Starting off the top rope
1. Wednesday was bad. Calling for violence, storming the capitol, screaming to execute Pence (not sure why Pence is their enemy). Someone said, what if they got through and got to members of congress. That would have been one of the worst days in history. Thankfully, they didn't. The processes to protect congress worked. The Vote was still certified. Biden will be inaugurated Jan 20 as it should be. I have read that there are threats and demands of an armed march on the Capitol leading up to inauguration, that needs to be stopped pronto. People can still protest, but anyone calling for violence needs to be removed. This is actually where Twitter and Parler would be helpful. People are dumb on social media and they are boasting about plans to storm the capitol. That's great, we know their plans. It is public, they made it public. They are getting close to conspiracy crimes. Go enforce them. People have a right to protest, they do not have a right to push for violence. We have existing laws that cover that, those laws should be enforced. As for the rioters on Wednesday, they should be prosecuted. I hope they find everyone involved. I hope they go to jail. Some should be charged with murder. But what I really want is that I want to know why the hell there wasn't more police, troops there. The Capitol Police Chief (who has resigned) said he called for extra aid in days leading up to certification vote and was denied by both House and Senate Sargant of Arms (both have resigned). The Chief's call to the Pentagon was also denied. WHy? There is no excuse for this. We knew it would be a raucus crowd. We knew there was potential for riots. The House SoA has been in that position for 8+ years. This whole thing seems very fishy. A lot of people think Trump withheld support, but I am not sure that's his call. But lets say it is Trump's call and he demanded that those people deny support. Wouldn't you want to know that? That's where investigation comes in. Each one of those 3, the Police Chief and SoAs should be called before congress TODAY. Additionally, I would add the person at the Pentagon. With that said, i am nervous about next weekend and idiots just took down their communication platform where they could at least be tracked and arrested before they get to the capitol.
2. As for the Senators and Reps who objected to the electors. That has always been a process. It has ended up with a greater number of support. It has the most support ever in 2021 to object. Before then, the greatest amount of support was 2017. It's a process, it's not sedition or treason or whatever some want to tell you. Were the objections based on fraudulent assertions or at a minimum assertions without any evidence? Yes. Were most of the objections in 2017 without evidence, YES. I just want equal rules. If we are going to call these people to resign (I never really liked Cruz or Hawley anyways), then that's fine, but the left should lose Jayapal and Rep. Sheila Lee. Cori Bush has called for their expulsion. Let Missouri remember that they re-elected a state senator who called for the execution of the sitting president. Some called for her to resign (even Dems like Claire McCaskill), but she didn't. She wasn't arrested. She wasn't pushed out. She kept her position. The state legislation voted to condemn her comment 28-2. Who the heck voted against condemning it? My point is that we allow these things to exist in our own parties and it continues to escalate to where we are now. Im partially to blame because I excuse comments of the right, I often forget how stupid and impressionable people are. I kind of blame Twitter for this, because we can't have a policy unless it is a couple words and a hashtag. Right now, I would say that everyone is very fired up, very emotional (for justified reasons), but we need to take a step back, investigate, take proper steps. I was thinking this morning that I do want a Senate Trial on Trump Impeachment 2.0. First off, it would occupy congress so that they didn't do anything stupid. Additionally, it would hopefully have a fleshing out of the facts, unpacking what Trump did, what everyone did, was complicit, etc.
3. I knew this would happen. I said that when we changed election procedures that the loser was going to go apesh!t. If Penn, Michigan, and Georgia threw out 10% of abenstee ballots because of signatures didn't match enough (which they were allowed to do based on the process), and the left lost because of that, then the liberal side would be going ape as well. It is interesting because in January of last year, I listened to a podcast where the speaker was saying that the plan was in place to ruin public trust in the education regardless of outcome. At the time, I was like, what a loon. Then in the summer when changes were being made, I knew stuff was going to go crazy. I hypothetically believe if Trump won, we would have seen similar actions, but I didn't think Trump followers would do what they did Wednesday, I was wrong. It is hard to prove a hypothetical belief, but nothing in my mind has changed on that. I know people forget, but we had riots when Trump got elected in 2016 and you cannot say with an honest face that it would not have been worse if he got re-elected. People are pissed right now.
