Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Yeah. Even the $10k, which is what I am hearing is being floated in my old banking circles. That presents serious challenges for the community and regional banks. These banks are already struggling to remain profitable. There's going to be cost associated with this.

The big banks with their large compliance teams will have no problem complying.

I don't know what's going on. Apple wasn't exactly forthcoming with how they would scan a customer's iCloud account for kiddie porn. They claimed that it was only some kind of file check, implying it would be as simple as filename and size. I later found it it wasn't.

It's based on a hash function (many to few) which has some immunity to photo cropping, editing, resizing, and other alterations. It's a laudable goal. However, what I find most troubling are the potential applications by bad actors. Think Communist China.

Heck, why stop there. Why not the US Gov't? The Patriot Act stuff lasted far longer than it needed to be. NSA hacked HTTPS/SSL for years and didn't say anything (I heard hint hint of this before the Heartbleed bug was revealed). No one seems to remember any of this stuff.

 

Did you ever stop to think that this will hurt the people who are struggling the most? The underground economy. The Uber and Lyft drivers who do it on a part time basis as a second or third job. The small business people who are teetering on the edge of finally being able to make it?* The brown people who work for cash and send remittances back home to India or Mexico?

It's the same ol' game. Soak the working stiffs as if good ol' Uncle Sam can't squeeze another dollar from someone making $11 an hour.

Meanwhile Buffetman, Rocketman, and Baldguywhoeveryonehates pay no more than a few percent of their real income. Did anyone really believe those in power would actually soak the people who have obscene amounts of money? We are talking about 007 super villains with their own spaceships. Yes, these fuckers have their own SPACESHIPS now!

*Anyone who runs a small business, particularly early on, will take certain "liberties". It's only after they become successful and have more to lose do they start to do things by the book.

 

Trump's poor as fuck and a faker. This is why he didn't want his IRS returns out there. Besides, screw all these old school NYers. I heard on the news today: NY Governor Kathy...

It suddenly dawned on me. It's the end of a era of those old school NY bosses. No more tittie squeezing. No more barking. No more shitty behavior.

Trump and Cuomo are two sides of the same coin. Both @YMO and I warned you guys about this. Well, Trump was better at bamboozling than Cuomo. How people believed in him beats me considering that he was hanging with the Clintons before his political aspirations.

3/4 of the Koch Bros are dead. No one cares. No one shed a tear. They also don't own any rockets to take them to heaven.

 

I'm genuinely upset. In my time at the Schiit factory, I see good conscientious people working so hard. Some with second jobs right after their shift ends.

And then I see on TV, people coming out of their spaceships with super villain mannerisms straight out of a Bond film.

It's like no wonder people are angry.

 

Evidence suggests they do not work. The thing I'm really pissed about is how the Bush tax cuts for the top bracket extended into the Obama presidency. I remember waiting for them to go bye-bye around that time, especially when the Dems had control of everything, but it never happened.

I guess this is what happens if you got book deals worth millions and friends who make obscene amounts of money.

 

Concerns about mob rule, e.g. majority stomping upon minority, disorder and chaos, etc.. Among other things, representative indirect democracy in the USA designed to protect against mob rule. Alexander Hamilton felt that people were too retarded, too easily mislead, too passionate, to be entrusted with pure democracy.

It sounds elitist today. However back then, any kind of democracy was a radical idea and the larger concern was how to have a democracy would last and not eat itself. These dudes weren't dumbshits. They studied history, how pure democracies failed, bringing about a a return to kings.

There's the expectation today that democracies are supposed to be perfect. They are not. They are just slightly better than monarchies and dictatorships. The best kind of government is enlightened dictatorship in my opinion; the problem with this is that the successive generations of leaders will suck and suck more. We'll see how Singapore's third generation of leaders turn out.

I'm not convinced our democracy will last. We've seen a slow drift of power to the executive branch for the past 40 years. The electorate isn't willing to sacrifice and wants to kick the can down the road to the next generation. We know the government is desperate when they start to ask for our bank account information. There are lots of signs that the people of the USA do not deserve democracy. I've always said that the kind of government the people have is dictated by the people. That usually people deserve the kind of government they have because that is the kind that will work.

 

It could here and now, mainly because cash is disappearing: Venmo, Paypal, Uber, etc.

It's already gotten worse since the Executive branch has ordered the IRS to go though all tax returns with a fine tooth comb. I just got my tax return a month ago. This has never happened before. It's never taken so long. I file as early as possible and have always gotten my tax return within two weeks. I'm absolutely certain my tax return was audited.

The IRS clawed back $1k of my return. I'm not exactly sure why. I wasn't given a clear explanation, but rather a multiple choice answer. Maybe I screwed up. Maybe TaxAct screwed up. I'm not gonna argue.

The point is, I don't want a phone call the next year with the IRS questioning every other transaction in my bank accounts. It's dumb because I am small potatoes compared to these guys:



It's very easy to pay for the $1T plan. Make the richest 100 people in the USA pay a percentage share closer to that of normal people. Heck, why not a wealth tax for the ultra rich? Why claw back $1000 from people like me? The fact is there is no political will to enact any kind of true change. Note that two of the above guys have personal spaceships.

This is the kind of shit that makes a mob march on Capitol Hill intent upon rampage and murder. The left vs. right stuff is just a smokescreen, a cover, an easily graspable excuse for the real problems.

 

I don't think the IRS / government really cares about them. While I am small potatoes, cash laborers are even smaller. The IRS will find a way to tax them indirectly: go after the small business owners who employ them. Like my the gardeners we used in California: Tran and Pedro, who are both legit (actually I'm not too sure about Tran, we know how sneaky those Asians can be )

After the IRS has access to Pedro's bank account at Wells Fargo, they will notice that Pedro takes out weekly substantial cash withdrawals to pay his workers (illegal) in cash. The IRS will make Pedro pay their taxes. Over time, the IRS will hire data analysts and use AI to identify accounts like Pedro's and claw back the money which rightfully belongs to the good ol' USA.

It's all smoke and mirrors. My 2020 effective tax rate went up slightly because of better "enforcement". Give me some stimulus. Make me happy. Take it back one year later so as not to ruin that fleeting moment of happiness.

 

Ding ding ding! (Most Americans do not realize that our governments impose very onerous anti-money laundering responsibilities upon our financial institutions. No, the USA doesn't pay the banks for this "patriotic" service. Seriously, you guys should try this: go to your local banks and ask to talk to the BSA/AML Officer. The banks must spend to do this themselves otherwise the regulators will write them up for not following regulation. Look at what happened to HSBC and Meng Wanzhou.

And once the tax guys nail you for one year, they will go back many more years and nail you more.