The usual suspects are taking full advantage of the ignorance of the people

Politicians are screeching of the inherent evil of Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire. They act like Musk has a big, giant vault somewhere with piles and piles of cash in it and somehow he has cheated everyone out of paying his fair share of taxes.

That's bull$hit. 

"He isn't paying taxes on that money!" is a common gripe. 

What money? It's not like he was handed cash. The value of his stocks in SpaceX just went up.

What's even more interesting is that when Musk broke the trillionaire cap he created 4400 millionaires in the process. Employees that took advantage of SpaceX's stock options had their shares go up at the same rate Musk's shares increased and 4400 people became instant millionaires, some made tens of millions.

Umpteen years ago I won a company whatever and became the proud owner of $5K worth of company stocks which I simply sat on it a while paying no attention to it whatsoever. I had no tax liability because it wasn't income and had no negotiable value. 

Later on several years later there was a buyback from the company and I sold it back to the company for about $8K. Because I had cashed it out it had generated income and I paid taxes on the entire $8K. 

Meanwhile the usual suspects are screeching to their minions about a 'wealth tax' which would force the on paper rich to sell off assets to pay the taxes. Not only would this hurt the wealthy but it would hurt the rest of us in varying degrees.

Personally I'm a pretty spiteful kind of guy when I get riled up.

If they enacted a tax on unrealized capital gains I would sell it all, pay the taxes immediately and shift about $100 million cash offshore and retire someplace that has good weather. 

If Musk did this it's pretty likely that the stock market would take a very serious dive and throw us all into a recession. Fortunes would be lost, people would lose jobs and there would be sadness throughout the land.

Someone put it better than I did.

Musk is not sitting on a pile of cash.

His wealth is simply his part ownership in corporate assets of production.

Worse yet, his trillion dollar worth is not current cash.

He has to produce enough goods and services in the future to make the present value of those expected revenues come true,

which means making things people actually want,

instead of being taxed.

That is the essence of free market enterprise.

You only get income if people want to buy your goods and services of their own free will, not at gunpoint or the prospect of jail,

as with all government so-called services.

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Las Vegas and Johnny Weissmuller.

Back in the day Vegas used to do a few things out of both kindness and to attract business.

Johnny Weismuller, the definitive Tarzan, was scratching  his ass financially so the MGM Grand and Ceasar's Palace hired him to be a 'celebrity greeter' which I think was a cool thing to do.

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Net worth just went up.

One of the things I notice is that many people don't understand things. Take the rich. They think that a billionaire has a swimming pool full of cash because he has a high net worth. All they think of is cash.

Like most people, my biggest assets are my home and vehicles.

My home is currenty appreciating (even after being adjusted for inflation). My pickup is a depreciating asset. (Used pickups are insanely epensive these days. They depreciate slowly)

Before the brake problems it was worth about $4K. When the brakes started acting up its value dropped to about $2.5K. When I threw $3K at it for repairs and cosmetics it jumped to about $7-8K in value. As a depreciating asset it will depreciate from $8K instead of $2.5

Repairing it increased my paper wealth by over $3K.

Enter the idiot that looks confused and says "I don't see no cash."

That's because I have not liquidated it yet, fool.

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What if I run for office and take $1000 from someone that earned it

and gave $100 each to ten lazy bums?

I would lose one vote but gain ten.

Rinse, repeat.

And that's how it works.

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I see whare Musk became a trillionaire and the left is pissing and moaning.

If the people that piss and moan about this were to stop yapping and start building things they could also get rich.

But it's easier to take it away from someone that earned it.

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Finally got a human telemarketer and (I think) a newbie

When you are retired and on Medicare then you get hassled by people wanting to sell you a supplementry package.

I got through the artificial intelligence introduction and actually got through to a real live human being. I got the introductory speil and then he asked me if I had Medicare Part A and Part B.

"I'm incarcerated. The state takes care of me," I said and he sounded shocked.

"But you have a telephone," he said.

"Yeah, I know but it can only take incoming calls." I said. "When the warden found out I was doing time for murdering a telemarketer he gave me the phone because he doesn't like telemarketers either."

I figured he's have hung up by now but either he was a newbie, a gutton for punishment or just pain bored.

"What did they give you?" he asked.

"I got a year less almost three months for time served. I'll be out in a couple of months." I said. "The judge doesn't like telemarketers, either. He tried to get the DA to reduce the charge to disorderly conduct and let me skate with a $25 fine."

