“The climate crisis has not disappeared,” said Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. “It’s the opposite—it’s even more urgent now than it was before.”
Young people by the hundreds of thousands took to the streets across the globe on Friday to deliver a resounding message to world leaders: The climate crisis is getting worse, and only radical action will be enough to avert catastrophe and secure a just, sustainable future for all.
“As emissions and inequalities increase, we rise up and demand climate justice.”
From Pakistan to Italy to Germany to the Philippines, the worldwide “Uproot the System” actions marked the largest climate demonstrations since the coronavirus pandemic forced campaigners to take their protests online last year. Climate activists in developing countries—where access to vaccines is limited due to artificial supply constraints and hoarding by rich nations—were still forced to limit the size of their demonstrations Friday as a public health precaution.
“Last time it was digital and nobody was paying attention to us,” Yusuf Baluch, a 17-year-old activist from the Pakistani province of Balochistan, toldReuters. “In the global north, people are getting vaccinated so they might be out in huge quantities. But in the global south, we are still limited.”
The Global Climate Strike continues! Balochistan is predominantly agriculture-based. They have been affected by drought due to climate change and the problems faced by people are increasing alarmingly.
Above: Photo Collage / Great Thunberg – via Instagram / Lynxotic
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, whose solitary sit-down strike outside her home country’s parliament in 2018 helped spark the global Fridays for Future movement, said that “it has been a very strange year and a half with this pandemic.”
“But of course, the climate crisis has not disappeared. It’s the opposite—it’s even more urgent now than it was before,” said Thunberg, who on Friday joined a large demonstration in Berlin, which was hammered by massive, climate-linked floods in July.
Watch Thunberg’s full speech in front of the Reichstag building:
Organizers said that more than 1400 climate strikes are set to take place in at least 70 countries Friday, with hundreds of thousands expected to attend demonstrations in Germany alone.
“As emissions and inequalities increase, we rise up and demand climate justice,” saidBerlin-based climate activist Luisa Neubauer.
The latest youth-led global action kicked off just weeks ahead of the pivotal COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which many civil society organizations want to be postponed over fears that inequities in coronavirus vaccine access could prevent delegates from developing nations—those most vulnerable to the climate crisis—from attending.
Equalizing global vaccine distribution is one of the six demands that climate campaigners are aiming to put before world leaders during Friday’s mass demonstrations. The full list is as follows:
The Global North needs to cut emissions drastically by divesting from fossil fuels and ending its extraction, burning, and use. We need concrete plans and detailed annual carbon budgets with roadmaps and milestones to ensure we get to net-zero with justice and equity in the time needed to address climate change.
The colonizers of the north have a climate debt to pay for their disproportionate amount of historic emissions and that starts with the increase of climate finance to implement anti-racist climate reparations, the cancellation of debts especially for damage caused by extreme weather events, and providing adaptation funds that serve the communities.
Work towards a genuinely global recovery from Covid-19 by ensuring equitable vaccine distribution worldwide and suspending intellectual property restrictions on Covid-19 technologies. This is an essential step towards a global, green, and just recovery.
Recognize the tangibility of the climate crisis as a risk to human safety and secure the rights of climate refugees in international law.
Recognize the invaluable impact of biodiversity on indigenous communities’ lives and culture, and commit to make ecocide an international punishable crime.
Stop the violence and criminalization against indigenous peoples, small farmers, small fisherfolk, and other environmental and land defenders. Support the work they do. Respect and listen to our defenders.
The worldwide demonstrations came a week after the United Nations warned that even if the 191 parties to the Paris Agreement meet their current climate targets, global greenhouse gas emissions will still rise 16% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels. The U.N. also estimated that the planet is on track for 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century, a level of heating that experts say would be cataclysmic—particularly for developing nations.
At the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week, the leaders of vulnerable countries pushed wealthy nations—the largest contributors to the climate emergency—to stop shirking their responsibilities to confront the planetary crisis.
“We simply have no higher ground to cede,” Marshall Islands President David Kabua said Wednesday. “The world simply cannot delay climate ambition any further.”
Participants in Friday’s global action pointedly amplified that message. Valentina Ruas, a Brazilian activist, toldThe Guardian that “the global north should be developing climate policies that have at their core climate justice and accountability to the most affected people and areas.”
“Instead,” she added, “they continue to exploit vulnerable communities and recklessly extract fossil fuel, while bragging about their insignificant emission reduction plans.”
”It Just Works” is the basic how-to for the new Macro-Mode on iPhone 13 Pro
Steve Jobs was famous for repeatedly using this line to describe in product demos how something was so intuitive that no user manual would ever be needed. While this phrase has also often been used to try to help Apple accountable when something doesn’t “just work” it is a core design principal and an important part of the legacy of Steve Jobs, up until the current day.
The new iPhone 13 Pro (we are using an iPhone 13 Pro Max for photos and testing) has so many new features that it can be overwhelming to try and absorb, at first. Fortunately this one is almost completely intuitive to learn to use, if not obvious.
A short history of what the heck macro photography is
I will never forget when I was first taught about macro lenses and learned how to shoot extreme close ups. I was working with a professional camera operator (as a music video director) and I wanted to do a close up that would be so close as to be considered a macro shot.
Novice that I was at the time, I assumed that you could just keep pushing the camera closer and closer and focus on the tiny area desired, with no further ado. When my operator told me we would need a special “macro” lens adaptor (that we had not ordered as part of our kit), I felt a bit foolish and knew I would need to bone up on the macro ins-and-outs for the future shoots.
For traditional photography and film shooting there are macro lenses and adaptors that can enable super-close-up shots. These can be simple and relatively cheap or more elaborate and expensive for traditional film cameras and digital DSLRs. There have also always been lens attachments that can be used with an iPhone to get some macro capabilities.
Now, with the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max you have a built-in software enhanced macro capability that “just works”. Currently this feature is not supported on the iPhone 13 (regular) or mini.
Above: Photo / Lynxotic
Real world test shows some extreme possibilities that beg for more
As with many of the new camera features in iOS15, when using an iPhone 13 Pro, the macro mode is built-in and needs only be triggered by your behavior.
To shoot your first macro photo follow these steps:
Open the camera app and choose either photo or video (not cinematic or portrait
Move the phone closer to the object that you want to shoot a macro photo of. When you get close enough you should see a “jump-cut” indicating that you have automatically switched to macro mode due to the untra-close object in frame have been detected by the software. The macro range appears to be 14cm to 6cm according to specs.
Move camera into position (you might be almost touching the object if you want an ultra-macro-look) so that the object is in focus and shoot.
Above: Photo / Lynxotic
Above: Photo / Lynxotic
Some considerations: With large professional macro lenses, which are “slow”, extra light would be required to get the proper exposure. This is less true with the “computational photography” hybrid on the iPhone 13 Pro, but light conditions, as always, will impact the photo quality, a lot.
In particular, with a huge phone so close to the subject of the photo it is sometimes difficult to avoid shadows cast on the object being shot by the phone itself. It is also a somewhat surreal feeling, at first, to be shooting an object that you are almost touching with the lens.
Our live real world experiments (shown in the various photos above and below) are using every possible combination of lens and the automated software to see just how extreme the results can be. In a word, the answer is; very.
Above: Photo / Lynxotic: A reference photo to give scale, the two following photos show the extreme macro close up possible magnification
Above: Photo / Lynxotic: A reference photo to give scale, the two following photos show the extreme macro close up possible magnification
The future of computational and software manipulated imagery production using iPhone and iOS
Anyone who had initially learned about photo techniques based on the “real world” environment of glass, steel and celluloid will no doubt at times feel confusion, anxiety or even a sense of loss when confronted with software, AI and machine learning based computational photography.
And, yes, purists have commented and complained about the various trade-offs when images are produced with software manipulation during the shooting process.
But, as results here show, most of us will feel a sense of exhilaration at the visual and artistic potentials that are becoming possible – all using a device that is, pretty much always, “in your pocket”.
While a multi-thousand dollar high end professional lens, using optical grade, painstakingly engineered glass (usually from Germany), can be used to produce world class image quality, now and in 100 years, the benefits of computational hybrid photography techniques are already going in a whole new direction.
An important, and nearly infinite, benefit is that these enhancements are being improved, both through human based code improvements, and even more so, by machine learning and AI on a continual basis.
As we’ve discussed in previous articles, the fact that these improvements are inevitable and will potentially even accelerate, “while you sleep” is a mind-blowing concept that spills into all aspects of future potential for iPhone photo techniques.
The trade off is large, if you want to turn off these “artificial” enhancements, you will have to wait for macro mode (or use current work arounds) and then switch off night-mode and personalized filters and other beautifying add-ons in order to get a more “natural” or realistic look.
Apple, meanwhile, is 100% all-in with the idea of making iPhone photography intuitive and as beautiful as possible, even if, in some cases the “beauty” is enhanced beyond reality (!).
