Will Kamala Harris and fellow Democrats have to make Puerto Rico a state before implementing their new taxes?

by philg

Kamala Harris has big dreams for what rich people can do for the U.S. Treasury via new taxes and higher tax rates (see The Harris unrealized capital gains tax and Bidenflation and Unrealized capital gains are already taxed by the federal government… for example).

The typical American of means, however, can already escape federal taxation by moving to Puerto Rico. “How Puerto Rico Became the Newest Tax Haven for the Super Rich” (GQ):

In 2012, Puerto Rico had passed two laws intended to make the island a “global investment destination.” Act 20 allows corporations that export services from the island to pay only 4 percent tax. Act 22 goes much further: It makes Puerto Rico the only place on U.S. soil where personal income from capital gains, interest, and dividends are untaxed.

The last big tweak to U.S. taxation was in 2018. Plainly, the rates were low enough that most rich Americans refrained from making the move to the Ritz-Carlton Dorado. But what if Kamala Harris and fellow Democrats are able to deliver on their promise to soak the rich? Wouldn’t there be a lot more rich people who would make the move for 183 days per year in order to avoid losing a big percentage of their wealth? If so, the only way to stop the erosion of expected tax base would be to eliminate Puerto Rico’s ability to offer Act 22 treatment and the only way that I know to strip Puerto Rico of its tax sovereignty is to make Puerto Rico a state.

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What do Democrats dream about now that vaccine passports are passé?

by philg

The big Democrat dream in 2021 was a segregated society in which Deplorables who refused to vaccinate their 8-year-olds against a virus that kills 82-year-olds would be excluded. See, for example, Vaccine papers checks in the Cradle of Liberty (December 2021, regarding Boston’s order that 5-year-olds be imprisoned at home if they weren’t injected with a non-FDA proved medicine (“emergency authorized” only)).

What’s the dream now? Excluding people who refuse to vote from public entertainment. Here’s a Facebook post from a San Franciscan who was previously an advocate for lockdowns, more severe lockdowns, vaccine requirements to hold jobs, and masks:

While Taylor Swift’s endorsement should be quite pleasing for its targets, she should also state that there’s no admission to her next tour without an “I Voted” sticker. Get one from an adult voter if you’re too young to vote or not a citizen. Her fan demographic doesn’t have great voter turnout, and even though most won’t be able to get tickets to see her, all will not want to cut off the chance. Sure, some will get fake ones, and some will lose theirs and need a way to resolve that, but most of them will vote or encourage their adult friends to. Other rock stars could do the same. Even Kid Rock if he wants, it would generally be a good thing.

It’s great that jet owner Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris. It is the perfect illustration of the divide between working class and elite Americans’ interests (2016 economic analysis). Low-skill immigration lowers wages for the working class, including all of the people who set up and clean up after her concerts, so she’ll keep a higher percentage of ticket revenue as profit. Low-skill immigrants aren’t going to move into any of the neighborhoods where Taylor Swift lives or get through her security bubble. If population growth via low-skill immigration clogs the highways, Taylor Swift is unlikely to be inconvenienced because she’ll have police escorts, helicopters, and private jets to get her to the next destination. If a low-skill immigrant does eventually rise into the middle class, that’s another customer for a concert ticket. A pop star can make more money in a larger country even as the daily experience of the typical citizen is degraded by overcrowding.

The original Facebook post as an image:

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A standard day in the American health care system…

by philg

Here’s an August 2024 bill for a walk-around heart monitor that was used by a patient in February 2024:

The price to an uninsured person would have been more than 10X the real price of the service ($3985 vs. $331).

I still can’t understand how it is legal for health care providers to lie in wait for the unwary uninsured patients and hope that someone slips through the cracks somehow and becomes liable for more than 10X the regular price for a service.

I’m convinced that more than 90 percent of the medical bill bankruptcies and disputes in the U.S. would be eliminated if the Feds established a “If you want to feed from the Medicare/Medicaid trough, you can’t bill an uninsured patient more than a 15 percent premium over the Medicare price” rule.

