the statement “Christopher Nutly said the firm’s European headquarters had been working to resolve the matter with the Italian tax agency since June” Really? June? It took me 11 minutes to see that part of the law and AirBNB was in the dark for months? As such “In 2022, Airbnb challenged the Italian law requiring the company and other short-term rental providers to withhold 21% of the rental income from landlords and pay it to tax authorities” Really? A firm goes up against Italian tax laws? How quaint. 

So when I see “The firm argued that Italy’s requirements on taxation contravened the European Union’s principle of freedom to provide services across the 27-country bloc” I wonder how their CLO (Chief Legal Officer) saw this? They checked with the local hookers on the Warmoestraat in Amsterdam perhaps? I am just fishing, but still. And the fact that they took this approach after YEARS leaves something to be desired as well. The fact that we are also given “Three people who held managerial roles at Airbnb from 2017 to 2021 were also under investigation, Milan Tribunal prosecutors said in a statement” gives me another path a simplified and optionally an incorrect  one. You see, this is an issue that has lasted for 6 years, the simpleton I would have looked at legal settings before day one commenced, but that is just me. 

Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fired, WeWork and the list goes on. Some ignored the law, some ‘overlooked’ and some merely made bad business calls and the media saw nothing until their stars exploded or imploded. How is that? A setting where we see €3.7bn of rental income and the Italian media never saw that post missing from the tax statutes? I am asking the questions out loud now, because the media isn’t. With Elizabeth Holmes, the media shunned Tyler Shultz. The media levitated Sam Bankman-Fried to godhood and no one looked where they needed to look for the longest of times. The €3,700,000,000 income in Italy makes that almost clear as day. You see that revenue exceeds the combined sums of Enel, Eni and Generali over 6 years and they are the top revenue firms in Italy and no one noticed? Who is asleep at the wheel there? 

Just some food for thought, enjoy it as you progress to the middle of the week.

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August 31, 2022 · 01:33

It is more than a pool full

I got a nice surprise this morning from the BBC. They had an interesting article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62717599), in this article named ‘Undeclared pools in France uncovered by AI technology’ we see an article on something different. It is not a pool on which girl has the loveliest lingerie. No it is a large tub of water. In Franco they however have the rule that “Pools can lead to higher property taxes because they boost property value, and must be declared under French law.” And as such we get to “The software, developed by Google and French consulting firm Capgemini, spotted the pools on aerial images of nine French regions during a trial in October 2021.” This led to finding well over 20,000 undeclared swimming pools with the number leading to “some €10m (£8.5m) in revenue, French media is reporting” As far as I can tell it is the first time a revenue service got to be clever about the tools available in this. A novel and lovely way to find something. This is a case of deeper learning taking a dive into the photo’s that aids the tax office. To be honest, I never knew swimming pols had to be declared and as such there is the added fact that I never lived in France. And as we are given “According to Le Parisien newspaper, an average pool of 30 sq m (322 sq ft) is taxed at €200 (£170) a year.” If that is true, the finding of 20,000 undeclared pools will add to the French coffers in a nice way. So it sucks to be the non declaring swimming pool owner. But that is not the real deal. It is about something more and we get that when we see “His comments come as France tackles its worst recorded drought that has left more than 100 municipalities short of drinking water. In July, France had just 9.7mm (0.38in) of rain, making it the driest month since March 1961, the national weather service Meteo-France said. Irrigation has been banned in much of the north-west and south-east of France to conserve water.” And still some see global warming as a nuisance, something that is not real. Last week I saw an image of the largest sweet water lake in China, now completely dry, now we see images like the image below. 

I have nothing against people with a pool and for the most people are not hindered by drought, not in Europe, but the fact that France now has the driest month since March 1961, before I was even born gives a much larger stage, one that we cannot deny. It is not about the pools, it is about water and we need to figure out how we can unite all the data on water and find a common factor. I know, it will be people. But consider that the Seine took care of a few hundred in 800AD, and went from 1960 with 46.62 m to 2021 with 67.50 m people. This is a growth of 44.8% in 61 years, now they do not all spot by the Seine, but it gives a rather large stage when we consider that In 1600, there were roughly 220,000 Parisians; in 1650, approximately 450,000 in 1700, Paris had about 550,000 inhabitants. Now Paris is a city that houses 2.161 million, that shows a growth of 390%, now we have a different picture. And here deeper learning might give organisations a better view and we need to do this, not next week or next year. We need to start looking at the facts now, something needs to be done now. And it has nothing to do with pools, that is merely taxation fun for some. The question becomes have we hit a larger point in our evolution? How long until we have drunk all the non salt water? You think I am kidding, but we need to consider that the population of this planet was 2 billion in 1900, in 122 years time we went to 8 billion. 8,000,000,000 people needing 400% more than the population in 1900. I am not kidding, we might have hit a point of no return in the population. The planet can no longer support this population. Consider that we need 16 billion – 24 billion litres of water EVERY DAY to support this population. And that is before we look at what they need for the washing machine, the shower and so on. I am not putting the pools on that list, but someone will and now the need for deeper learning towards water, water consumption and water levels becomes a little more clear, does it not? This planet had a water cycle, it was a natural order, but we disrupted it and we pretty much destroyed it. Water does not get replenished, it merely recycles in different ways, but 8 billion people consume water too making the cycle smaller every day and soon there will be no water. I do at least have an escape plan that allows me to live out my life without the danger of running out of water, but it would help if Amazon or Google (or Elon Musk) buys my IP, sooner rather than later mind you. So when you consider the issues in Pakistan (see below), consider that nature has a massively strange way to seek balance, but is it really balance, or is it something else, something we did by keeping silent to appease the greed driven?

