File This One Under "Out of the Frying Pan; Into the Fire!"

(c) 2012 by Tom King


(c) Yahoo News


Yahoo News reports that portly French actor Gerard Depardieu has fled France because of it's confiscatory 75% tax rate on wealthy French citizens - a rate that made Obama supporter Will Smith almost fall off his chair.  When a French interviewer asked him if he approved of higher tax rates for the wealthy. When he said yes, the interviewer asked if he approved of tax rates for the wealthy like France's, Will asked what the rate was and was told 75%, Will had a one word responce.....

"Damn!"

Depardieu has publicly fled France to avoid its brutal tax rate drawing ire from progressives everywhere who call him a traitor to his country and demand that he stand and take it in the wallet (for his love of France, of course).  Depardieu, meanwhile has approached Russia's Vladimir Putin asking for Russian citizenship. He's flown to Sochi where he's planning to meet Putin and apparently will recieve his Russian passport.

He may be out of the fat and into the fire, though.  Putin is fighting a battle with the Russian legislature over a 75% tax on the wealthy of their own. Putin may see bringing Depardieu to Russia as an "I told you so." move to bolster his argument against kicking up the tax rate.  Unfortunately, the Russian legislature has its share of communists and labor representatives who would like nothing better than to engage in some Soviet-style wealth redistribution.

Depardieu would do well to come up with a get-outta-Dodge plan just in case he needs to move again before the Russkies put the barbed wire back up along the borders.

It's interesting that Depardieu hasn't considered moving to the US.  Perhaps he's seen the handwriting on the American wall.  Now would be a good time to start an independent tax haven on some lovely island somewhere.  Think of all the actors that would soon be living in your new country. Legalize pot and cocaine and you'd have a thriving economy.

Tom King

The Rich People We Hate Avoid a Tax Increase

Obama's Tax Raid on the Rich Only Impacts the Working Rich

(c) 2012 by Tom King

Did anyone notice that the only "rich" people that got a tax increase were the working wealthy - the ones that actually draw a paycheck or make a profit.

The already rich, the hereditary rich and those who have already made their pile (all of whom heavily support President Obama) didn't get any kind of meaningful tax increase because capital gains only went up 5% and manipulating and hiding capital gains earnings is really the easiest kind of income to avoid paying taxes on when you have teams of tax accountants and lawyers.

So Warren Buffet didn't get a tax increase even though he asked for one.  George Soros didn't get a tax increase even though he asked for one. The Kennedys, the Rockefellers, the Chases, the Morgans and the Astors didn't get a tax increase.  Most of the rich people who supported President Obama's campaign heavily didn't get a tax increase.

Oh, what a surprise!

I'm just sayin'

Tom

It’s Like the Pot Chamber of Commerce….

Hemp grower "inspects" the product.

(c) 2013 by Tom King

Okay, I just don't get it. I have got so many people who have my email or are friends on Facebook, Linked-In and other places that keep sending me stuff about what a great plant cannabis is and 1000 reasons it should be legal…….and how it could restore our faltering economy, cure mental diseases, heart conditions, liver ailments and hemorrhoids not to mention solve the housing crisis, end hunger and bring on world peace. Oddly enough most of these guys used to send me stuff about how I just had to vote for Ron Paul in the last election.

What I don’t get is why these dear people are so worried about why I don’t support the legalization of marijuana.  What’s their interest in promoting marijuana agriculture?  Are these guys frustrated Ag school graduates with degrees in agriculture who can’t make a living farming soybeans and corn and who envision starting a commercial pot farm and making a ton of money?  They tell me legalizing hemp would end the economic crisis almost overnight.

Let me see if I’ve got this right.  Marijuana (or hemp – that seems to be the term they prefer in this context) is capable of being used for all sorts of wonderful products like:

1.      Rope

2.      Paper

3.      Textiles

4.      Engine grease

5.      Building materials

6.      Paints resins and shellac

7.      Cures mental illness, heart disease, ringworm, gout, pleurisy and hemorrhoids

8.      Fuel for cars

9.      High fiber food products

10.   And 25,000 other products

Industrial hemp is bred for oil and fiber content, unlike marijuana which is bred for high THC content, so industrial hemp won’t make you high unless you smoke six joints or so or refine the THC out of the industrial hemp and concentrate it which, who’s going to do that since hemp is so useful for other things.

So what I want to know is why all these people are promoting the legalization of industrial hemp. They assure me it has nothing to do with its smoke-ability or that it is virtually identical to the kind that makes you high so that you can’t tell a few pot plants from the hemp ones if you salted the high THC variety around the industrial hemp fields.  Besides, pot, they tell me, isn’t a hallucinogen and doesn’t impair your ability to drive, work at your job or get your butt off your Mom’s sofa and find a job.  The police and all those government scientists are just making that stuff up because they are protecting the evil corporations.

So these guys, many of whom who used to be serious slackers back when we went to school together, have, for the good of society and our economy, decided to devote their free time (when they are not drinking Red Bull and playing Nintendo or Xbox) to community economic development by sending out links to youtube videos about what a great thing it would be if we could grow lots and lots of hemp and even better if we could grow regular pot because psychology is wrong about what causes mental illness and if we'd just legalize pot and we could put evil Big Pharma out of business.

What unselfish civic-minded citizens they all are.  Really.  Like a little Pot Chamber of Commerce.

I know!  I could grow a couple of hundred plants in my backyard and make all the rope I need! 

How cool would that be?

Tom