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tokeninvestigator · 2 years

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Best Way to Learn About Bitcoin Bottom

If you're a beginner at Recent News on Bitcoin Bottom, you may wonder what the best way to learn about Bitcoin bottoms is. You can learn about the fundamentals, Pi-Cycle indicators, Trend reversal indicators, and Dollar-cost averaging.

Here's a basic guide. But don't get ahead of yourself. This currency won't go through a dramatic rally anytime soon, so it's important to take your time.

Pi-Cycle indicator

A Pi-Cycle indicator is a simple tool that estimates Bitcoin bottoms by comparing the price of the bitcoin to two average trend lines. Plan C, which uses a 10-day simple moving average (SMA), and the Bitcoin price intersected on July 9. The Pi-Cycle indicator is not perfect. However, it has predicted the tops and bottoms of multiple bull markets.

The Pi-Cycle Recent News on Bitcoin Bottom indicator has the capability of estimating the area where the absolute bottom of a bear market will be. The latest signal from the indicator was generated on December 16, 2018, just one day after the Bitcoin price hit its all-time low of $152.

And as of this writing, the indicator is approaching the third bearish crossover. This is an important sign because the price is about to make a new all-time low.

Trend reversal indicator

There are many ways to learn about Bitcoin's bottom, but a trend reversal indicator is one of the most important. A reversal indicates a reversal in price.

By calculating the reversal of price, you can determine if the market is ready to reverse. If the trend is upward, you should enter a long position, while a downward trend implies a sell signal.

To learn about Recent News on Bitcoin Bottom bottoms, one of the best ways is to look at multiple time frames simultaneously. Specifically, if multiple time frames line up, a longer-lasting trend reversal is likely in the works.

Bitcoin's weekly and monthly charts have not yet lined up, but that could change next month. And while we aren't quite there yet, there is still reason to believe that bitcoin will bottom out this month.

Chart pattern

A chart pattern can tell you when a price is about to hit a bottom. The double top and double bottom are the most common of these patterns, and they usually predict a larger reversal than either single pattern.

The bearish double top pattern is a good example of this, as it indicates that Bitcoin is about to drop. A bearish double top is a signal for a decline, as traders would have entered a bearish position after the price fell below the prior reaction low. However, bearish volume was relatively light compared to bullish volume.

A falling wedge is another popular chart pattern. It can form in uptrends or downtrends and is similar to the rising wedge. When the price reverses from a rising wedge, it meets a new support level at the bottom.

Once the price breaks the second support level, it will break through the first resistance level, completing the pattern. In a descending wedge, the price will reverse to a new support level that is slightly higher than the previous resistance level.

Dollar-cost averaging

To learn about the Bitcoin bottom, you should invest in small amounts regularly. Investing in small amounts regularly is better than waiting for the price to crash. It helps you to hedge your bets by limiting your upside and minimizing your downside. You will be able to avoid mistiming and take advantage of the Bitcoin bottom when it arrives.

It requires you to keep an eye on the market and make sure that you invest in the cheapest coins at a lower price. You should research each coin before investing and check it often to ensure its worth. By accumulating small amounts of cash, you will be able to learn about the Bitcoin bottom as early as November 2018.

Also Read: Why Copyrights Will Be The Next Big Goldmine?

#latest cryptocurrency news today #Blockchain Revolution in Advertising #Income Tax in Romania 2022 #Copyrights the Next Goldmine 2022 #Recent News on Bitcoin Bottom

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rudrjobdesk · 2 years

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बजट 2021: सीनियर सिटीजन्स को बड़ी उम्मीदें , पेंशन को टैक्स फ्री करने की मांग

आम बजट 2021-22 आने में महज कुछ दिन ही शेष रह गए हैं। हर किसी को वित्त मंत्री निर्मला सीतारमण से काफी उम्मीदें हैं। ऐसे में वरिष्ठ नागरिकों को भी बजट में राहत पाने की उम्मीद है। बजट में वरिष्ठ नागरिकों की मांग है कि उनके पेंशन और एन्युटी इनकम को टैक्स फ्री कर दिया जाए। फिलहाल इसपर कर चुकाना होता है। यह भी पढ़ें : Gold Price: सोने के गिरे भाव, सर्राफा बाजार में 1368 रुपये सस्ती हुई चांदी, जानें…

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simmerkate · 10 months

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XTRA Interactions Mods

Introducing "Xtra Interactions," a mod for The Sims 4 that expands the range of social interactions available to your Sims! Developed with the goal of adding depth and realism to your Sims' social lives, this mod introduces 13 new dynamic interactions that delve into various aspects of contemporary conversations and interactions.