4. Where do we go from here? I honestly don't know. I have been doom and gloom since I was put on to The Fourth Turning last year. It just makes sense. Wealth Inequality is sky high. People have been locked down on again off again for over 9 months now. People in poverty have been pushed to the side while upper middle class argues with other upper middle class. We just spent over $25.5B on the elections this past year. Maybe Biden can calm the crowd, but who is incentivized in calm crowd? FB and Twitter want us pissed, we engage more. CNN, FoxNews want us pissed, we watch more. Both love lockdowns, gives us more time to scroll or watch TV. The places where we put most of our trust want us to turn on each other. I hope we can unite that we shouldn't pass a Domestic Terrorist Act (which has been drafted for like 15 months btw, very convenient). I had a discussion with another board member about the French Revolution and it does look similar, but the leaders have much stronger military than back then. Everyone needs to calm down. I was hopeful that would happen with Biden election.
5. Biden's plan: Biden's tax plan will screw small businesses One of the biggest bonuses to small businesses was this: the 20% deduction for qualified business income. I think that phases out at $500K of income, so small businesses that didn't rake it in really benefitted from that provision in the 2017 TCJA. He is going to remove it at least for upper income tax payers, but it is already removed for upper income tax payers. Raising corp tax rates will hurt banks (ok, fine), but it will also help the Amazon, starbucks, Tesla, etc versus competition (Ford, Toyota). The largest chunk of our stock market is of companies that are not profitable or haven't been profitable that much. They don't pay income taxes. It's a crazy game of borrowing versus company value instead of income.
Also: ending favorable tax rates on capital gains for anyone making over $1 million. I'm fine with this. I have a lot of precious metal holdings and those dont' receive LTCG anyways. And I want all the dummies who made hella bank on Tesla getting taxed to the hilt.
6. POTUS 2024. Just kidding.
1. Wednesday was bad. Calling for violence, storming the capitol, screaming to execute Pence (not sure why Pence is their enemy). Someone said, what if they got through and got to members of congress. That would have been one of the worst days in history. Thankfully, they didn't. The processes to protect congress worked. The Vote was still certified. Biden will be inaugurated Jan 20 as it should be. I have read that there are threats and demands of an armed march on the Capitol leading up to inauguration, that needs to be stopped pronto. People can still protest, but anyone calling for violence needs to be removed. This is actually where Twitter and Parler would be helpful. People are dumb on social media and they are boasting about plans to storm the capitol. That's great, we know their plans. It is public, they made it public. They are getting close to conspiracy crimes. Go enforce them. People have a right to protest, they do not have a right to push for violence. We have existing laws that cover that, those laws should be enforced. As for the rioters on Wednesday, they should be prosecuted. I hope they find everyone involved. I hope they go to jail. Some should be charged with murder. But what I really want is that I want to know why the hell there wasn't more police, troops there. The Capitol Police Chief (who has resigned) said he called for extra aid in days leading up to certification vote and was denied by both House and Senate Sargant of Arms (both have resigned). The Chief's call to the Pentagon was also denied. WHy? There is no excuse for this. We knew it would be a raucus crowd. We knew there was potential for riots. The House SoA has been in that position for 8+ years. This whole thing seems very fishy. A lot of people think Trump withheld support, but I am not sure that's his call. But lets say it is Trump's call and he demanded that those people deny support. Wouldn't you want to know that? That's where investigation comes in. Each one of those 3, the Police Chief and SoAs should be called before congress TODAY. Additionally, I would add the person at the Pentagon. With that said, i am nervous about next weekend and idiots just took down their communication platform where they could at least be tracked and arrested before they get to the capitol.
