First they came for the millionaires, and I did not speak out - because it’s only 4 fucking percent and they’re still not going to lose any sleep over their bills or if they’ll ever retire.
Is their comment editing going on or did you reply to the wrong comment or is my app glitched? The comment you replied to seems to say:
That’s good to hear that even though the vaccine is targeting the last big Omicron variant (XBB.1.5) aka Kraken, that its still effective towards the new Eris variant as its similar enough.
Which obviously doesn’t make sense for your comment (which I assume was meant to be a reply to an anti-vaxxer or something)
Not to discourage continued bleeding of the rich, but I wonder if this is the right way to go about it. Theoretically, we should already have a lot of laws on the books that slam millionaires for their advantageous position. But, their budget also allows for accountants that shift and hide that money, sometimes on a questionable basis of legality.
Could one prong on this assault be to increase the IRS’ operating budget, so that they’re able to track down and stop more of these tax haven shenanigans?
Exactly. When I supported this, there was that wince of “this won’t get the people it really needs to hit”… but it does enough.
And tbh, I know some wealthy fucking people who legitimately don’t cross the line. $1M/yr is a lot of bloody money. That means if I found a way to “only” make $900,000/yr, I’m immune to this tax.
Could one prong on this assault be to increase the IRS’ operating budget, so that they’re able to track down and stop more of these tax haven shenanigans?
Well you could simply start by plugging up a few questionable tax loopholes.
Whether or not the reason the IRS can’t collect the tax revenue to be able to provide certain services is because of them not having enough money, I don’t know.
But if you’re issue is with certain laws on taxation, it would makes more sense to deal with those first.
EDIT: To mention something else that’s important to all of this, there’s something called the Laffer Curve. The simple explanation is that there’s a happy medium between the percentage of income tax and the amount of tax revenue gained. Too much or too little income taxation and you end up with less tax revenue. You can see this in a few times during US history where the income tax wasn’t as high, but the tax revenue was great. So to further determine where we should go with income tax you could look at the past few years of projected and actual tax revenue, as well as spending to service government debt among other government spending.
I’m not an economist nor an accountant, but this is likely what you’d have to do to figure out the balance between taxation and government spending in order to have money for certain social services. However, no one wants to do that and another big problem is the government doesn’t like being told it needs to manage it’s spending better.
It’s not bleeding anyone. My father was an airline flag carrier captain in Europe. He made what he called “an obscene paycheck”. When taxes came around, he would say: look at what they are taking from me, I must be making a ton!
And most likely he was paying more then than someone earning the same amount does today. We’re not even close to scrapping our way back out of society being profoundly imbalanced towards the wealthy.
In China, NPR would suffer a few arrests and jailings just for posting this article, but a lot of uneducated weirdos out there still think “ThE uS iS wOrSe”
It didn't happen to NPR, but even irrelevant pieces of technology were stolen from a smaller publication's journalists using tactics that appear illegal (skirting the subpoena requirement by accusing them of identity theft). The raid went on for hours, and Joan Meyer DIED as a direct result of the trauma. She wasn't arrested or jailed, she was terrorized to such a degree that it left her dead.
This isn't the time or place to make statements like "Hey, at least it's not as bad as China", because for some people like Joan Meyer, it was just as bad. We need to start focusing on what we can do stop the police from terrorizing people they dislike, or it might be NPR next.
I’m of the opinion that COVID is no longer news worthy beyond the minority it impacts. No different to the flu or various other low risk (to the vast majority) common community transmitted illnesses. It just is now. We don’t get news articles written and publicised at this level for a new flu variant or vaccine, so I don’t see the point for COVID.
Edit: some good discussion in the responses to this. But also some utterly dog shit ad hominem and trying to put words in my mouth. If only they bothered to actually read what I wrote.
It’s not totally random. I’ve noticed it affects self-centered and narcissistic people more frequently, almost like it’s one more justification to be a perpetual victim.
