Monthly Archives: November 2017

Harassment – A Can Of Worms

28 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Sexual Harrasment

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Sexual harassment is in the eye of the beholder which is the crux of the problem. Is a hug or kiss harassment? Those acts are uncomfortable to some when they are not of a romantic nature? Many families are huggers and kissers, so when those women meet someone, know they are apt to hug, then kiss and hug when parting. If the roles were reversed would it be harassment?

Many families teach their children to hug and kiss each other, relatives, and even family friends. I can understand why some parents teach their kids to be overly friendly and I see why others teach handshakes. Are the hugging and kissing parents training their kids to be harassers when they grow up?

How does someone decide if a kiss or a hug is innocent or harassment? Is it when a hug is tight and prolonged? Some of those are innocent and to give emotional support. Is a kiss on the lips instead of cheek harassment? (Tongue action definitely is!) Can the place of the act be the definition for one and not the other? My solution has been to be a fast hand to show a handshake is preferred.

Many of the reported charges against famous people have been in the eye of the beholder. If a man is groped he may be thrilled, if it happens to a woman, it is harassment.

What a can of worms sexual harassment claims can be, especially if the act was many years ago. How can one defend oneself since memories fade and others are created? We can’t look to spiritual leaders for advice since hundreds are guilty themselves. Sexual harassment is fluid and defined by the times.

Death Tax Is Proper

28 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by in U.S. Taxes

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Let’s say I bought a hotel for $200 Million in 2008. Since then I have written off my expenses for mortgage, renovations, real estate taxes and maintenance. I hold on to the hotel that is now considered a luxury property due to my careful management of its finances! I die in 2020 and the independent appraiser says my $200 million hotel is now worth $1.2 Billion. That increase is not unreasonable because real estate has increased in value and room rates have skyrocketed. Both ways of appraising a hotel would support the $1,000,000,000 increase.

The new billion has never been taxed except on the value I paid in real estate taxes. Even then I paid an appraiser (not an independent) to grossly underestimate the value, hired a highly connected tax lawyer (in Chicago I would hire Madigan’s firm) and give to the assessor’s campaign to keep my taxes low.

I would love for someone to tell me how I paid income taxes on that billion dollars. If I had sold it before I died I would have paid capital gains taxes on any gains I couldn’t hide through the many avenues of that tax code the rich had bought over the last few decades.

Did I put $200 million into the property? No, I borrowed all of it and the money for renovation by convincing a financial entity I had a few million in equity in another property. So my investment is zero and in 2020 my profit is $1.2 billion. If I sell I pay a tax, if I die my heirs pay the tax. With the proposed tax reform my heirs would pay nothing.

My knowledge comes from brokering much smaller hotel deals for people who are not the 45th President of the United States. That’s how I found an owner can buy a tax deductible life insurance policy to cover the amount of the estate tax.

The current estate tax starts at $11 million or 900 acres of Grundy County’s prime farmland. A lot of this land was bought to avoid paying income taxes from other sales at a much lower cost. Selling it means capital gains. Dying means estate tax on the deferred money plus any increase in value.

Bad Traits

26 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in Bad Influence, Workplace

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According to a survey taken by a placement agency, RandstadUSA, the following are the top eight traits the people they placed hated most in their supervisors: only cares about self, steals the spotlight, never wrong, confused, likes control, bully, missing in action, and is a narcissist.

Among millions of others around the world, I bet our Secretary of State and Attorney General knows of someone with all these traits!

9-11 and 11-8

20 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by in Politics, U.S. President

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We were attack on both of those dates. September 11, 2001 was when the Twin Towers and Pentagon were attacked by Al-Qaeda. The U.S. reacted vehemently for a few months before being sidetracked with Iraq. The other was when Putin’s agents and hackers interfered with and tried to subvert our 2016 election. We have done nothing of any substance to punish Putin and ensure that it never happens again.

We went after Ben Laden and his people until the political hacks surrounding Bush II persuaded him to go into Iraq. The CIA’s agents and Afghans had Ben Laden and his small bunch of Al-Qaeda troops trapped in a complex of caves and tunnels carved into a mountainous section of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora. Rumsfeld had them pull back so his rangers could be heroes. They got beat up and the bad guys escaped to spread their violence.