"I'll put you on the do not call list," he said. 

"I'd appreciate it," I said and he hung up.

 

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X marks the spot

There is a movie in the background simply for noise but I heard a voice say "X marks the spot."

I do not know why but that popped out so I had to see what movie was playing.

It was Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade.

I ran a Google search on how may movie have contained that phrase and they basically said 'Thousands'.

It is attributed to Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

Good to know. 

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One thing Pete Hegseth should do

is recall Mark Kelly to active duty and assign him duty as mess officer to the most far flung remote outpost that has an American military presence.

Kelly, a commissioned officer has badmouthed his Commander in Chief. Fact.

Tristan da Cahuna comes to mind. It takes about a week on a mail boat to get there from South Africa.

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For those of you that don't understand officer retirees are not retired in the traditional sense. 

You are simply released from active duty, placed on the retired list, subject to recall and subject to the UCMJ. Your First Amendment rights are limited in order to keep good order and discipline.

Article 88 (for officers) covers contempt for senior officers and Article 134 covers this for enlisted people.

If you don't want to be subject to the UCMJ anymore, you resign your commission. When you do that you lose your pension. If you resign you can simply go your merry way.

Kelly wants to have his cake and eat it. Dwight D. Eisenhower resigned his permanent fivee star commission to enable him to run for president. He did this to insure the CinC was a civilian as it is supposed to be.

When JFK was elected as a courtesy to Congress recommissioned him. 

There are no 'yeah, buts' no 'what ifs'... that's the way the system works. 

When an officer is given an order he is expected to execute that order to the best of his ability, period.

If the officer that has been given an order feels he can not comply with the order for personal reasons, he resigns. Plain and simple.

If you want to keep your pension you stay subject to the UCMJ. 

Recall is a very real thing. It can and does happen, mainly for two reasons, critical shortages of various specialists and to courts-martial someone that has gotten out of line.

For the record, the biggest recall was early on during WW2. It produced any number of complaints from recalled retirees that had been retired for a while. The biggest complaint was that a lot of recalled officers were subject to the orders of people that had been their subordinates when they were last on active duty.

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Piccolo jerks the chain of a Navy SEAL.

That I met at the city compost help yourself pile last spring.

He saw a dogtag on my keychan and asked me what service I was in and I told him I was in the Army and my career was in the Merchant marine. He replied he had served in the Navy. When I asked him what he did in the Navy he replied that before he had gone through OCS he had been a SEAL.

I laughed. "How did you make out at the bar with those credentials? That sounds like a pretty good chick magnet."

"Yeah, he admitted with a semi-embarrassed grin. "When you throw the SEAL credential down the women line up. I'm happily married and wanted to stay that way so I kept my mouth shut when I had a beer with my teammates. It's a real trump card with the ladies."

I was feeling mischiveous. I gave him a smug look.

"When the SEALs start playing the SEAL card all you have to do to cut them down to size is tell them you're an astronaut," I said. "Only astronaut recruited from the Merchant Marine!"

He laughed like hell. "That would probably do it if you could pull it off."

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One of the things I see is that a lot of leftists are outright immature.

One of the most entertaining (and unpresidential) things Trump does is trolls. He's a master.

I once told someone that I voted for Trump strictly for the entertainment value. At first they were appalled but after they thought about it they admitted that he's a Master Troll.

Someone told me that the best part of Trump's rolling is the indignant overreaction of the Democrats when Trump throws something out at them. They always seem to take the bait.

When Hakeem Jeffries got the sombrero stuck in his head by Trump he carried on like a little kid in a schoolyard that had been teased by his classmates. The whining and carrying on was very entertaining.

When Trump called Tim Walz (who belongs in jail) a retard the wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth was epic. Again, he carried on like a teased schoolboy during recess. He sniveled his constituents were driving past his house shouting 'Retard!' (Unless he is outside I don't think he hears a whole lot of what's going on in the street.)

The right seems to handle schoolyard insults a lot better. 

When Hillary Clinton called Trump voters 'deplorables' they embraced it to the point that it may have very well cost her the election. Even today you occasionally hear a Trump supporter referring to themselves as being a 'deplorable'.

When the left hit JD Vance with the wolfman meme Vance took it in stride and threw it right back at them. He used the meme to design his Halloween costume. Hilarity ensued.

The immaturity of a lot of  the left has been quite a source of entertainment.

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