You know what’s wild? My alzheimer’s patients almost always have the most healthy bodies and rarely complain about pain. They’re not overweight. They don’t get CHF. They pass through COVID and other illnesses with mild symptoms.
Your simplified strawman contains a seed of truth.
Oh sweetheart. Unless you account for a heck of a lot of people. Hundreds to thousands isn't a very large sample size when you take into account the amount of people with disabilities there is in the world. And you also have to account for figures of people with undiagnosed disabilities too.
If you look back, the people addressing me have been arguing about why I shouldn’t believe my sources, and they’re using nothing but degrading insults and authoritarian arguments to try to sway me. My responses have all been appropriate. Nobody has asked for clarification or explanation. They just read my claims and reacted with their own narcissistic responses. I don’t care if you all remain ignorant of the truth.
Allow me to rephrase for people like you. “I am confident in my research and experience, and I have no desire to explain years of work to the willfully ignorant.”
Does it? You insulted me by calling me willfully ignorant. I didn’t insult you or make it personal at all, so that sounds like it applies to your responses, not mine. And how is insulting me appropriate when you claim all of your responses are appropriate when I did not do you the same discourtesy?
You are willfully ignorant. You only have the very vaguest idea of the dynamic of the mind body interaction I briefly described, and now you’re devoting all of your will to painting me as an antagonist simply because I responded to hostility and ignorance with the same instead of patiently spoon feeding you information that you’ll promptly disregard or manipulate to reinforce your existing beliefs of who and what you think you’ve encountered.
See, you think I owe it to other people to drag them kicking and screaming to what I know is the truth, and I know that’s pointless. All I can do is communicate with people on the level they project onto me. If you wanted to ask questions and have a constructive conversation, you’d have done that from the beginning.
What are you even talking about now? I didn’t say anything about the mind body interaction. I didn’t bring it up or discuss it. How is that me being willfully ignorant?
I meant if you want to talk about ignorance, you seem to be totally ignorant of what I’ve said to you so far since you think it involves something I never even mentioned.
You didn’t say anything about it, correct. I did in the very first post. I know what you’ve said so far, and you don’t seem to realize that it’s irrelevant because we’re having two different conversations. You’ve been a pedantic and condescending asshole since your arrival, and I’ve been responding. You THINK you’re correcting me, but you’ve yet to consider what you’re correcting because you’re arguing more with your assumptions than you are with me.
Why would anti-vaxxers or COVID conspiracists be talking about having Long COVID? They’re more likely to represent it as a minor cold, not talking publicly about being disabled by illness.
The original strain, yes. The current COVID is extremely weak and most humans have adapted to it. It’s become a minor cold to the vast majority of the human population.
You can’t just say some bullshit then post a link and think it backs up what you’ve said. That paper explores the genetic predisposition to COVID susceptibility and not:
The current COVID is extremely weak and most humans have adapted to it.
Is there like one sentence in that paper you’ve latched onto that you think justifies your bad take?
I don’t think you read enough of the report. It goes into showing those genetic markers of that patents of covid. That means that those groups are who should be far more careful than groups without those genetics.
Retrospective cohort study of 196,992 adults after COVID-19 infection in Clalit Health Services members in Israel between March 2020 and January 2021.
Our data suggest that there is no increase in the incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis in COVID-19 recovered patients compared to uninfected matched controls. Further longer-term studies will be needed to estimate the incidence of pericarditis and myocarditis in patients diagnosed with COVID-19.
1.1 million Americans died of Covid, 6.8 million world wide. Today there are still around 300 Americans dying a day of the virus, 90% of those are 65+ in age or older. The number one factor in covid deaths today is being unvaccinated or having other factors that cause covid to be more lethal.
For the majority of the human population this virus poses no issues.
186.7K a year is below unintentional accidents. Slipping on a wet floor is considered a higher risk of death than covid in 2023. That is why people are no longer focused on it and have moved on.
The bulk of “unintentional accidents” are motor vehicle fatalities, which are actually extremely significant in America. Though I don’t really want to get into whether or not the blood price of not giving a shit about the ongoing pandemic is a bargain, because that seems to be morally reprehensible in any event.
