Not Your Money

Upset that multinational corporations use such things as legal tax havens and the law to minimize their tax burden, the Germans want to impose some sort of “international” tax on technology companies like Google and Amazon.

“We need a minumum tax rate valid globally which no state can get out of (applying),” Scholz, a social democrat in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government, told the “Welt am Sonntag” weekly.
Europe is trying to devise a strategy to tax profits from the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and digital platforms such as YouTube and Airbnb which currently manage to keep fiscal exposure to a bare minimum.
Digital platforms “aggravate a problem which we know well from globalisation and which we are trying to counter — the shifting of profits to fiscally beneficial regions,” said Scholz.

Of course they do.  In the minds of statists and the governments they support, the State owns all capital and corporations and individuals have no right to avoid (note: not evade) paying the taxes said governments feel they are owed.

Shareholders of said corporations, however, insist on the companies’ avoidance of paying unnecessary taxes.

Mind you, I’m anything but a fan of Big Tech myself, the poxy monopolists;  but given the option between Big Tech and Big Government… no prizes for guessing my choice here.  To paraphrase Trey Parker (of South Park fame):  I hate Big Tech; but I really hate Big Government, and the foul neo-socialist European governments most of all.

Transplants

Here in the Plano area (and in Dallas generally), we’re seeing a ton of companies and their employees moving here from all over, but especially from the West Coast.  Needless to say, this influx of people from Cuidad California has created some mixed emotions here, as it has in many other states but most especially in those bordering the Golden [shower] State.  A billboard on TX 121 (which connects DFW Airport to the Plano/Frisco/McKinney area) reads:

Welcome to Texas!
Just don’t vote for all the things you fled.

And I recall seeing this bumper sticker on several cars out in the border states:

We Don’t CARE how you did things in California

This sentiment can be seen in this article, where Californian registration plates earn their owners the bird from locals in Idaho.

Here’s the thing.  If you’re a conservative moving out of California — a real conservative and not a “California conservative” like, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger — you’ll be welcomed almost everywhere you go.  If, however, you move to conservative north Texas (Trump 65%+ in 2016) and start talking shit about gun control and eco-bullshit, you’re gonna get flattened, and justifiably so,  Leave all that nonsense behind.  (I illustrate the point by how Californians would feel if a large bunch of South Africans had emigrated to San Francisco and immediately started voting for apartheid laws targeting Asians and Blacks.  And for people who think that’s a ridiculous analogy, lemme tell y’all right quick, if you’ll forgive the colloquial expression, that people round here take the Second Amendment just that seriously.)

Of course, politics is not the only issue that motivates our xenophobia of Californians.  Another is what happens when a Californian sells their piece-of-shit bungalow for millions, and drives up the real estate prices in their new location simply because real estate outside California is, relatively speaking, far cheaper than their overpriced postage-stamp-property in Sherman Oaks or Cupertino.  Here’s the map:

As locals find their home towns less and less affordable because arriving Californians (and East Coasters, to a lesser degree) have driven up the cost of real estate, it’s only natural to resent the newcomers.  (We in north Texas haven’t had that problem to the same degree because this part of the state has hitherto been underdeveloped, and we have lots of room to expand.  Nevertheless, we’re starting to see the “Californian effect” take place, where people have to move further and further out to find affordable property, which means traffic jams on otherwise-deserted country roads.)

My own experience, when selling the old Plano house a year or so ago, was not that I got a massive price increase on the place.  What I did get was a quick sale — eighteen hours after its listing, the house sold for the full asking price with no significant conditions attached.  And no, I didn’t leave money on the table;  all the “comps” (comparable properties) in the area were listed for about the same amount, and that price was nowhere close to nosebleed levels (for north Texas;  for Californians, it was a steal).

To be frank, I’m far more concerned about the political shit that Californians bring with them.  We Texans are the most hospitable and friendly folks around — but we will get cranky if you start voting for politicians like Skateboard Jesus* who want to advocate more regulations, wealth redistribution, statism and gun control.  Then watch us get ornery.


*Senatorial Democrat candidate Beto O’Rourke — and many thanks to the incomparable Iowahawk for the nickname:  it’s beyond brilliant.

Tapping The Ex

No man should.

And calling it “hate sex” doesn’t even come close to making it acceptable — rather, the reverse.

Of course, someone is going to suggest that if your ex happens to look like this, then it’s okay:

But I will remind everyone of the old saying:  “No matter how hot she is or how good she looks, there’s always at least one guy who’s sick of all her bullshit.”

Changing Times

I have often railed against the stupidity of Daylight Savings Time in the past, so you can imagine my amusement at this headline:

Britain could be banned from changing its clocks in autumn and spring after Brexit negotiators tie country to Brussels plan to end ‘daylight saving’

Note to the Brexiteers:  this is not a hill to die on.  In fact, abolition of this stupid institution is probably the only thing the EU has proposed in the past thirty years that I agree with.

Threats

Some fuckwit sent me one of these email messages the other day.  I don’t know what he/she expected me to do, but I ignored it.  Then I got a follow-up email, threatening me with still worse consequences if I didn’t pay up, whereupon I replied as follows (using an anonymized go-between server):

I don’t know what you expected to get from me, but instead of money, here’s my response:
Do what you want, then fuck off and die.  Preferably from some painful cancer.  Even better, I hope your entire family dies from the same illness.
P.S. What you referred to as my “password”, isn’t.  You’re not even competent enough to threaten me.

Sheesh.  They must think I’m vulnerable, or something.  I wish I could spend ten minutes with one of these people — just me and a Sawzall.