... things might not be exactly what you think.
(And remember to use the Althouse portal to Amazon. Thanks!)
May 7, 2019
At the Tiny Sunset Café...
... things might not be exactly what you think.
(And remember to use the Althouse portal to Amazon. Thanks!)
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91 comments:
Hi all. Beginning to feel a bit like summer here in Mid Atlantic.
I didn't get any reply to an earlier question, so I'll post it here:
What if Carter Page sues the Federal Gov't (DoJ and FBI, for example, or FISA court), and the Trump administration agrees to an out of court settlement in which the government pays Carter Page (say) $20 million. What is the procedural or institutional constraint on an action like this? Could a (second term) Trump agree to such settlements for a list of major contributors, family members, and friends?
Technically unindicted persons are subject to reimbursement but the office of special counsel
Carried over from the last thread:
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/05/07/how-to-read-venezuelas-chaotic-power-struggle/
Also the orbis employee Tatiana Duran was formerly with the state department as she and Christopher Steele met before the election
Eating bugs would probably be helpful.
"What if Carter Page sues the Federal Gov't (DoJ and FBI, for example, or FISA court), and the Trump administration agrees to an out of court settlement in which the government pays Carter Page (say) $20 million."
Where did this idea come from? Seems to me the Trump administration would welcome a trial.
"What if Carter Page sues the Federal Gov't (DoJ and FBI, for example, or FISA court)..."
Probably the best recent example of doing this is “Attkisson v. The Department of Justice and unnamed FBI agents”.
https://www.gofundme.com/sharyl-attkisson-4th-am-litigation
The deep-pockets defendants have been stonewalling Attkisson for many years. Litigation can be very expensive.
I hate to be all gloom and doom, but a recent UN reports says that humans may cause one million species to go extinct. Now, that's a tragedy. I have no solutions except my belief that humans have to somehow stop reproducing. Where I live, the freeways are filled with crazy tailgaters and speeders. I feel my life is very much in danger whenever I get behind the wheel. Things will only get worse as time marches on.
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/06/720654249/1-million-animal-and-plant-species-face-extinction-risk-u-n-report-says
They would rather pay money than acknowledge guilt, so the citizens United revelations about how much cooperation was between state and fusion is obscured by a hit piece of David bossie who ordered the foia
Sharyl Attkisson has a great recent piece in the Epoch Times defending her cruel neutrality. Know anybody else with that viewpoint?
How Media Narratives Became More Important Than Facts
"...In fact, prior to the [CBS] operation to push the narrative that I was “conservative,” my reporting had been lauded by a diverse group of observers, including the likes of Rachel Maddow, who once delivered an entire monologue on an investigative expose I did on the “charity” of then-Rep. Stephen Buyer (R- Ind.). My most recent Emmy award was for an undercover investigation into Republican fundraising.
But the narrative requests—nay, requires—that we forget all that. We must focus on the supposed miraculous metamorphosis. Depending on who’s spinning, they may insist I was a rational journalist who went crazy one day and flew to the dark side of conservatism. Or they may say I used to be a devoted liberal, but decided the big money was in pandering to Republicans, so I sold out. The details aren’t important. You are simply to come away with the notion that my reporting is now politically conflicted..."
https://www.theepochtimes.com/what-my-leaving-cbs-news-revealed-about-the-news-industry_2901934.html
This is like when thanos snapped but he didnt realize starks nanotech gauntlet had the stones.
Stephen: "Sharyl Attkisson has a great recent piece.."
I found that same link on one of the "Real Clear" sites. Real Clear Politics? It was a great piece of reflective journalism.
Trumpit: "Things will only get worse as time marches on."
Yep, if you buy the current science, everything came from one single spontaneous self reproducing cell. That was the age of hope. Now that that cell has evolved into a million different life forms, this is the age of triumph of life. If everything dies off and back down to a single cell, that will be the age of hope again. Things getting worse lead to things getting better. Cheer up, you'll be dead before it all happens.
I read the NYT piece on Trump's taxes. Am I wrong or is it not remotely like impartial reporting? “Picaresque career” for example. What a slanted term.
I feel my life is very much in danger whenever I get behind the wheel. Things will only get worse as time marches on.
Do your part. Just don't hurt anyone else as you are doing it.
