Politics

[CoElkHunter]

I just watched the National news tonight and the raid on Mar-A-Lago. What I saw, and more disconcerting to me as a former LE officer, was the full on "tactical" response by the FBI and other agencies on a former sitting President's residence. A response of that magnitude, would typically be reserved for executing a warrant involving drug or weapons trafficking or an imminent threat to National Security. Not a warrant looking for classified or double top secret documents. Unbelievable! Unless the DOJ finds documents relating to an "imminent" National Security threat, they all are going to burn behind this fiasco, starting with the tactical response by the FBI. This is exactly the scenario one would imagine happening in a third world dictatorship and not the US.

 

[Hunter4752001]

And a donor to Jeb Bush when he was challenging Trump at the primaries.
Doesn't the US have 'Conflict of Interest' principles which should have disqualified Reinhart from involvement in the matter?

 

[CoElkHunter]

and an Obama donor.

Magistrate Bruce Reinhart Approved FBI Raid on Trump's Mar-A-Lago

Magistrate Bruce Reinhart approved the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's estate of Mar-A-Lago, a source confirmed to Breitbart News.

www.breitbart.com

Yep, an absolute Judicial review of his approval of the warrant is necessary.

 

[John Wasmuth]

I just hope there are uniforms issued so that the militia can tell the difference between the line agents and the politician agents. It would be sad to remove the wrong ones.

There are no right ones. The fbi is just the kgb that speaks English.

 

[meigsbucks]

Today I took my wife to the salon and while I was waiting I began thinking of the hiring of the 87k IRS agents. The director of the IRS said it was to look into those who make over $400k. So I decided to do some math (Scary concept).
The USA has a population of ~320M people. According to the IRS, about 1.8% of the population makes $400K+. (round it up to 2%). That is 6,400,000 people. That comes out to about 74 IRS agents for each member of this financial demographic. That doesn’t include those already working for the IRS. Those that think this will just impact the wealthy are naive. Couple that with the prodigious amount of guns and ammo they are buying, some serious crap is brewing.

 

[Louis Toadvine]

Today I took my wife to the salon and while I was waiting I began thinking of the hiring of the 87k IRS agents. The director of the IRS said it was to look into those who make over $400k. So I decided to do some math (Scary concept).
The USA has a population of ~320M people. According to the IRS, about 1.8% of the population makes $400K+. (round it up to 2%). That is 6,400,000 people. That comes out to about 74 IRS agents for each member of this financial demographic. That doesn’t include those already working for the IRS. Those that think this will just impact the wealthy are naive. Couple that with the prodigious amount of guns and ammo they are buying, some serious crap is brewing.

I think you need to flip your numerator and denominator in that calculation. Regardless, still a colossal growth of the department.

 

[Brent in Az]

 

[Brent in Az]

Today I took my wife to the salon and while I was waiting I began thinking of the hiring of the 87k IRS agents. The director of the IRS said it was to look into those who make over $400k. So I decided to do some math (Scary concept).
The USA has a population of ~320M people. According to the IRS, about 1.8% of the population makes $400K+. (round it up to 2%). That is 6,400,000 people. That comes out to about 74 IRS agents for each member of this financial demographic. That doesn’t include those already working for the IRS. Those that think this will just impact the wealthy are naive. Couple that with the prodigious amount of guns and ammo they are buying, some serious crap is brewing.

The Democrats don't seem to have a problem with money being wired out of this country by illegal aliens.
I saw an article that stated they will be targeting people making less then $75k per year. Something that I find as very odd, and maybe disinformation.?

 

[Brent in Az]

 

[Wheels]

 

[JOHN GRENZ]

 

[Ray B]

I suppose the senior pervert was tasked with rifling through Melania's lingerie drawer in search of classified material.

 

[spike.t]

BBC News - China property crisis: Why homeowners stopped paying their mortgages

China property crisis: Why homeowners stopped paying their mortgages

The country's property sector is struggling with a cash crunch, forcing buyers to take extreme steps.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Sabattiboy]

This is a monumental mistake. No sane administration with an actual President in charge would do something so obviously detrimental to the cohesiveness of the country. But because our Chief Executive is a senile figurehead, true believers are running amok.

If anybody remembers, Obama directed the IRS to target conservatives and there was no uproar. The FBI was told how to handle Hillery's illegal private e-mail server as secretary of state.
Based on getting by with these is there any question of how it got to where it is now?
A short memory serves best.

In the book of Judges the Israelites would go off the path. After ignoring the warnings from Prophets judgement would start in the form of oppression by their enemies. Each time the oppression took from 20 to 70 years for them to wake up and realize they brought it on themselves. Then guess who they asked for help?
Since Madilyn O'Hare in the 1950's america has been incrementally throwing God out so He doesn't exist anymore. How do we know? Because they challenge him and he doesn't answer so He doesn't exist.
America doesn't need to be attacked and oppressed; our leaders are doing it for them.
Like my old shooting friend Jack used to say, my opinion and 10 cents will get you a cup of coffee.
(Back then it was 10 cents.)

