Are EPA employees not protected from retaliation? There are tons of laws protecting employees from retaliation for reporting things to agencies like the EPA, DEP, OSHA, etc. Seems really weird the people in those offices wouldnt have the same protections
I can’t figure out what the guy actually did. Florida specifically has whistle blower protections in place for reporting crimes, but I don’t think what they were planning is actually a crime.
If all he did was alert the media to information that would be considered publicly available or he criticized the idea, then that is a first amendment violation.
I don’t think what they were planning is actually a crime.
From the excerpt from the article
News of his firing came as two Democratic state representatives pressed the agency about who was involved in drawing up plans that appeared to include no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.
Are EPA employees not protected from retaliation? There are tons of laws protecting employees from retaliation for reporting things to agencies like the EPA, DEP, OSHA, etc. Seems really weird the people in those offices wouldnt have the same protections
They would, but the whistle was being blwon against the corrupt AF shitstain governor of the state, so…
Seems to be (or becoming) a pattern down there, they don’t like it when people with information give the facts that the government isn’t comfortable with the public knowing like with Rebekah Jones during COVID. How many states are going full fascist these days? Texas is doing raids on people doing voter registrationa that appear to be targeted for minorities.
It’s exactly what all the shitty countries that Trump complains about do, yet because those states gargle his marbles and kick up the payments it’s all good (plus they’re being racist which is good in his books). It’s mostly the payment but I’m sure he enjoys a good ball wash before he tees off.
If only there was some critical thinking from people to realize not doing that shit is what made the country better than (some) others.
So clearly his mother and grandfather. I wonder if we’ll find out that the kid was abused in some way. It’s not normal for a kid to wanna murder family members.
Or just a kid playing with unsecured firearms. I wouldn’t expect a child to give coherent answers after their parent and grandparent just died in front of them; never mind after accidentally shooting them.
It could be something more, but the weapons were unsecured any how.
Without knowing specifics of the incident, I would suggest you not discount the possibility.
people get incredibly stupid when they panic, kids included, and there may not have been an immediate awareness of their family getting injured; and when your panicking and you don’t know how to handle a firearm, it’s not outside the realm of plausible that multiple shots get fired- even when we’re talking about adults.
I’m not saying the kid wasn’t abused. I’m not saying it wasn’t with some intent. I am saying there’s a not insignificant chance that the confession was the result of cops and detectives trained to extract confessions, by using some extremely manipulative methods, from a kid who is almost certainly scared and traumatized. traumatized whether he meant to do it or not.
FTA:
“We still got to put some puzzle pieces together,” the chief told ABC News. “The city can rest easy knowing that the suspect is off the street of a double homicide, but there’s also the shock factor.”
You’re absolutely right on the confession bit. This is also Louisiana, I’m not sure police and legal systems get any more corrupt than theirs, especially if you’re black.
I don’t think we should be taking advice on anything from religious people. It simply doesn’t make sense to listen to people who are delusional at best, and maniacal at worst
Edit and I think it’s inherently antisemitic to say that the only reason the Jewish people deserve a homeland is because of religion. No, Jews deserve a place to call their own, and it’s fair that it should be where it is currently because of their historic ties to the region. Neighboring ME countries should accept it and move on. The rise of Zionism had, and still has, roots in European antisemitism, so I don’t believe this Judeo Christian fraternity for a second.
Interesting incentive move. I immediately wonder how people are going to exploit it, though I don’t believe the potential for abuse should dissuade an attempt at progress.
Yeah, if this was a credit that’d be a different story and very ripe for exploitation. However, a deduction is still quite a bit of money to reduce your taxable income by.
my comment implies there was already a business or a business to be made, and closing and reopen was a metod to game system for 50k deduction, hence less taxes, each time this is done
No, I’m not. That’s the thing. I know that a very small business (sub five employees) lives and dies by word of mouth and repeat business. Something that closing down and becoming another business with another name (even a derivative) will absolutely kill. On top of the IRS very likely having protections against this very scenario, starting a new business with a new license, and a new name, a new logo, and a new bank account, insurance, and a new domain name probably (in which case, software, accounts, POS, would be tied to the wrong domain email which is embarrassing if it’s not changeable), and does it need permits? They’re new too. Did you have an LLC? Lawyer fees and processing and time. All to save $50k in taxes which likely weren’t terrible if you’re that small.