"F Bomb": Sometimes, emotions can run high, and Sims now have the option to express their frustration or anger with a straightforward and powerful statement. Use this interaction when your Sims need to release some built-up tension!

"Backhanded Compliment": Not all compliments are created equal. Sims can now deliver a compliment with a subtle hint of sarcasm or hidden meaning. Watch the recipient's reaction as your Sim walks the fine line between praise and critique.

"Body Positivity Conversation": Promote self-love and acceptance among your Sims by engaging in heartfelt discussions about body positivity. Encourage a healthy body image and help your Sims develop a more positive relationship with their own appearance.

"Discuss Fitness Apps": In the digital age, fitness has gone mobile! Sims can now chat about their favorite fitness apps, sharing tips, and exchanging experiences to stay motivated and reach their health goals.

"Discuss Fitness Classes": Exercise is more fun with company! Sims can engage in conversations about various fitness classes, from yoga to cardio workouts, and discuss the benefits and challenges of each.

"Engage in Mindfulness": Encourage your Sims to take a moment for themselves and embrace the practice of mindfulness. This interaction allows Sims to discuss and learn about techniques to reduce stress and enhance their overall well-being.

"Female Empowerment": Foster empowerment and gender equality among your Sims. Initiate conversations that focus on the strength, achievements, and challenges faced by women, inspiring your Sims to break barriers and pursue their dreams.

"Flirty Fight": Love and passion can take many forms. Sims can engage in playful, flirtatious banter that adds a spicy twist to their romantic relationships. Sparks will fly as they exchange teasing remarks and engage in light-hearted arguments.

"Spill The Tea": Keep your Sims in the loop with the latest gossip and scandals by engaging in juicy conversations. Share secrets, rumors, and intriguing tidbits that add an element of drama to your Sims' social lives.

"Stand Up Against Gender Inequality": Promote equality and social justice by encouraging your Sims to voice their opinions on gender inequality. This interaction allows them to express their concerns, share stories, and discuss ways to combat discrimination.

"Talk About the Living Crisis": Engage your Sims in thought-provoking conversations about the pressing challenges of the living crisis. Delve into the impact of declining real disposable incomes, adjusted for inflation, taxes, and benefits, that individuals and households have faced.

"Throw Shade": Sims with a mischievous streak can now throw shade at each other in a playful and sassy manner. This interaction adds a touch of humor and wit to your Sims' conversations, ensuring they never run out of snappy comebacks.

"Xtra Interactions" is a must-have mod for players seeking a deeper and more engaging social experience in The Sims 4. Expand your Sims' conversational repertoire and explore new avenues of interaction that reflect the complexity of the real world. Unleash the power of words and emotions in your virtual neighborhood, and watch as your Sims' relationships and social lives flourish with newfound depth and realism.

Follow me on insta @SimmerKatex

Curseforge (xx) FREE

#ts4 #the sims 4 #ts4cc #the sims 4 cc #the sims cc #skcc #thesims4 #thesims4cc #ts4 mods

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months

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Private equity ghouls have a new way to steal from their investors

Private equity is quite a racket. PE managers pile up other peoples’ money — pension funds, plutes, other pools of money — and then “invest” it (buying businesses, loading them with debt, cutting wages, lowering quality and setting traps for customers). For this, they get an annual fee — 2% — of the money they manage, and a bonus for any profits they make.