It is a serious question and most governments were part of this all, so they do not get to lecture, but deeper learning could give us numbers on the global aftermath of water shortages and we need to start now, not tomorrow. Data collection needs to start the moment we can, not when it suits some. That time has passed and is gone forever.

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March 29, 2022 · 22:20

Stop Stupid Spending

In light of my previous article (at https://lawlordtobe.wordpress.com/2022/03/29/a-dangerous-ploy/) ‘A dangerous ploy’, we now see the BBC giving us ‘Can the super-rich solve America’s budget problem?’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60904900) the simple short direct answer is ‘No, they cannot!’ You see, it is the American administrations who clearly overspend. When you create a $1,900,000,000,000, all whilst it represents double the amount you collect through taxation, you are the losing member of a losing party. And all the clever calculator games you play will not help you. It is a sliding scale from the decline of a decent amount of wealth deep into the debt and depth of bankruptcy is all you have to look forward to ad there is no going back from this path, the US is too deep in debt already. When it was clearly visible that the overhaul of tax laws was the only real path for over two decades, the superrich will not help them overcome anything, not even their own stupidity. So when we see “The proposal aims to capture more of the wealth created by the soaring stock market of the last few years. It targets the roughly 20,000 taxpayers in the US worth more than $100m (£76m). Investor Warren Buffett, Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be among those affected.” Yes you can try that approach, but in light of the money you are spending, money you do not have, it will amount to nothing. The first thing that they face is to reduce their annual budget to no more than $730,000,000,000 that is the the first thing that needs to happen, reduce it by well over 50%, that is the impact they need to face. And then those additional taxations will need to be used for 100% to reducing debt. Even then they will come up short for close to 12-15 years. Should any millionaire and billionaires have remained in the US, they could have a chance, but only if US spending goes down by well over 50% until well over 2037. That is the reality of the plight they face. So when you consider the harsh reality of “Mr Biden’s budget also calls for raising the income tax rate on households earning over $400,000 from 37% to 39.6% and increasing the tax on companies to 28%, partially reversing cuts made under the Trump administration.” It merely works if the overspending of budgets is stopped, if not this is a waste of effort and when the Americans run away from their land to try and keep what they have, we will see that zero tax havens will suddenly get an investors infuse of 200%, all whilst all this was clearly out in the open from 1999 onwards. So whilst you all consider “For the 2022 financial year, the annual deficit is projected at more than $1.2tn. Overall debt passed $30tn last month.” All whilst this administration wants to spend an additional $700,000,000,000, you see the first reality out there and it is not taxing the rich, it is controlling stupid politicians spending money they never had in the first place and it goes back to the age of Clinton, it has been going on for that long and now we see some knee jerk action that has no impact, not until the US budgets are under control. But go on, spend billions on some joke (aka USS Zumwalt class) for the amount of $4,400,000,000. And whilst we think it is cheap, consider 

That it was delivered in 2016 and from then on it faced a trial of break downs and repairs, it required redeployment of weapons, the smart guns never worked and it is now a missile launcher at 500% of the price of such a ship. That is where the budgets fall short again and again and that is merely the defence budget, a budget that has shown failure after failure. All this beside the infrastructure requirements that have not been met in close to half a decade, and they now want some lame ‘tax the rich’ approach to fix it all, all whilst the spending tap is not closed by 55%-70%. And as such, the super rich will never solve this problem. Not until Washington DC wakes up and smells the junk they shovel in. So whilst we see think tank after think tank contribute colourful mentions like “America’s 400 richest families have more wealth than all 10 million of the country’s black families combined, according to a 2020 analysis by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.” No one is asking how large the price tag of that analyses was. We see a group of people blaming a group of people all whilst they enabled all this by not overhauling tax laws, it is now well over 20 years that spending needed to be overhauled, but no, even this administration overspends by close to $1,700,000,000,000 and it does not stop with the $1.2tn deficit, the interest of $30tn is also due and there is no solution for all that, the previous leaseholders of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue made that mistake and it is about to get a hell of a lot worse, that much seems clear and when the brain drain starts in the US, whatever is left there will not be suitable or liveable, that too is a clear consequence. And it was not rocket science. When you spend more than you collect, when you spend more than you have, this happens and it is happening now and the superrich were never part of any solution, their spending and their own tax system was, and it has been clearly out there since 1999. 