186.7K a year is below unintentional accidents. Slipping on a wet floor is considered a higher risk of death than covid in 2023
Then you post:
Unintentional Fall deaths: 44,686
Which most certainly includes “Slipping on a wet floor” but is like one quarter the number of COVID deaths you yourself just posted!
You’re obviously upset about COVID and whatever impact it had on your life but posting bullshit just makes you look like an idiot. At least read the things you post, and maybe also try not to completely contradict yourself sentence to sentence.
Immunocompromised people exist at every age. People with asthma exist at every age. And 150k dead per year is not a small number.
I don’t even understand what you’re trying to argue, as if it would be less worth fighting if it only slaughtered the elderly. What a horrible standard and a horrible message to send about the kind of society you’d like to live in.
Long covid symptoms are affecting 6% of the entire US population - 1 in 4 who caught covid. One estimate says the cost of long covid to the US economy might be as high as $3.7 trillion.
Just because you don't necessarily die to it any more doesn't mean it "poses no issues".
Only if the 94% are now completely immune to long covid and wouldn't suffer from it if they do get covid in the future. If that's the case, then the risks really are only the tiny chance of dying to it, usually requiring being immunocompromised or unvaccinated. Otherwise there is also always the additional, orders of magnitude higher risk that you get long covid, and with that comes the risk that you might get stuck to your bed not being able to do anything for over a year for example.
Using the numbers from your other comment, for those 45000 deaths by motor vehicle accidents you also have the over 2 million injuries and disabilities that didn't kill anyone, some of them permanent and debilitating. The risk of death is only one number among many.
COVID used up all of my sick time when I had it earlier this year because I was out for a week. It gave me symptoms that are still ongoing. I can’t get a full night’s sleep because I wake up coughing every night. That’s “really bad sniffles” to you?
COVID is still a pretty new thing. The whole shit storm was only 3 years ago. Flu has been around for fkn ages now, so it's just a common thing. Where we can predict mutations and how they'll effect people and spread. So it's not really a concern, it's just get your flu jab this year.
Whereas we're still researching COVID and learning about it. The mutations are different with different effects.
Until it hits normality like flu, and predictability like flu, it's good to keep people in the know.
I'm thankful it's still being reported about. As someone with a disability that weakens my immune system, I'm glad to see new vaccines or research into it. I got Omicron, thankfully I'd been vaccinated, cause even with the vaccine it sucked for me. And there was some weird AF symptoms, like the air just smelled like cheese, that one really threw me off. But had I not been vaccinated, who knows just how bad it would have gotten.
And then there's long COVID, we don't get long flu. COVID had an effect on my disability and I've felt worse since getting it.
So it's not just as easy as saying but the flu. They're two different things with different effects and predictability levels and research done into them. So instead of complaining that there's still stuff being written about it, be thankful it's being taken seriously so it can eventually just be a background thing that's akin to flu.
Well, coronaviruses are not new as a whole, lots of things fall under that class, but this particular one and the offshoots are just particularly troublesome. More problematic than the virus itself though is the social shit it stirred up where you have a certain segment that seem intent on actively trying to spread it to others, or at least being completly indifferent to it just to say and claim how tough and right they are about it. Stop coughing and sneezing on people all, it wasn’t acceptable before this covid, still not now.
Hey look, it's one of those "This doesn't affect me, so why should I give a shit?" types! With enough training, they evolve into "Why didn't anyone warn me??!?" types.
We do; I see them every year. Whether I'm travelling or just trying not to be sick (which costs me money since I don't get paid sick leave), knowing what is "out there" is pretty useful information. By the time flu vaccines start rolling out there's usually a round of articles on what the tri/quadvalent covers and the severity anticipated based on worldwide transmissions.
Oh, I don’t agree with that. There’s no news release for new flu strains or new flu vaccines (there’s new ones every year, you know. It’s not a once a decade thing)
Do you actually believe it doesn’t need to hit ‘at this level’ because people would be just as informed if it wasn’t? Or do you just not want to see it anymore.
