Category Archives: Business

Business, Culture, Government, Politics

87,000 New Armed IRS Agents and $600

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The government is planning on hiring 87,000 new IRS agents. This increase in IRS enforcement is part of the “Inflation Reduction Act” that the Old Fool Biden and the Dimbulbs tout as wonderful new legislation.

Why does the IRS need 87,000 new ARMED agents?

The IRS will be chasing every penny and squeezing EVERYONE for more money. How else will the government pay for all the FREE MONEY programs? It was just announced that there will be a new reporting system to squeeze every last penny from the TIPS that food servers receive. According to the Old Fool, NO ONE MAKING UNDER $400.000 PER YEAR will pay anything more in TAXES. Looks like your local waitress or waiter makes MORE than $400.000 per year.

The IRS is also implementing a REQUIREMENT that ALL “Third-party payment platforms” report transaction of MORE THAN $600 per year and the individual must report these transactions with a 1099-K form. “Third party payment platforms” are service such as PAYPAL, AMAZON PAYMENTS, BITPAY, WEPAY, etc. Why the scrutiny on these services? Many people are finding out that they can have small/micro-businesses MAKING and selling things HERE IN THE USA. With 3D printers, Laser cutters/engravers, desktop CNC machines, or just making craft items by hand, people have found out they can make a few bucks with a side hustle selling items they produce on Etsy, Amazon, Ebay, or directly on the web. Almost all of these transactions are processed by the “Third-party platforms” and I suspect this side hustle money is mostly unreported. If a stay at home mom makes an extra $1000 per year selling her craft items, the IRS wants their $300 cut in taxes.

The IRS will also need thousands of agents to SPY on cash transactions such as SWAP MEET SELLERS and YARD MAINTENANCE WORKERS (your brown person gardener) who deal mostly in CASH. IF they try to deposit money in a bank or other financial institution this will again be reported to the IRS and they will “work” to get their cut taxes.  Ah come on man you might say, how much money can be made at a swap meet?  To give you an idea about how much cash flows through swap meets, the very first $60 MILLION Gulfstream G650 private jet went to Preston Henn who was the guy who ran swap meet venues in Florida. 

Here’s the rub. When the IRS starts taking all the “unreported” income prices will go up. It’s a “zero sum game”. The craft item on Etsy that was $50 will need to be priced at $75 to cover the tax burden. Directly or indirectly we will all end up paying for all the FREE MONEY programs that the Old Fool and the Dims love.

Looks like we all make more than $400.000. Thanks Joe for making me a high income earner.

Business, Culture, Finance

How Much Is Real?

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I was watching a report this morning on the collapse of FTX, the cyrpto exchange. Some pundits are stating that this bankruptcy, “is bigger than Enron“. Truth in lending, I have no holdings in crypto as I don’t understand it and what little I do, makes no sense to me. That said, there was a 20-something Gen-Z kid whining that he lost $2 million because of the collapse of FTX. My question when I hear people whining about their investment losses is, “how much of that is a real loss?“

The whiners, usually exaggerate how much loss they’ve suffered in order to sound sympathetic. During the Enron collapse, there was a young employee (I recall that she was a secretary) of the company who had her retirement savings 100% invested in Enron stock. She said she lost “a million dollars“ of her retirement when Enron collapsed. I always have questioned such numbers. How could she have legally invested “a million dollars” of capital into a retirement fund. If she was working for 5 years at Enron, she would have had to have a salary of around $450,000 per year to have “a million” to invest. $200,000 goes to taxes, $50,000 goes to living expenses, and then she’d have $200,000 to invest over 5 years. If she could earn $450,000 per year as a secretary, why the belly aching when she has another 40 plus years of her working life left. I suspect her “real” losses may have been around $20,000 at most.

The same goes for the Gen-Z kid moaning about his $2 million dollar loss in FTX. FTX peaked at $84.18, right now it’s trading at $1.88. If you use the peak numbers, the kid owned around 45,000 shares. Say he bought in around January of 2021 when FTX was around $5 per share he would have needed to invest around $225,000 which is by no means a small amount of money. In “real” dollars the kid would have suffered a loss of around $140,000 ($5 down to $1.88) which is a far “cry” less than $2 million. Even if the Gen-Z kid actually lost $2 million of cash because he bought at the peak, just earn another couple of million in the next 40 years of a working career and stop whining.  Investments have risks. Deal with it.

And don’t forget, these highly paid 20-somethings can write-off their “real” losses against earning of their 6-figure incomes.  And who pays for those write offs?  Well that would be you and me the taxpayers who didn’t invest in risky ventures.

Business, Health, International

Not For Sale In The US

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A recall was issued on July 28, 2022 by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for glass baby bottles. “First Choice Glass Baby Bottles Recalled by NUK Due to Violation of the Federal Lead Content Ban; Sold Exclusively on Amazon.com (Recall Alert)“.  You can read the recall notice HERE.

The reason for the recall is that the printing on the glass bottles “contain levels of lead that exceeds the federal lead content ban. Lead is toxic if ingested by young children and can cause adverse health issues.“

“Adverse health issues” might be a tad understated. Lead ingestion can cause brain damage. Lead has a sweet taste which is why children used to eat lead based paint.  Lead is used in printing ink to make colors more brilliant as well as making the ink more durable. I guess they want to make sure the infant can read the labels on the bottles. WTF?

Here’s what I find most astounding.

The bottles with the lead in the printing were knowingly manufactured for sale OUTSIDE of the US and Canada but were mistakenly sold in the US/Canadian markets. The German manufacturer makes baby bottles with lead printing and sells them to other countries, just not to US and Canada. Why would any manufacturer make baby bottles with lead as any component of the product, no matter what country it was to be sold in?  I would have initially guessed that the product was made in China, however the recall states that the bottles were manufactured in Germany.   “Deutschland Über Alles“