THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: “Gaming Disorder” Now A Recognized Illness According To World Health Organization.
Zamira Hajiyeva, currently fighting the UK's first Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO), used 54 credit cards - many of which were linked to her husband's bank - to go on a massive spending spree in the west London department store over a decade.
107-page bill lists items from jewels to crisps in UK's first unexplained wealth order case.
Lesson From The Tax Court: CDP Win Is Not Always A Victory
- Tax Court Denies Billionaire's $33m Charitable Deduction; Did University Of Michigan 'Rent Its Brand To Brazen 10:1 Tax Avoidance Scheme'?
- How Stephen Ross' $33 Million Gift To The University Of Michigan Ended Up In Tax Court
Blau v. Commissioner, No. 17-1266 (D.C. Cir. May 24, 2019):
RERI Holdings, LLC (RERI) claimed a charitable contribution deduction of $33 million on its 2003 federal tax return. The Internal Revenue Service determined that RERI was not entitled to this deduction and imposed a 40% penalty for underpayment of tax. RERI unsuccessfully challenged both rulings before the Tax Court, and now appeals to this court on a variety of grounds. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the Tax Court. ...
I. Background.
At a high level of generality, the facts of this case are simple: RERI acquired and donated a future interest in a piece of commercial property to the University of Michigan. RERI maintains the donation is a bona fide deduction that it valued reasonably at $33 million. The IRS says RERI artificially inflated the value of the donated property in order to offset the tax liability of its owners. ...
At a high level of generality, the facts of this case are simple: RERI acquired and donated a future interest in a piece of commercial property to the University of Michigan. RERI maintains the donation is a bona fide deduction that it valued reasonably at $33 million. The IRS says RERI artificially inflated the value of the donated property in order to offset the tax liability of its owners. ...
Reuven Avi Yonah (Michigan), Globalization, Tax Competition and the Fiscal Crisis of the Welfare State: A Twentieth Anniversary Retrospective:
Twenty years ago I wrote Globalization, Tax Competition, and the Fiscal Crisis of the Welfare State (113 Harv. L. Rev. 1573 (2000)), which argued that “[t]he current age of globalization can be distinguished from the previous one (from 1870 to 1914) by the much higher mobility of capital than labor. … The mobility of capital is linked to tax competition, in which sovereign countries lower their tax rates on income earned by foreigners within their borders in order to attract both portfolio and direct investment. Tax competition, in turn, threatens to undermine the individual and corporate income taxes, which traditionally have been the main source of revenue … for modern welfare states. The response of developed countries has been first, to shift the tax burden from (mobile) capital to (less mobile) labor, and second, when further increased taxation of labor becomes politically and economically difficult, to cut the social safety net. Thus, globalization and tax competition lead to a fiscal crisis for countries that wish to continue to provide social insurance to their citizens at the same time that demographic factors and the increased income inequality, job insecurity, and income volatility that result from globalization render such social insurance more necessary. … This article argues that if both globalization and social insurance are to be maintained, it is necessary to cut the intermediate link by limiting tax competition in a way that is congruent with maintaining the ability of democratic states to determine the desirable size of their government.”
Author of the article, Melissa Locker goes on to say, “It’s an infuriating addition to the challenges that women already face in the workplace, adding to their emotional labor by making sure their male bosses feel comfortable interacting with them alone and at those all-important work socialization events.”Infuriating, maybe, but not unexpected.
As Glenn has written, “you could write a strong argument for patriarchy using only the things feminists say about the fragility of women.” Read the whole thing.
The Historian Norman Cohn, in his 1957 book, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, found that Millenarian movements always picture salvation as:
- Collective, in the sense that it is to be enjoyed by the faithful as a collectivity.
- Terrestrial, in the sense that it is to be realized on this earth and not in some other-worldly heaven.
- Imminent, in the sense that it is to come both soon and suddenly.
- Total, in the sense that it is utterly to transform life on earth, so that the new dispensation will be no mere improvement on the present but perfection itself.
- Miraculous, in the sense that it is to be accomplished by, or with the help of, supernatural agencies.
It might have been expected that millenarian thinking would disappear with the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. But Cohn found that these ideas and the manias they inspired reemerged in the twentieth century’s secular totalitarian and revolutionary movements.In what could be a description of the Green New Deal, Cohn argued that these movements felt themselves to be engaged in a struggle of unique importance, “different in kind from all other struggles known to history, a cataclysm from which the world is to emerge totally transformed and redeemed…this is the essence of the recurrent phenomenon of revolutionary millenarianism.”
Tech Companies Love Pretending to Save the Planet
Several more of Leonardo’s notebooks have been put online as well…I’ve listed all of them in this post about the Codex Forster. (via open culture)
“The Library of Congress’s mission is to engage, inspire, and inform the Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity. To accomplish that mission, the Library is adopting a digital-forward strategy that harnesses technology to bridge geographical divides, expand our reach, and enhance our services. This document describes how we will secure the Library’s position in an increasingly digital world as we realize our vision that all Americans are connected to the Library of Congress.
The Digital Strategy complements the Library’s 2019-2023 strategic plan, Enriching the User Experience, which enumerates four high-level goals: expand access, enhance services, optimize resources, and measure results. The Digital Strategy describes what the Library plans to accomplish, in terms of digital transformation, over the next five years to achieve these goals. The transformation we describe below applies to all of the Library’s programs, including our collections, researcher services, the United States Copyright Office, the Congressional Research Service, and the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
Digital technology enables us to sustain and expand services to all users, bridging gaps and strengthening connections. The Digital Strategy describes how we will use each interaction as an opportunity to move users along a path from awareness, to discovery, to use, and finally to a connection with the Library through three main goals: throwing open the treasure chest, connecting, and investing in our future.”