The NHS here is always sending out press releases to the population to remind those that are vulnerable to get their seasonal vaccines (inclusive of flue, and COVID).
There is information out there about new flu mutations and flu shots, but with those applicable going for yearly vaccinations it really is irrelevant.
So, to go back to my original point, which people seem so adamant on willfully misreading so that they can have something to be outraged about, it’s not news worthy on the scale these articles want to suggest that they are. There are countless things that change or develop that various different subsections of society need to know about.
if you really truly believe that any information about new flu viruses gets to “the population” then i’m sorry, you are very very very very very very very wrong.
I know what your original point was, i don’t care. my point was countering it with “we should have more exposure of health impacting news”, you just think that it’s not needed because you think that the NHS is delivering this information to “the population”, which again, is very very very very very very very wrong.
I don’t think you deserve the downvoting. I do think it’s semi-newsworthy but you’re right that people really don’t care anymore. We aren’t going to mask back up, most people won’t get vaccinated, much like the flu, shots are going to be available but just not common. Your overall sentiment is echoing most peoples so I think it’s entirely valid despite what the internet justice warriors think
Wyatt had been at the Grand Canyon on trip with other members of his family, who told KPNX they intended to take a road trip home to replace the memories of the fall.
Ok, everyone! Wyatt broke his back and collapsed a lung. Who wants to see Disneyland?
Local authorities said they were investigating the newsroom for "identity theft," according to the warrant. The raid was linked to alleged violations of a local restaurant owner's privacy, when journalists obtained information about her driving record.
Oberlander said exceptions to the Privacy Protection Act are "important but very limited." One such exception allows authorities to raid a newsroom if the journalists themselves are suspected to be involved in the crime at hand. In a statement sent to NPR, Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody cited this exception to justify his department's raid of the Marion County Record.
However
Several media law experts told NPR the raid appears to be a violation of federal law, which protects journalists from this type of action.
Meyer, the Marion County Record’s publisher, said local restaurateur Kari Newell accused the paper of illegally obtaining drunk-driving records about her.
But the paper, Meyer said, received this information about Newell from a separate source, independently verified it on the Kansas Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles website — and decided not to publish it. The paper instead opted to notify local police.
Here’s their justification - they found out about a business owner’s drunk driving records, and told the police. The police decided this was “identity theft”.
Yeah, most millionaires have no profit and they’re in the red. We need even more taxes on small aircrafts that are used for private charter, more taxes on purchasing and operating helicopters, taxes on the kerosene not used in military scope.
Taxes on luxury cars that only the billionaire’s afford. Every car over 150.000 USD should have a 100% tax to feed the homeless and the kids
Per the article, it’s an income tax on any income over a million dollars, so it’s essentially an additional state income tax bracket. So, if an entity makes exactly 1 million this year then they won’t pay any extra, but if they make 2 million, then they pay 4 percent on that additional 1 mill (40k), over whatever else they would owe before the additional tax.
Like all income tax, there are ways to avoid it or reduce your burden, but not every person/company goes to those lengths.
I personally think a wealth tax is fairer for society, but it’s pretty hard to implement and of course has a ton of very wealthy opposition.
I personally think a wealth tax is fairer for society
The most reasonable way I’ve seen so far is to assume that your wealth passively creates x% of extra income for you, and then tax that amount as income. That also simplifies the tax system, since you only need enter your assets, and not what exacts trades and profits you made.
The most reasonable way I’ve seen so far is to assume that your wealth passively creates x% of extra income for you, and then tax that amount as income.
I can make it simpler yet and close the Billionaire Income Loophole, where their “income” is taking out loans against value of their investments by simply taxing those loans. No need to value something, they’ve already done it when they took out the loan. If you borrowed 10 Million against a portfolio of 50 Million then you should be taxed on the 10 Million. That’s the value you assigned and the benefit you received.
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