On top of this, private equity bosses get to use the carried interest tax loophole, a scam that lets them treat this ordinary income as a capital gain, so they can pay half the taxes that a working stiff would pay on a regular salary. If you don’t know much about carried interest, you might think it has to do with “interest” on a loan or a deposit, but it’s way weirder. “Carried interest” is a tax regime designed for 16th century sea captains and their “interest” in the cargo they “carried”:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Private equity is a cancer. Its profits come from buying productive firms, loading them with debt, abusing their suppliers, workers and customers, and driving them into ground, stiffing all of them — and the company’s creditors. The mafia have a name for this. They call it a “bust out”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Private equity destroyed Toys R Us, Sears, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and many more companies beloved of Main Street, bled dry for Wall Street:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

And they’re coming for more. PE funds are “rolling up” thousands of Boomer-owned business as their owners retire. There’s a good chance that every funeral home, pet groomer and urgent care clinic within an hour’s drive of you is owned by a single PE firm. There’s 2.9m more Boomer-owned businesses going up for sale in the coming years, with 32m employees, and PE is set to buy ’em all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

PE funds get their money from “institutional investors.” It shouldn’t surprise you to learn they treat their investors no better than their creditors, nor the customers, employees or suppliers of the businesses they buy.

Pension funds, in particular, are the perennial suckers at the poker table. My parent’s pension fund, the Ontario Teachers’ Fund, are every grifter’s favorite patsy, losing $90m to Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency scam:

https://www.otpp.com/en-ca/about-us/news-and-insights/2022/ontario-teachers--statement-on-ftx/

Pension funds are neck-deep in private equity, paying steep fees for shitty returns. Imagine knowing that the reason you can’t afford your apartment anymore is your pension fund gambled with the private equity firm that bought your building and jacked up the rent — and still lost money:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/25/pluralistic-your-daily-link-dose-25-feb-2020/

But there’s no depth too low for PE looters to sink to. They’ve found an exciting new way to steal from their investors, a scam called a “continuation fund.” Writing in his latest newsletter, the great Matt Levine breaks it down:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-buyout-funds-buy-from-themselves

Here’s the deal: say you’re a PE guy who’s raised a $1b fund. That entitles you to a 2% annual “carry” on the fund: $20,000,000/year. But you’ve managed to buy and asset strip so many productive businesses that it’s now worth $5b. Your carry doesn’t go up fivefold. You could sell the company and collect your 20% commission — $800m — but you stop collecting that annual carry.

But what if you do both? Here’s how: you create a “continuation fund” — a fund that buys your old fund’s portfolio. Now you’ve got $5b under management and your carry quintuples, to $100m/year. Levine dryly notes that the FT calls this “a controversial type of transaction”:

https://www.ft.com/content/11549c33-b97d-468b-8990-e6fd64294f85

These deals “look like a pyramid scheme” — one fund flips its assets to another fund, with the same manager running both funds. It’s a way to make the pie bigger, but to decrease the share (in both real and proportional terms) going to the pension funds and other institutional investors who backed the fund.

A PE boss is supposed to be a fiduciary, with a legal requirement to do what’s best for their investors. But when the same PE manager is the buyer and the seller, and when the sale takes place without inviting any outside bidders, how can they possibly resolve their conflict of interest?

They can’t: 42% of continuation fund deals involve a sale at a value lower than the one that the PE fund told their investors the assets were worth. Now, this may sound weird — if a PE boss wants to set a high initial value for their fund in order to maximize their carry, why would they sell its assets to the new fund at a discount?

Here’s Levine’s theory: if you’re a PE guy going back to your investors for money to put in a new fund, you’re more likely to succeed if you can show that their getting a bargain. So you raise $1b, build it up to $5b, and then tell your investors they can buy the new fund for only $3b. Sure, they can get out — and lose big. Or they can take the deal, get the new fund at a 40% discount — and the PE boss gets $60m/year for the next ten years, instead of the $20m they were getting before the continuation fund deal.

PE is devouring the productive economy and making the world’s richest people even richer. The one bright light? The FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division just published new merger guidelines that would make the PE acquire/debt-load/asset-strip model illegal:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-doj-seek-comment-draft-merger-guidelines

The bad news is that some sneaky fuck just slipped a 20% FTC budget cut — $50m/year — into the new appropriations bill:

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1681830706488438785

They’re scared, and they’re fighting dirty.

I’m at San Diego Comic-Con!

Today (Jul 20) 16h: Signing, Tor Books booth #2802 (free advance copies of The Lost Cause — Nov 2023 — to the first 50 people!)