If only there were some government agency with expertise in tax law to which Trump could send his returns, so they could make sure he paid everything he owed!
Trumpit, educate yourself instead of wallowing in “We’re All Doomed”.
Bjorn Lomborg.
Michael: "Do your part. Just don't hurt anyone else as you are doing it."
Trumpit, Mr. K is being sarcastic. Don't do anything drastic to save dying species.
Trumpit said...
I hate to be all gloom and doom, but a recent UN reports says that humans may cause one million species to go extinct.
**************
Tell us, Trumpit: what are your educational credentials that allow you to even BEGIN to uncritically accept what the frickin UN!!! has to say?
I'm not talking credentialism here, just the basic scientific knowledge needed to understand and critique such statements.
Because you're not making a science-based argument as to why the UN should be believed -- only that because the UN said it, it "may" be true.
Are you actually claiming that an organization comprising a vast majority of tyrannies is somehow "objective" about extinction and climate change? How many scientists work for the UN? How many Nobelists? How many scientists/Nobelists from those tit-sucking tyrannies?
Rebelling against the
Extinction Rebellion
"The Extinction Rebellion and the Green New Deal arouse fears of extinction for other species, and humanity. Only the complicit silence of climate scientists makes this possible. Compare the alarmists’ claims with what scientists said in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Too bad that journalists don’t."
Trumpit said...
I hate to be all gloom and doom, but a recent UN reports says that humans may cause one million species to go extinct. Now, that's a tragedy.
Used to be two million species facing extinction. So, not a tragedy, an improvement,
Winning !
"Extinction rate cut in half!"
It's only natural AOC fears her Garbage Disposal.
Trumpit wrote: Things will only get worse as time marches on.
Not necessarily. Eventually, you will die, and that will be a welcome uptick.
I read the NYTimes piece, too. I guess most people don't remember the real estate collapse of that ran from basically late 1988 until just around 1995. Trump himself admitted at one point to his daughter that his net worth was less than a panhandler they passed on the street during a walk. You add in realized losses with depreciation, and it is a surprise to me that the losses didn't amount to more than 1 billion. People tend to forget something about commercial real estate- you get to depreciate it on a schedule that runs in the decades until you have completely depreciated what it cost to build the structure itself (land itself is usually not depreciated in this way). I find it very easy to believe someone like Trump would have declared adjustments in the billions during the period of 1985 to 1994- if he only lost a billion, then he is smarter than a lot of folks from that era and in that business.
Quaestor: "Eventually, you will die, and that will be a welcome uptick."
Eventually we all die. We don't welcome death upon people because of their thoughts and ideas. Unless they have the power to inflict death upon us.
Used to be in America, a "rags to riches" story was uplifting.
Not any more: the Progs hatefully mock him for once being poor, and now they mock him with equal hatred for being rich.
Here is a question that the NYTimes apparently would be unable to answer:
If you buy a bulldozer for $100,000 and rent it out for a year and the total rents collected were $50,000, what was your taxable profit for the year?
The NYTimes reporters would be completely unable to figure this out. They wouldn't even know where to start. And if you explained it to them, they would be amazed at the "tax shelter of depreciation". Our best and brightest are definitely not going into to journalism.
It would interesting to see what the NYTimes corporation does with its corporate losses and depreciation on its equipment.
Or Univision's chain Saban
https://mobile.twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1125947932019048449?fbclid=IwAR00ATstSG3OCSAxFqOefZvmGzQtxVCSeVbOAGfnQkQAsziowHPjer749Sk
According to the NY Times article, Trump found many ways to lose money for a decade straight bad investments and incompetent business operating: football team, airline, luxury hotel, multiple NJ casinos, multiple greenmail stock purchases. Meanwhile, his conservative father real estate mogul continued to make money. We knew this already, but didn't have the numbers and details (like lying about some of his early greenmail gains).
readering, hot off her earlier "successes" in explaining WW2 events, super secret US Navy Strike Group Deployments, the inner workings of russian collusion, hoax dossier insight and deep legal obstruction of justice theories,has now decided Tax Law and investments strategies are her newest fortes!!
Not a moment too soon I'd say!
LOL
Its like Inga never left...