It’s basically like starting a game of Civ or something similar and adjusting everything in the custom gameplay mode to make a few things a little easier in game. And then you get a few hours of playing in and realize you borked the game and would rather play a typical campaign.
You just use the same phone numbers and accounts and stuff. There’s been standard ways to redirect people to new names for at least centuries.
It costs a couple hundred bucks to start a new llc in most states. People just use their old articles of incorporation and change the names (I know one who just crossed the old ones out with a pen and wrote the new ones in over the top).
Permitting almost always has exceptions for existing operations.
When you close a business on paper you don’t suddenly lose access to services in the name of that business.
If you can figure out a good reason to (any reason counts, restructuring, etc) you can have the same dba filing for your new company, not change anything externally and be fine.
What you’re not considering is that all of the above things might amount to five grand if you live in a particularly restrictive state, but that’s still 45k in tax breaks a year and if there was some reason to restructure internally now you’re getting paid for it.
When you close a business on paper you don’t suddenly lose access to services in the name of that business.
Yes you do. Your bank account is in the old business’s name, and any lines of credit you have will be in that business’s name as well. Doing anything for a new business is harder than for an established one. Once you explain “oh yeah I did own that one, I just changed the name for tax purposes” you sound like a scammer.
Banks and suppliers (good ones) are not going to waste their time figuring out your scheme. They will just drop you.
My [likely ignorant] take is that we need better incentives for workers, renters, and first-time homeowners, not MBA shysters “entrepreneurs” creating “new businesses” dropshipping imported garbage and other ventures that add little value to society.
It is? Like I’m honestly interested as an etymology nerd, but I can’t seem to find anything that directly ties this to antisemitism other than a vague “idk it might be.”
What I see is some people claiming it comes from either a historical sense of “shy” meaning disreputable, or the German word Scheißer, meaning shitter.
You may be right! law.com found the same. I had heard the shylock part, and often time Jewish people are demonized as unscrupulous lawyers and bankers, so it made sense. I’m not sure now… I think I’ll avoid it still to keep people comfortable, even if it is a fun word to say…
They way I understood it from the '70s until today was the German shiiters meaning, or bullshitters. Liars, cheats, scammers. Our family has a strong and recent German heritage and connection still, there are some original German speakers in the family still living. So maybe a translation bias.
Tf are you on about? You realize that a huge chunk of small business owners are middle class, right? Hell, many of them are barely holding on at all. My wife is a social worker and started her own “business” this year, which is just a small office she rents so she has a safe place to meet her clients. I promise you we are far from being wealthy. Don’t confuse small business as being riddled with millionaires and billionaires, because that’s just complete nonsense.
I assumed they were pointing out how small business tax breaks can be taken advantage of by those wealthy types pretending to be people like your wife. On the other hand, benefits to workers, renters and first time home-owners can’t be exploited as simply and would benefit your wife just the same. But if I’m wrong then, yea, I agree with you 100%.
It’s lemmy. Most people don’t get a small business is often tradesmen, the local restaurant down the street or that weird quirky store in your neighborhood.
They’re also the ones struggling hard right now. I’m no fan of Harris but based on the limited article, I support the idea.
We need to make it easier for the average person to start a business and have some prosperity.
I seek out small locally owned businesses as often as I can.
Starting your own business should not be the best or only vehicle to prosperity. You should be able to make a comfortable living working a normal job that doesn’t break you.
Failure rate of small business is high, and you can’t blame all of that on lack of startup capital. Bad concept, bad execution, bad location, etc. could all play into it. The taxpayer should not be obliged to keep a “quirky” store running if it doesn’t bring in customers. Throwing good money after bad isn’t going to bring prosperity to anyone in the end.
Not to mention that they compete with each other, not just the megacorps. I’m pretty sure there are half a dozen hair salons on our main street alone, and most of them sit empty at any given time, endlessly changing hands. Incentivizing startups will only make competition more fierce, so a few more winners but much more losers.
We don’t need more restaurants giving the community more below minimum wage jobs that can’t be filled. We need that money helping everyone, with rent or groceries or something, so that they can actually have money to spend at the small businesses that exist.
You’re ignoring the fundamentals of economy by hand waving away all the other types of small businesses and only focusing on the most obvious targets to justify your argument. Construction, legal, retail, medical, mechanical, etc. all make a community even possible. And this benefit is a deduction, not a credit, so taxpayers aren’t directly paying anything for this benefit.