Tomorrow (Jul 21):

1030h: Wish They All Could be CA MCs, room 24ABC (panel)

12h: Signing, AA09

Sat, Jul 22 15h: The Worlds We Return To, room 23ABC (panel)

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/20/continuation-fraud/#buyout-groups

[Image ID: An old Punch editorial cartoon depicting a bank-robber sticking up a group of businesspeople and workers. He wears a bandanna emblazoned with dollar-signs and a top-hat.]

#pluralistic #buyout groups #continuation fraud #pe #pyramid schemes #the sucker at the table #pension plans #continuation funds #matt levine #fiduciaries #finance #private equity #mark to market #ripoffs

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fiercynn · 10 months

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on otw's $2.5 million budget surplus: for fuck's sake do something with our money

the recent ddos attack on ao3 illustrated that the otw (@transformativeworks) has amazing volunteers who were able to get things up and running again after a cyberattack. and i’ve seen a bunch of different people urging others to donate to otw in light of the attack.

the problem? not only are the volunteers not going to get any of the money, but the otw likely isn’t going to do anything else with it, because they already have more than $2.5 million in budget surplus that they have not been transparent about with their members, and that they have no plans for.

yup. we’ve known for years that otw had at least $1 million in their “reserves”; they’ve said so at their last two public finance meetings in 2021 and 2022. but a few months ago, @manogirl and i went digging a little deeper because we suspected that there was even more.

and we were right. from the documentation available, our estimate is that at the beginning of 2023, they had $2,585,841 that was not dedicated to any purpose. this does not include money they had budgeted to spend in 2023 on regular expenses. just extra. (keep reading to see how we got that figure.)

equally appalling? they have all this money and are barely earning any interest on it. satsuma on dreamwidth looked at their 2021 tax returns and found that only ~$10k of their money is held in an interest-bearing savings account, which resulted in them earning only $90 in interest income for 2021. the rest of it is not in interest-bearing accounts. it is just sitting there.

looking at all the crises and dysfunction that have been discussed and uncovered over the past few months - racist harassment and the three-year-old promise to hire a diversity consultant; the mistreatment of volunteers by the otw board both related to last year’s CSEM attacks, and, separately, mistreatment and racism towards chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers both in the past and recently with the closure of the otw’s weibo account; and of course, this latest ddos attack - all of this indicates that there is severe dysfunction within the org. and donors throwing more money at the organization clearly isn’t helping.

the otw board needs to get its shit together and hire people to help with these things. this is not a new idea - there’s been talk for years about hiring paid staff, and in fact, at their july 2021 board meeting, otw said they would be appointing a volunteer who would be known as the “paid staff officer”, to come up with a plan for hiring paid staff. (to be clear, the “paid staff officer” would be an unpaid volunteer.) it’s been two years since that commitment. they have not, to my knowledge, appointed that officer yet.

it’s infuriating, because otw’s “scrappiness” as an organization is constantly used to defend their obstruction of action on things like racism, and this ddos attack will be used to further that agenda as well. but otw doesn’t need to be scrappy. they are well-resourced and could be using that money to set up more sustainable systems, instead of burning out and mistreating their volunteers, and reneging on commitments to address racism and harassment.

at the very least, if they’re not going to do anything with their massive budget surplus, they should stop taking more of people’s money. but we’d rather they did something useful with it.

if you want to see this change, the otw finance commitee holds a public meeting where you can ask questions and give them feedback. last year it was in mid-october. you do not have to be an otw member to attend. i'll definitely be making noise about it once the date is announced, but you can also follow otw's socials.

one brief aside: at the time of posting, a lot of these links are not working because the otw's website is still down. i copied these links from a twitter thread i made in the past and they should all be correct, so you just may have to wait until the site is back up to look at them.

now, to debunk some common excuses that people (not otw representatives, mind you, but just people on the internet who have decided to defend the org) give when confronted with how much money otw has:

MYTH: otw needs to keep $2.5 million in cash reserves in case of an emergency or unexpected revenue shortfall. REALITY: it’s true that nonprofits do need SOME cash reserves for those cases. typical practice is to have 3-6 months’ worth of operating expenses. otw’s current operating expenses are ~$520,000/year, so 6 months would be $260,000. (and, in fact, when i was told by an otw finance committee member that they had $1 million, they were intending 25% of that to be for emergencies, around $250,000). if you were being REALLY cautious, you could have reserves up to one to two years. but $2.5 million is enough for almost FIVE YEARS OF OPERATING EXPENSES. that is an absurd amount to be hoarding, especially when otw’s history of fundraising is that they always exceed their goals, and always make more money in donations than they need for their expenses within a given year. MYTH: they need this money for legal costs if they get sued. REALITY: otw gets most of their legal expenses donated, which is also not listed in their budget, but is in their audited financial statements. in 2021, the most recent financial statement we have, you can see on page 10 that they received just over $230k in donated legal expenses. they do budget some minor legal expenses yearly: in 2023 they’ve budgeted a little over $5k for “registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools”. however they do not have a history of even spending that much: in 2022, they had budgeted $4k for legal expenses and only spent $244 (see cell C29 of the budget spreadsheet). they have never been sued, and they do not appear to budget for litigation costs. and when, in the past, they’ve been asked about what their reserves are for (back in fall 2022 when the finance committee told me they had $1 million in reserves, even though this was patently false given their tax documents for 2021), litigation costs were not brought up. MYTH: they just haven’t had enough time to figure out investment options. REALITY: they clearly have at least one savings account set up to generate interest, which only has $10k in it. even if they haven’t figured out a full investment portfolio, why wouldn’t they put more money in that account? in the u.s., the federal deposit insurance corporation (FDIC) insures bank accounts up to $250,000, so they should have at least that much in there. absurd. also, they have had plenty of time even for a larger portfolio. if you search “investment” on their site, you’ll see that they’ve been talking for YEARS about investing their reserves. more specifically, at both their 2021 and 2022 finance meetings, they said that they needed more time to research investment options. as usual, they have had far more time than they need. MYTH: they need this money for new servers. REALITY: otw does in fact include expenses for new servers and server maintenance in their yearly budget reports. you can see this in their 2023 budget spreadsheet if you go to the sheet “program expenses” - under “archive of our own”, you’ll see server expenses. the $2.5 million is money that is EXTRA to their listed expenses and revenue in that spreadsheet.

finally, see below where we’ve given more context on otw’s budgeting and showed our work in coming up with these numbers.

showing our work

firstly, i should note for the record that i sent a message to the otw finance committee through the contact us form on the otw website on may 11, 2023 to ask them to state the amount in their reserves.

it has been two months and i have still not received a response (which i find funny, because at the last otw board meeting in early july, the board specifically said to use that form to contact the finance commitee if we had questions about the 2023 budget), so @manogirl and i were forced to do our own math. we've had this work checked by a number of people, but of course we were only able to work with the information the otw has made publicly available.

a few things you need to know about the otw’s budgeting:

they release yearly budget reports on their website (here’s their most recent one, which shows what they project for 2023 and their “actuals” for 2022), but they do not include their surplus in this report - they only include the revenue and expenses for each year

they also provide both their yearly audited financial statements and their yearly tax returns (form 990s) on their reports & governing documents page, but currently, the most recent statements we have are from 2021

otw typically raises more money in donations than they need within a year, so their surplus is always growing

they have used the term “reserves” in the past to talk about money, but we don’t know exactly what they mean by “reserves” - is there a dedicated account that they consider their reserves?

because of these uncertainties, the goal for @manogirl and i was was to figure out how much of a budget surplus OTW had at the beginning of 2023, and because we don’t know how they define “reserves”, we defined it as how much they had in liquid assets that were not being dedicated for a specific purpose in their budget. (liquid assets are anything that can be converted into cash quickly – e.g. not equipment like their servers, nor anything that would be held in a long-term investment account, etc)

the first document we looked at was their 2021 audited financial statement. the key number is on page 11, under the section on liquidity, where it lists their end-of-year liquid assets as $2,315,841.

so at the end of 2021, they had over $2.3 million in liquid assets.

but since their 2022 audited financial statement isn’t up, we had to turn to their 2023 budget, and specifically, to their 2023 budget spreadsheet, where they show the “actuals” (what they actually raised & spent in each line item) for 2022 in column C. as i mentioned, they don’t list their reserves in this spreadsheet - only the revenue generated & expenses paid within that year, not anything carrying over from the previous year unless clearly outlined.

