Cosmic Brownie Bites
Fires and taxes: A couple of things I've been thinking about
The fires in California are absolutely, mind-blowingly devastating. All you have to do is look around your own home, look at all of your possessions, your memories both good and bad, and then imagine it all on fire; finally, then, reduced to ash and the skeleton of what was. You are pushed back to square one in your life’s pursuit of happiness. Just like those in Maui, in East Palestine, and in North Carolina, the people of Southern California are going through hell on earth.
The shortcomings of California’s political class has been discussed ad nauseam. Environmental concerns have always trumped the necessities of human habitation in the Golden State and so it should come as no surprise that this infliction has come back to bite them in the most cruel way possible. Deciding to let natural water flow into the Pacific instead of sequestering it to use as a relief to the never ending droughts and, of course, to protect the state that has the greatest number of life threatening wild fires in the nation, is criminal.
DEI has run rampant in hiring practices for essential protective governmental services and the desire for politicians to use taxes for social “empowerment” over basic societal necessities is also criminal.
The first thought, after seeing the number of fires burning, is that nature could not have spread the fires in such disparate patterns, regardless the hurricane-force winds blowing down from the mountains. A fire bombing campaign from an airborne enemy couldn’t have inflicted that much harm. However, a fire bombing is what apparently is happening.
Kyle Becker, a freelance journalist and former writer for Fox News’ Hannity show, has reported that witnesses calling into 911 call centers have claimed that black-clad, mask wearing individuals cruising on scooters are setting fires in different areas of the city. Supposedly law enforcement is taking it seriously and are seeking these alleged arsonists. Additionally, a video filmed by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a podcaster and neuroscientist, shows a group of people around what seems to be a dumpster fire shielded by a wall. He claims that the people were arsonists but it appears more likely they are potential witnesses to an arson, as they all are filming the flames with their cellphones and not attempting to shield their identities.
Additionally, on the evening of January 8th, a substation outside of Fort Worth, Texas caught fire after an explosion. Authorities have said there was no indication of intentional destruction so far but after a spate of nationwide substation sabotage incidents in 2022 (over 100 according to TIME), one should wonder whether a few of those millions of military-aged men that streamed across our southern border in the last four years may be here for alternative reasons.
The Envious Fool
I’m for a dramatic increase in corporate taxes. We have to increase taxes on the wealthy.
Steve Bannon
Enter Steve Bannon.
Enhanced by his slovenly appearance, he comes across as the Rasputin of the Right. Bannon has been a knock around; after leaving the military and, afterwards, the finance world, he ventured into Hollywood movie production. He didn't succeed there but became enamored with the Left Coast counterrevolutionary Andrew Breitbart.
Breitbart helped spur the Tea Party revolution and viciously attacked the malignant mind-virus wokism before we had a name for the malady. Upon Breitbart’s death, Bannon became the face and driving force behind Breitbart’s far-reaching independent journalistic empire that sparked the current resurrection of the Tea Party and populist takeover of the Republican Party.
Steve Bannon’s whispering in Trump’s ear in 2016 was instrumental in focusing Trump’s energies on the forgotten man, the little guy in a Frank Capra film that always, in the end, triumphs over the dark forces of establishment power. Bannon rewrote his own Hollywood script and, with a quasi-religious zealotry not seen since William Jennings Bryant, shoved his way to the front of the movement.
And so who doesn’t want George Bailey to beat the ever-living-crap out of old man Potter?
Bannon must think he’s George Bailey.
Now, of the four and half trillion dollars in revenue we get, how much is from corporate taxes? Only $500 billion. Since 2008, $200 billion has gone into stock repurchases. If that had gone into plants and equipment, think what that would have done for the country. I’m for a dramatic increase in corporate taxes. We have to increase taxes on the wealthy. For getting our guys’ [working people] taxes cut, we’ve got to cut spending, which they’re gonna resist. Where does the tax revenue come from? Corporations and the wealthy. And when they start squealing, we have a conversation. We’re all partners in this, everybody’s going to take a little pain, but the working people are going to take less pain than you guys [the wealthy].
His rantings are no different than Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders wanting to sock it to the rich; this is their language and if it’s wrong coming from their mouths, it’s wrong coming from Bannon’s.
While it may feel good wanting to tax to death evil corporations such as we find in the pharmaceutical industry, on Wall Street, and in technology, we have to keep in mind that they really don’t pay much in tax; it is all passed along to you or dissolved in loopholes and write-offs.
So when Bannon says, “Where does the tax revenue come from? Corporations and the wealthy,” he is dead wrong. Of the roughly five trillion dollars the federal government collected in 2024, four trillion came from individual filers and Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid taxes. If he is suggesting that the future large share of taxes should be paid by corporations and the wealthy, he is just plain foolish.
In fact, the vast majority of taxes are paid by you and every other peasant that the high and mighty look down upon. Instead of clubbing the rich—again no matter how satisfying that may be—he should be pushing for a complete overhaul of the tax system that would favor economic growth that could possibly usher in the Golden Age of America, as Trump has suggested.
The current income tax is a slave tax; you must dedicate a percentage of your labor to pay the government. You are paying the government for the right to work! Think about that.
Trump’s interest in using tariffs to fund the government is worth looking into. It is, in a way, a national consumption (or sales) tax and probably the most moral of all taxes. The only problem is that like corporate taxes, it is hidden and imbedded within the cost of goods and services. In fact, a combination of tariffs and sales tax plus flat income taxes for both individuals and corporations would do more to spread the cost as fairly as possible. The late Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan is the most equitable reformation for funding government put forth in recent times.
After a long holiday break, I am getting back to writing. It’s been a bit difficult to string together coherent sentences after such absence but I guess it’s a bit like riding a bicycle.
I began this whatever-it-is three plus years ago to take a break from other projects on which I had been working. It’s time to get back to those projects a little more full time, so my minor contributions to the world’s dialog may not be as frequent, though it has been a blast thus far. I like doing a bit more in depth pieces on here so I am hoping to do more of those in the coming year.
I truly hope that you had a very Merry Christmas and were able to share it with family, friends, or even complete strangers. This new year will be interesting, to say the least, but hopefully not as tumultuous as 2024.
— Fred
P.S. - I have had several “chat” requests recently by people who express interest in my work and want to learn more about it. One was worded like an AI bot on acid. I’ve read that substack writers are being targeted by scams and so I’m not responding to inquires through the Substack chat feature unless I know who you are. The best way to contact me has always been through email: frederickhink@protonmail.com, so please feel free to write to me anytime.
I had missed you, one of my earliest and favorite Substack writers! Welcome back! I want to forward this to friends who aren’t on Substack- suggestions on how to do this?