The photos and degree of magnification possible with macro mode on an iPhone 13 Pro, as seen in these rough test photos, is almost surreal. So much so that it’s easy to imagine that, not long in the future, a medical grade microscope could be possible. One that “just works”, of course, and usable by anyone, anywhere and all on a device that’s already in your pocket.
Pro 12MP camera system: Telephoto, Wide, and Ultra Wide cameras
Telephoto: ƒ/2.8 aperture
Wide: ƒ/1.5 aperture
Ultra Wide: ƒ/1.8 aperture and 120° field of view
3x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 6x optical zoom range
Digital zoom up to 15x
Night mode portraits enabled by LiDAR Scanner
Portrait mode with advanced bokeh and Depth Control
Portrait Lighting with six effects (Natural, Studio, Contour, Stage, Stage Mono, High‑Key Mono)
Dual optical image stabilization (Telephoto and Wide)
Sensor‑shift optical image stabilization (Wide)
Six‑element lens (Telephoto and Ultra Wide); seven‑element lens (Wide)
Subpoenas have been issued for documents and testimony that held close ties to then-President Trump and were either working or had communications with the White House on in the the days leading to Jan 6th. An official press release revealed four individuals have been served and include: former WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former WH Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Scavino, Defense Dept Official Kashyap Patel, and lastly former advisor Stephen Bannon.
Chairman Bennie G. Thompson wrote:
“The Committee is investigating the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating to the peaceful transfer of power, to identify and evaluate lessons learned and to recommend corrective laws, policies, procedures rules, or regulations”
According to committee, Mark Meadows allegedly communicated with officials at the state level and Justice Dept in an effort to overturn 2020 election result ( or prevent its certification).
Kashyap Patel performed several national security jobs for Trump as well as served as Chief of Staff to then Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. Patel allegedly was in involved with discussions among senior Pentagon officials regarding Capitol security before and on Jan 6.
Daniel Scavino prior to Trump’s rally on the 6th took to his social media to encourage MAGA-ers to “be a part of history”. According to records obtain he also have text messages from the White House on Jan. 6.
Steve Bannon communicated with Trump around Dec 30 regarding focused efforts on or leading up to Jan. 6 and even told his War Room podcast listeners that “all hell was going to break loose”
The subpoenas instruct the witnesses to appear at depositions on the following dates and are required to produce all relevant documents by October 7th:
October 15, 2021: Mark Meadows and Daniel Scavino
October 14, 2021: Kashyap Patel and Stephen Bannon
The letters to the four witnesses can be found here:
Shocking. DTJ sues his own niece, Mary Trump along with The New York Times and several reporters (Suzanne Craig, David Barstow and Russ Buettner) for obtaining his tax documents used to investigate his finances.
The 2018 article which won a Pulitzer Prize which showcased how the former president “participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990’s including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents”.
The report reveal confidential tax returns and financial records, highlight that Trump received at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, although he always touted himself as a “self-proclaimed” billionaire.
“I think he is a loser, and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can. It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick. As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is said to be working on a rebranding plan. According to The New York Times, the plan which has come to be known internally as “Project Amplify” was signed off by the CEO and included a boost of pro-Facebook stories (written by the Facebook Team) onto its billions of users.
An internal meeting back in January hatched the initiative to showcase “positive” stories about the social network platform on its largest digital real estate, the News Feed.
Based on the report from the Times, some executives present at the meeting were “shocked” by the proposal.
Project Amplify also made strong attempts for the Facebook platform to distance itself from any scandals (i.e. minimizing access to negative reports) relating to Zuckerberg, while simultaneously, ramping up new stories that provided a more flattering spin on the social network.
China is at the forefront of government opposition to cryptocurrencies
The central bank of China stated as a declaration that all transactions involving Bitcoin and any “virtual” currencies illegal, according to the AP.
This seems to be an escalation of the various methods being used to block and prohibit the use of any currency or “money” outside the direct control of the Chinese government.
In a notice released by the central bank the reasoning was elaborated on – stating that digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and others disrupt the current financial system and encourage and help facilitate money-laundering and other crimes.
“Virtual currency derivative transactions are all illegal financial activities and are strictly prohibited,”
–the People’s Bank of China
The price of Bitcoin fell, to $41,180, in the hours after the announcement. Other major cryptocurrencies also fell. . Ethereum dropped almost 10%, falling from $3,100 to around $2,758.
Those levels appeared to be a short term low as there has been a recovery bounce since the initial reaction selloff.
China is gearing up for it’s own ‘innovations’ involving digital currencies and transactions
This clampdown follows the banning of Bitcoin mining and an exodus of a large number of Chinese mining operations, many relocating to the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. At the peak, Chinese miners accounted for around 3/4 of the world’s electricity consumption related to crypto mining, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index.
That share is still the highest, though far lower, with the USA being the second largest consumer of electricity used for Bitcoin mining.
There is a worldwide “showdown” of sorts building, with cryptocurrency adherents touting, often with great resolve, the privacy, anonymity and “freedom” of using the coins, while many governments, China, and Turkey being outspoken, consider the potential losses that could come from allowing private actors to control financial transactions.
Although fiat currencies all have cash, paper bills, that can also be used anonymously, the potential criminal laundering has government controls and laws in place to minimize (or at least attempt to minimize) the magnitude of the problem.
tumbles
Governments getting increasingly worried as crypto adoption continues to expand worldwide
Many governments, including the People’s Bank of China, are developing electronic versions of the local fiat currency, such as China’s yuan for example. to facilitate cashless transactions which, unlike with Bitcoin, can be more easily tracked and controlled by the local authorities, communist or otherwise.
Calls and warning are also building with Regulators in many countries, including the US, warning of the dangers and emphasizing that they want cryptocurrencies to have greater oversight.
For example, Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, recently said that investors need more protection in the cryptocurrency market, calling the current state of the largely unregulated market “rife with fraud, scams and abuse” and compared it to the “Wild West.”
The SEC has already cracked down on cases of alleged freud involving crypto, but Gensler believes that the agency will need more authority from Congress to and funding to adequately regulate the market..
As a result, miners have been moving operations out of China.
Two years ago, China alone accounted for around three-quarters of all the electricity used for crypto mining, by far the most in the world, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index.
Expect more government announcements involving crypto and new ways to try to control or inhibit its proliferation
The looming showdown appears heading for a significant and dangerous climax, with both sides, crypto enthusiasts and private holders and users of the coins on the one side, and, in some cases, terrified governments on the other wanting to outlaw and stamp out the entire sector.
In the US this will be difficult, with so many high profile and powerful individuals and companies already embracing the idea that the future will contain, at least for the foreseeable time frame, both the government controlled fiat system and the surging and diverse cryptocurrency systems.
Former WH Chief Strategist was Knee-Deep in behind-the-scenes action on Jan 6….
Bannon has been very vocal in radical right politics, via his podcast platform the War Room. Alongside the release of the new book exposing what happened behind closed doors with, then-president Trump, “Peril”, Bannon took the opportunity to speak about, and appeared to confirm, details about his meeting with Trump in the now infamous time frame.
Bannon’s activities leading up to the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol has been well-documented, on Jan 5th, he told his listeners that “all hell was going to break loose” and even posted on his Facebook account; “TAKE ACTION, THEY ARE TRYING TO STEAL THE ELECTION”.
Yet the extent to which Bannon was speaking with Trump ahead of the insurrection was not yet well known, until the release of the Woodward and Costa’s new book.
Bannon, the former WH adviser admitted he spoke with Trump ahead of Jan. 6th with the intention to “kill the Biden presidency in the crib.”
As previously reported by The Rolling Stones, during his latest podcast, Bannon responded about his meeting as follows:
“Yeah, because his legitimacy. Forty-two percent of the American people — 4-2 — think that Biden did not win the presidency legitimately. It killed itself. … Just let this go with what this illegitimate regime is doing. It killed itself. We told you from the very beginning. Just expose it. Just expose it. Never back down. Never give up. This thing will implode.”
When the iOS 15.1 update drops for the general public (likely soon as it’s already been seeded to beta testers since Monday) it will feature the ability to add your proof of vaccination status to the Health app and then create a vaccination ID card in Apple Wallet.
Many businesses, venues, restaurants, and more are requiring proof of vaccination for entry. For example California is the first state where proof of COVID vaccination or negative test for indoor events over 1,000 people.
The new feature in iOS 15.1 is made possible by the support Smart Health Cards which are valid for California, Louisiana, New York, Virginia, Hawaii, and some Maryland counties, as do Walmart, Sam’s Club, and CVS Health.
Above: ID in iPhone Wallet
Therefore, using this system you would be able to to look up their information in state databases, if you are in any of the states listed above, but if you were vaccinated through at Walmart or CVS it will also be feasible to add your information to the Health and Wallet.
Once you have gone to the web site for your state, for example in California it would be found at https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov where you can type in personal information such as name and date of birth to get access to your records and status.