so at the bottom you’ll see that their net income (revenue minus expenses) in 2022 was $493,564.94, and that they then transferred $400,000 of that to the reserves sometime in 2022.

and the remaining $93,564.94, their adjusted net income for 2022, presumably carries over to help pay initial expenses in 2023 before they started earning more revenue. they also transferred $130,000 of their reserves BACK to help with that at the start of 2023.

so now we have the numbers we need to calculate the surplus (including reserves) at the start of 2023:

$2,315,841 (liquid assets at end of 2021) + $400,000 (transferred to reserve in 2022) - $130,000 (transferred from reserve in 2023) = $2,585,841 USD at the start of 2023

so that’s our math. otw had $2.5 million at the beginning of this year in surplus, in addition to around $223k (last year’s $93.5k in income and the $130k they transferred back from the reserves at the beginning 2023) to fund their expenses for the first half of this year. this does not even include the hundreds of thousands they raised in april 2023 during their fundraising drive.

okay the main part of our documentation is done, but if you want to read a little bit more about what @manogirl and i learned from doing this deep dive, here are a few additional thoughts/nuggets:

first of all, OTW is incorporated in the u.s. state of delaware, which is interesting because as @manogirl researched, delaware is a tax haven where 501c3 nonprofits don’t have to pay any business tax. plus, in many u.s. states, nonprofits have a limit on the amount of money they can keep without spending, but this too is not the case in delaware. of course, incorporating in delaware to take advantage of those benefits is not illegal! but it is very savvy, a characteristic that seems to have not continued with their financial management past their original incorporation lol

next, some more detail on their finances from their 2023 budget spreadsheet. let’s start with revenue.

the most interesting thing to me here is that while their spring and fall membership drive donations bring in the most, non-drive donations are also substantial. also their “total unrestricted net revenue received” is $975,638.36 in cell C16. however, for some reason, when they calculate their net income for the year, they use cell 12, “total unrestricted revenue” ($1,012,543.42) instead. the difference between those two cells is that cell 12 is the amount before their transaction fees are subtracted. but i have no idea why the transaction fees would be ignored when calculating their net income. is this an error?

next, their expenses, which came out to $518,978.48. not too much surprised me here except how low their legal advocacy spending still is, plus the fact that they’d given francesca coppa a grant for her book on the history of fanvidding, lol. (i’ve written more about this; so has wistfuljane on dreamwidth if you scroll down a bit from here).

it’s also interesting to look at what they’ve budgeted (both the revenue & expenses they’ve expected going into the year) for 2022. in every revenue category, they have exceeded their goal, except for $50 in “other income”. and in most of their expenses categories they have overestimated their needs, except for going over about $700 in the transformative works & cultures, & about $500 for development. this just shows how much they are able to meet their yearly expenses (overestimated) with the revenue generated each year (underestimated), & still have substantial amounts left over (almost half of revenue transferred to reserves)

so that’s what we’ve found. if anyone else notices weird things in their budgeting, please let us know!

#if you're going to argue with this please do me and manogirl the courtesy of reading the whole thing first #we've probably already thought of some of your questions or arguments and answered them #organization for transformative works #otw #archive of our own #end otw racism #fandom racism #ao3 #otw finances

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srilanka1234 · 2 years

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#uk news #scrap top rate of income tax #Britain’s new finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng #latest news #politics news

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 2 months

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Can Brazil Convince the World to Tax Billionaire Wealth?

Recent weeks have brought three more eye-popping glimpses of our world’s unconscionable concentration of income and wealth . . .

The fabled luxury automaker Lamborghini, for the first time ever, has sold over 10,000 vehicles in a single year. Lamborghini’s current 2024 Revuelto model starts at $608,358 . . .

Google co-founder Larry Page has just expanded his collection of private islands to five. His latest, a isle that sits between Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands, sethim back $32 million . . .

The Austrian design firm Motion Code: Blue has released renderings of a new submersible superyacht that can stay underwater for up to four weeks at a time. The 541-foot-long Migaloo M5 also features a built-in swimming pool, a helipad, and a $2-billion price-tag . . .

