California to Pave Way on Highly Troublesome New Tax; WEALTH TAX

 This is deeply troublesome. California often leads other states with new "progressive" policies and taxes. 

All too often, if you see California do it, then other states follow like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New York and New Jersey. That does not mean California ideas are good ideas. Often they are not. 

Over time California has established high taxes, excessive regulations, overbearing environmental regulations and restrictions on individual liberties. These California Policies almost always lead to an exodus of people from the California to other states that are more friendly to jobs, residents and businesses. 

Here come a new one: The Wealth Tax. This has been tried and failed all over the world. It appeals to some voters who want to "make the rich pay their fair share." But there are serious conceptual problems. These include:

• It encourages people to leave the state,
• It does not raise the revenue predicted,
• It is entirely unfair as most wealth was already taxed as income,
• It is very difficult to effectively measure without legal disputes,
• A modest wealth tax may be a significant share of annual earnings, and, 
• All new taxes lead to increases of those taxes on everyone over time.  

Click here for link to Zero Hedge Article

Tax Policy Under Biden and Democrats

One of my preferred economists, Brian Wesbury of First Trust Advisors, published an analysis of proposed tax policy and its implications to the economy if enacted. Most of these policies cannot be enacted without Democrats taking control of the House, Senate and White House. The analysis implies that some proposals may not have a significant adverse affect while others will. Without question, these proposals, or other versions, will usher in another round of job killing economic policies of Democrats. Keep in mind that all of this would be on the heals of one of the worst economic calamity ever forced on the economy by Democrats. Here is the analysis.

"What many investors are focused on is a scenario where Biden wins and the Democrats also take the Senate. In that scenario, the Democrats could use the special budget process on Capitol Hill to raise taxes permanently (meaning no natural sunset) with a simple majority, like President Clinton did in 1993.

Biden's team has made plenty of tax proposals, but we're going to focus on what we call the Big Five:

1. Raising the top income tax rate on regular income back to 39.6% from 37% 
2. Raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%
3. Ending the step-up basis at death
4. Treating long-term capital gains and qualified dividends as regular income for those earning over $1 million
5. Applying the Social Security payroll tax on incomes over $400,000+

Legionnaires’ Disease Risk Grows as Coronavirus Lockdowns Lift

Since original lockdowns of various cities and states, more unexpected consequences from the lockdowns. These consequences become more dangerous and recognized the longer that businesses and buildings remain locked down. A recent article in Everyday Health reports on increasing prevalence of Legionaires Disease which has similar symptoms and risks as COVID 19. There have been some reports that Legionaires has been detected in masks (not verified.) The Key Points from the article:

• Buildings closed down have an increased risk of Legionaires Disease
• CDC buildings were forced to close to detection of Legionella
• Legionaires causes 55,000 to 70,000 deaths annually
• Legionaires symptoms are similar to COVID 19
• The death rate from Legionaires is much higher than COVID 19

Here is an excerpt of the article:

"The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that the disease has a 10 percent death rate. Compare that with COVID-19, which is still being studied but has an estimated fatality rate of 1 percent or less, according to Timothy Russell, PhD, a mathematical epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, commenting in the journal Nature.

“The death rate for Legionnaires’ is much higher than what we’ve seen so far for COVID-19, and the complications following infection can be quite debilitating,” says Dr. Pruden, who has studied how corrosive tap water in Flint, Michigan, contributed to outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease there."

Click here to see the entire article in Everyday Health (August 10, 2020.)

WSJ: School Closures Damage the Youngest Children

 

By Christine K. VanDeVelde

In the contentious debate over opening schools, there is almost no mention of the youngest learners—children 2 to 5, who attend day care, nursery schools or prekindergarten programs. That’s a terrible omission. What those children need to accomplish can’t be done in isolation or in front of a laptop, and it has to be done during a brief developmental window that closes around age 5 and never opens again.