 

[Wheels]

BBC News - China property crisis: Why homeowners stopped paying their mortgages

China property crisis: Why homeowners stopped paying their mortgages

The country's property sector is struggling with a cash crunch, forcing buyers to take extreme steps.

www.bbc.co.uk

China is entering some difficult times. What do leaders do to distract a citizenry from those difficult times. A wag the dog moment may be on the horizon.

 

[cpr0312]

 

[Ridge Runner]

Social media is really a different category. In my mind, it has promoted the spread of misinformation and thus the creation of misinformed internet warriors. As an example, look at the rabid increase in the attacks on hunting. Many who are participating genuinely believe that they support a just cause.

I ran one of three divisions of a Fortune 50 company. I can assure you that what Red Leg has stated is 100% correct. As executives, our job was to earn customers business by satisfying their needs more effectively than our competition. To that end, we worked to create products they wanted in as cost effective a manner as possible.

The market sets the price it is willing to pay, not the business, as many imagine. If you set your price above market, the customer simply goes to your competitors. If you set your price below what the market is willing to pay, you have betrayed the trust of your shareholders (the public in the case of publicly traded companies). I have never witnessed the collusion between businesses that many like to imagine (our president in the recent run up of fuel prices for example).

If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is and I may not have the correct company, athlete, or price correct because it was a while ago, but the point is the same.

I'll use Nike as an example were selling athletic shoes at reasonable competitive prices, then went insane by enlisting Michael Jordan to sponsor an athletic shoe design and starting price for these shoes was $600.00.

Following suit other company's started doing the same thing. Thus big business competed to see the limits to what consumers are willing to spend for their respective products.

This same thing is carried over to more recent cell phone, computer, gaming, cable & satellite, and other companies.

Thereby big business does create hype for their product / services that consumers aren't in the right niche of society unless the consumer can flash a particular over priced product / service that is no better than a more least expensive competitor product / service.

If I understand you correctly it is okay for big business not to produce a life saving product, ie medicines, the medicines are "too expensive" to produce because of the rarity of the disease. But it's ok to produce, ie insulin, and sell that consumer's life long needed product at an outrageous cost because without, ie insulin, the consumer will eventually die. All this just to increase big business's bottom line and increase shareholder profits.

If I understand you correctly then it is big business to move their respective manufacturing process to foreign countries where labor costs are cheaper, no labor unions, no EPA or other government regulations, etc to keep them in check, while increasing cost on products to cover import fees and additional shipping costs just to increase big business profits and shareholder dividends. Which in turns reduces consumer income and spending via loss of employment.

As for collusion between big business and government. You may not have witnessed it, but there are too many "coincidences/incidences/failed or passed congressional bills that resulted in favor of big business.

 

[Red Leg]

If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is and I may not have the correct company, athlete, or price correct because it was a while ago, but the point is the same.

I'll use Nike as an example were selling athletic shoes at reasonable competitive prices, then went insane by enlisting Michael Jordan to sponsor an athletic shoe design and starting price for these shoes was $600.00.

Following suit other company's started doing the same thing. Thus big business competed to see the limits to what consumers are willing to spend for their respective products.

This same thing is carried over to more recent cell phone, computer, gaming, cable & satellite, and other companies.

Thereby big business does create hype for their product / services that consumers aren't in the right niche of society unless the consumer can flash a particular over priced product / service that is no better than a more least expensive competitor product / service.

If I understand you correctly it is okay for big business not to produce a life saving product, ie medicines, the medicines are "too expensive" to produce because of the rarity of the disease. But it's ok to produce, ie insulin, and sell that consumer's life long needed product at an outrageous cost because without, ie insulin, the consumer will eventually die. All this just to increase big business's bottom line and increase shareholder profits.

If I understand you correctly then it is big business to move their respective manufacturing process to foreign countries where labor costs are cheaper, no labor unions, no EPA or other government regulations, etc to keep them in check, while increasing cost on products to cover import fees and additional shipping costs just to increase big business profits and shareholder dividends. Which in turns reduces consumer income and spending via loss of employment.

As for collusion between big business and government. You may not have witnessed it, but there are too many "coincidences/incidences/failed or passed congressional bills that resulted in favor of big business.

I believe it is ok for a company to market a product at an outrageous mark-up in a competitive environment (more in a bit) if consumers are willing to buy it. Of course a company invests in advertising, spokespeople, whatever to hype a new product. Why on earth would they not?

