lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Never mind, Kem~~

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

What did you 'just read' to me? Please reiterate.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

I haven't played with marbles since I won the championship, in my age class, in marble's, at a summer camp in 1942.

straightUp Loc: California

objectivity get's weird sometimes, eh? ;)


I lost a house. My lawyer described the occurrence as a "legal s**m". I am getting rewarded for the loss through several class action suites for what I call "incidental" issues but of course the reward is so minute compared to the loss. It was on a quarter acre of creek side property. My son and I landscaped it with our own hands. We built decks, patios, and a two-pond system. We planted black locust and mulberry trees. Oh, and fruit trees... From the time my son was 14 to 19 we built a botanical wonder - LOL. My favorite memories were at the fire pit in the far end, under the stars. My wife and our two kids, two dogs and a bunch of cats.

We were 10 years into the loan when the mortgage company decided to play a game. My lawyer said no one will help me because "there's no gold at the end of the rainbow".

It's hard to believe when you first hear it. But it makes sense... the house lost equity. It was a nasty experience involving nasty people. We didn't actually know that we had lost the house until we got a 15 day eviction notice. I hesitate to describe the actual process because it's really a complicated s**m. I was never late on a payment, so it wasn't my financial obligation... it was an obscure loop hole that affected me because I was paying property taxes directly to the county instead of through the mortgage.

Anyway, I guess I'm just saying that this is something I really do connect with on a personal level. And it only encourages my distrust of our commercial systems, especially over land.

I can certainly understand your suspicion of the mortgage industry, but I tend to see it less as a coordinated master-plan and more of a shark tank, which is what the American system has always been. All the New World nations were founded on Old World imperialism, a predatory system susceptible to revolutions in which colonial predators turn on their master predators. The American Revolution was the first of those revolutions and it happened at the tail end of the agrarian age where you had to own land to be a predator at all.


This is why I was careful to point out that my other idea (educate everyone) was the only one where I don't feel like I'm shafting someone. But the realist in me knows that educating everyone is not a likely option. You can't educate someone if they don't want to be educated. I think the education required to insure a smarter democracy is deep in the culture level. So, I can see why the Federalists were so concerned about the perils of extending democracy to the masses. They contended that only the gentlemen could be entrusted with the course of our society. But it just doesn't seem fair.

This is why I think law and business should never be confused. Business is competitive and rapid, there's no time for deep human judgement. In a business setting, you would cut the uneducated v**ers out. It would be an obvious decision. The concern for fairness really has no place in business. Fairness is exclusively the domain of law.

The great American irony is how the people are advocating their own victimization by asking to be led by businessmen.


England


We're probably about as arrogant as any other dominating culture at any point in history. But I think our lagging in support systems like health and education is more a matter of being naive.


LOL - I haven't heard that one. Are you sure it's not a tax deduction if they DON'T take their company overseas? That would make more sense.

What cracks me up about this 20% corporate tax is that a business can STILL get a better deal in a country like Ireland where the corporate tax rate is 12.5% or they can domicile in countries were there isn't any corporate tax at all. Furthermore, higher wages in the U.S. offsets the tax savings. I hear Republicans advocating lower wages to solve that problem, but if that's really the approach we're going to take then we are effectively competing with third world wages which cannot support the cost of living in America.

I think we need to stop fooling ourselves and face the fact that we're already screwed. They key now is how best to manage in the world we created for ourselves.

straightUp Loc: California

okay kk.

straightUp Loc: California

straightUp Loc: California

It's true that more oil spills occur on rails than in pipes, but that's only because there are more railroads than pipelines.

We should be walking away from f****l f**ls. It's an old man industry that's past it's bed time. I read this morning that Norway is pulling it's sovereign investments from oil and gas. We're talking about a $1 trillion investment fund. To date it's the largest divestment from f****l f**ls in history.

