Early Saturday

Humor




Politics

Raise Taxes? I'd like to see a more complete tax plan focused on income/wealth inequality but it's a start.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is floating an income tax rate as high as 60 to 70 percent on the highest-earning Americans to combat carbon emissions

The Ds and David Brock want the progressive, anti-establishment left to get out of the way so the D party leaders can run their chosen D party insider in the next anti-establishment presidential election. Because that worked so well the last time. Clinton Crony Says Bernie Supporters Must Be Silenced For 2020 Primaries. Here's a good paragraph from the link.

"Hillary Clinton is to blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss, actually, as well as the strategists like David Brock who were behind her spectacular failure to defeat a historically unpopular reality TV star Republican. Establishment Democrats are trying to sell the narrative that “You progressives disobeyed us in 2016 and what happened was your fault; you will obey us this time,” while progressives are saying “No, you ignored us in 2016 and what happened was your fault; you will listen to us this time.” The early 2020 presidential race is repeating the same battle of official narrative manufactured by corporate elites versus the organic zeitgeist–the way ordinary people are feeling inside as a result of the conditions their government has put them in."

War or "Why They Hate Us" or "We're not really pulling out of Syria"

Trump announced the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Syria last month, the U.S. military ramped up its bombing campaign against the Islamic State’s remaining territory in the eastern part of the country

On Sunday, the U.S. military admitted that it’s killed 1,139 civilians in Iraq and Syria since the start of its campaign against ISIS in 2014. That number is significantly smaller than the estimates of civilian casualties put out by monitoring groups, like Airwars, which says that between 7,308 and 11,629 civilians have been killed.

Bolton warns Syria against use of chemical weapons - or... Bolton setting up chemical weapons story to keep US in Syria.



Crime and Punishment

Do longer sentences reduce crime? [Source here by Ashna Arora].

 I find that Republican prosecutorial offices sentence defendants to longer incarceration spells as compared to their Democratic and Independent counterparts. This increase in incarceration length is driven by longer sentences for both violent and prop- erty offenses, and translates into a persistent increase in incarceration. These sentencing and incarceration enhancements do not lower crime at the county level, indicating that, in terms of public safety, the marginal return to the tough-on-crime stance may be close to zero.

I'd have to agree with one of the comments that longer sentences are really just Pols signaling they are tough on crime. 

A related study would be, do larger fines reduce corporate crime. Being tough on corporate crime is one signal we really do need to send. 

Investing

In life and the market. Lots of good advice here: 51 Ideas from 2018. I like # 15 for building wealth.

15. Know what you (don’t) control

Consider the formula of compounding, where –

Future Value = Present Value x (1 + Rate of Return) ^ Time

What excites most of us in this formula and where we wish to exert the maximum control and expect the greatest certainty is the ‘rate of return’. This is despite that it is the only variable in this formula that is tentative and most uncertain, and beyond our control.

The two variables that are under our maximum control are ‘present value’, or the initial investment and ‘time’, or the amount of time the money is allowed to compound. And these are the two variables, especially ‘time’, most of us choose to ignore in our race to earn the maximum return.