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Has Joe Biden prevented Kamala Harris from fixing most of our nation’s problems?

by philg

Here’s Kamala Harris talking about her plans for late January 2025:

What’s stopping her from doing this now? Is Joe Biden such an intelligent muscular leader that he is preventing Kamala Harris from taking on corporate landlords? I had imagined that Democrats were all on the same team and that Biden and Harris were working especially closely, like Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz. In reality, Biden is to Harris as P.K. Highsmith and Christopher Danson are to Terry Hoitz? (for those of you unfamiliar with The Other Guys, see below).

A little more background on the kinds of things that a leader such as Joe Biden can do…

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Tesla CyberTruck as the perfect substrate for an art car?

by philg

I’ve seen a few wrapped Tesla CyberTrucks lately. Apparently folks aren’t in love with the stock look and in the vinyl age don’t need to be. For the first time in the history of cars we have tons of people who are happy to pay $100,000 for a vehicle and then happy to pay some more money to radically alter the appearance. For the most fashion-forward CyberTruck owners, why not offer art car packages? Sadly, the Houston Art Car Museum closed in April 2024, but there are photos of its collection that can be used for inspiration.

Here’s one that looks like it would be simple to do as a wrap:

Here’s something that might require a bit of engineering to make sure that everything stayed attached under Tesla-level acceleration:

This would be magnificent, but probably wouldn’t fit in the garage:

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Could all of our phones be blown up by a cyberattack?

by philg

“How could Israel have triggered Hezbollah pager explosions?” (Daily Mail):

… the cause of the explosions was likely the lithium batteries that power the pagers.

While lithium-ion batteries are commonly used in consumer electronics, they can overheat and catch on fire – even exploding violently in some cases.

This is due to a phenomenon called thermal runaway, a chemical chain reaction which occurs when the battery experiences a rapid temperature change.

As this chemical reaction progresses it can lead to a sudden release of energy which can cause devices to explode with intense force and heat.

Thermal runaway is triggered when the battery is overheated, punctured or overcharged.

Question for today: If we believe the media reports implying that these were standard pagers to begin with (i.e., not supplied to the noble Hezbollah members with added explosives by an enemy pretending to be a legitimate pager supplier), what stops a malicious person from breaking into iOS, Android, or a popular app and perpetrating a similar attack on smartphones? The attack could be targeted as well. For example, a “Save Our Democracy” program, inspired by the statements of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, could wait for a few weeks to try to figure out the “threat to democracy” level of the phone owner. Just before Election Day, then, the phones of anyone who has clicked “like” on a tweet from Donald Trump or the Babylon Bee would explode.

People have been buying cases to save their smartphones from external threats, such as impact. What if the threat is the phone itself and the case should protect us from the phone?

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American Vaccine Inflation

by philg

I can’t figure out why Science hasn’t converged on opposite sides of the Atlantic regarding vaccines. Let’s leave COVID aside for the moment since one’s level of coronapanic is inevitably a political decision. Let’s look at the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine. The technocrats in the UK say that Science told them this is for people 75-79 and for pregnant people of any age:

(Of course, by Massachusetts standards, the best protection for a 28-week-old baby is abortion care, legal at every stage of pregnancy and “on-demand” through 24 weeks.)

What does Science say on the western side of the Atlantic? The RSV vaccine is for people aged 60-130+ (CDC):

The NHS says that the flu vaccine is for those 65+. The CDC?

Everyone 6 months and older in the United States, with rare exception, should get an influenza (flu) vaccine every season.

An indestructible 15-year-old is, therefore, never more than a year away from a flu shot in the US while he/she/ze/they is 50 years away from his/her/zir/their next flu shot in the UK.