The learning needs of the youngest students in pre-K programs are easy to underestimate, because their schoolwork consists of playing together— pretending to be a princess or a superhero, playing house, digging in the sand to create a dinosaur park. Just as older students must work to succeed, pre-K pupils must play, and they must play with each other. As the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget put it, “Play is the work of childhood.”

Will Trump or Any President Cancel Social Security? No!

Political divisiveness is rampant in the media and internet websites. Some stories are promoted by political parties/groups and some may be supported by foreign interests.

Here is what you should be sure of. Trump will never support “getting rid of Social Security.” No one in Congress will vote for that even if any President wanted to.

Recently, Trump DID SAY he wanted to get rid of the “payroll tax” which primarily partially funds Social Security. That reflects his view (shared by many over the years) that the payroll tax (15% of wages) is very unfair and regressive. That applies to the first $137,700 of wages irrespective of income. Therefore, someone making $25,000 pays the same 15% as someone making $250,000. In fact, higher incomes stop paying above the threshold. Many economists feel it has become unfair.

Currently, those taxes are earmarked for Social Security. In the Federal Budget, all the funds are commingled. Future planned benefits cannot be paid out of funds set aside. There are not enough funds and those funds are not segregated. It has been a long standing fraud on Americans to suggest SS benefits were safely set aside. They simply are not.

What Trump wants to do (and has always said so) is to fix an unfair tax, and, find a way to honor the commitment to beneficiaries.

Any reasoned analysis of Social Security shows there are long standing problems with paying these benefits. It has to be fixed. Like many issues, Trump wants to fix it even though it will be hard and want to be avoided by the politicians that created the mess.

For my friends who are in Illinois, the pension crises for state and local employees in Illinois is much much worse due to chronic bad policies regarding excessive pension benefits, state budgets and funding. While Illinois is only one state, the lack of funding to pay pensions to state employees is almost as large as the unfunded benefits in Social Security.

Details:
15% payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare is jointly paid by both employee and employer.

The max income threshold of $137,700 applies to SS tax (called FICA) and there is no cap on Medicare tax.)

The Important War Against Child Trafficking - #SaveTheChildren

This commentary is from a friend of Children and SF&ST-

SIMPLE TRUTH

 - Child trafficking has been a significant problem for years

 - Masks and fear of COVID 19 may be making it worse

 - Kids need to be back in school "as normal"

 - More focus needs to be placed on issue to stop child trafficking

Child trafficking has been a big problem before, but, it is massive now that we can so easily hide children and others in plain daylight and our see something say something radar is down.

And the science isn’t there for this kind of long term mask wear and cost vs benefit. Not there at all. We are weakening immune systems (bubble theory) by staying masked, locked away from our loved ones etc. Kids are virulent against this. They just are g BH ring tested more right now because of school. Cases are going up because we are testing more, death rates go down.

The survival rate is 99.74 and likely improving as time goes on, regardless of draconian measures in place for months now. It’s time to stop being afraid and go back to normal. We know the tests are faulty, treatment has been suppressed, and vaccines are being rushed. Kids need to be around each other in school. Not masked. Not apart. Normal.

They help improve all of our micro-biomes and we need them to do our “dirty work” in order build us all up.

Look at Sweden and look at South Dakota. We went with a theory and they were the control groups and if this all worked, we should see massive devastation there.

It just isn’t. It’s 5 months later and they are locking down tighter and tighter. It’s not working yet these people seem drunk on power. Continuing to crash our economy, print money and kill livelihoods. It’s not about the virus to me. Wouldn’t we otherwise decide the risk to be worth it?

A 1% drop in employment equals 30k deaths. We had a 14% change in unemployment. That’s depressing math. The cure is worse than the disease and now it’s making it easier to commit all
Kinda of crimes, including child trafficking.

Plus they are accessing the kids through the internet in creative ways I never knew about. We all need to be braver for these kids and others. The number is more like 800,000 in this country alone.

More on Mass Mail In Voting; Possible and Likely Irregularities

There are inherent flaws in vote by mail if not set up correctly. While it does work in places, there are still flaws in the process that leaves open the potential for voting irregularities.