And when you wonder why I mentioned the USS Zumwalt? Well Yesterday we got “With political and economic stakes possibly riding on a defense project that saw a 17% cost overrun from $12 billion to $14 billion and the number of vessels being dropped from 32 to only three, besides a raft of nagging flaws in the overtly advanced system, the USS Zumwalt series of warships will not be scrapped” three overpriced dinghy’s and they are about to refit them for “Advanced Gun System (AGS) will be replaced by another defining weapon of our times – hypersonic missiles.“ A collection of ships, not a decade old will face billions in cost for refit, its stealth hull no longer doing what it was designed to do. On the other hand, I designed a weapon to sink it for a mere $250,000 per deployment, so who was stupid enough to sign that contract at $14,000,000,000 per vessels setting the stage from 32 ships to a mere three of them? You really think the super rich were the problem or these overspending politicians with their heads in the clouds? Someone OK’ed spending $14,000,000,000 on something that never properly worked and they are about to spend more. 

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March 29, 2022 · 04:11

A dangerous ploy

Today, we see President Biden play a dangerous card. It is his version of ‘tax the rich’. Now lets be clear, I have nothing against it, I find it unfair, in stead of ‘properly tax everyone’ he goes after one group, a populist approach to this issue. A setting we see but do we see it correctly. Presidents going back decades have been unwilling to overhaul tax laws in the US. The difference here is that it comes with an added bonus. The article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-budget-boost-military-raise-taxes-billionaires-2022-03-28/) gives us ‘Biden’s budget boosts military, raises taxes on billionaires, companies’ it comes with the added text “U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday submitted a $5.79 trillion budget plan to Congress that calls for record peacetime military spending while raising taxes for billionaires and companies and lowering government deficits.” In 2021 the US estimates that they expect to collect $3.86 trillion. Expected does not mean achieved, it is an educated guess. In 2019 they collected $3.46 trillion. The 2020 numbers are also expected. So in this, how does the US give us a $5.79 trillion budget, $1,930 billion more than they will collect. Money the US does not have and the billionaire fix get them nothing more than about $360 billion in the next decade, according to the document. So $360,000,000,000 in a decade does not tell us how the US will survive $1,930 billion more than they expect to collect. An additional of $1.9 trillion more and there is no space to wiggle, the chance is that those with more than $100,000,000 will more completely to the zero tax havens like Dubai, Bermuda, Bahamas, Monaco and a few other places. It will start an economic brain drain and a wallet drain to boot. It is a dangerous play, especially as (again) no proper tax overhaul follows. 

As I see it, this dangerous play will make the rich avoid the US like the plague, for a lot of them it no longer pays them to stay there and the moment this administration figures that out, the danger will overwhelm them. 

What I do not get is why the overhaul of tax laws are avoided to this degree. You see, it has always been about proper taxing people. A setting that might not make people like Elon Musk, George Soros, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos happy, but it is an essential one. As such the overall quality of life in the US will slip and slide to lower levels still. And when it does the average person will see no real reason to stay there, the exodus will start and it will stops the US industrial machine to a near standstill position.

So when we see “Called the “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax,” it would assess a 20% minimum tax rate on U.S. households worth more than $100 million. Over half the revenue could come from those worth more than $1 billion.” We need to realise that ‘Tax the rich’ is dangerous. I have nothing against taxing billionaires (I am not one, and the next 3-4 years I do not expect to become on and I am not American), but when it is unfair taxation, it merely means that the courts will overflow with cases and if the next republican president stops that setting the US will be nearly $2 trillion out of pocket yet again and no achievements were made.

That is the danger of the play and that is the case that will stop the US. Yes, the Americans are so much better off than the previous fellow, are they not?

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May 11, 2021 · 12:34

The tweets that flame

Yes, it seems harsh, and it is not meant to be. You see, this might be the tweet of today, but the setting has never changed not for three decades. Even as political windbags are all claiming that they are doing their bit, they are actually relying on emotional events to keep the flames going, especially when they do not resolve anything. My blog has covered it for almost a decade, and I have been stating it for another two decades. And this tweet is bringing it to the surface yet again.