Among the losers... 2.3% of Royal Dutch Shell, 1.7% BP, 0.9% of Chevron and 0.8% of Exxon Mobil. Oil stocks in Europe dropped by 27%. The fear among the oilcats is that other investment funds will follow suite, the drop in stocks kind of suggest the likeliness.

Anyway, Norway get's my standing ovation.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

And when we look on a per capita base we see why countries produce what they do and how many still look to oil, coal and natural gas as their main source of energy..

Norway was right Up there in the top 15 too.

You may find this interesting.. I did..

http://www.theenergycollective.com/robertwilson190/447121/who-produces-most-fossil-fuels

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Awe heck, Poppa I’m not worried about being reported, no intimidation there..

Morgan

Na, think we're done here.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

What tax deductions are you referring to?? Your understanding of how foreign taxes work does not include the mandatory 35% taxation the US has on all foreign profits, income etc does it??

Yes Corporations pay taxes in other countries, qualified taxes to the US is different than what foreign taxation is about too. Not all money paid in foreign trade revenue is qualified here either..

People want to believe that U.S. companies pay little or nothing in taxes on their foreign earnings I know.. We hear it enough that’s for sure..Some politicians suggest implementing a “minimum tax” on corporate foreign earnings to prevent tax avoidance too.. Unfortunately, legislation that would impose these types of taxes on multinational corporations is based on a misunderstanding of how U.S. international tax rules works..To do something like that would be an illegal double taxation of the US to impose and why it has not been put forth..

The U.S. has what is often called a “worldwide” system of taxation that requires American businesses to pay the 35 percent federal corporate tax rate on their income no matter where it is earned—domestically or abroad...
So I’ll ask or say why should they then be subject to taxation here if nothing they are doing elsewhere involves the US other than to be anamed home base corporation here??
They are taxed on the products they sell here and they do pay tariff taxes to trade right?? Remember Trump saying if they don’t want to come home and increase Corporate American Jobs etc then they will pay a lot more in tariffs etc.. The companies heard that loud and clear I suspect...

First, companies operating in foreign countries pay income taxes to the country in which those profits were earned...

When those profits are brought back to the United States, an additional tax equal to the difference between the U.S. tax rate of 35 percent and what they paid to the foreign country is collected by the IRS. Between the two nations, the U.S. firm will have paid a total of $35, or 35 percent, in taxes on its foreign profits and it has to, no exception..

To arrive at a 35 percent effective tax rate on corporate foreign earnings, the IRS affords U.S. corporations a foreign tax credit against U.S. taxes equal to the corporate taxes they paid to foreign governments... When corporations repatriate their foreign earnings, they are required to report how much income they earned in each country they operated in and how much they paid those countries in corporate income taxes. The credit U.S. corporations receive is equal to the corporate income taxes paid to foreign governments on foreign earned income that is returned to the U.S... So I’m a little confused in what you are using as a bases to say companies aren’t paying here?? They surely are on top of what they paid in other countries remembering all they paid in tha foreign country is not automatically offset.. it is qualified by specific qualifiers here to be offset..

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

You made me curious about how much is here in the United States.. I was surprised to see so much~~
Given what is the percentage of error or negligence or sabatoge it is exceptionally low..

Ironically gas was the most dangerous too.
From 1994 through 2013, the U.S. had 745 serious incidents with gas distribution, causing 278 fatalities and 1059 injuries, with $110,658,083 in property damage.[43]

“The United States has the largest network of energy pipelines in the world, with more than 2.4 million miles of pipe. The network of crude oil pipelines in the U.S. is extensive. There are approximately 72,000 miles of crude oil lines in the U.S. that connect regional markets.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents

straightUp Loc: California

Thanks for the link linda... 'Though I've been perfectly aware of Norway's oil industry from the time crude was found in the North Sea. Britain and Norway both got an economic boost from that reserve. I remember when it happened. It t***sformed both countries into oil producing nations. In fact, that's mostly how Norway built up a $1 trillion sovereign fund in the first place.

I guess I was assuming every one knew this... it is after all, what makes the news of the divestment so amazing.

