Death and Taxes

“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”  Benjamin Franklin (1789)

"'Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes,” from Christopher Bullock, The Cobler of Preston (1716). 

Is a message we are all familiar with, taxes are going to be paid, but the question is by whom?

So lets look at what our taxes pay for. The short list would be Defense, Healthcare, National Debt and Federal Employee Salaries.  Drilling down into this list we get the following small sample:

• Interest on out National Debt
• Salaries for Congress, President, Military Personnel and other Federal Employees
• Medicare
• Social Security
• Medicaid
• Federal departmental expenses
• Infrastructure

So there are things that are definitely going to get paid no matter what, employees may be forced to take furlough days without pay and something may be deferred. 

There are 2 basic groups taxes, Corporate and Personal taxes, but corporations are considered people: I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.  Now Corporations are interesting since they also tax us, so in essence we are being double taxed or one might say corporation are paying less taxes.  Who can say they haven't seen the taxes on their cable or cell phone bill.

Communism is defined as a political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control.  Basically for the good of the Country.

Capitalism, also called free market economy or free enterprise economy, economic system, dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most of the means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets.  Basically for the good for the Company.

Under Capitalism when you pour a lot of money into a company that should be entitled to shares of that company which equates to ownership.  So the Banking Bailout of 2008 should have entitled Tax Payers to shares of those companies, but it didn't.  They considered it a loan so ownership was not an option and yes it was paid back.  There was no consideration given to the tax payers for this gift.  Sounds a lot like Communism without the benefits instead of a Free Market.

They said they were "Too big to fail", this concept should exist in a Free Market.  There would have been some impact to the American Economy, but what would have happened is that smaller companies would have stepped up and filled the void.  This bailout was only necessary to protect the wealthy, shareholders and the Stock Market.  People would have lost jobs, but once the smaller companies expanded those jobs would have came back.  The most import thing is it prevent these companies from becoming insolvent, which is good for the the Stockholder and Investors not the people.

Forbes recently posted an article stating that, "The 3 Richest Americans Hold More Wealth Than Bottom 50% Of The Country." Oddly enough these 3 people are for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Fortune recently posted an article stating that, "George Soros and Hundreds of Other Millionaires Are Asking Congress to Raise Their Taxes"

Currently we are in the middle of Tax Reform and the main part of the reform are tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.  They call it "Trickle Down Economics", which has been proven ineffective.  Companies get to keep more of their money and supposedly they create more jobs, well companies have been keeping more of their money for the past few decades and jobs and wage growth has not increased.  What has been shown to work are tax cuts for the poor and middle class.  When they have more money in their pocket they spend it on goods and services and that stimulates the economy.

Do you really want our children paying for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations when the wealthy are asking...begging for their taxes to be increased?

Grindhouse: Apocalypse Now!!! - Or How I'm Living in a Real Life B Flick

Poker is an interesting game.  I'm no good at it, but I do like to play occasionally.  This game depends on Luck, Skill and the ability to tell a believable lie.  Luck is a topic we don't need to discuss and the ability to lie we will return to later.

So the main aspect of Poker is skill, so what kind of skills are necessary for this game?  I'm sure if you ask different people you will get different answers, but in my perspective the necessary skills are the ability to read people, know the odds, read the cards and play the hand effectively.  

Like I said I like to play, but I stink at it.  I consider myself a good player, but not a winning player when I play I play to have fun.  To me that the main trait of a good player.  Some people think they can read others, maybe they can maybe they can't, but you always hear the term "Tell" when they talk.  Whether someone has a nervous tick when they lie is not a reason to base a winning strategy on and it definitely does not make one a good player.

A good player will evaluate the chances of winning based on the cards they hold.  So if my first 2 cards are aces then I start off with something like a 99% chance of winning, even if there are only 2 players.  So I can bet high, now the others may fold, call or raise depending on the strength of their hand.  Knowing I have the best hand at the moment I do have to consider what the other may or may not have, but I don't know.  I can assume someone has another pair, someone is waiting for the next card and someone is just flat out lying.  With each card I have to reevaluate my hand and if it doesn't improve the odds of winning decreases so I have to decide whether it's worth buying the hand early or not.  