Hi Molly: when the US government pays out settlements the dollars have to come from appropriations. Can't just print money and hand it over. One can try to move appropriations around, like POTUS doing with wall money, but there are constraints. So in a nutshell, not going to happen.
Thanks for trailing me around like a faithful follower, Drago.
Hey Drago and lesser fans. Remember my favorite Jerry Falwell? Apparently he had a nude photo problem and he hired Trump's fixer Michael Cohen to contain it. Seems par for the course, as big golfers and golf course owners might say.
Redactions made by Bill Barr in the Mueller report in order not to name "Peripheral Persons" were clearly purposefully and abusively applied. That’s because a number of knowable PP details involve people who are not peripheral at all. For example, redaction analysis experts suggest that the blocked description of someone who committed perjury on page 194 based upon spaces blocked likely point to Carter Page (although another possibility, given conflicting testimonies by George Papadopoulos and Sam Clovis, is Sam Clovis). One of the people whose lies are detailed on page 199 must be KT McFarland, who managed to correct the lies she told when first interviewed by the FBI in the wake of Mike Flynn’s plea deal.
But the most obvious example of PP abuse comes in the scope paragraph on page 12: While the first redaction is uncertain, the second redaction of the expanded scope — which came after the investigation started focusing on the June 9 meeting — has to be Don Jr given the spacing on the second line, which can only be a suffix.
Moral of the story - we do not yet know precisely what Mueller has revealed but I am stunned by the number of purgerors among famous Trump staffers. Bill the Walrus has his marching orders memorized but he is a fool - like his boss - to believe that no one will ever read the redactions.
Next up: The most unsuccessful businessman among American Presidents . . .
The Poor Mans LLR Chuck: "Redactions made by Bill Barr in the Mueller report in order not to name "Peripheral Persons" were clearly purposefully and abusively applied."
LOL
Too funny.
Yes, its a real mystery why gadflys blog never took off.
Inexplicable really.
Gadfly: "For example, redaction analysis experts suggest that the blocked description of someone who committed perjury on page 194 based upon spaces blocked likely point to Carter Page..."
LOL
Sure sure.
Muellers henchmen have Carter Page on perjury but simply "forgot" to charge him...or something...
Its like watching caged lefty/LLR's in a psychological experiment.
Thanks, I had seen report on Donny but not the others. Like the story goes, maybe the horse will talk.
readering said...
Hey Drago and lesser fans. Remember my favorite Jerry Falwell? Apparently he had a nude photo problem and he hired Trump's fixer Michael Cohen to contain it. Seems par for the course, as big golfers and golf course owners might say.
So readering revels in the humiliation of her political opponents using the release of embarrassing personal photos.
This person also supports democrats spying on political opponents.
And wants her political opponents disarmed.
And wants the privacy of political opponents illegally violated so her tribe can get political power.
You are just terrible people.
I am going to enjoy your sniveling and whining about due process and abuse of power when Comey is indicted.
When the rats all start fingering your hero Obama as a traitor I am going to enjoy your bleating about racism.
Your absolute silence about the constant violence committed by leftists is also noted.
I wonder how low you are going to allow yourself to sink.
"Apparently he had a nude photo problem and he hired Trump's fixer Michael Cohen to contain it."
Was the problem "contained" by Cohen?
Deluded.
readering said...
Thanks, I had seen report on Donny but not the others. Like the story goes, maybe the horse will talk.
My money is on McCabe being the first rat to point fingers at his co-conspirators. He already threw Rosenstein under the bus.
What kind of plea deal is Paige going to sign? I wonder if she has any pictures of Strzok she can leak as you seem to be a fan of personal photos being released to humiliate people.
I had not heard of the photos before so I suppose it was contained. But apparently there is a Cohen recording. Some fixer.
readering said...
Deluded.
This person believes Trump paid hookers to pee on a bed and Putin was blackmailing him with this information and Trump is a Russian puppet.
She believes this is sufficient cause for the Obama administration to record the private conversations of everyone in the Trump campaign during the election.
Like I said....
readering: "I had not heard of the photos before so I suppose it was contained. But apparently there is a Cohen recording. Some fixer."
You're confused again.
By your own description, Cohen "fixed" the problem. So that would make him at least an adequate fixer.
If he made and released a recording, that would make him a double-crosser.
Not a big leap in "fixer" world.