Look, I’m not disagreeing with you that everyone needs help. I completely agree. I’m also not going to defend all small businesses as being a good thing by default, because there are lots of shitty local places that pay and treat their staff awfully. But I think this is a simple win to allow average people to pursue their goals in business if they want to and make it just a little bit easier for them.
Fixing rent, grocery costs, healthcare, worker salaries, etc is far more complex than simply giving a tax deduction.
Real weird that people don’t seem to get that competition from small, local businesses is what we want to end the corporate grip on our lives. Millionaires get venture capital loans, not $50k small business loans.
Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense. Big corpos use shell companies to completely evade tax obligations (e.g. Google, Apple, etc), not get a measly $50k deduction off their enormous profits.
We don’t need more small businesses. We need less corporations, less ultra wealthy and more healthy middle class. This does not solve anything and a one time tax deduction doesn’t make small businesses sustainable when they have to compete against corpos.
Having more small businesses is how you get less corporations and a healthier middle class… there’s a ton of great incentives for small businesses already, but the hardest part is the initialization and the first year. This makes that way easier. This is a good idea, you just have a bad view.
You and @Rookwood are both right.
On one side, helping small business get started is good.
The other side, breaking up monopolies and market manipulators is also needed.
Thank you. I can’t believe there are multiple comments in this thread hating on small businesses and somehow justifying that as them being anti-corpo/wealthy elite. We need less Walmart/Amazon/etc and more smaller, locally owned and run businesses.
Even better just require all businesses to have a union or coop democratic structure when expanded beyond one employee. Fix the problem from the beginning. All employees should have equal voice. CEO one vote, delivery truck driver one vote. For all companies large and small.
Having more small businesses is how you get less corporations and a healthier middle class
Except when the corporations just buy the small business. This is the big problem with breaking into an industry. If you do find a way to break in, then one of the larger guys will just buy you out or force you out. Facebook bought Insta for the sole reason to reduce competition. Meta bought them out at $1B, which was huge for a small business buyout. Post-Meta, Insta is now estimated to be worth $100B Literally a penny on the dollar for the buyout. Meta also bought out WhatsApp at $19B, currently estimated to be $109B worth today. Like things that are regular names at this point were once small businesses that were serious threats to larger companies. Meta's Messenger was under serious threat by WhatsApp prior to the buy out.
And sometimes the point is to just get rid of the business altogether. Microsoft bought out Wunderlist for the sole reason to kill off the app. Google bought out Waze and has constantly been keeping them just functioning, but in 2020 the FTC launched yet another investigation into Google over Waze.
Small businesses won't thrive without restricting some of the anti-competitive behavior of the larger corporations.
Those companies were all worth millions by that point. I completely agree about splitting monopolies, but y’all are willing to sacrifice the common man (the people you’re closest to in class) simply because maybe, possibly, potentially they could be bought out by a major monopoly rather than the real helpful to the middle/lower class which is helping them get started and building their own wealth.
No, you have a point and I wrote that oddly. I'm not saying we can only have one or the other. But yeah, my comment makes it sound like we can't do helping small businesses without first taking care of large corporations. We can have both things happening.
That's on me, I wasn't entirely clear in that comment. We can have the small business help and that would provide benefit to small businesses. But small businesses won't thrive until we ease up the grip that particular companies have on select industries.
I appreciate you recognizing that it was worded wrong, or how someone could interpret it that way.
My problem with the original comment I replied to was more this idea that we should be breaking down big businesses (which we should) rather than focusing our efforts on building up small businesses. My wife and I have talked about opening up a book store (I don’t read, but my wife does and she’s passionate about it [200 books a year on average!]) and going from 10 to 50,000 first year support would make that leap from our comfortable finance management position for her to being a business owner. So for me I see how this personally impacts the every man and how it benefits us (and me) as a whole. Plus, as is often the case, people get so caught up in the details of things these days that we end up taking more time and spending more money/energy in the first place.
Many small businesses fail in the first year due to taking on necessary costs before clients/ customers are well established. Getting through that period would make businesses more sustainable.
Well it sure beats getting your taxes raised just to give the rich another cut. This can actually help me out as I'm working to start a small shop here in Detroit. $50k is the cost of a good used CNC lathe.
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