Though iOS 15 already has the ability to download the information to your Health app, and you can do this today, the last step, adding an ID to your wallet from the health app will not be possible until you have upgraded to iOS 15.1.
The record is locked to your name and can only be used by you. There will be a QR code that you will first download to your health app on the iPhone, then, once it is in the health app there will be a prompt to allow you to “add to wallet”. By clicking that link a vaccination ID car, with the QR code will be generated and added to your wallet.
iOS 15.1 is likely to be available under > General > software update in your phone’s Settings app within days. (Our guess is by Monday, September 27, 2021)
Tap the download link on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Tap Add to Health to add the record to the Health app.
The official trailer for “Spencer” has been released, starring Kristen Stewart who looks like an absolute ringer for Princess Diana.
There have already been rave reviews since the film had its debut at the Venice Film Festival. Stewart is said to be an Oscar Award top contender for Best Actress.
The movie is set over a single weekend and focusing on how Princess Diana contemplates ending her marriage to Prince charles.
According to Neon, the official synopsis reads:
“December, 1991: The Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at Sandringham Estate. There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. This year, things will be a whole lot different.”
The movie will be released in theaters later this fall on November 5, 2021. Check out the official trailer, below, for the upcoming biographical drama:
House Bill Would Blow Up the Massive IRAs of the Superwealthy
Legislation currently making its way through Congress would take a sledgehammer to the massive individual retirement accounts built up tax-free by a select group of the ultrawealthy.
The proposal, which is part of the infrastructure and tax package advancing in the House, targets the jaw-dropping IRAs accumulated by multimillionaires and billionaires such as tech investor Peter Thiel, which were first reported by ProPublica earlier this year. Those accounts — Thiel’s alone was worth $5 billion in 2019 — have allowed some super-wealthy Americans to turn their Roth IRAs, tools meant to incentivize middle-class retirement saving, into supersized tax shelters.
The proposed reform, put forward by House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., would effectively cap the total amount someone could hold in a Roth at $20 million and compel the holders of the giant accounts to withdraw anything over that limit. Separately, individuals would have to add up the balances of their retirement accounts — including Roths, traditional IRAs, 401(k)s and 403(b)s — and every year withdraw half of any amount over $10 million. The provisions would only apply to individuals with taxable income of over $400,000 or couples making over $450,000.
The reform wouldn’t affect the overwhelming majority of Americans, whose retirement savings (if they have any) are far more modest — the average Roth was worth just $39,108 at the end of 2018.
“Incentives in our tax code that help Americans save for retirement were never intended to enable a tax shelter for the ultra-wealthy,” Neal said earlier this year. “We must shut down these practices.”
Should the bill pass, it could have profound implications for PayPal founder Thiel, whose gargantuan Roth stunned lawmakers, spurring Neal to vow a crackdown. Thiel wouldn’t owe any tax up front and no early withdrawal penalties would apply, but he’d be required to move billions out of the tax-advantaged account. And any gains on investments made with that money would no longer be sheltered from taxes, potentially creating hundreds of millions of dollars in future tax liabilities.
Above: “I’ll Take Your Questions” book on inside secrets of the Trump final days, by Stephanie Grisham for aide to both Trump and Melania
The great appeal of the Roth IRA is that once money is inside it, any income generated — such as capital gains from selling a stock, investment interest or dividends — is tax-free, as long as the holder waits until he or she is 59 and a half to withdraw it. (Thiel hits that mark in 2027.) In a traditional IRA, by contrast, money that’s withdrawn counts as income and is taxed.
The IRA reforms are part of a slate of proposals designed to eliminate loopholes and boost tax rates on rich individuals and corporations.
Several of the changes address revelations contained in The Secret IRS Files, a series of ProPublica stories published this year that are exploring the ways the very richest Americans avoid paying taxes. Usually such efforts remain secret, but ProPublica has obtained a trove of tax records covering thousands of the country’s richest people. The records reveal not only the diverse array of tax-avoidance techniques used by the rich, but also that some of the very richest have consistently found ways to avoid taking income, so they pay little or no taxes, even as their wealth multiplied to historic levels.
The current House plan falls short of President Joe Biden’s more ambitious proposals to combat wealth inequality through the tax code. But experts say it would significantly increase the taxes paid by high-income Americans. Among other things, it would all but eliminate a major deduction created by President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law that, as ProPublica recently reported, showered massive tax breaks on some of the richest families in the country.
Given the stakes for a small group of wealthy and powerful Americans, it’s unclear whether the IRA proposal, along with the rest of the package, will become law. It must pass the House and make it through the Senate, where it will likely need the votes of all 50 Democratic senators to pass. Capitol Hill staffers say the bill remains fluid and provisions could still be cut, added or modified.
For now, however, the proposal has alarmed those who stand to lose the most. Three tax lawyers told ProPublica that clients with giant IRAs have reached out to them, worried about the potential reforms. Already a lawyer and an accountant are offering a paid webinar that pitches strategies to help owners of large IRAs get around the proposed rules.
A spokesman for Thiel didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The tax proposals have drawn opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill. “This is very bad news for the U.S. economy,” said Ways and Means Committee ranking member Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, in an interview this week.
A budget analyst at the anti-tax Heritage Foundation specifically criticized the IRA reform proposals as “stifling retirement savings and decreasing the economy-wide investment in future productivity.”
Neal announced his plans to curb the size of mega IRAs in July following ProPublica’s story revealing how Thiel and other billionaires had amassed giant retirement accounts using techniques largely unavailable to most taxpayers. Other wealthy investors with giant retirement accounts included financier Michael Milken, Warren Buffett and executives from investment giant Bain Capital.
Neal joined his Senate counterpart, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who had been pushing for reform of mega IRAs for years without much support from his peers.
With a multibillion-dollar tax-free account on the line, a wealthy investor might try to keep his income below the $400,000 threshold set by the proposal. In Thiel’s case, it’s not clear if that would be possible, given that he’s long reported tens of millions of dollars on his tax returns from capital gains, interest and dividends on investments he holds outside of his Roth IRA. And even if he has to withdraw billions from his Roth, he will never have to pay taxes on years of growth inside the account.
ProPublica has previously reported that several billionaires have had very little taxable income in certain years, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Musk did not respond to questions for that story and Bezos’ representatives would not designate someone to accept questions related to that story.
The proposal would also add restrictions in areas that congressional investigators have said are ripe for abuse by the wealthy: The owners of IRAs would be barred from using the accounts to either purchase certain nonpublic investments or buy stakes in companies in which they are an officer.
Thiel launched his Roth IRA by purchasing so-called founder’s shares of PayPal in 1999 when he was chairman and CEO of the company, according to tax records and a financial statement Thiel included in his application for residency in New Zealand. Securities and Exchange Commission records show he bought 1.7 million shares for $1,700, or a tenth of a penny per share. (The maximum contribution to a Roth that year was $2,000.) PayPal later told the SEC the shares were sold “below market value.”
The practice has become popular among the founders of Silicon Valley companies, who tuck shares of their startups into IRAs, often after buying them at bargain prices. This can sidestep IRA contribution limits and generate massive tax-free growth if the value of their companies explodes.
The proposal would also shut down the so-called backdoor Roth. ProPublica found that billionaires like Buffett had taken advantage of a maneuver, known as a conversion, that allows the wealthy to sidestep existing income caps to create a Roth IRA. In a conversion, the owner of a traditional IRA can transform it into a Roth by paying one-time tax on the money. Once the account is converted into a Roth, no additional income taxes are ever due. The new provision would bar conversions for individuals with income over $400,000, though the ban would not go into effect until 2031 for budgetary reasons. (Buffett previously didn’t respond to questions about his IRA.)
The proposal also has implications for the holders of giant traditional IRAs, who could suddenly owe a hefty tax bill. Money withdrawn from a traditional IRA counts as taxable income. Milken, the 1980s junk bond king who went to prison for fraud and was later pardoned by Trump, had traditional IRAs valued at $509 million at the end of 2018, according to tax records. If the law passed, Milken could face a tax bill of roughly $100 million, depending on the current size of his account. A spokesperson for Milken declined to comment.
Separately, another part of the bill would tackle the generous business income deductions granted by Trump’s 2017 tax law.
As ProPublica previously reported, the drafting of the deduction was marked by last-minute changes and a rush of lobbying dollars from corporations and the superrich. The result of its passage, confidential tax records show, was a windfall for billionaires such as media mogul Michael Bloomberg, packaging tycoons Dick and Liz Uihlein, and the Bechtel family, owners of a global engineering and construction firm.
Bloomberg received a deduction of roughly $183 million in 2018 alone as a result of the provision, while the Uihleins netted around $118 million.
Under the House proposal, the deduction would be capped at $400,000 for an individual and $500,000 for a couple, virtually wiping it out for the very rich. If such a cap had been in place in 2018, for example, the Uihleins would have gotten a deduction worth just $500,000 instead of $118 million. A competing Senate proposal unveiled by Wyden in July would go even further. A spokesperson for the Uihleins declined to comment on the proposed reforms.