On the other hand, the best "fixers" are those who can conjure up a multi-agency east german-stasi-like "investigation" (frame up/coup) against political opponents by colluding with foreign governments, including russia, like the dems did.
Makes Cohens "fixing" seem like small potatoes.
So readering, do you or do you not believe the hoax dossier is real?
LOL
Dont worry. We dont expect an answer.
Real lawyers don't make secret recordings.
The reality of the dossier is not in doubt. The accuracy of all its contents will be disputed for decades it seems.
The accuracy of all its contents will be disputed for decades it seems.
Not among the sane and intelligent. Anyone who believes the tiniest piece of that farrago of les, bullshit, and made-up “facts” needs to be locked away with 9/11 Truthers.
readering: "The reality of the dossier is not in doubt. The accuracy of all its contents will be disputed for decades it seems."
LOL
Answers dont come more weaselly than that!
Christopher Steele himself wont stand behind a single claim in his fake dossier (London courtroom proceedings under oath).
Which makes sense since every assertion was Double Hearsay and the lefties (like the NYT) are already positioning it as Putin fed propaganda!!
LOLOL
But you be you and swallow it whole, which you have, desperately, but you still know its dumb to do so therefore your weasel answer!
Awesome
"a recent UN reports says that humans may cause one million species to go extinct."
May I edit the list? Field mice are a nuisance, particularly those that wander in and set up shop in my house.
Please advise.
Trump in the red in the 80s and 90s isn't news. There was a newspaper vending machine in the workplace entrance with a sign on it at the time
Please take only one paper. I live off the money from this machine. Thanks, Donald Trump
My iniital takes on the tax piece:
They boast the return information was obtained by someone with legal access to the information but likely not a legal right to distribute it. Put those folks in the firing line with the rest if the deep staters.
It’s pretty much what we already knew about Trump- he suffered huge losses in the collapse of the late 80s and early 90s, most notably the casino losses.
They needed to stick with one angle: Trump simultaneously is the worst businessman in the world since he suffered billions in business losses AND he's a scoundrel because he failed to pay taxes on hundreds of millions in income! Also, Trump was a terrible businessman but didn’t suffer a change in his lifestyle ‘like most people’? WTF? Perhaps not so bad a businessman as to lump his business and personal wealth.
As we’ve been saying the left wouldn’t understand what they were looking at if they had them.
Headed in for a deep dive later, if that’s even possible
Harmless Hootenany...
https://www.city-journal.org/html/america%E2%80%99s-most-successful-communist-12882.html
Ha! In great counter programming, WSJ reporting Bernie made four mistakes on his 2009 return and underpaid $4,500 in tax! The greed! The outlaw! Lock him up!
Blogger readering said...
"Like I said...."
If you have facts we'd like to hear them.
stevew. Just set traps. It's the only sure wat to get rid of them. And yes. Use cheese.The tiniest amount that can be pressed into the trigger. If you use too much they'll just lick it off without triggering the trap. I preferr swiss. So do the mice.
Thanks Rusty, will give that a go. I've also hardened the exterior perimeter of the house: filled the small openings around the gas line, A/C electrical, etc.
Trump's finances: a loudmouth lefty, Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce.com, got a fair amount of news coverage recently for giving $30m to UC San Francisco to research homelessness. Wow, the sycophants said! But before we get too excited let's do a little math: Benioff's reported net worth is $6.4b so his donation of $30m is about 0.47%, equivalent to a $940.00 donation from a person whose net worth is $200,000. And it's for research into homelessness so a bunch of academics will benefit, not any actual, you know, homeless.
People are strange.
Ours got through thr dryer vent. Of all things.
"Trump himself admitted at one point to his daughter that his net worth was less than a panhandler they passed on the street during a walk."
This all ties to those that ".0001% (or whatever) of people have more wealth than 90% (or whatever) of the people" slogans. They start off with the Trumps of the world, rich people who are, on paper, a billion dollars poorer than any dirt farmer.
There was an easily overlooked story in the Washington Post yesterday. A guy was attending a meeting at the TrumpHotel in DC; there was another meeting in the hotel that "required Secret Service inspection" so everyone had to go through a security checkpoint. As the guy went through the checkpoint, he said to a Secret Service agent something like, "I do not have a weapon on me, but there is one in my parked car." The agent said, "show it to me." Then: "You're under arrest for having an unregistered weapon in DC." This is the background to what I wanted to say.