This is a chart of Nike's net margin per year from 2012 thru 2021. Nike is publicly traded so these statistics are available to anyone. It is trading at around $112 dollars a share which is about right for a business with its market cap. Like most profitable business ventures it is trying for 15% net and averaging around 12%. Hardly what I would call robber barons at work.

What would your solution with regard to the price of sneakers be? A price cap? Price control mechanisms are proven a catastrophe whenever tried.

Businesses have to be competitive are they fail. Off-shoring of work and accounting is indeed a plague on our work force. But your finger needs to be pointed at the drivers of those decisions. If unions make labor so expensive that a competitive product can't be developed and produced in this country, then the business has to find alternative means of production or fail. If taxes become so punitive, that the business can no longer absorb their impact within cost, then the business must offshore or fail. Waving the flag is a great thing - but not if simply waving it into Chapter 11.

I actually believe there needs to be "collusion" between business and government, but that cooperation needs to be in creating a more competitive investment environment here in the US. Trump took a huge step in that regard, sadly all too quickly being reversed by the democrat party, by lowering corporate taxes and by taking a machete to some of the constraining regulatory structure.

I have little personal experience with the pharmaceutical industry. A quick review of net margins across the industry shows nets roughly the same to a little higher than other businesses sectors. The patent rules regarding medications allow for limited periods of high margin to underwrite research costs for both successful and unsuccessful new development.

That said, the specific case you cite, insulin, is indeed one of the most problematic. Unlike sneakers, insulin obviously is not a voluntary use of disposable income. Production is largely restricted to just three companies, and the highest prices per dose are in the US. I should note that Novo Nordisk, an outlier with respect to net margin (30%), is one of those major producers. A class action anti-trust suite has been filed in the State of New York alleging collusion with respect to insulin pricing. Hopefully it will progress. When pricing collusion between a limited number of producers creates non-competitive conditions indistinguishable from a monopoly, those activities are and should be subject to legal penalties.

 

[Brent in Az]

 

[Sabattiboy]

I believe it is ok for a company to market a product at an outrageous mark-up in a competitive environment (more in a bit) if consumers are willing to buy it. Of course a company invests in advertising, spokespeople, whatever to hype a new product. Why on earth would they not?

This is a chart of Nike's net margin per year from 2012 thru 2021. Nike is publicly traded so these statistics are available to anyone. It is trading at around $112 dollars a share which is about right for a business with its market cap. Like most profitable business ventures it is trying for 15% net and averaging around 12%. Hardly what I would call robber barons at work.

What would your solution with regard to the price of sneakers be? A price cap? Price control mechanisms are proven a catastrophe whenever tried.

View attachment 482420

Businesses have to be competitive are they fail. Off-shoring of work and accounting is indeed a plague on our work force. But your finger needs to be pointed at the drivers of those decisions. If unions make labor so expensive that a competitive product can't be developed and produced in this country, then the business has to find alternative means of production or fail. If taxes become so punitive, that the business can no longer absorb their impact within cost, then the business must offshore or fail. Waving the flag is a great thing - but not if simply waving it into Chapter 11.

I actually believe there needs to be "collusion" between business and government, but that cooperation needs to be in creating a more competitive investment environment here in the US. Trump took a huge step in that regard, sadly all too quickly being reversed by the democrat party, by lowering corporate taxes and by taking a machete to some of the constraining regulatory structure.

I have little personal experience with the pharmaceutical industry. A quick review of net margins across the industry shows nets roughly the same to a little higher than other businesses sectors. The patent rules regarding medications allow for limited periods of high margin to underwrite research costs for both successful and unsuccessful new development.

That said, the specific case you cite, insulin, is indeed one of the most problematic. Unlike sneakers, insulin obviously is not a voluntary use of disposable income. Production is largely restricted to just three companies, and the highest prices per dose are in the US. I should note that Novo Nordisk, an outlier with respect to net margin (30%), is one of those major producers. A class action anti-trust suite has been filed in the State of New York alleging collusion with respect to insulin pricing. Hopefully it will progress. When pricing collusion between a limited number of producers creates non-competitive conditions indistinguishable from a monopoly, those activities are and should be subject to legal penalties.

Remember Dirty Harry?
At the time that movie came out the MSRP for a S&W M29 was $141. The problem came at the middleman level. One store owner told me that he had to accept a bunch of S&W accessory items and ammo if they wanted a high demand pistol. The pistol would be gone in hours and he would be left with the stuff nobody would buy. The secondary sales level had no reason to sell off their retail shelf a gun for $140 when the current market was paying $500 to $850.
There is no indication S&W, owned by Bangar Punta at the time, raised the distribution price to market price.
Of course it just chapped my Hyde that the M29 price shot up because I had been diligently waiting until I turned 21, MO requirement at the time, to buy one then they were not to be had or affordable to me.