On a broader level, the House plan would spell a significant tax hike on Americans earning more than $400,000, raising their individual income tax rates as well as bumping up the corporate tax rate, the first such hikes in a decade.
But despite the proposal’s ambition, critics say it misses a rare opportunity to capture the massive untaxed wealth of some of the richest individuals in history, including Bezos and Musk, who have often found ways to keep their income low.
As ProPublica reported, they and other billionaires have managed to pay little to no taxes in the past. Some have done so by pursuing the so-called buy, borrow, die strategy. By holding on to his Tesla stock but borrowing money to finance his lifestyle, Musk, for example, can avoid income that is taxable under current law. If he sticks to this strategy till death, the income tax liability on his fortune will evaporate for his heirs.
Some Democrats and policymakers had aspired to even bolder tax code changes that would have targeted the stratospheric increases in the ultrawealthy’s riches. One idea, championed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., would be to levy a so-called wealth tax on billionaires’ overall holdings. Another, pushed by Wyden, would tax the annual gains billionaires logged, even if they hadn’t sold the assets. Both ideas foundered, with concerted opposition from billionaires and skittishness from Democratic centrists. Some critics point out that wealth taxes have often failed in other countries. And many policymakers believe it would be too logistically difficult to measure assets properly and enforce such a sweeping rule on gains.
Originally published on ProPublica by Justin Elliott, Patricia Callahan and James Bandler and republished under Creative Commons.
Stating; ’I am a fighter’ Boxer – senator eyes Philippines’ top spot in 2022
An AP News report out of MANILA, Philippines: Manny Pacquiao has announced that he will run for president of the Philippines in the 2022 elections.
Pacquiao accepted the nomination of his PDP-Laban party at its national convention on Sunday, saying that the Filipino people have been waiting for a change of government.
At the national convention Sunday, Pacquiao officially accepted the nomination of his party, the PDP-Laban party, stating that the Filipino people have been waiting for a change of government.
“I am a fighter, and I will always be a fighter inside and outside the ring,” Pacquiao, 42, further stated.
“We need government to serve our people with integrity, compassion and transparency,” he added.
Pacquiao is currently president of the PDP-Laban faction led by him and Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.
Earlier this month, another faction of the same party also nominated President Rodrigo Duterte to be its vice presidential candidate, in addition to Duterte’s former aide, Sen. Bong Go, as its presidential nominee.
In a tweet on Sunday morning the superstar comedian and actor, 56, announced that he had a positive covid result. He also urged his 5.2 million followers to get vaccinated.
“Hey guys I just found out I have COVID, trust me you don’t want this. Get vaccinated.”
In May 2021, Rock divulged that he had been vaccinated while he was being interviewed on The Tonight Show with Jammy Fallon.
He has spoken out previously and often in favor of people and his fans getting vaccinated.
It is unclear what, if any symptoms he may have. So-called “breakthrough” infections – a positive test in spite of already being vaccinated, are somewhat common, with the statistics showing that, though a vaccinated individual can still carry the virus, hence the positive test result, the symptoms are usually mild and seldom require hospitalization.
These are, of course, generalizations, based on various statistics and studies. A danger, particularly of the new “Delta” variant is that a person is easily infected and the severity of the symptoms differ greatly among individuals.
Hey guys I just found out I have COVID, trust me you don’t want this. Get vaccinated.
So, the likely potential benefit of Rock having had the Johnson and Johnson vaccination in May, is that he could experience milder symptoms that had he not done so.
IN an interview in January with Gayle King on CBS Sunday Morning, Rock replied to queries regarding his perspective on the issue: “Let me put it this way. Do I take Tylenol when I get a headache? Yes. Do I know what’s in Tylenol? I don’t know what’s in Tylenol. I just know my headache is gone.
“Do I know what’s in a Big Mac, Gayle? No. I just know it’s delicious.”
Recently, in early September, US President Joe Biden initiated new vaccine requirements and criticized the choice of roughly 80 million Americans who had at that time not had the jab.
The new mandate calls for all employers with more than 100 workers must require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly.
International survey reveals ‘shocking’ rise of eco-anxiety and hopelessness. “If this isn’t a wake up call for world leaders, what is?”
Amidst a sharp increase in deadly wildfires and flooding, increasingly violent storms, and extreme heat, new research published Tuesday found that refusal by governments to act on the climate emergency is causing a widespread sense of hopelessness and eco-anxiety in teenagers and young adults worldwide.
The global advocacy group Avaaz joined researchers at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and five other universities to survey 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25—the first large-scale eco-anxiety survey of its kind—and discovered that majorities of the respondents were fearful for the lives and livelihoods of their families and the future of the planet.
“If this isn’t a wake up call for world leaders, what is?” —AvaazAs Luisa Neubauer, a 25-year-old leader of the global Fridays for Future movement in Germany, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, while the climate extremes caused by the planetary emergency are frightening, inaction by world leaders “is too much to handle, too much to accept.””Government is pushing us in front of a bus,” Neubauer told the outlet.
The mental health professionals who conducted the study spoke with young people in 10 countries including Nigeria, the Philippines, India, the U.K., and the U.S., finding that respondents in both wealthy countries and the Global South are facing “feelings of anger, fear, and powerlessness” as the climate crisis directly causes at least one famine, deadly flash flooding, and wildfires in multiple regions.
Nearly half of respondents said their worries about the climate crisis negatively affect their daily life and their ability to function, and more than half told the experts they feel humanity is “doomed.”
Four in 10 said they would hesitate to have children in the future due to the state of the planet, while three-quarters of respondents described their futures as “frightening.”
Avaaz reported that one of the most “shocking” findings was how respondents described their feelings about government inaction, including more than half who said they feel policymakers “are betraying them.”
A shocking 58% of the children and young people surveyed say that governments are betraying them. If this isn’t a wake up call for world leaders, what is? #WeFeelThisToopic.twitter.com/D1EPwjaHEJ
Young people in the cyclone-ravages Philippines and Brazil, where deforestation—driven by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government—has become increasingly destructive in recent years, showed the most anxiety of the countries surveyed. More than nine in 10 respondents said they were frightened about the future.
Caroline Hickman, lead author of the study, which was published in The Lanceton Tuesday, cautioned adults against telling young people it is up to them to save the future of the planet.”Thinking the way to cure eco-anxiety is eco-action isn’t right,” Hickman toldThomson Reuters, adding that what will solve the climate crisis is decisive action by world governments.
The survey “shows eco-anxiety is not just for environmental destruction alone, but inextricably linked to government inaction on climate change. The young feel abandoned and betrayed by governments,” Hickman told the BBC. “Governments need to listen to the science and not pathologize young people who feel anxious.”
The survey results were released less than two months ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26), where policymakers will meet in Glasgow to discuss commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, provide climate mitigation support for frontline communities across the globe, and rapidly transition to an emissions-free energy system.
Young people are “doing everything we can” to push for climate action, Neubauer told Thomson Reuters, “but that won’t be enough.”
“We won’t fix it” through the Fridays for Future movement, she added. “We need everyone there.”
The head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres warned governments, calling out for “immediate, rapid and large-scale” cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in order to curb impacts already negatively affecting the climate.
As reported by PBS News, U.N. Chief said that global warming and climate change is happening on a much faster pace than predicted. The long-lasting effects from already released emissions into the atmosphere are inevitable.
“These changes are just the beginning of worse to come,” Guterres said, with hopes the dire message will appeal to governments to meet the goals that were originally created at the Paris Climate Accord back in 2015.
A bill headed to the governor’s desk aims to curb injuries in warehouse distribution centers run by a broad spectrum of employers and outlaw punishment for bathroom breaks
Yesenia Barrera was just finishing up her 10-hour shift at an Amazon fulfillment center in Rialto, Calif., she recalled, when a manager approached her. She said he was concerned that throughout the day she’d racked up about 60 minutes of “time off task,” Amazon parlance for when someone is not directly working on the assignment at hand or taking too long to complete it. He told her he was writing her up and asked what happened, she said.
“I used the restroom today,” Barrera said she told him.
“How many times did you use it?” she remembered he asked.
“Three times,” she said she responded, thinking about how it took five minutes to walk each way across the warehouse floor to get to the bathroom.
When Barrera returned to Amazon for her next scheduled shift two days later, her badge wouldn’t let her into the building. She later learned she’d been terminated. Barrera has since become an organizer with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of warehouse workers.
The California Senate passed legislation last week that, if signed by the governor, would prohibit a spectrum of employers, including Amazon, from firing warehouse workers like Barrera for policies such as “time off task.” The bill, AB 701, would be the first law in the country to address productivity quotas and strict algometric metrics used to manage warehouse employees. (Governor Newsom’s office did not reply to a request for comment.)
