Management of tax and the deficit

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The six big US tech firms. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft are accused of avoiding tax by shifting revenue and profits through tax havens or low-tax countries, like Ireland.  They are also accused of deliberately delaying payment of what tax they do end up paying.  Fair Tax Mark accuses Amazon of being the worst culprit.  Over the last decade its revenues have been $960.5 billion and its profits were $26.8 billion.  During this period it has actually paid $3.4 billion in US tax, an effective rate of 12.7%, instead of the 35% nominal tax.  Amazon, in reply, say that in fact they paid 24% between the years 2010 and 2018, or roughly the same period. We don’t know the truth.

Meanwhile, the US budget deficit is exploding and you can’t let that go on indefinitely.  It Is both stupid and short-sighted.  The signs point towards another financial crisis; the only thing we don’t know is when that will happen, not if. We know big tech, like the healthcare industry, gets special treatment.  The problem is that the poor and the middle class are the sufferers.

Why is this a matter for followers of Epicurus? Because you cannot have peace of mind when you don’t know when the house of cards will collapse yet again. For those with money they have nowhere else to put it, so are stuck with the stock market which continues to rise , for the time being.  For those without money and With maxed out credit cards, auto loans etc, the disaster, when it comes, will be as bad, or worse, than 2008.
I have done a post on being positive – it helps you live longer.  Getting tough, being positive!  Probably the answer is to ignore the dissonance, but then you are not being a responsible, well- informed citizen.  Any ideas?

Micro-plastics

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Microplastics can’t be seen, can’t be smelled, can’t be heard – and can’t be stopped.

As a result of our 50-year addiction to plastics, microplastics are now ubiquitous in the environment. These tiny fragments, formed as plastic breaks apart into ever-smaller pieces, are found in soil, water and air. They rain down on us 24/7 and have entered the food chain and water supply. There is little or no prospect of cleaning them up, and the load will inevitably get worse as the approximately 8 billion tonnes of plastic we have manufactured over the past century or so breaks up but doesn’t biodegrade.

Concern about microplastics has so far largely focused on wildlife and the environment, and there is evidence of harms to both. But now attention is turning to us. What, if anything, do these particles do to the human body?

At this point, there are more questions than answers. To put our ignorance into perspective, we don’t even know for sure that the very smallest fragments, called nanoplastics, actually exist – even though they are hypothesised to be the most harmful to our health.

The good news is that researchers are waking up to the potential threat and scrambling to find some answers. The bad news is that it will take years to properly evaluate the problem. As yet, funding is paltry: just a few million euros.

It may turn out to be a false alarm. If microplastics posed a specific threat to human health, perhaps we would have seen it by now. If that feels like clutching at (plastic) straws, that is because it is. Even if we get lucky this time, the natural world will be paying the price of our so-called ingenuity for decades to come.  ( New Scientist 21 Dec 2019)

Plastic manufacturers, who profited in the first place, should be encouraged (fined?)  to pay for research into micro-plastics and the ever-increasing amounts of waste being created every day.  Of course, we are talking about the oil industry, with the powerful ( well- oiled) lobbying machine that protects it. How are we to call industry to account for what they they doing, free of financial risk, to our environment?

Hourly husbands

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Our local news website circulated the following message yesterday:

Hourly Husbands

”I just had Jose come round and take care of my list of things todo!!  Never used them before, but Jose was great!!  Prompt, polite and cleaned up after himself.  Very grateful to get all those pesky little chores done!!!  Thank you Jose – will definitely use them again!!“

My comment: As you probably guess Jose, and the company concerned, undertakes odd jobs around the home.

But I did reflect on the fact that, if they catch on, hourly husbands could prove extraordinarily popular with women of all ages.  Think about it!

 

Optimism boosts longevity

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People with optimistic outlooks tend to live longer than their more negative peers, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine have found. The study drew on data from two long-running studies of Americans aged over 60: one of 1,500 male war veterans, and one of 70,000 female nurses.

At the start of both, the participants had completed questionnaires to gauge how optimistic they were, and had also been asked about other factors likely to influence their longevity, including diet, health and exercise. Analysis of the data, adjusted to take account of these “confounders”, revealed that most optimistic participants lived 10% to 15% longer on average than the least optimistic ones, and that they were significantly more likely to live to the age of 85.

“Healthier behaviours and lower levels of depression only partially explained our findings,” said lead researcher Dr Lewina Lee. “Initial evidence from other studies suggests that more optimistic people tend to have goals and the confidence to reach them, are more effective in problem-solving, and they may be better at regulating their emotions during stressful situations.” The exciting possibility raised by the findings, she added, is that we may be able to “promote healthy and resilient ageing by cultivating psycho-social assets such as optimism” in people.   (The Week, 7 September 2019)

This is all good stuff, but I think Epicurus had a more practical idea: seek ataraxia (peace of mind).  This requires you not to get wound up in the bad news and dreadful partisanship of ……well, almost anywhere in the world you live.  If you cannot ignore the debilitating effect of party politics, then try to let it go over your head. I read the local paper every day but try not to allow the political bits to rouse me (not invariably successfully!).  Instead, I concentrate on the good things I have in life, my marriage being the best.  This isn’t quite eternal optimism , but it is thankfulness for the blessings I have.

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Thanks, but no thanks for Menorah: Another intrusion of religion

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“My mother-in-law is a right-wing evangelical Christian who voted for Donald Trump and thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old. She is also, frankly, not very insightful.

“She just gave my family a menorah. We belong to a Jewish Humanist congregation, which pretty much sums up my beliefs—proud of my Jewish heritage but agnostic. My atheist husband (her son) belongs, too. She buys into the “love Israel” Kool-Aid that evangelicals are drinking these days.

“The menorah she gave us is from one of those horrible messianic organizations that’s in the business of converting Jews. They want to bring Jews to Israel because that’s a prerequisite for the return of Jesus.

“I would like to calmly and politely return this to her and tell her that I am opposed to the principles of this organization. I certainly don’t want this “messianorah” in my home. My husband initially said to drop the matter, but he’s warming up to the idea of a polite email.

“Your thoughts? I suppose I could be passive-aggressive and send her something from an organization she hates (like a lovely wall hanging from Planned Parenthood), but in addition to this being mean, I doubt she would understand the point.”

Dear Thought,

“I know what you mean about the fundamentalists who just love Israel and Jews. I was mystified by a genuinely lovely family of born-again Christians who seemed to be enamored by my family and Jews in general, and then I learned about all this end-of-days stuff. Meanwhile, they invited us to spend a week with them in an RV visiting the Ark Park (oy vey!), and they send us cards on Jewish holidays with New Testament verses inserted.

“I also share your passive-aggressive impulses, as when relatives kept sending our young children “gifts” of donations to their own synagogue in Florida. So I returned the favor by dedicating a contribution for daffodils in Central Park in their honor.

“I think it’s fine to return the offending “messianorah” (I love that—did you coin it yourself?) either in person or by mail with a brief but clear explanation of why you don’t want a symbol of a distasteful organization in your home. An email explanation would also suffice without returning the menorah, unless your mother-in-law says she would like to get it back. But then let it go, whether she takes your wishes to heart or persists. Any future unwanted gifts can simply be given away or trashed. Hopefully she won’t send you a crucifix next”.  (Comment by Joan Reisman-Brill for the Humanist Society)