Facing rising competition from Disney and other media giants entering into the streaming business, Netflix is increasingly eager to lure filmmakers who want their movies to be shown on a big screen and get awards recognition.
— Read on www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-netflix-roma-20181203-story.html
Building collapses worsened an already severe housing shortage. Havana alone had a deficit of 206,000 homes in 2016, official figures show.
— Read on www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/02/havana-cuba-collapsing-buildings-housing-unesco/1998606002/
Communism’s failure in Cuba
The French are the latest to refuse to sacrifice growth for green piety.
— Read on www.wsj.com/articles/the-global-carbon-tax-revolt-1543880507
A bad idea, especially in hard times for the working class
The office of the special counsel investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election says it is “tying up loose ends.”
— Read on www.yahoo.com/news/no-ms-ocasio-cortez-21-230008754.html
It is never easy to substantiate political rhetoric with facts and numbers.
Politicians have a nasty habit of spending more of other people’s money before they get it. Then the hunt for things and people to tax starts in earnest. Sin taxes, lotteries, gambling, gas tax, vaping tax, carbon tax……….
They never consider cutting the size of government as a solution as it would chip away at their power base. Big government is self perpetuating because of crony capitalism. Everyone who gets tax relief or revenue from the government is not going to vote for a pay cut.
Now that we have fewer net taxpayers than beneficiaries, the perfect storm is here, 22 trillion dollars in federal debt. Plus the interest on it.
COMMENT: My sister lives in Chicago. She is looking to leave finally. She told me there is a 9% tax on any amusement like Netflix or PlayStation for her son. You are right. They keep finding things to tax rather than address the problem. This cannot be maintained forever. OT REPLY: This is what happens. Rather than increasing taxes, they expand things to tax. They assume they can get away with that easier than be seen as raising taxes. It is all about how it will be reported. Sony has indeed agreed to comply with Chicago’s Amusement Tax, which means that PlayStation users now have to pay an extra 9% tax on streaming and rental services, which took effect on November 14th, 2018. This latest expansion of the city’s Amusement Tax will apply to purchases such as rentals, but not full sales of games. Back in 2015, Chicago’s Department of Finance expanded the tax on events to include streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify. It is most likely illegal but under our legal system, the burden is on you to spend money to prove you have a right. Governments can pass a law to do anything, even kill your first born. Only if they try to enforce it then you have to take them to court and spend years to get to the Supreme Court.
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/taxes/chicagos-hunt-for-taxes-goes-after-children-playing-games/
Vote with your feet folks, get out of those blue state tax hell holes.
People should have the right to police their websites as they see fit. But it’s just plain nutty that the primary federal law dealing with online content removal was written in 1996.
— Read on www.takimag.com/article/the-deplatforming-wars-part-i-screwed-by-cox/
GOP doofuses gave us this mess
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You are a personal friend of the royal family of Qatar. Would you care to share your inside knowledge of Qatar leaving OPEC? KR ANSWER: Just for the record, I was a friend of Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed al-Thani who was a member of the Royal family of Qatar. We were probably the two biggest collectors of ancient coins in the world. He was always trying to buy me out, with a smile of course. Yes, he came to our office to see me with the royal bodyguards and the whole bit a few weeks before he died in 2014 and yes, I visited him at his home in London. Because of our friendship, he offered Qatar as the headquarters for our operation, but could not grant me a citizenship because I was Christian. We set up our office instead of in Abu Dhabi. That said, Qatar is the richest nation on Earth on a Per capita basis. Abu Nakhlah Airport (Arabic:مطار أبو نخلة) in Qatar houses both the Qatari Air Force and U.S. Air Force as well as other Coalition personnel. It is also the headquarters of United States Central Command. Its conflict between other member states when the government supported Iran created a real feud. Even their airline was banned from other airports. That is a very complex issue that would take more than a blog to explain. I have also written that the US desire to invade Syria had NOTHING to do with gassing people. It was simply about to get a gas pipeline through Syria to Europe in order to compete with Russia. The US wanted to choke off Russia from serving Europe. That is why Putin went into Syria and this is the real story behind the pretended human right nonsense. There are plenty of human rights issues in Africa we do nothing about because there is no profit or political gain. North Korea really had weapons of mass destruction yet we did not invade them as we did in Iraq because there was no profit to be had. Just follow the money. Those in power BELIEVE they can bullshit the people ALL THE TIME because the press is in their back pocket and will never report the truth. Mainstream media is no different than Pravda (truth) of Communist USSR. Now the small, gas-rich state of Qatar state said that it will leave the oil cartel on January 1st, 2019 after nearly 60 years. Why? (1) there is the political conflict with its neighbors. (2) The country’s state oil company, Qatar Petroleum, said its withdrawal decision reflects “Qatar’s desire to focus its efforts on plans to develop and increase its natural gas production.” Qatar has been under a diplomatic and economic embargo by its Arab neighbors, including OPEC members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for the past 18 months. In response, Qatar has actually been increasing its gas production in retaliation for gas, not oil, is its primary source of revenue – hence the gas pipeline proposal through Syria. In reality, OPEC is concerned about oil – not natural gas. It is only logical that Qatar would withdraw from OPEC based upon its output, but at the same time, there is the diplomatic and economic embargo dispute with other Gulf states. Qatar policy has been to further its position as the world’s leading supplier of gas. Its exports currently account for about 30% of global demand.
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/energy/qatar-leaving-opec/
It is true.
An air cavalry unit struggled to protect a remote landing zone from wave after wave of North Vietnamese attacks.
— Read on www.historynet.com/hell-on-a-hilltop.htm
Men of valor
A culture that fails to represent, or that misrepresents its wars in all their glory, gravity, and tragedy, is a weaker polity. Epic poetry, with its stark recording of the facts and feelings of war, can give cultures and communities access to the reality of warfare and inscribe its memory on the collective consciousness and conscience of the people… (essay by Patrick Whalen)
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/11/warfare-epic-poetry-patrick-whalen.html
A good read for both those who served, and those who may wish to better understand them.
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