Under AB 701, employers wouldn’t be able to punish workers for failing to meet quotas when health and safety issues come into play, such as a worker’s need to take bathroom and water breaks. And it would prohibit retaliation against workers who complain. The law would also require companies that run warehouses to report to the government—and their own employees—the quotas and speed metrics they mandate for workers.
“Right now, it’s very secretive,” said Christian Castro, communications director for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, which sponsored the bill. “E-commerce has been growing exponentially, it’s gotten even more popular during the pandemic…. Workers are telling us about an increase in quotas, not even knowing their quotas.”
Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty declined to comment on AB 701 and Barrera’s allegations but said in an email, “The health and safety of our employees is our number one priority—and has been since day one,” adding, “We’re committed to giving our employees the resources they need to be successful, creating time for regular breaks and a comfortable pace.”
In opposition to AB 701 is a coalition of about two dozen business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, California Farm Bureau, and California Retailers Association. They say the law could raise costs for companies that run warehouses and effectively drive employers from the state.
AB 701 is “burdensome and needlessly overbroad,” Steve McCarthy, vice president of public policy for the California Retailers Association, wrote in an Aug. 30 letter to all state senators. He said the bill could lead to increased litigation “by establishing potentially open-ended employee access to bathroom facilities which will make employers’ ability to enforce production standards even more complex.”
AB 701 would cover all warehouse distribution centers, such as those run by Walmart, Target, and UPS, but the bill’s supporters say Amazon is the main target. The company, they say, is leading the charge to automate workforces, increase the speed of work, and use surveillance technologies to monitor worker productivity.
Advocates who support the bill say they hope it will cause a ripple effect to other states. They say California’s labor laws have often served as a model for policymakers and worker organizations nationwide.
“Chart Topping” Injury Rates
Amazon is the largest private employer in California, with more than 150,000 employees in the state, and the second largest employer in the U.S. Over the years, several Californian cities have welcomed the influx of warehouses, which they say have brought in thousands of well-paying jobs to regions historically plagued by unemployment.
But it’s been well documented that warehouse work can be dangerous. Several studies point to injury rates that exceed those of other industries.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites data that shows warehouse workers are injured nearly twice as often as other workers in the private sector. And when employers, like Amazon, add in productivity quotas, those injuries tend to increase, other studies show. A December 2019 report by the Athena coalition looked at data and internal documents that Amazon provided to OSHA and found the injury rate at the company’s warehouses was nearly three times the combined rate of all other private employers that submitted data to OSHA.
“Primed for Pain,” a report by a coalition of four labor unions called the Strategic Organizing Center, found that not only are injury rates higher at Amazon warehouses, but the injuries also tend to be more severe—with a “serious injury rate” nearly 80 percent higher than that of all other employers in the warehousing industry.
“The rate of injuries at Amazon is astronomical…. It’s chart topping by all measures,” said Irene Tung, senior researcher at the workers’ rights group National Employment Law Project, who co-wrote a report about injury and churn rate at Amazon’s California warehouses. “I don’t think people understand just how different Amazon is as an employer and how they’re ushering in this new paradigm.”
When asked about injury rates at Amazon’s warehouses, spokesperson Lighty said the company has more than 6,200 “safety professionals” throughout its facilities. “We also invest billions of dollars in new operations safety measures, technologies and other innovative solutions that protect our employees, work closely with health and safety experts and scientists, conduct thousands of safety inspections each day in our buildings, and have made hundreds of changes as a result of employee feedback on how we can improve their well-being at work,” she said.
Lighty added that the data on musculoskeletal injuries, such as sprains, strained muscles, and torn ligaments, at Amazon’s warehouses “is skewed.” She said that’s because the company’s workforce has many people in the 18 to 24 age range, which she said is more likely than other age groups to claim work-related musculoskeletal injuries.
In April, Amazon’s executive chairman and former CEO Jeff Bezos called the company “Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.”
Along with injuries, Amazon has also been accused of not allowing workers enough time for bathroom breaks. In a 2020 letter to Bezos, a group of 15 U.S. senators wrote, “Pressure to meet their quotas is so great that workers report urinating in plastic bottles on the warehouse floor.” Amazon responded, saying workers are “allowed and encouraged to take breaks as needed.”
Last December, Amazon settled a class-action lawsuit in California brought by 27 warehouse workers who said the company violated the state’s labor codes by denying them adequate bathroom and rest breaks. Amazon’s “production clock does not stop when employees need to use the restroom facilities,” the lawsuit said, which meant workers “have been forced to forego bathroom breaks completely, simply out of fear of termination.”
Lighty declined to comment on the lawsuit or settlement.
While California law mandates that employers must allow breaks, warehouses with production quotas can make it difficult for workers to use the bathroom while still being able to meet their tasks. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, AB 701’s author, said the bill aims to strengthen state law by creating standards around these quota systems.
“To make next-day delivery possible, corporations like Amazon have forced warehouse employees to work faster, service more customers with more orders in record amounts of time, and risk their own bodies in the process,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “No worker should be forced to sacrifice their basic human needs, or accept such undignified conditions for a paycheck.”
When Barrera was working at Amazon’s Rialto warehouse, one of her jobs was scanning boxes on a conveyor belt.
“The conveyor doesn’t stop,” she said. “Time is against you.”
She remembers at one point, she fell behind and boxes started piling up. She set down her scan gun to move some boxes aside, and it got buried in the pile. She said when she tried to pry it free, she pulled too hard, and it bounced back and smacked her in the eye. She said she went to the onsite clinic, where she was given ibuprofen and told to hold a wet paper towel on her eye. Barrera said she asked to sit down, and after about five minutes, both her manager and the clinic medic said she should be good to go back to work.
“You’re being tracked the moment you clock in,” Barrera said. “Unrealistic quotas are why workers are getting injured.”
Amazon’s Lighty did not respond when asked about the incident.
Protecting Workers vs. Increasing Bureaucracy
AB 701 has two major components: creating more transparency around work quotas and banning policies that negatively affect worker health and safety, including “time off task” policies.
For the transparency piece, employers that run warehouse distribution centers would be compelled to tell government agencies the quotas and speed metrics they require of employees and also disclose that information to workers.
“This policy provides the tools that are needed to keep workers safe in a growing industry plagued with widespread injuries and labor violations,” said Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 396, both of which are sponsors of AB 701.
“This kind of speed-up on workers is breaking their bodies and churning them out,” Shadix said. “It undermines the argument that these are good stable jobs.”
While AB 701 would require transparency from companies around quotas, it would not create specific rules on worker surveillance and metrics.
Several Republican lawmakers in California have opposed AB 701, saying it would lead to more lawsuits, higher prices for consumer goods, and that the bill is part of an organized labor strategy to unionize warehouses.
“This bill is sponsored by union leaders as part of a campaign to tip the scales to coerce employees to unionize,” Sen. Brian Jones said in an email, adding that he doesn’t have confidence in Democratic legislators to run the state efficiently. “So now we’re supposed to trust them to micro-manage private warehouses throughout the state? No thanks.”
Jones is one of 11 senators who voted no on AB 701 (26 voted yes, and three had no vote recorded).
At least four senators, including Jones, received campaign donations of $2,500 from Amazon, according to public records from the California secretary of state. Amazon also made payments of $2,500 and $4,900 to various state assembly members, including to nearly half of those who voted no on the bill in May. The company additionally made several donations to senators and assembly members who voted yes (though not to any authors or co-authors of the bill).
When asked about the donations, Jones’s chief of staff, Craig Wilson, said, “Campaign contributions are irrelevant when it comes to how Senator Jones votes on legislation.”
Amazon has hired at least four lobbying firms in California during this year’s legislative session, according to the public records. For comparison, in 2019 and 2020, it hired just two firms per year. And the company spent more than $425,000 on lobbying in the state from January to June. More recent lobbying expenditures aren’t yet publicly available. Amazon’s Lighty didn’t respond to questions about the company’s lobbying activity.
While Amazon hasn’t publicly commented on AB 701, the coalition of business organizations and its members, including the California Retailers Association and California Chamber of Commerce, have spoken out against the bill.
Initially, the California Chamber of Commerce listed AB 701 on its “job killer” list—a label that often leads to dead bills—but then removed it in July after certain provisions around litigation and regulations were amended. The chamber still opposes the bill, however. When asked for comment, spokesperson Denise Davis referred The Markup to the letter McCarthy sent to state senators on behalf of the business coalition.
This bill “establishes anti-retaliation provisions that will make it more costly and difficult to take job actions against underperforming employees,” McCarthy wrote in the letter. He added that AB 701 could “have a chilling effect on production at distribution centers that will ripple through the rest of the supply chain.”
Amazon is on the California Retailers Association’s board of directors. McCarthy didn’t respond to a request for comment.
If AB 701 is signed by California governor Gavin Newsom, it would be slated to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2022. Newsom faces a recall election on Tuesday, but regardless of the outcome, he will determine the bill’s fate. Should Newsom lose Tuesday’s recall election, he would have 38 days to sign or veto all pending legislation before leaving office, according to California law.
