Reon_Wolf

[Robert Graham @robertgraham]

Billionaires do not avoid taxes by taking out loans.

They do take out the loans. They don't have bank accounts. They just write a check for things, and the money comes from their margin account.

In theory, as critics point out, they never need to pay it back. The stock market (like the SP500) grows more than the interest payments, so they'd rather just keep paying interest and never pay back the loan.

In this theory, that means that when they die, they've gotten away with never having paid tax on the money.

But just because this works in theory doesn't mean they are doing this in practice. In practice, every few years, they'll sell some stock and pay down the balance, and pay taxes on this.

That's because there are problems with the theory. Debt is a risk, and there's a cost for the risk. If there's a crash in stock market, too much margin loans can bankrupt them.

Also, margin is backed by assets several times more than the loan itself, so this ties up a lot of their shares.

Thus, it's just better to occasionally pay down the margin loan.

Thus, the left has a conspiracy theory about tax evasion that really only happens in theory, but doesn't happen in real life.

[ZUBY: @ZubyMusic]

If you think the government spends money wisely and that taxes should be higher, there is literally nothing stopping you from sending them extra money voluntarily.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@TheCanadian19 "... because that is what work is for." No. You work for money your work is worth. Nothing else. If you want more, do more work, find better/more paying job, start your own business.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@BladeoftheS You are kinda stupid. Israel's nuclear program is not illegal at all. Why? Because Israel didn´t sign the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

[Robin Monotti @robinmonotti]

THE LITTLE ICE AGE - The real reason why climate has been warming of recent is entirely natural: it is because we are still emerging from The Little Ice Age.
See painting of a frozen over Thames by Graham Turner. In the winter of 1683/84, the ice was almost a foot thick and the Thames remained frozen for weeks. Boats were fitted with skates and stalls set up with food, shops and games.
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of significant regional cooling, particularly in Europe, characterized by harsh winters, and expanded glaciers.
Winter temperatures in Europe dropped as much as 2°C below modern averages.
The event lasted from roughly 1300 to 1850, spanning nearly 500 years. It is generally divided into phases: an initial cooling around 1300, a slightly warmer period in the 1500s, and the coldest interval between 1645 and 1715 (known as the Maunder Minimum).
The LIA was primarily triggered by the Grand Solar Minima, which caused reduced solar irradiance, and therefore cooling.
We are still emerging from the Little Ice Age, and that is the only reason some areas are warmer than centuries ago. This has very little to do with CO2 and everything to do with the Sun.
To put it simply, both the activity of the Sun and the Sun-Earth distance changes, and this modulates the amount of both solar irradiance and solar radiation, which affects clouds, and this combined change is what leads to long term changes in climatic temperatures.
It's definitely not CO2 causing any of this.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@NayeemX1 @dferris1961 @jacksonhinkle Absolutely ... at least the person responsible for reforms, Deng Xiaoping, was a member of the Communist Party. Otherwise, absolutely not - de-collectivisation, private ownership of the means of production, and foreign investment in the economy are not communist measures.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

Everything about the Left is fake.

Once you understand it, everything makes sense.

>Eat the rich... from your mansion
>Save the planet... from your private jet
>Everyone is racist... while you fund the racism.
>Billionaires are evil... unless you fund our candidates.
>Words are violence... but my violence is actually speech

>Wrong pronouns are assault... but burning a courthouse in a protest is mostly peaceful

>We love immigrants... unless you send them to Martha's Vineyard then we call ICE too

>Democracy is sacred... unless we lose, then it was stolen by Russia, misinformation, or Elon

>Diversity is our strength... unless you're a Black conservative, then you're a race traitor who needs to be destroyed

>Tax the wealthy... while your foundation, your trust, and your three LLCs are structured specifically to avoid paying a dime of it

>Capitalism is oppression... posted from an iPhone, on a platform worth a trillion dollars, while wearing merch sold through the your merch store linked in your bio

It's all fake, it's all performative and should be endlessly mocked into oblivion.

Give them zero comfort.

The doctrine is always designed so the cost lands on someone else.