It was a very short article, with very few (less than 10) comments. But the most liked comment is this: "Will no one rid us of this protofascist buffoon? " commenter dwd.
This is what passes for intelligent commentary in the WaPo comments section.
"Used to be two million species facing extinction. So, not a tragedy, an improvement."
Maybe the first million has already died off, leaving only the second million still to kill!
I got from the NYT article that a resume of Trump's taxes for that decade was published for some reason along with those of several others with names, etc., redacted so that the individuals could not be identified. Then NYT figured out that a limited amount of information about Trump's returns could legally be acquired from the IRS, and by comparing the two sources Trump's could be identified from among the first set.
1. This is an obvious legal dodge to get around the privacy rules for tax returns, which in my mind should be an aggravating factor in a prosecution for the crime of acquiring and publishing Trump's for that decade.
2. Is NYT smart enough to have figured this out for themselves? It smells more like something from inside the IRS and given to the NYT free of charge.
This mess should be investigated and the guilty parties prosecuted!
WSJ reporting Bernie made four mistakes on his 2009 return and underpaid $4,500 in tax! The greed!
Errors on tax forms always seem to run the same way, kind of like the mistakes that newspapers make reporting on Democrats and Republicans.
were clearly purposefully and abusively applied."
There’s that word “clearly” again! It’s the word of the mont, I guess. *Clearly* it means “I can’t prove anything, but if you already agree with me that Trump is an evil menace you will buy this!"
May I edit the list? Field mice are a nuisance, particularly those that wander in and set up shop in my house.
That’s a pretty funny example because ’scientists' define genetically identical mice sometimes as different species depending on where they live and what their diet is, even though you could take a church mouse, and drop him off in a barn, he would get on fine with the other mice. (Example exaggerated to make a point.) All taxonomy is political, because it involves judgement, and wherever the political stakes are high, and judgement is involved, science becomes politics by other means.
So polar bears, who survived the Arctic warming not that many thousands of years ago, where it was far far warmer for thousands of years there than it is today, were a different species because they probably ate a lot of salmon and the seals and walruses, which also survived, BTW, were not caught on ice, but rather in the water. The only thing that is controversial about what I just said, their are very good ways to determine Arctic temps at the end of the last ice age, is to say it out loud.
Gadfly asks us to believe Popadopalus lied to the FBI and got 280 hours of jail time. BUT, Page, Don Jr, Clovis, etal all got a pass. I guess President Trump deposited an 8 figure sum into Muellers off shore numbered bank account, just in the nick of time. (this accepts the assumption the persons are ID correctly, and assumes that a lie was told. Huge assumptions)
Just for the record here, KyDerby winner Country House has been pulled out of the Preakness entries, as was Maximum Security. So no Triple Crowns asterisked or otherwise. Country trainer Bill Mott cited his priest's command for acts of contrition and said this will be only the first of multiple penances he will perform.
Used to be two million species facing extinction. So, not a tragedy, an improvement."
Maybe the first million has already died off, leaving only the second million still to kill!
Extinction is a part of both nature and evolution. When we prevent an animal from going extinct we are interfering with nature.
The accuracy of all its contents will be disputed for decades it seems.
By the same crowd that said "fire can't melt steel" and "Obama was born in Kenya"
What else you got? Any evidence of collusion or obstruction? Anything you can prove?
Or just more gossip and innuendo from the fish-mongerer's wife down on the corner?
To be fair, steel never claimed that fire couldn’t weaken it, but Obama did once claim to have been born in Kenya to sell his book.
Fusion GPS and Sidney Blumenthal are still walking around free, setting up their next their missile strike. Remember this when the GOP is caught flatfooted again by another Kavanaugh crisis or soft coup attempt.
They keep letting the Left get up off the mat. Finish them.
"You're under arrest for having an unregistered weapon in DC."
In DC you can be arrested for having an empty cartridge case or shotgun shell in the trunk of your car. Empty! As in has been fired and no long has gunpowder and a bullet (or shotgun pellets) in it. Yet gun homicides are so common that the police couldn’t be bothered to investigate the death of Seth Rich.