Above: Inspiration4 Crew Members / Photo / Netflix
What do a billionaire, cancer survivor, geoscientists and a data engineer have in common?
For the first time on the streaming platform, Netflix will offer a 5 part docuseries covering the SpaceX’s Inspiration4 Mission in near real-time.
The series will cover SpaceX’s first all civilian mission (no astronauts!) as they prepare and train for the mission, the live launch coverage from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as well as footage from inside the Crew Dragon spacecraft as the 4 passenger crew orbit the Earth on the 3 day mission.
Unlike recent flights from Virgin (Richard Branson) and Blue Orbit (Jeff Bezos) that led suborbital flights, Inspiration4 will reach higher altitudes than that of the International Space Station and make history as first all-civilian mission to orbit.
Multiple firsts and groundbreaking accomplishments that go beyond, way beyond…
Breakdown for Netflix’s “ Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space”
Monday, September 6: Meet the four civilians heading to space
Monday, September 13: Watch them prepare
Wednesday, September 15: Watch the live launch
Thursday, September 30: Spend time with the crew in space
The Inspiration4 Mission which was brokered as a private deal by 38 year old Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4 Payments with SpaceX.
Isaacman will lead the mission along with his 3 other crew members: 29 year old Hayley Arceneaux who will act as chief medical officer , 51 year old Dr. Sian Proctor (mission pilot), who will become the fourth Black female American in space and 41 year old Christopher Sembroski, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who will be the mission’s specialist.
The mission also serves as a $200 million fundraising campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
A day before the launch day, Netflix will also launch “A StoryBots Space Adventure” on Sept.14 which is a live-action/animation special where Inspration4 crew members will participate by answering some of kids’ most pressing space related questions.
“It’s important to address the fact that billionaire heirs may never pay tax on billions in stock gains.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, warned Tuesday that House Democrats’ newly released tax plan would let U.S. billionaires off the hook by omitting key reforms that progressive lawmakers, advocacy organizations, and President Joe Biden have embraced.
“It would be a monumental mistake for Congress to pass a bill that really exempts billionaires,” Wyden (D-Ore.) told the New York Times in response to the House Ways and Means Committee’s proposal, which was spearheaded by Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.).
While the House plan (pdf) would hike taxes on large corporations and the top 1% of earners in the U.S., analysts and Democratic lawmakers have voiced concerns that it doesn’t go nearly as far as it should to raise revenue for policy priorities and tackle the nation’s runaway income inequality, which the coronavirus crisis has made even worse. According to one recent analysis, the collective wealth of U.S. billionaires has risen by $1.8 trillion—62%—during the pandemic.
Wyden’s committee is in the process of crafting a tax plan of its own as Democrats race to compile their sprawling budget reconciliation package, which is expected to include major investments in green energy, healthcare, housing, and other key areas.
Specifically, Wyden and progressive organizations criticized the House Ways and Means Committee for failing to tackle a loophole that allows the ultra-wealthy to pass on massive fortunes to their heirs tax-free. Earlier this year, Biden released a tax plan that would close the loophole.
“It’s important to address the fact that billionaire heirs may never pay tax on billions in stock gains,” Wyden toldHuffPost on Monday. “The nurses, firefighters, and teachers who pay their taxes with every paycheck know the system is broken when billionaire heirs never pay tax on billions in stock gains.”
Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), echoed Wyden’s concern, noting in an interview with the Washington Post that “if the Ways and Means plan was enacted as is, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk would still pay an effective rate of $0 on most of their income if they pass their assets on to their heirs.”
“It’s obviously a big improvement over the tax code we have now,” Wamhoff said of the House plan, “but there are a lot of things Biden suggested that would go a lot further.”
I agree with Chairman @RonWyden: we need to pass a bill that ensures that billionaires and corporations are finally paying their fair share. A wealth tax and my Real Corporate Profits Tax are two ways to get that done. https://t.co/xTtTQ8PGx2
On Tuesday, the progressive advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires made the House plan’s shortcomings the focus of a new mobile billboard campaign that features an image of Bezos—the richest man in the world—accompanied by the caption, “Oops! Missed me! (Thanks, Richie Neal!)”
“Richard Neal and the House Ways and Means Committee failed the president, failed the country, and failed history. It’s that simple,” Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement. “This is not what the American people voted for when they elected Joe Biden as president.”
To remedy the proposal, the Patriotic Millionaires urged the House Democratic leadership to make several changes, including:
End the preferential tax rate for capital gains income over $1 million as President Biden requested. There is no intellectual or economic justification for working people in America to pay a higher tax rate than investors.
Eliminate the “stepped up basis” that allows the heirs of billionaires to avoid capital gains taxes on inherited assets (provide a reasonable exemption for family farms and small businesses). The committee’s failure to address this problem at all is particularly troubling.
End the Carried Interest Loophole which allows fund managers to mischaracterize their “ordinary” income as capital gain income for tax purposes. The Ways and Means proposal extends the hold time for investments to five years. Given that most private equity firms hold investments for six years, this change will have essentially zero effect. The loophole should be eliminated entirely.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose “Tax the Rich” dress at the lavish 2021 Met Gala made waves on social media, said Tuesday that “members of both parties have tried to halt taxing the wealthiest in our society” even after billionaires made enormous wealth gains during the pandemic.
“It’s unacceptable,” the New York Democrat added. “We must tax the rich.”
According to a June survey released by Americans for Tax Fairness, 72% of U.S. voters support closing “loopholes that let the wealthy avoid paying taxes on the profits from assets they transfer to heirs.” The poll also found that 62% of voters support raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.
The House Ways and Means Committee proposal would only raise the corporate rate to 26.5%.
As Chuck Collins and Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies argued in a blog post on Monday, “The public has a tremendous appetite to do much more to address the grotesque concentrations of democracy-distorting wealth and power—and to shut down the ways that billionaires and a few hundred global corporations manipulate our tax system.”
“House Democratic tax writers do not go far enough to raise revenue or reduce extreme wealth inequality,” Collins and Anderson wrote. “The tax reforms would generate an estimated $2.2 trillion—just barely more than the revenue lost due to the 2017 Republican tax cuts.”
The new Os’s are free and will be adopted fast if recent past is a guide
Apple has had a fairly predictable cycle for new iPhone releases and the yearly, free, software upgrades. If you use your apple devices for business or WFH like many, this ritual can be excruciating since you already know you will have to get your hands on the best new gadgets.
Nevertheless, with sky high prices for the best devices not going away, choosing when exactly to upgrade which devices can be a tricky process requiring skill, cunning and some serious bucks.
A lot of us see the iphone top-of-the-line product as a must upgrade either every cycle or every-other year if budgets are tight (and some years do seem like “off” years).
For iPads, various mac machines, Apple Watch, Apple TV and so on, there is more leeway and potential confusion. And for mac, there are times (like now!) when we all know the next iteration of various models (macbook Pro, mac mini, mac pro, iMac 27” +) are on the way but there is the unknown factor of what to pick and when-the-heck it can be ordered and shipped.
We all know there is a chip shortage, and with the Apple Silicon M1 potentially being upgraded for a slew of machines to the M1X, M2 or M2X as various rumors have discussed, the timeline is very uncertain.
The best things in life are free, software edition
All this leads us to the good, even very good, if obvious, news. iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey have been in public beta for some time now and, if history is a guide in this case, should be released publicly soon after the Apple Fall Event announcements on September 14th, regardless of what hardware is coming down the pike, or in what particular order.
Generally the hard date for the new OS systems to be public available is the date that any new hardware, always optimized for the new OS, hits the street and becomes deliverable.
Sometimes certain iPhone models, such as the very high end Pro Max, etc., are delayed, but whichever model ships first that device should also be shipped with the Golden Master of the new operating system, iOS 15 in this case.
This is not 100% guaranteed, as nothing in like and Apple releases is 100%, but this looks extremely likely. Therefore we could and should see the new iOS and macOS going live publicly soon, possibly this week.
What to watch our for and expect, besides great new features and work-flows
Often in the past, a “Golden Master” release has been followed within a day or two with an update patching issues that arise once a mass “test” has revealed flaws and weaknesses in the initial public version.
This is nothing to worry about, as per past experiences, but if you are someone that gets easily annoyed by constantly updating, you could wait a week or so to bypass these intermediate “patch fix” versions.
Also, since with Apple, as opposed to Android, the adoption rate for people to upgrade quickly to the newest versions of the OS is extremely high there will be a sea change in the air. That means that within a few weeks up to a billion devices, or more, could be running the newest OS systems across all the various devices in the wild.
This is great news, because some of the best features in all the new software upgrades function best with various devices within an iCloud account or family group and, in some cases, between two devices anywhere interacting, as long as they both have the newest systems.