2. As for the Senators and Reps who objected to the electors. That has always been a process. It has ended up with a greater number of support. It has the most support ever in 2021 to object. Before then, the greatest amount of support was 2017. It's a process, it's not sedition or treason or whatever some want to tell you. Were the objections based on fraudulent assertions or at a minimum assertions without any evidence? Yes. Were most of the objections in 2017 without evidence, YES. I just want equal rules. If we are going to call these people to resign (I never really liked Cruz or Hawley anyways), then that's fine, but the left should lose Jayapal and Rep. Sheila Lee. Cori Bush has called for their expulsion. Let Missouri remember that they re-elected a state senator who called for the execution of the sitting president. Some called for her to resign (even Dems like Claire McCaskill), but she didn't. She wasn't arrested. She wasn't pushed out. She kept her position. The state legislation voted to condemn her comment 28-2. Who the heck voted against condemning it? My point is that we allow these things to exist in our own parties and it continues to escalate to where we are now. Im partially to blame because I excuse comments of the right, I often forget how stupid and impressionable people are. I kind of blame Twitter for this, because we can't have a policy unless it is a couple words and a hashtag. Right now, I would say that everyone is very fired up, very emotional (for justified reasons), but we need to take a step back, investigate, take proper steps. I was thinking this morning that I do want a Senate Trial on Trump Impeachment 2.0. First off, it would occupy congress so that they didn't do anything stupid. Additionally, it would hopefully have a fleshing out of the facts, unpacking what Trump did, what everyone did, was complicit, etc.
3. I knew this would happen. I said that when we changed election procedures that the loser was going to go apesh!t. If Penn, Michigan, and Georgia threw out 10% of abenstee ballots because of signatures didn't match enough (which they were allowed to do based on the process), and the left lost because of that, then the liberal side would be going ape as well. It is interesting because in January of last year, I listened to a podcast where the speaker was saying that the plan was in place to ruin public trust in the education regardless of outcome. At the time, I was like, what a loon. Then in the summer when changes were being made, I knew stuff was going to go crazy. I hypothetically believe if Trump won, we would have seen similar actions, but I didn't think Trump followers would do what they did Wednesday, I was wrong. It is hard to prove a hypothetical belief, but nothing in my mind has changed on that. I know people forget, but we had riots when Trump got elected in 2016 and you cannot say with an honest face that it would not have been worse if he got re-elected. People are pissed right now.
4. Where do we go from here? I honestly don't know. I have been doom and gloom since I was put on to The Fourth Turning last year. It just makes sense. Wealth Inequality is sky high. People have been locked down on again off again for over 9 months now. People in poverty have been pushed to the side while upper middle class argues with other upper middle class. We just spent over $25.5B on the elections this past year. Maybe Biden can calm the crowd, but who is incentivized in calm crowd? FB and Twitter want us pissed, we engage more. CNN, FoxNews want us pissed, we watch more. Both love lockdowns, gives us more time to scroll or watch TV. The places where we put most of our trust want us to turn on each other. I hope we can unite that we shouldn't pass a Domestic Terrorist Act (which has been drafted for like 15 months btw, very convenient). I had a discussion with another board member about the French Revolution and it does look similar, but the leaders have much stronger military than back then. Everyone needs to calm down. I was hopeful that would happen with Biden election.
5. Biden's plan: Biden's tax plan will screw small businesses One of the biggest bonuses to small businesses was this: the 20% deduction for qualified business income. I think that phases out at $500K of income, so small businesses that didn't rake it in really benefitted from that provision in the 2017 TCJA. He is going to remove it at least for upper income tax payers, but it is already removed for upper income tax payers. Raising corp tax rates will hurt banks (ok, fine), but it will also help the Amazon, starbucks, Tesla, etc versus competition (Ford, Toyota). The largest chunk of our stock market is of companies that are not profitable or haven't been profitable that much. They don't pay income taxes. It's a crazy game of borrowing versus company value instead of income.
Also: ending favorable tax rates on capital gains for anyone making over $1 million. I'm fine with this. I have a lot of precious metal holdings and those dont' receive LTCG anyways. And I want all the dummies who made hella bank on Tesla getting taxed to the hilt.
6. POTUS 2024. Just kidding.