I've heard one way to win is to make someone decide whether they are willing to bet half of their chips at the beginning of the hand or not.  This can be risky especially considering you don't know what the others are holding.  It's even riskier if you are trying to do that and don't have a good hand yourself or just lying (bluffing).  I'm always reminded of the Kenny Rogers song, "Know When to Hold Em". Enough of my poker banter, besides I've given almost my entire knowledge of the game, anyone want to play?   lol

Right now we are in the middle of a poker game, someone made a bet and the other didn't like the bet that was made, the bad part is neither realizes the impact.  So Kimmy and Donny are at the table playing now, before that it was Baracko and Kimmy and even earlier it was Georgy and Kimmy.

The game started and Georgy opened with "No WMD's", Kimmy raised by testing a missile.  Georgy ignored his raise because he was focused on beating Sammy H.  Kimmy was still in the game playing, but waiting for the next player to sit down.  Enters Baracko, he sits down and makes a bid not too high not too low, he had other things on his mind.  Kimmy raised again, Baracko ignored him, but kept and eye on his cards.  Kimmy continued to raise, but Baracko knew he was only bluffing at the time.  Only making small gains Kimmy decides to up the ante while waiting for the next player to sit down.

In comes Donny, as Baracko leaves he tells Donny to keep an eye on Kimmy.  Kimmy opens high and Donny raises, Kimmy reraises, Donny reraises.  Neither one has a winning hand, the winning hand belongs to Peeps, but the bets are so high they can't afford to play.

Fortunately the games has rules, unfortunately the rules only apply to one side.

Mad Max, Equilibrium, Water World, Escape from New York, Planet of the Apes or the Book of Eli, pick your favorite post-apocalyptic theme.  At some point the world turns for the worst regardless of the situation it gets really really bad.

The all have in common a kind of ruling class dictator deciding the fate of us all, not too dissimilar from today.  We struggle for everything including the right to breathe.  We fight against one another for food, water or whatever is felt to be the importance of the day.  We live in shacks if we can afford them. mostly sleep wherever we can, while our leaders are always living high on the hog in some random building that managed to remain standing after the devastation occurred.

As we prepare for our impending doom, I think it's cool.  I've always said the Earth is a self healing organism and nothing we can do can harm it.  As arrogant as we maybe, we are incredibly stupid.  No matter the devastation, the Earth is the only constant in the equation and it's doing fine....Well there was the movie, "The Core" where we stopped the molten core of the Earth from moving hence eliminating the magnetic field around the world causing havoc around the world.  But again it may have healed from that, not in enough time for us to survive.  So while we say we want to make the World a better place for our children, we sure do everything we can to make sure there is no future for us.  

How did this happen?

Simple thinking we are the center of the World and that everything revolves around us, well we aren't.  There is a center of the World and it's called the 'Inner Core"...for anyone unfortunate enough to have parents with a last name of Core and a sense of humor, I'm not talking about you.  I often wonder in those post apocalyptic films does anyone ever stop and think, "Man I sure glad we saved the Earth from Global Warming!"

I think when we get to the point of Nuclear Devastation I'm flying to NORAD.  Any attack worth it will first take out our defensive capabilities and I want to be front row.  I'll open a lawn chair put on my shades, a little sun block...UV 5 Hundred Million of course and enjoy a beer or a few shots.  I can imagine watching this humongous ICBM flying directly towards me and a brilliant explosion beyond rival, with my luck it would be a dud and never explode.

So lets enjoy the ride.  If there is one thing I'm 100% sure of and that is our days on this planet are numbered and the ultimate cause will be our own hands.  Maybe we'll have space travel perfected to the point where we can leave and after eons of space life decide to come back to our beautiful plush green planet we took for granted so many millennium ago with a lesson learned.