A good book about the hoops you are put through to legally own a gun in DC is Emily Gets Her Gun. Please use the Althouse Amazon portal.
because ’scientists' define genetically identical mice sometimes as different species depending on where they live and what their diet is
this is because, it's the endangered SPECIES act; not the endangered subspecies act
So, now, not only are Cutthroat trout considered different from rainbows; but Finespotted Snake River Cutthroat are considered different from Yellowstone Cutthroat
How many Species of Cutthroat Trout are there? There weren't Any, now there's 15; each one of which has people demanding that they are protected from Rainbow Trout, which are (WERE!) THE SAME SPECIES
"People tend to forget something about commercial real estate- you get to depreciate it on a schedule that runs in the decades until you have completely depreciated what it cost to build the structure itself (land itself is usually not depreciated in this way)."
Yancey is right there. Most of the time, when you spend money to make money, you can deduct the money spent from the monies received for net income. For example, if you hire people to work for you, you can deduct their salaries, as well as unemployment insurance, FICA, etc. from what they earn you with their labor, and only the difference between what they bring in and what they cost is taxable as income.
But not all expenditures are equal. You spend the money to hire someone, it is usually immediately deductible as an expense against income. But capital assets have a useful value for multiple years, and thus only a portion of what you spent for the asset can be treated as an expense the year that the capital asset was bought or constructed. That is called "depreciation". Then, you can deduct some more of the money you spent the second year as depreciation for that year, etc. The depreciation taken as an expense every year is added together as "Accumulated Depreciation". Then, if you sell the capital asset before it is fully depreciated, Accumulated Depreciation is deducted from the sales price to determine whether you have a capital gain or a capital loss.
The IRS has issued depreciation tables that cover whatever capital assets you may purchase. The idea is that the amount paid for the asset is spread over the economic life of the asset as an expense. So, for example, you may spend $1 million to build a building to use as a factory. Congress may determine that the building should stand for 50 years before it falls down. If you use straight line depreciation, you can deduct 1/50 ($20k) as an expense each year for 50 years. At that point, Accumulated depreciation is $1 million, net value is zero, and the building falls down. The buildings we own are currently treated as having roughly a 38 year life. Cars may only have an expected maybe 10 year life. Land typically has perpetual value, so isn't depreciated. At the end of the 50 years, you just build another building on the land, or buy another car, and go on. But since it is a capital expense, you don't get to deduct its cost against income until you sell it.
If you deduct the same amount every year, that is Straight Line Depreciation. But Congress wants people to build commercial buildings, so they often play with the depreciation that the IRS allows. One thing they do is to allow you to deduct more depreciation in early years, and less in later years. That is termed Accelerated Depreciation.
The other aspect of this is that you can often borrow money to buy capital assets and secure the loan with a mortgage on the asset. If you don't pay, they can foreclose and take it from you. So, with that 50 year building, you can say borrow and spend 50 years paying off the loan. This means that you don't have to actually spend the $1.million out of your own pocket, but rather just the down payment up front. We mostly use straight line depreciation, because at one point we were "underwater" on our mortgage loans, with the amount owed exceeding the net value of the properties (purchase price minus accumulated depreciation).
Still the key is that can borrow against capital assets, and then generate losses that can be offset against other income. Over time, the tax system is designed to tax actual income once (but not recapture of your own money). It is just the timing, which you can control, pushing realization of taxable income into the future, where it will likely be worth less. Which is why tax attorneys and accountants have jobs.
Yes Carter page is a wily one:
https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/08/robert-muellers-10-egregious-missteps-anti-trump-russia-investigation/
But hoe many have a clue:
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2019/05/07/exactly-what-anyone-with-a-clue-thought-new-york-times-obtains-president-trumps-tax-return-figures/
Asia Bibi has arrived in Canada. Excellent news, and kudos to Trudeau.
Does using the letter of the law to defeat the clear common sense intent of the law have a name for it in the Common Law?
