Category Archives: Finance

Culture, Finance, Government

Subsidizing The Disadvantaged

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This came to my attention from the good folks at Adafruit.com.

The Chinese company “Orange Pi” in Shenzhen, China is manufacturing and selling a powerful tiny computer selling for $35 US with some versions less than $9 US. It does 4K high-definition video, has 2 GBytes of RAM, WiFi, Ethernet, USB, and has a quad core processor running at 1.8 GHz.

Orange Pi is currently selling 40,000 units per month and predict sales to increase to 100,000 units per month by year end.  The company plans to sell 150 million units in the next 3 years. That dear reader is $5,250,000,000.00 (over $5 BILLION DOLLARS) in sales.

The interesting part is that the head of “Orange Pi”, Steven Zhao, in an interview with “Minimachines.net” states that the selling price of their computer only covers the cost of materials. In other words they are SELLING IT AT A LOSS and they are NOT recouping the cost to develop the computer (engineering), pay for the premises (offices or factory), pay for any capital equipment to design and manufacture, or pay for employees. When asked how they can have a business that loses money on everything they make, Mr. Zhao openly said “WE ARE SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT“.  That’s one way to quickly dominate a market and eliminate the competition.

Okay but that’s not all folks.  The fair trade deal gets better, at least for the Chinese.

Notice that I mentioned it costs $4 US to send the computer, over 7000 miles, in a box to the good old USA. It is delivered by what’s called an ePacket by the United States Postal Service. To ship the same package from the US to China would cost over $20!  How can they ship it so cheaply?

The United States Taxpayer SUBSIDIZES the shipping of goods from CHINA to the US!!! The Chinese appreciate the generosity of YOU the US Taxpayer!

Now you might ask, why am I subsidizing the Chinese manufacturers who are taking American jobs? The answer is that China, even though it is the SECOND LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD, is an “EMERGING COUNTRY” in the eyes of the United Nations run UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION or UPU. China is lumped in with powerhouse countries such as Gabon, Jamaica, and Kazakhstan.  As a member in good standing with the UN, you the taxpayer get to do what the UN tells you is the RIGHT thing to do.

Raise your empty glasses (as you may not have a job to fill it) to the United States and China for creating another multi-billion dollar company, in China!  Don’t you feel all nice and warm inside knowing that you are helping out all those disadvantaged workers in China?

Business, Culture, Finance

What A Great Country

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I started to write about the Yale University hunger strike that is going on. Doctoral students are “symbolically” holding a hunger strike demanding the university pay more than the $30,000 a year stipend, full medical coverage, and $40,000 in tuition. $80,000 per year just doesn’t go as far as it used to for one individual.

Oh, and the “symbolic” part, is that the snowflakes leave their sit-in to get pizza and burgers if they get hungry during the hunger strike. One student commented that it’s “still inspirational” even if they eat during the hunger strike.

The $80,000 per year number sent me down the trail to see just what the poverty level is in the United States and at what level does a citizen receive Obamacare subsidies.

From the ACA (Obamacare) website, a family of EIGHT is considered at the poverty level if their income is $40,890. HALF of what a Yale doc is GIVEN. For an individual, the poverty line is $11,880 or 7 times less than what the POOR Yale graduate student is compensated.

Life is hard…

The reason I mentioned at the beginning of this musing that I “started” to write about the poor snowflakes, is that while researching about the poverty level I tumbled across a financial “advice” website that had recommendations to reduce a person’s Adjusted Gross Income to maximize their Obamacare subsidies.

The website had these “tips” for HIGH INCOME EARNERS to reduce their AGI and maximize how much money the government (fellow tax payers who actually pay taxes) gives to them.

Contribute $18,000 to your 401K and $5,500 to your IRA to remove $23,500 from your income level.  This is good advice for anyone.

Have and S-Corporation or LLC to write off all your business expenses. The financial advice about S-Corps is to structure them to provide NO  OR LITTLE PERSONAL TAXABLE INCOME.

Own rental property and deduct all the expenses of managing the properties, as well as the depreciation to reduce or eliminate any income tax.

But here’s the best advice.,,

The website points out that if you have your rental property in say BORA BORA, you are allowed to deduct TRAVEL EXPENSES to check on your property there.  A business class round trip ticket from Los Angeles to Bora Bora is only $6,168. Do that once a quarter and you get an additional $24,672 in deductions.  Of course you’ll need to stay at an over the water bungalow at $2000 per night while your checking on your multi-million dollar rental investment.

And the Progre-sissies who whine about income inequality want to KEEP Obamacare as the law of the land.

As I said in the title “What a great country!“.

Finance, Government

Steal From The Poor And Give To Whom?

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Thank you oh great leaders and minds running this nut house.

The Los Angeles County board of supervisors is considering a 1/4% increase in the county wide sales tax to fund programs to help the 47,000+ (and increasing) homeless population.

Just “For Your Information”, the LA County sales tax will be 9.5% in 2017 and automatically goes up to 10% in 2039.  The proposed increase is on top of all of that.  All of you nice Angelenos will be paying almost 10% on everything you buy if the measure passes.

The sales tax increase is expected to generate $335,000,000.00 each year. Yesiree, Bob, that’s more than a THIRD OF A BILLION DOLLAR$. More than $7000 for every homeless person.

Looking at it another way, the money raised for the 47,000 works out to a $3.56 per hour raise for each of them if they worked full-time. Someone who makes $15 per hour (for all you Feel The Bern folks), that’s equivalent to a 24% raise!  The 2017 minimum wage in Los Angeles will be $12 per hour so that would be almost a 30% raise.

Everyone ready for your 30% raise next year? Of course we all get those sorts of raises every single year.  Woohoo!  Just need to be one of the 47,000,

Here’s my take. A sales tax increase is about the most regressive tax that can be enacted. What do I mean by that? Well sales tax is paid at the same rate whether you’re rich or poor. The people that a sales tax increase hurts the most are the working poor. It takes a bigger bite out of what money they have to live on than it does to a wealthy individual. That’s why we have income tax brackets. Those on the lower end pay at a lower rate than those who are the top wage earners. Sales tax is not graduated by income.  Of course the brain trust with all their great wisdom of the ages, and their caring progressive socialist agenda, takes this all into consideration, as they stick it to the hard working people that they SAY (words can be cheap) they look out for and represent.  And they still wonder why Mr. Trump won the Presidential Election.

To be fair, the geniuses who think up this stuff, the County Supervisors, are part of the WORKING POOR and they feel the pain of having to get by on ONLY about $200,000 in annual salary and $3,000,000 (that’s right 3 MILLION DOLLAR$) in expenses. The $3 million is to cover office supplies, staff, limousines, pet projects, you know the day to day stuff we all spend $3 million a year on.  And I’m not counting any of the side deals that of course DON’T happen, wink wink.  Tough to get by on that paltry amount.  So they are suffering along with the rest of us dregs.  “I feel your pain“, Bill ‘Flat broke with only $150 million’ Clinton.

All part of the great progressive movement of wealth redistribution.  Robbing Hood, steal from the working poor and give the the non-working!  Seems fair to me.  The fairness of it all makes my ‘DEPLORABLE‘ (I’m one of those low life racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, conservatives who obviously doesn’t give a crap) body feel all tingly!  Of course I may be feeling something sneaking up from behind.  I’d best not drop the soap…