This will put me in a sour mood tonight, as I work on my taxes. The 25 richest people in the U.S. paid an effective tax rate of only 3.4% from 2014-2018. Krystal and Saager discuss this "phenomenal" reporting by Propublica (based on a "immense" secret trove of never-before-seen IRS records). They mention that the highest U.S. tax rate is officially 37%, for those making more than 628,000. My next stop will be Propublica to better understand how the super rich avoid paying taxes. Meanwhile, the median income U.S. household, often living paycheck to paycheck, pays an effective income tax rate of 14%. I assumed something like this, but these numbers are outrageous. This is stealing in broad daylight. This shouts: "Let them eat cake."
Here is a quote from Propublica that will be deflating for those who think that the Biden plan will be transformative regarding the tax burden on the wealthy:
The revelations provided by the IRS data come at a crucial moment. Wealth inequality has become one of the defining issues of our age. The president and Congress are considering the most ambitious tax increases in decades on those with high incomes. But the American tax conversation has been dominated by debate over incremental changes, such as whether the top tax rate should be 39.6% rather than 37%.
ProPublica’s data shows that while some wealthy Americans, such as hedge fund managers, would pay more taxes under the current Biden administration proposals, the vast majority of the top 25 would see little change.
To what extent are confused teenagers being used by profit-seekers? Catherine Karena of the "LGB Alliance," who has studied many other industries that create demand out of thin air, shines a light on what she terms the "Business Model of Youth Transitioning." She describes the products and services associated with transgender treatment as a 5.2 trillion dollar industry. Watching this video reminded me of the heyday of the tobacco industry.
Here is an excerpt from the opening minutes of this video:
I've studied and worked with tech startups for 21 plus years. Startups are different from established businesses they focus on growth and being game changers they look for a new and unique solution to a problem either a new solution to an old problem for example cds or the cassettes. Or they give you a solution to something you didn't even know was a need. For example when apple gave us the iPod. Or they redefiner problems, where they provide a different solution altogether.
The aim of any software startup is to become a unicorn achieving 1 billion revenue in the first year by aggressively opening up markets for a highly scalable product. Although we've heard that the huge increase in the transgender movement is a grassroots movement or social contagion human rights movement or a typical generational youth rebellion, I'll argue here that the heart of this movement is just business.
The gender identity phenomenon has achieved huge growth by creating a killer brand that can be accessed by consuming medical treatments. The target consumers of this product are teenagers who are forming their identities in an identity-obsessed world market demand is developed through viral marketing and underpinned by legal challenges and social advocacy in the background.
In Karena's model, the skyrocketing alleged rates of gender dysphoria are linked to crass money-making. First, consider the statistics regarding the rates of alleged gender dysphoria. I used the modifier "alleged" because gender dysphoria is often self-diagnosed in modern times. Consider that the DSM-5 In 2013, the DSM-5 estimated that about 0.005% to 0.014% of people assigned male at birth and 0.002% to 0.003% of people assigned female at birth were diagnosable with gender dysphoria. It is now 1000 times greater Consider this:
When [author Abigail] Shrier uses the term “craze,” she means it in the scientific sense. Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) is what Dr. Lisa Littman calls a “social contagion,” and it primarily impacts young girls. Just a short time ago, only .002 percent to .003 percent of girls in the U.S. identified as transgender. Now, it is up to 2 percent, and Shrier told me that she believes the rate has spiked by thousands of percentage points (in the UK, the number of girls identifying as trans has risen by over 4000 percent). Most trans-identified youth used to be males – that has reversed. In 2016, for example, girls accounted for 46 percent of sex reassignment surgeries in the U.S. One year later, that number had spiked to 70 percent.
In Littman’s much-maligned 2018 study “Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria,” she discovered that a full 70 percent of trans teens belonged to a peer group in which one had already had already come out as trans, and according to parents, a third of these had shown no sign of being dysphoric previously. Despite the insistence of trans activists that this is simply “transphobia” on the part of the parents, 85 percent of the parents surveyed were LGBT-supportive. But for asking questions, for begging their daughters to delay puberty blockers and top surgeries, they are condemned by trans activists as vicious bigots
As with any startup, there are business risks that lead to mitigation strategies. Karena outlines these in one of her graphics:
This is a 9-minute video that succinctly and sharply questions the motives of those making enormous profits off of the bodies of teenagers, even while the "wait and see" approach resolves teenage concerns between 73-98% of the time.
Fun with Numbers! Have you seen what many financial institutions are paying on checking accounts these days? Consider the chart below, which is from my credit union (which I love, BTW). The basic rate is .05% interest. If you pony up and deposit more than $1,500 into a “Priority II Checking Account,” you can DOUBLE your interest rate to .1%.
Let’s assume you deposited $10,000 into that "Priority II" checking account on Jan 1, 2021. At the end of one year, on December 31, you will have earned TEN DOLLARS. Even worse, if inflation runs at 2% for the year, you will end up with $10,010 that only has the spending power of $9809.80. How long will it take to double your money in that checking account? Using the “Rule of 72s,” the answer is 720 years.
Hello, I invite you to subscribe to Dangerous Intersection by entering your email below. You will have the option to receive emails notifying you of new posts once per week or more often.