It appears as though the Norwegians are just a lot smarter than we are. They made sure they got a leadership that works for them and this divestment proves it. You see, the Norwegians decided to avoid too much dependency on a single commodity that they know is going to loose value in the coming decades. This might not make any sense if you don't understand peak oil, but essentially what happened is they exploited the oil on the up slope and saved the money in a sovereign fund for the people and now that it appears they are on the down slope they are protecting that wealth fund from inevitable losses. Maybe they learned from our mistakes because we hit our oil peak way back in the 70's and apparently the handful of families that own the oil industry spent all the money on yachts, parties and political favors, so we don't have a $1 trillion sovereign fund. Instead, the American people get a $20 trillion dollar bill because that handful of families that got so rich on the up slope still wanted more, so they forced the people to fund wars so they could grab more from other places that haven't hit their peaks yet, like the Caspian basin.

I guess this is what happens when half the v**ers in a country pledge their allegiance to the people who abuse them... I'll let you guess who I'm referring to ;)

straightUp Loc: California

Linda, it's good to see that you at least take the time to research. We might not agree on issues, but I can see by your last few posts that you are looking for facts. It's encouraging.

I made the point earlier to PoppaG that the reason why there are more oil spills related to train accidents is because there are more rails that pipes. That really was an oversimplified response, but since I'm talking to someone who looks for facts I feel I can probably increase the level of detail without causing confusion.

The notion that pipelines are safer comes from industry reports that measure the damage in terms of deaths and property damage, but when measuring the actual volume of spilled oil, the Congressional Research Service https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43390.pdf says pipelines are actually worse. The reason for this difference, is that pipelines tend to route through less populated areas. People NEVER accept proposals for a pipeline through their back yard. So when oil is t***sported to or through densely populated areas, they use trains. So, even small oil spills cause more property damage in urban regions than a huge oil spill in some place we obviously don't care about, like an Indian reservation.

So a more accurate statement for me to make would be that trains carry more oil through high-risk areas than pipelines do.

But that doesn't mean a giant oil spill from a pipe in the country won't eventually cause as much damage as a small spill in a city... One of the concerns the "water protectors" at Standing Rock had was the damage oil spills can have on their water tables over a long period. This type of damage isn't immediately calculated by insurance companies reacting to an oil spill in a populated area. It's the kind of damage that dimwitted people like Trump find easy to dismiss as "theory" or a "h**x".

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Yes, well, while we may know, some may not be as bright as you so a little background was in order...

Norwegian are smart people and I think their divestment is thinking of the future no doubt.. I also hope they achieve that divestment although their money may not carry them for it.. They have what somewhere around 52-55 million people in total, in comparison to other more populated countries.. And a lot less territory to cover as well...

As for the Scandinavian countries they do provide things like a generous social safety net and universal healthcare, along with an extensive welfare state which is not the same thing as a socialistic state though is it?? Perhaps they are a social democracy, a system in which the government aims to promote the public welfare through heavy taxation and spending, within the framework of a capitalist economy....This is what the Scandinavians practice isn’t not?? The best of both worlds it seems..???

As for your closing I’ll copy it but insert Democrats in its place.. See how that works??

Do you know which party has had more control of this country for the last 100 years??
Over the past 100 years the Democratic party has held power nearly twice as long as the Republicans in both the Senate and the House. And the Democratic party has had control of the White House and the two Houses of Congress for 35 years, compared to 16 years for the Republican party over the last 100 years..
kinda shoots to hell your opinion that the Republicans are the ones to abuse the v**ers..

Just using all the promises Dems have given the b****s every e******n why are the b****s still not flourishing??? Just exactly what have the Dems done to help the b****s??? Abuse, yep, it’s there alright..

Neither supposed party give a damn about the citizens, you must know the s by now.. All they do is take turns making it look good for us while they continue to establish separation of the elite.. Dictatorship is their game.. Your going to let it roll right there too..Sad...