People are all about ‘taxing billionaires’, ‘taxing corporations’, and ‘taxing churches’, the last one is nice, I hardly ever see that one. So let’s take a jab at this (yet again).

Taxing Billionaires
Yes, it is all about discrimination, taxing the billionaires. I still hope to become one, that is if Papa Smurf (Sergey Brin), Clever Smurf (Larry Page) and optionally Tracker Smurf (Sundar Pichai) wake up and take notice. OK, wake up is incorrect and uncalled for, they are likely awake 18 hours a day and they optionally take notice of a dozen matters every hour of every day, but so far they are not noticing my 5G IP (darn).  So at what point will we ‘tax’ the billionaires? Will we check their bank accounts and levy it for 20%? At what point do you think will these 614 billionaires move to Canada, or Europe and leave the US completely bankrupt? What do you think happens when $5,000,000,000,000 moves to another nation? I have another issue, these people made money in whatever way, and not all are a Lawrence Elliot, Mark Zuckerberg or Google top. As such do you really want the creative top of the world to vacate to another place?

Taxing Churches
There is a larger stage here and I am not against taxing the churches. The Catholic church has pillaged in their own way the planet for centuries. So will you tax one (discrimination) or tax all? It is a slippery slope, and ever as it is not the worst idea, it is a trap waiting t explode in all our faces, we just do not know how. 

Taxing corporations
They are getting taxed, it is the degree of required taxation that is the issue. 

The point is not taxing them, it is overhauling the tax laws and on both sides, both democratic and republican presidents, they all failed. From 1993 onwards the USA has had two democrats, two republicans and now another democrat President, the last 4 all failed to overhaul the tax laws.  As such, blame Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump for this failure. In April 2019 we saw “Amazon, Netflix, IBM, and General Motors are among the 60 big companies paying $0 in federal income taxes in 2018”, not one, not two, not three, but 60 big companies all avoiding taxation, avoiding not evading. Evading taxation is illegal, avoiding it is only paying what the letter of the law tells you to pay and that is how it should be, as such tax laws need an overhaul and this has been clear for 30 years, so why is it not done?

Because we see flames, we react to flames and no one is considering (intentional or not) to push legislation to overhaul the tax laws. It is the same joke again and again. Tax and gun laws are trodden on, we see all the crocodile tears, but people die and die again and until gun laws are truly overhauled, starting by giving the ATF the teeth they need to take a chunk out of guns, this will continue. And the media knows this too, but they cater to their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers and none of those three are happy about overhauling tax laws. 

And until the people unite complaining to the media nothing will change. It is funny that a valid objection by a journalist regarding an Oprah Winfrey interview, where we see a reported “Over 57,000 complaints have been delivered to Ofcom” regarding the point of view of a reporter, yet I am willing to bet that NONE of those 57,000 people ever complained on the need to overhaul tax laws. And we notice people complaining that nothing gets done, well, does this not start with you? A person can tweet to high heaven, but that does not change things. Getting hundreds even thousands complain to electable officials never happens (and the politicians, as well as corporations are happy about this), they need the rich to pay for their reelections and that will not happen when tax laws are overhauled.  

This is also not limited to the US, it is a global issue and if people really want poverty to go away, you need to demand an overhaul of the tax laws. It is really that simple. But beware, when you push corporations away it has other impacts. California is now learning that the hard way as more and more corporations are moving to Texas. So this is a much larger slippery scale and their will be consequences, no matter how we slice that tax cake.

But I am not against taxation, but I too will take the tax avoidance route when called on, it is not because I am against paying taxation, I am against paying too much taxation, that is why tax laws were created. A paper in 2014 gave us “‘Tax avoidance is a taxpayer’s course of action in line with the letter but contrary to the spirit of the law’. Definitions phrased along these lines can be found in many policy statements and legal provisions. They are common, but nonetheless problematic. It is the ‘spirit of the law’ part which poses problems. These difficulties not only have theoretical import; they also cast doubt on the legitimacy of efforts to combat tax avoidance. And the skeptics – ‘non-believers’ in the spirit of the law – are many.” The paper by Hanna Filipczyk gives us a lot in that regard, on the problems and on the 27 references that show that this has been going on for a long time, and until politicians stop wanking about the spirit of tax law and do something about the letter of tax law, this will continue, and its continuation will never cease. And the media is making it easy for them as they cater to part of that group. Should you doubt that, then wonder when the media told you to that to achieve a proper level of taxing, tax laws need to change. Do not take my word, check what THEY said, you will see I was right and I have been correct in this case for well over a quarter of a century. 

It was never hard, it was never complex, it merely needed to be done and the previous 4 presidents did not achieve it, why not? I will let you ponder that part for a little part longer.

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