Guest suggestion re last minute topic: Emmanuel Saez and or Gabriel Zucman. They’re tax wonks, both I think from uc Berkeley but I might be wrong… wrote a great book that you’ve prolly read, but for anyone who hasn’t, “the triumph of injustice: how the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay” is a good read by them. Really digs into th…
Guest suggestion re last minute topic: Emmanuel Saez and or Gabriel Zucman. They’re tax wonks, both I think from uc Berkeley but I might be wrong… wrote a great book that you’ve prolly read, but for anyone who hasn’t, “the triumph of injustice: how the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay” is a good read by them. Really digs into the budget and debt and spending and highlights some policies that we would probably be talking about if we lived in a magical world where DJT didn’t haunt our dreams and pollute our discourse ala fist pump and chest bump and the non profit industrial complex (<—my opinion) wasn’t feeding off our collective woe and draining the extra change from our bank accounts. Ok, that latter issue being maybe specific to me, but in any event, they do make a point to trace how much we’ve privatized and reframed entitlements and government assistance into charities. And charity is good, in theory, but not so much when it’s a vehicle that allows private actors with agendas and ethical/moral priorities to throw grand balls and galas and rent massive premium office space and get praised for their benevolence in assisting those in need, where in the before times such needs would be administered by the state, by representative government actors and policy. They also discuss the lunacy of the revamped bankruptcy laws that allow for discharge of all debt but somehow exempt student loans, and where’s the moral hazard in that? As someone with cough cough several hundred thousand in student loan debt, I sometimes daydream how much I would have rather just bought a house or bought a bunch of designer clothes and took my friends around the world on vacays and then yeah - then I could declare bankruptcy, I could have that debt discharged, my credit in shambles but at least reset. All other debts, discharge is an option, think of corporate bankruptcies and all manner of everyday discharges, they are all allowed, but not student debt. Makes no sense. Anyway that’s my rant that I didn’t mean to go on and yeah ok back to me garden…
Guest suggestion re last minute topic: Emmanuel Saez and or Gabriel Zucman. They’re tax wonks, both I think from uc Berkeley but I might be wrong… wrote a great book that you’ve prolly read, but for anyone who hasn’t, “the triumph of injustice: how the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay” is a good read by them. Really digs into the budget and debt and spending and highlights some policies that we would probably be talking about if we lived in a magical world where DJT didn’t haunt our dreams and pollute our discourse ala fist pump and chest bump and the non profit industrial complex (<—my opinion) wasn’t feeding off our collective woe and draining the extra change from our bank accounts. Ok, that latter issue being maybe specific to me, but in any event, they do make a point to trace how much we’ve privatized and reframed entitlements and government assistance into charities. And charity is good, in theory, but not so much when it’s a vehicle that allows private actors with agendas and ethical/moral priorities to throw grand balls and galas and rent massive premium office space and get praised for their benevolence in assisting those in need, where in the before times such needs would be administered by the state, by representative government actors and policy. They also discuss the lunacy of the revamped bankruptcy laws that allow for discharge of all debt but somehow exempt student loans, and where’s the moral hazard in that? As someone with cough cough several hundred thousand in student loan debt, I sometimes daydream how much I would have rather just bought a house or bought a bunch of designer clothes and took my friends around the world on vacays and then yeah - then I could declare bankruptcy, I could have that debt discharged, my credit in shambles but at least reset. All other debts, discharge is an option, think of corporate bankruptcies and all manner of everyday discharges, they are all allowed, but not student debt. Makes no sense. Anyway that’s my rant that I didn’t mean to go on and yeah ok back to me garden…