Why are Austrian designers devoting their talents to fashioning $2-billion baubles for billionaires? Just one reason: Today’s super rich are sitting on mountains of spendable billions.

And what’s raising those mountains of cash? Researchers at Oxfam have a compelling answer to offer in a just-released new analysis.

“The share of national income going to the top 1 percent of earners in G20 countries has increased by 45 percent over the last four decades,” Oxfam notes. “During the same period, the top tax rates on their incomes has fallen by roughly a third.”

In 2022, Oxfam’s researchers add, the top 1 percent of earners in G20 countries pocketed $18 trillion in income.

Oxfam released all these stats on the eve of this week’s inaugural finance track meeting of G20 financial ministers and central bank chiefs. The “G20” actually includes 21 players, 19 of the world’s most powerful nations, plus the European Union and this year, for the first time, the African Union.

Brazil, the G20 chair for 2024, hosted this week’s meeting in São Paulo — and Brazil’s left-led government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vigorously seized this hosting opportunity. His administration’s ambitious goal? To shove the case for taxing the wealth of our world’s wealthiest onto the world’s political stage.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #economy #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 day

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Swing-state voters are open to several ideas to keep Social Security benefits flowing for decades — as long as it’s the wealthy footing the bill, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

An overwhelming 77% of registered voters in the seven states that will decide the 2024 presidential election like the idea of a billionaires tax to bolster Social Security shortfalls, the poll found. More than half say they approve of trimming benefits for high-earners, and for taxing wages for Social Security beyond the first $168,600 in earnings as done under current policy.

The poll was conducted among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin between April 8-15.

Across-the-board changes — raising the retirement age to 69 from 67 or introducing a new formula that results in less generous benefit payments — were less popular. Around one-fourth of poll respondents supported those policies, while about a third support increasing payroll taxes.

The poll demonstrates the difficult task Congress will face in the coming years as it grapples with how to shore up the social safety net program for aging Americans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that starting in 2034 Social Security recipients will only receive about 75% of their promised payments if lawmakers don’t act.

“A lot of people want the government to take action, but they’re not really sure how,” Matt Monday, a senior manager for Morning Consult, said in an interview. “But the things that they do feel sure about is that someone else should do it,” he said, pointing to the wide popularity of the billionaires tax.

President Joe Biden’s billionaires tax would place a 25% levy on households worth more than $100 million. The plan taxes accumulated wealth, so it ends up hitting money that often goes untaxed under current laws. The president has also proposed higher payroll taxes on those making more than $400,000 as a way to strengthen the Social Security trust fund.

Conversations in Washington about large-scale plans to find new ways to fund Social Security have become more pressing with projections showing the program is becoming increasingly unsustainable. But changes to Social Security are politically risky because older Americans, who are directly benefitting from the payments, are an important voting bloc for both parties.

Benefit programs for elderly Americans are one of voters’ top priorities in November — only the economy, immigration, abortion and protecting democracy were chosen more often when respondents were asked what single issue was most important to their voting decision.

The poll also found that swing state voters trust Biden more than Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump to preserve Social Security and Medicare, with 45% trusting Biden and 39% trusting Trump.

Trump has not articulated a clear vision for the benefit programs. His campaign website says he will “always protect” Social Security without providing details. In a March interview, he said “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting,” but later walked back that statement, saying he would never do anything to “jeopardize or hurt” the payments for older people.

Republicans in Congress have proposed raising the retirement age and using a new cost of living adjustment metric that would result in lower payments over time. Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, proposed scaling back Social Security benefits for future generations and higher income retirees.

METHODOLOGY

The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll surveyed 4,969 registered voters in seven swing states: 801 registered voters in Arizona, 802 in Georgia, 708 in Michigan, 450 in Nevada, 703 in North Carolina, 803 in Pennsylvania and 702 in Wisconsin. The surveys were conducted online from April 8-15. The aggregated data across the seven swing states were weighted to approximate a target sample of swing-state registered voters based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, home ownership, 2020 presidential vote and state. State-level data were weighted to approximate a target sample of registered voters in the respective state based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, home ownership, and 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point across the seven states; 3 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 percentage points in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and 5 percentage points in Nevada.

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