Thanks, Bruce Hayden for the explanation. It moved me into the "supporter of the flat tax" column. Although you were very clear and I read as fast as I could so as to keep up with the point which nevertheless escaped away into the blue horizon. (I also have never figured out the meaning of point spread.) And just above your comment there appeared the work of a redactions analysis expert. This category of worker determines what the blanked out portions of documents say. In our world we need such analysts in order to understand the news. So that after reading (ha!) Trump tax returns and the associated sections of the tax law (hmm) we then turn to the blacked out sections of something and an unknown persons interpretation thereof. Naturally the blacked out bits were about Trump and they show that he was born in Kenya. News isn't what it used to be. I've been waiting for the coffee to perk so I'll pause here.
I mentioned before that you can often borrow much of the cost of capital assets, securing the loans with mortgages. As noted, most lenders won't lend the entire value of an asset. The remainder is your Down Payment. Nothing new here for anyone who owns their own house. The ratio between the Down Payment and the value of the mortgaged asset is (Financial) Leverage. Theoretically, everything should bet out. Except that we have generally had inflation and appreciation over the last century. While that building we bought for $1 million above is falling down over the 50 year lifetime, it is often actually increasing in value. So, while theoretically the building should be worth $800k after 10 years, inflation may have driven its value to $2 million instead. If you put 20% down, and borrowed the remainding $800k, the interest you paid should roughly be equal to the increase in value, allowing you to walk away with your original $200k. BUT, if the value is now $2 million, you instead walk away with $1.2 million. That is where the leverage comes in - if prices have doubled in the 10 years, if you used your own money to buy a $200k building, you would have doubled your money, walking away with $400k, half of it your original inves, the rest capital gain. But by borrowing $800k, your capital gain is now $1 million. People get very rich that way.
But leverage works both ways. If prices go down, instead of up, the more you borrow, the worse it gets. If you spent $200k to buy a $200k capital asset, and prices dropped in half, it would now be worth $100k in the market, and if you sold, you would have $100k in cash and a $100k capital loss (ignoring depreciation). But if you borrowed $800k to buy a $1 million asset, the value drops in half to $500k, your loan would be underwater (where you owe more than the asset is wort) for most of the $300k difference (not all of it because you have presumably paid the loan down some over the 10 years). And this is why market downturns often cause bankruptcies.
Until fairly recently, much of Trump's wealth was built using a lot of leverage, using OPM (other people's money). This means boom and bust for most following that route. The last decade though, before he became President, was different. Much of his income in recent years has been essentially for renting his name out. And that actually makes him look on paper a lot more like someone going to work and earning a living. Much less leverage is involved. Not the boom and bust of leverage, but much more a slow accumulation of wealth.
"Does using the letter of the law to defeat the clear common sense intent of the law have a name for it in the Common Law?"
Democrats?
I realize they may never see this, but I appreciate the responses to initial question (first post in this).
StevenFearby provides a link to an example I wasn't aware of: Sheryl Atkinson's law suit against AG Holder, and others for spying on her. If you don't know about this and are interested in compiling a more complete list of deep state activities during the Obama years, you should follow the link he provides.
This suggests an answer to Big Mike, who asked "Wouldn't the Trump administration welcome a trial into (Carter Page related) deep state malfeasance?" In such a trial the Trump/Barr DoJ would be in the position of defending the government by arguing that no such malfeasance occurred, or whatever occurred was justified. But (this makes me wonder) why hasn't the Trump/Barr DoJ negotiated a settlement with Atkinson?
rendering at 12:46 provides a clear and reasonable answer to the question "what is the institutional constraint on such settlements?" He says that settlement funds need to be explicitly appropriated by Congress, and cannot be doled out by the executive branch willy-nilly. That seems right to me; if it's not the case, it should be. I recall the Clinton administration negotiated a settlement with farmers who sued USDA for racial discrimination in determining who qualified for USDA loans. But, I would not be surprised to learn that the Clinton administration sought and received a Congressional appropriation to cover that settlement.
“How many Species of Cutthroat Trout are there? There weren't Any, now there's 15"
Like I said, all taxonomy is political.
The reality of the dossier is not in doubt. The accuracy of all its contents will be disputed for decades it seems.
Hilarious. An IQ test early in the morning.
Half the population have IQs of less than 100. I wouldn't be so quick to identify myself, if I were you.
I am looking for some term comparable to "barratry" and "maintenance."
This article has it all: Hollywood films and catharsis, the aesthetics of video games and the “flow culture” of today.
https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-videogame-aesthetic-flows-into-all-of-culture/
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