The cashier pays for your protest. The suburban parents pays for your sanctuary city. The trade school kid pays for your student loan forgiveness. The taxpayer pays for your foundation's tax shelter. The working mom pays for your gas stove ban. The factory town pays for your Green New Deal. The girl on the swim team pays for your pronouns. The cop's widow pays for your bail reform.

It's a massive, evil, cost-transfer operation that pretends the evil they are pushing, is moral.

...and it's just evil

[Handre @Handre]

The 1920-21 depression was the sharpest economic contraction in American history, yet you've probably never heard of it. Industrial production collapsed 32%. Unemployment spiked from 4% to 12% in twelve months. By every measure, this downturn dwarfed the initial shock of 1929.

President Warren Harding faced enormous pressure to "do something." Labor leaders demanded public works programs. Businessmen begged for bailouts and trade protection. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon advised Harding to slash government spending and let wages fall. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover (yes, that Hoover) pushed for massive federal intervention.

Harding chose Mellon. The federal budget dropped from $6.4 billion to $3.2 billion in two years. No stimulus packages. No bailouts. No alphabet soup of new agencies. Government employment fell 40%. When you let markets clear, they clear fast.

The recovery started in July 1921. By 1923, unemployment had dropped to 2.4% and industrial production reached new highs. The entire episode lasted eighteen months from peak to full recovery. Compare that to Japan's lost decade of intervention, or the European debt crisis that dragged on for years, or our own jobless recovery after 2008.

Most economics textbooks omit this episode because liquidating malinvestments and allowing price adjustments works exactly as free market theory predicts: a fact that destroys the Keynesian narrative that government must spend its way out of recessions. Politicians today claim they learned the lessons of the 1930s, but they studiously ignore the more important lesson of 1921.

[Quick Thoughts @lthlnkso]

4 problems: double y-axis, income & consumption, wrong poverty line, and aggregated data compared to microdata.

[Brigham's Burner @FiredUpCoug]

The US has one of the largest rail networks on Earth. We just use it for the part that still makes economic sense here: freight.

Passenger rail stopped being viable as a private business shortly after WWII.

Cars took short and medium trips. Airlines took long trips. Highways and airports got massive public investment.

By the 1960s, private railroads were losing money on passenger service, which is why Amtrak was created in 1970 (and it's been losing money ever since)

The US has tons of rail routes, and trains.

They’re just hauling cargo.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@johncusack John Cusack forgot to take his medicine. He is hallucinating again ...

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

Interesting ... you know, I live in a former socialist country governed by communists. Surprise! - You must work even in that system. Not working (and being able to) was a crime. So, yes, you must "earn your existence" even in a non-capitalist system. You are just unbelievably uneducated and kinda stupid.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

Um ... no. The main factor, IMO, is a welfare state in any form- thus, higher taxes, necessity for women to work to family be able to get by, and such.
The article is rightly talking about developed countries - all of them have something like a welfare state implemented. High fertility is generally in the countries w/o those measures implemented because the family is the only thing they can rely on. The economy was not a factor regarding fertility - very often the poor people had the most kids exactly because of that: no retirement money in any form means your kids are your retirement plan.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@sakitechonline @Jason If that's so, democrats must be complicit in it. Mind you, or not - you seem to be an idiot, if he really is a pedo with solid proof in the Epstein files, how is it possible that democrats are not dragging him to court(s) for it? Funny, isn´t it? 🤡

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@OrevaZSN The fact that envious people are becoming even more envious should be studied by the same people who study serial killers.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@BlisterPearl We should rather beat envious people like you. You should just stop envying other people's money and make your own.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@yohannbiimu1 @CBHeresy Well ... Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, was a great ally to Hitler, so ...

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@OrevaZSN I know you are stupid, but that much? You can drink water from the river, or lake, or whatever, if you want free "birthright" water. Otherwise, you pay for the work done to make it safe to drink.

[Jack V Lloyd @jackvlloyd]

Socialism is not rooted in "empathy."

It's rooted in envy.

[Reon_Wolf @wolf_reon]

@ginamilan_ What is even more scary is that people voted for her ...