The other was November 8, 2016 election for President of the United States. Russian President Putin decided to support Trump — a neophyte his KGB training and intelligence said he could sway — against former Secretary of State Clinton. He knew he had no chance of rolling her. Putin had his cyber warfare people hack into her campaign and into as many voting districts as possible. We have been told they never got into any voter rolls, but I think they did.

We now have at least three on-going investigations into what, if any, collusion the Trump campaign had with Putin’s agents. We know the Russians aided the campaign and Trump himself asked for their help, but did it go farther than what we already know? Granted the campaign people were stupid and desperate but did they cross the legal line?

President’s Trump’s personality makes him incapable of admitting he would have lost without Russian help to win the electoral votes. He has repeatedly said Putin had nothing to do with any interference in the election. His own appointees say they did.

Without any substantial retribution against Putin and his ambition to destroy democracies around the world, we must wonder if we will ever have an unfettered election. Oddly enough Putin has found he can get away with murder and invasions with Republicans in charge rather than Democrats. Trump isn’t going to stop Putin and may ask for more involvement to be re-elected.

Thin Bibles In D.C.

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in U.S. Economy, Uncategorized

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Where are those Bible-thumping conservative Republicans when we need them? They are in the pockets of the extremely rich of the world. I say world because in a global economy, the investors around the world own pieces of our stocks, bonds, real estate, and other financial instruments.

Haven’t they read how we are supposed to be saving up during the good years so we have money during the bad years? When the Democrats are in power those conservatives complain about the deficits and debt. Now they are pushing a tax reform that they admit will increase both. Even in their rosiest predictions we will go another $150-200 billion a year farther in the hole. Shouldn’t we be cutting our debt like President Clinton and speaker Gingrich did? The debt started ballooning again with Bush IIs tax cuts. Then when the Great Recession hit he had blown the savings and we had no choice but dump debt money into the system.

Phony reform which supposedly is for the middle class which really saves the rich billions is a deception to get re-elected by suckers. The money that keeps them in office comes from those millionaires and billionaires directly or through the many non-profits they use as fronts. The Koch’s Cabal’s businesses will save tens of billions.

Their Bibles must be very thin because they have removed so much that conflicts with their deplorable ethics. It seems like the money changers are in charge in our country. All other countries take care of their people but we get trickle down voodoo economics. When will we get tired of being trickled on and vote them out? Our supposed national debt is now over $21,000,000,000,000 and the hidden maybe twice as much.

Old Sexual Harassment

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Sexual Harrasment

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Where’s the sympathy for Anita Hill? She was roasted, slandered and demeaned when she came forth about her boss, Clarence Thomas. When Thomas was asked about her charges, he was very nasty and said anyone who agreed with her as participating in a lynching. He had artfully played the race card stopping any more questioning. He was confirmed to be a Supreme Court Judge.

Anita Hill’s reputation was destroyed with few brave enough to stand up for her. In today’s environment she would have the support and Thomas might not even be in his old job. Why don’t we bring that up again and get him to resign?

Trump Was Played

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in U.S. President, Uncategorized

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The Chinese are well known for their mind games. They know the President eats up pomp and ceremony so they lavished it on him and he folded like a paper hat in a rain storm. He says previous Presidents, meaning Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama were played. I seldom agree with him because of his lack of knowledge and common sense, but on this point he is right. However, he can now add his name to the list.

None of the agreements signed were because of anything he or his people did. Leaving the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) enhanced China and put our country at a disadvantage in Pacific trade. We lose big time so China can take control of the Eastern Pacific, Australia, Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The TPP was a win-win for US.

Not only was our country rolled so were our multi-nationals. In their greedy rush to get into China, they took backwater businesses and sciences to their superior level of today. Two great examples are how Lockheed wanted a cheaper cost to launch satellites. China’s rockets couldn’t reliably get off the ground much less into space so Lockheed solved their problems. Now they can hit our cities with their multi-warhead missiles. Another is our car companies that set up plants and engineering facilities to make cars. In a couple of years they will make more Chinese Company cars for domestic and export more than any other country.

President Trump thinks he is a master of a deal but he is just as naive as past Presidents and CEOs. Slogans are one thing but real and lasting results are another.