The best new features are only going to get better after the launch, more so even than usual; here’s why
During our tests of the various systems, first in the developer-only phase and then in the more recent public beta, one thing was a small annoyance that, after the full launch, will instead become a huge plus.
When operating within a company, for example, and in some cases with multiple devices on the same iCloud account, there have been a lot of glitches related to how the Big Sur devices interact with the macOS Monterey devices, or an iPhone with iOS 14 and one with iOS 15 function in tandem.
This is because, more so than in any previous upgrade cycle, this system focuses on virtually every built in app that is bundled with the OS, like photos, mail, messages, notes, FaceTime, reminders, calendar, contacts, voice memos, etc, etc, etc.
There are so many, with so many upgrades it is hard to make a list, as above, of what they are all called and what they do. In the best Apple fashion, they “just work” and we tend to take them for granted.
In case you ever wanted to know the complete list (for iOS 15) we have added it at the bottom of this post.
These apps are pretty much all getting big upgrades in iOS 15, along with a similar situation happening for iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey, TVOS, WatchOS etc. The difference this time is that they are being actively designed to become more and more interoperable and interactive between devices and system software types.
The big picture is extreme big, much wild, and will be quite a ride…
This is a huge push that will go on for years. We call it the Apple System Singularity. And it is a big deal!
It will, ultimately, create a kind of seamless clarity of function between your devices, particularly the mobile or semi-mobil variety, such as iPhones and iPads, and the slightly less mobile (laptops, desktops) of the macOS variety.
Meaning that the ultimate transition that is being made possible through the switch to Apple Silicon and that a whole new concept philosophy and structure of the device hardware and software. And it’s all being created via the interaction and potential synergies coming available and these are being maximized during the process.
All of this is not to mention machine learning, neural networks, A.I. and all the interactive hardware and software upgrades that are now nearly continuous and happening without a user to intervene.
An example of this is in the photos app where various library functions, a.i. object and facial recognition, search cataloguing, etc. are continuous while you sleep. Another example is how iCloud manages data and storage across your devices regardless of geography or proximity 24/7/365.
Welcome to the first phase of this with the first devices incorporating Apple Silicon across all product lines being harmonized more and more via, guess what, the free system upgrades.
These upgrades will yield maximum fruit in the short term after the world wide population of devices adopts the new systems, and longer term, as more and more devices out of the total are already using and maximizing performance and features by having Apple Silicon and other associated hardware & software upgrades under the hood.
Rest assured, while this sounds complicated, and there will be glitches, the transition starting this fall, and over the life of iOS15, iPadOS15 and macOS Monterey (around a year as usual!) will be one of continuous change, improvement and discovery, unlike any you have seen in the history of Apple.
Above: Photo by Michael Krahn on Unsplash with elements added by Lynxotic
Coming after a frenzied run-up the hand wringing is no surprise
On the big El Salvador day for Bitcoin to go live, for the first time as legal tender, naturally there were glitches. And the predictions for crypto in general and Bitcoin in particular to surge on the news were, backwards.
The longstanding stock market adage “buy on rumor, sell on news” once more proved itself as what is now being called a “crypto flash crash” knocked around $400 billion off the market cap of the previous 24 hour period, or almost 12%, as per CoinMarketCap at the time of this writing.
The president of El Salvador announced that his government used the dip to buy an additional 150 Bitcoin, above the 400 he had announced on the previous day, bringing the total to 550.
From CoinMarketCap:The global crypto market cap is $2.07T, a 11.91% decrease over the last day
The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours is $227.12B, which makes a 66.15%increase.
The total volume in DeFi is currently $30.41B, 13.39% of the total crypto market 24-hour volume.
The volume of all stable coins is now $179.83B, which is 79.18% of the total crypto market 24-hour volume.
Bitcoin’s price is currently $46,893.62.
Bitcoin’s dominance is currently 42.55%, an increase of 1.17% over the day.
By 3:30 PM ET on Tuesday Bitcoin bounced back, the “discount” ended, for now, and recovered to around $47,000 after dipping to $42,870. The recent highroad been $52,732, with the all time high from April still intact above $63,000.
I many ways it seems as if Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies appeared suddenly in 2021 out of the head of Zeus. Protean and fully formed, with billions and trillions in market caps, and all your sisters, brothers, cousins and even the Uber driver climbing aboard.
And the FOMO blog posts, where every hour an innocent reader is assaulted by a story, perhaps true, perhaps exaggerated and certainly foolhardy in retrospect, of an innocent putting their life savings into Dogecoin and suddenly having, theoretically, huge gains at their disposal.
Meanwhile, craggy faced, ancient stock market mavens would interject famous last words that now appear to be wise. However, all that notwithstanding, this week’s crash is nothing new or unexpected.
In reality, as can be seen from the graphic below, provided by Visual Capitalist, there have been so may crashes / corrections and doomsday prognostications since 2012 in Bitcoin that it seems like a miracle the there’s any thing such as Crypto at all.
There’s a reason it’s not dead and it’s in the DNA
The resiliency, far from a shock to those that have been around more than a fortnight, is kinda the point. When Satoshi Nakamoto built the system architecture of Bitcoin and since then inspired the over 8000 new crypto entities that have been developed, it was, just like the internet itself that was build to survive WWIII, supposed to be as indestructible as possible.
Like physical gold, which is considered have been adopted as a store of value partly due to its indestructibility and immutability (alchemy notwithstanding) the volatility and sometimes violent-seeming life story of Bitcoin is a necessary adjust to its role in finance, commerce and even individual monetary survival.
Not for the faint of heart, perhaps
While the mainstream and those forces opposed to the adoption or survival of Bitcoin and Crypto are out in force pointing to the “unsuitability” of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for any “legitimate” use as a trade or savings vehicle, the progress so far, in spite of the obvious fact that volatility has always been baked in to the situation, is an obvious refutation of that viewpoint.
Will the current drop in dollar values relative to Bitcoin end it’s popularity and strip it of the respect it has thusfrar earned among many? In a word, no. In essence what is happening is, as many have foretold, what happens often and repeatedly, the excess attention and dollars that were pumped into crypto by you brother, sister, cousin and Uber driver are now getting blown out, since those were more speculation and psychosis than any kind of vote for viability or permanency.
And, why not? Where was to concern, shock and hesitation by the masses when the prices seemed to only rise for weeks and even months across so many products and coins it was impossible to keep count? Why was to feeding frenzy and the mania-like piling on not ignored as an anomaly?
The herd does as the herd will do. Diamond hands and Paper hands will ebb and flow as long as the rivers flow to the sea and humans herd like buffalo. And, in all likelihood, dollars and euros and yen will be long forgotten when the last bitcoin is transferred to the final wallet in the sky.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Lynxotic does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
El Salvador has officially legalized bitcoin as legal tender (alongside the U.S. dollar which is the country’s current national currency) starting today; September 7, 2021.
The day before the big day, President Nayib Bukele announced El Salvador had purchased 200 Bitcoins and later in the day confirmed that “we now hold 400 bitcoins”. Given the current market prices, the country’s recent bitcoin purchases amount to roughly $20.8 million.
In June this year, El Salvador’s Congress voted 62 out of 84 votes to establish the crypto coin as legal tender. This will make the small country is Central America the first in the world to recognize bitcoin as an official form of currency.
In a subsequent tweet Bukele’s translated tweet said
Like all innovation, the process of #Bitcoin in El Salvador it has a learning curve. Every road to the future is like this and not everything will be achieved in a day, or in a month.
But we must break the paradigms of the past. El Salvador has the right to advance towards the first world.
-President of El Salvador – Nayib Bukele
Bitcoin climbed nearly 2% to more than $52,680 as of Sept 6, and according to a market analyst with Reuters the cryptocurrency is on track to reach $56,000.
Salvadorians will now have the ability to use the digital coin in exchange for goods and services, and as an accepted form of tax payments by the government. Bitcoin is actually the second legal tender in El Salvador, with the US Dollar also having that status since 2001.
Upon its adoption, users who register with the country’s government supported Bitcoin wallet called Chivo will be awarded with $30 worth of currency pre-loaded (must have a Salvadorian national ID number).
The overall impetus for legalizing bitcoin officially is, according to experts, that savings that will be possible for citizens to receive remittances – transfers, until now in US dollars, without intermediaries and the large fees they charge for international transfers.
Remittances account for more than 20% of GDP for El Salvador – mainly in the form of dollars sent by the approximately 1.5 million ex-patriots living abroad and wiring payments to families in El Salvador.
Western Union, for example, handles these transactions and charges a hefty fee. And those fees would represent a percentage (for small remittances up to 10%) of $5.9 Billion per year that flows into the small country from abroad, mostly from the United Stated, according to World Bank data.
Although there has been a lot of political rhetoric and expressions of opinion against the move, such an obvious adversary as the international wire transfer interests, like Western Union, and the large income from fees that may begin to dry up starting today, could easily explain at least a portion of the well represented opposition opinion.