Absentee voting is different because the process has been in place for a long time in all states, it requires voters to request a ballot, and it was not rushed into practice.

The single biggest flaw is that it is being rushed by states with no time to establish near full proof procedures. Readers should also see clearly this is being pushed by Democrats that perceive an advantage for their candidates.

A better system can and should be established for "digital voting" but that system would require up to a year to establish procedures that should then be tested fully. 

As a reminder, anyone with safety and health concerns can request an "absentee ballot" to vote without going to a polling place. 

(Readers should be aware that most voting management of any system occurs at the county level with some procedures for voting integrity at the precinct level. This makes any changes difficult to manage in a rush where so many people are involved, that have to be trained on how to avoid and limit irregularities.)

Here is recent article from Politico on the topic.

COVID 19 Stimulus - Round 4; Horse Trading is Good for America

Attached below is an article the reviews the attempted horse trading going on with trillions of your tax dollars. The US Budget for the fiscal year ended Sept 30 2019 was just over $4 trillion (that is $4,000 billion.) Even in fiscal 2019, the Federal government borrowed additional debt of nearly $3 trillion. So with the stimulus payments this year, Federal spending could easily approach $6 trillion and what is being proposed or "negotiated" is an additional $1 to $3 Trillion. 

The concerns with previous stimulus is that some payments were clumsily provided and the substantial unemployment benefits incentivized some not to return to work. Readers should know that the average unemployment benefits per week were about $330. The CARES Act increased that to $930 per week with an addition $600 per week. That combination of state unemployment benefits and CARES act provided such large benefits that some workers preferred to stay home rather than return to work. Many receiving those benefits were being paid more than "many essential workers" that were showing up to serve Americans during the Pandemic. 

This is a typical ideological conflict that is common place. Dems always want more hand outs, even when excessive, to curry favor with voters. Repubs are willing to help the needy but do not want to create incentives that are counter productive. 

Like most policy disputes in Washington there are easy pragmatic solutions if elected leaders did what is best for Americans. But they don't. 

A Simple Truth solution is to taper benefits down to zero in a few months to encourage everyone to return to work. Say continue for two months at $500 per week.. then two months at 300 per week and then drop to $100 per week after four months for another 6-12 months.

There are other issues in dispute but the Simple Truth is there are pragmatic solutions. Another key dispute is over Federal bail outs for states that have wrought havoc on financial position due to long standing unsound financial practices and flawed lockdown decisions. These are democrat run states like California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey. 

But "we" elect too many to Congress that care more about their political future than doing what is best for America. Let them know how you feel. No more horse trading.

Here is the Article that provides a recap the breakdown in "negotiations."

Here is a link to the Federal Budget with actual data about spending.

Do Government Scientists Own an Interest in Moderna COVID 19 Vaccine

It is well documented that Anthony Fauci has made encouraging remarks about the Moderna Covid 19 vaccine currently in Phase 3 Trials. There have been reports in the media that Fauci will reap a financial reward if the vaccine proves effective and is used throughout the US and the World. 

A cursory review of literature did not reveal evidence from a credible source that Fauci may have an interest. That could be important if he was knowingly "fanning the flames" of fear to make the vaccine more essential and valuable. With a financial incentive, he may also be discouraging therapeutic treatments that would reduce the risks of the virus and thereby lessen the fear that many have had. 

SF&ST did not find evidence that was credible of Fauci having a direct financial interest. However, Americans should be alert to future revelations. Some of the source documents available were redacted to conceal the interests of NIH (National Institute of Health - Fauci's organization) scientists. Reports of current US law state that scientists working for the government may receive a financial reward for their intellectual property while working for the US Government but it is limited to $150,000 per year. The four NIH scientists were not identified. It was clear from patent applications that the US Government did share in the ownership of the vaccine under development and provided substantial funding. 

For more information - see this link:

Here is the link to an article with credibility and links to actual documents from "Public Citizen." 

Hysteria About COVID 19? Look at this!