Tax revenue lost because of overseas tax havens

According to Bloomberg, Americans and American companies are hiding their money overseas and this is costing us immense amount of money.

U.S. taxpayers would need to pay an average of $1,259 more a year to make up the federal and state taxes lost to corporations and individuals sheltering money in overseas tax havens, according to a report. “Tax haven abusers benefit from America’s markets, public infrastructure, educated workforce, security and rule of law -– all supported in one way or another by tax dollars -– but they avoid paying for these benefits,” U.S. Public Interest Research Group said in the report released today, the deadline for filing 2013 taxes.

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La Crosse, Wisconsin: the town that is willing to talk about death

Excellent story by NPR. It's a long way from the Republican scare stories about "death panels":

People in La Crosse, Wisconsin are used to talking about death. In fact, 96 percent of people who die in this small, Midwestern city have specific directions laid out for when they pass. That number is astounding. Nationwide, it's more like 50 percent. In today's episode, we'll take you to a place where dying has become acceptable dinner conversation for teenagers and senior citizens alike. A place that also happens to have the lowest healthcare spending of any region in the country.
This piece reminds me that one of the main problems with the United States is that we cannot have meaningful conversations. This is refreshingly different. And important: One-quarter of health care spending occurs in the last year of life.

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Fake Payday Loan Reform

Missouri and Utah are among the states in which legislators are proposing fake payday loan reform, per "States’ Attempts To Reform Payday Lending Are Often Just Smoke & Mirrors." Here's an excerpt:

Sen. Mike Cunningham, who sponsored the Missouri bill . . . says it will protect consumers from some of the practices payday lenders have utilized for so long. Missouri’s proposed reform comes less than two years after a group called Missourians for Equal Credit Opportunity helped put an end to a ballot initiative that would have allowed Missouri residents to vote for or against capping the state’s interest rate at 36%. The current proposed bill does not feature any kind of rate cap, meaning interest for a typical two-week payday loan can balloon to more than 1,000%.

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Telephone scam – Man claimed he is from Microsoft and needs to fix my computer

Five minutes ago, I received a phone call from a man who claims to be "David Johnson" who said he's working from Microsoft. He had an accent that I was unable to identify, but I assumed he was from India. His phone number showed up on my cell phone as "212-414-155" (that's right - -- it's missing a digit). He told me that MY computer has been throwing out error messages that are being received by the Microsoft Server, and that we need to fix the problem. I led him on a bit. He said to hit the control key plus r, and that this is the beginning of the fix. I asked for his phone number. He wouldn't give it. He repeatedly said that he's working with Microsoft, not FOR Microsoft. He wouldn't give me his supervisor's name. I repeatedly asked for his PHONE NUMBER so I could call him back (I wanted it to report him to Microsoft). He wouldn't give it. I offered to add Microsoft to the call, and he got evasive. My assumption is that he was trying to have me give him access to my computer by installing monitoring software. I eventually called him a "criminal," and told him he was despicable, then ended the call. I recorded most of the conversation. Beware . . . . I'm including a link from Microsoft regarding phone scams.

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