That being said, the now famous price swings of Bitcoin do represent a real risk for people hoping to transfer directly into the country. Another risk is losing the coin due to lack of experience handling a digital currency, by people who are more likely to know the feel of paper dollars than digital screens, cryptocurrency exchanges and virtual wallets.
For observers, both crypto adherents and detractors, this is a very important opportunity to see what kinds of practical obstacles will arise and what benefits are realized by the El Salvadoran people.
It is also a kind of warning to those in governments, including in the U.S., that hope to stop Bitcoin’s seemingly inexorable rise, and to prevent what they perceive as threats to the public, and perhaps, to the U.S. dollar’s previously unchallenged hegemony.
The news that 400 Bitcoins were purchased by El Salvador was, naturally seen as a positive by the Bitcoin trading community, and there has been speculation of further pricing strength likely continuing going forward.
On the utopian dream side, various experiments have recently been announced related to Bitcoin and crypto. For example, in El Salvador there are emerging plans to make Bitcoin mining a state run operation with power being supplied by geothermal energy drawn from the country’s volcanos. How’s that for cheap, renewable resources?
A town in the U.S., fittingly called Cool Valley, MO has a mayor who recently announced that the city government is considering making payments to all residents of 1000 in Bitcoin. In this case, the idea behind the plan is to give citizens a crypto nest-egg, and the holders would be barred from selling, with the hope that, in the event the currency continues its exponential climb, the residents would benefit from holding it as an appreciating capital asset.
Which leads to the observation that, over the last few years, a fog of confusion appears to hang above the media regarding coverage of cryptocurrencies.
Price speculation is off the charts and there’s a kind of mania afoot. But the biggest confusion seems to come from one simple truth, that the U.S. dollar has gone only in one direction for more than 100 years, since the Federal Reserve was established in December 1913, down.
Against any measure of buying power for goods and services the dollar is continuously worth less, far less, on a yearly basis.
Although many headlines scream “Crypto and Bitcoin are Worthless” the same could be said of the U.S. dollar, in relative terms, against a basket of goods and services which is the traditional measure of “inflation” and against other assets, for example, now that Bitcoin provides a second measuring tool, dollars are worth less over time against bitcoin.
With prominent people and companies around the world and in the U.S. already supporting the idea of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies with their dollars and by choosing to hold crypto, it will be very interesting to see what transpires as these “currency wars” mutate and expand around the globe.
Colton Whitehead’s Complex and Charismatic characters tiptoeing on the fringes of Crime
The novel is set in 1960s Harlem and follows Ray Carney, a man that leads a double life. He is a family man, a furniture salesman living in a tiny apartment with his wife Elizabeth and are expecting their second child.
Not many people are aware that Ray comes from a line of uptown crooks. He occasions gets drop-ins from his cousin Freddie who will occasionally drop off a hot ring or necklace to Ray to see for him to appraise.
As he struggles to make ends meet and the bills continuing to build up, he finds himself stumbling fast into the crime world, navigating gangsters, heists and shakedowns.
“Harlem Shuffle” is from Pulitzer Prize Award winning author Colson Whitehead that brought readers “The Nickel Boys” and “The Underground Railroad”.
Equal parts thriller yet hilarious, it’s a “family saga masquerading as a crime novel”, speaking also to the social makeup of race and power, and ultimately a love letter to New York City and especially Harlem.
The book is available for pre-order now and will be published September 14, 2021. Available at Bookshop and Amazon.
New Orleans, Lake Tahoe, NYC – that’s just this week and just in the US… and a drought in the west that is a serious growing threat
The warnings are coming hard and heavy after multiple previous and eerily similar catastrophes, only they just keep getting more severe. Each one is a unique event and each has a litany and list of records that smash all prior statistics since record keeping began.
“Hottest month ever”, “most rainfall in an hour ever recorded”, “worst flood in NY history”, these hyperbolic sounding statements are not hyperbole at all, just facts, but since they are becoming a nearly constant refrain, the entire situation appears surreal.
Journalists use words like “dystopian” and twitter users compare photos and general panic to the climate disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow” and note that the current reality is already scarier than what the movie was able to convey.
Underneath the shock is a layer of manufactured apathy
Even as the signs of an expanding and accelerating worldwide disaster are more obvious, season by season, month by month and even day by day, there is, nevertheless, a kind of paralysis surrounding the fear.
Fossil fuel subsidies continue to be handed out, so many half-measures and excuses are bandied about, and personal, individual responsibility is used as a bludgeon to guilt the populous into a state of inaction.
It’s called a climate emergency because it is an emergency, so act like it, to paraphrase Greta Thunberg. Unfortunately, dire emergencies are not scarce at the moment, and the situation is likely to get worse, meanwhile it is a valid question; what would be done if the climate crisis were actually treated like an emergency?
New York Floods, Ida aftermath, September 2021
Above: Photo: Lyxotic / Adobe Stock
The remnants of Hurricane Ida resulted in extreme dumping of historic levels of rainfall, with Central Park in N.Y.C. receiving 3.15 inches of rain in just one hour. Newark Airport was shut down and many flooded streets in the five boroughs and surrounding areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania were transformed into virtual rivers. Subway entrances and basement dwellings quickly filled until they overflowed.
The national Weather Service issued its first ever “flash flood emergency” for the area as well as both NY and NJ leaders issuing states of emergency.
The death toll quickly rose to at least 50 people. Reports of those that were killed mostly died as a result of being flooded in basement living spaces or overtaken by water both inside and outside their vehicles.
The Climate Crisis is not a movie and a majority has to demand action of Government and Industry: the individual is not to blame
In a way the problem inherently contains the seeds to its own resolution. The current state of climate emergency could have been partially averted, or at least slowed down, had government and, in particular, the fossil fuel industrial complex done more than talk and come up with tricks like greenwashing and propaganda to distract and delay the obvious need to stop carbon (CO2) pollution. The signs were evident for many decades, and some alternative solutions were known for over a century, while the fossil fuel behemoth just kept expanding.
Now, with the crisis getting more extreme and deadly, seemingly by the hour, it will take an equally extreme change in the response – a literal washing away of the status quo that created the problem. That may look like a system wide collapse, bringing down the structure that props up the suicidal stupidity of the current system, or something equally extreme, if real solutions are to have time to have any chance of having an impact.
Hurricane Ida made landfall as a Category 4 Sunday morning (August 30, 2021) also marking the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Ida had maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, just shy of making it a Category 5 (winds greater than 155 mph). Radar approximates that up to about 17 inches of rainfall were recorded just west of New Orleans.
Over a million customers lost power in Louisiana, making it the 2nd largest power outage in the state since 2000. The outage could leave residents without power for up to six weeks, rendering them helpless for electricity during increasingly hot late summer weather. Numerous streets need power lines raised that were brought down or snapped by Ida’s winds.
Cantrell, the New Orleans major spoke of voluntary evacuations, particularly for residents that have special needs, seniors or those vulnerable to the heat.
Extreme weather, ocean temps, rising sea levels with melting ice caps, all connected and all increasingly menacing
It has appeared, unfortunately, for nearly decades as if the predictions of ocean temperature increase and sea level rise would have to continue until multiple major cities are fully submerged before any real steps would begin to combat the causes.
Is that still the case after the four “disaster stories” this week? Was the tragedy and destruction enough to have people begin to actually realize that there are no decades left to “wait and see”?
Caldor / Lake Tahoe Fire
The Caldor Fire has burned around 213,270 acres covering 2 California counties (El Dorado and Amador) and currently only 32% contained (as of September 3rd). The fires have been active for 19 days according to Cal Fire. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate. The looming threat of the fires reaching the popular tourist location of South Lake Tahoe are safe for now, however, and flames have been averted.
The fire created widespread haze and smoke, resulting in extremely hazardous air quality.
The total number of structures destroyed by the fire is 857 as of Sept 3rd, marking it as the 20th most destructive fire in recorded history for California.
Water levels from the largest reservoir on the Colorado River and Lake Mead, which supply drinking and irrigation water to Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, California and Mexico have reached record low levels.
Regulators now have to make crucial steps to protect another crucial water source, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the water system that helps to provide 2/3 of CA population, irrigation for agricultural industry as well as state’s norther border with Oregon.
California residents could be facing future water restriction, however according to Gov. Gavin Newsom it is not likely to be in force until the end of September (the delay could be his attempt to avoid any unpopular mandates before the Sept 14. Recall Election).
Some drastic measures have been taken so far at National State parks in order to help conserve water including closing bathrooms and showers and shutting off water faucets/fountains.
Four stories just from this week: is this a turning point and a wake up call that we desperately need?
Does New York City, or Miami, or Mumbai have to be permanently flooded or fully submerged before we “notice” and demand action? Or, is now the time to mark the date – September 2021 as the moment that the climate emergency was finally “real”? Will it be seen, understood as imminent, and acted on as an emergency of the magnitude that it already is?
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