Let’s turn now to coronapanic. In the U.S., Science says to get one shot at age 6 months and then keep getting injected regularly:

In the UK, the Sacrament of Fauci starts at age 75. In other words, a person must be 150X older in the UK compared to in the US to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. There are usually some error bars in Science, but does anyone know of an example where there is a factor of 150X between a Scientific result in the US versus somewhere else in the world?

Related:

  • Lost in the coronapanic shuffle, an April 2020 paper from the Annals of Internal Medicine: “The Effect of Influenza Vaccination for the Elderly on Hospitalization and Mortality” (Anderson, Dobkin, and Gorry). They looked at the UK where hardly anyone gets a flu shot under age 65 and almost everyone gets one at age 65. “Turning 65 was associated with a statistically and clinically significant increase in rate of seasonal influenza vaccination. However, no evidence indicated that vaccination reduced hospitalizations or mortality among elderly persons.” (in other words, the flu shot might prevent a few days of illness, but it doesn’t reduce the death rate)
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You need a 275 knot airplane if you’re based in South Florida

by philg

A recent email to a friend in the aviation world:

Florida isn’t the greatest for 150-knot GA. If you fly for two hours you end up in a place that looks almost exactly like the place where you live (flat, palm trees, a beach nearby, etc.). It’s not like going from BED to MVY, BTV, or BHB where the differences are dramatic after a short flight. If you assume that passengers can’t tolerate more than about 2 hours in a light plane you probably need to be going at least 275 knots so that you can make it to Chattanooga and the beginning of the mountains within 2 hours. I guess that means a Piper Meridian is the minimum if you want to get a family of non-pilots interested in a trip?

[The airports listed above are Bedford, Maskachusetts, Martha’s Vineyard, Burlington, Vermont, and Bar Harbor, Maine. That reminds me to wonder the status of the lawsuits about the cruel and unusual punishment suffered by the asylum-seekers in being flown for free from Texas to MVY. “A federal judge says migrants can sue the company that flew them to Martha’s Vineyard” (state-sponsored NPR, April 2024). State-sponsored NPR did an article in 2023 about an MVY migrant living in a free apartment and receiving cash “under the table”. What are the migrant’s damages? He can’t demand reimbursement for the high housing costs in Maskachusetts because he’s not paying anything for housing. He can’t demand reimbursement of income tax being charged by Maskachusetts that he wouldn’t have had to pay in tax-free Texas because he isn’t pay any tax in MA.]

The map below shows the distance to the nearest mountains. Another reason why the Florida lifestyle isn’t cheap!

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Kamala Harris is happy that the danger to our democracy persists

by philg

Six days ago (i.e., a couple of months since the first attempted assassination of Donald Trump) Kamala Harris said that Donald Trump is “a danger to … our democracy”:

Today, another American apparently took Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at their respective words and tried to save our democracy with a rifle. Kamala Harris says “I am glad [the danger to our democracy] is safe”:

Color me confused!

Related:

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Hispanic Heritage Month at the science museum

by philg

I hope that everyone has fully prepared for National Hispanic Heritage Month, which starts today.

Friend’s daughter at the Boston Museum of Science: “Why are all of the signs in Spanish when everyone here is white or Asian?”

From August 2021, when Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended from Twitter for falsely saying that the vaccinated righteous could still be infected by SARS-CoV-2 and transmit the virus (CBS), “Museum of Science, Boston Announces Vaccination Mandate for All Staff, Volunteers”:

The Museum of Science, Boston, one of the world’s largest science centers and New England’s most attended cultural institution, announced today a requirement that all employees and volunteers are to be vaccinated against COVID-19, effective September 13. The policy is in response to overwhelming scientific evidence of the vaccination’s safety and effectiveness in combating COVID-19.

Museum president Tim Ritchie spoke about the importance of the Museum setting an example as a trusted community resource:

“In early 2020, we closed our doors because the world was fighting a pandemic about which we had little knowledge and against which we had limited defense. Now, thanks to the wonders of science, we have the tools and expertise to eradicate this virus from our communities. We just need to act together.

Also… “Pride Celebration Weekend” at the museum for kids:

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