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A tweet written by Jeffrey Levin made sense to me. So, in a near act of plagiarism, I produced a Canadian version.
A resident of California, Levin is a marketing and systems consultant. His Twitter feed is directed to Americans but many of the issues are universal. Some examples:
Categories: Income Inequality, Taxation
 | Evil Eye on Corporate media, a propaganda… |
 | Mike Flynn on Corporate media, a propaganda… |
 | Erik on Sunk costs sinking |
 | John's Aghast on Sunk costs sinking |
 | Lew Edwardson on Sunk costs sinking |
| John's Aghast on Sunk costs sinking |
 | R on Sunk costs sinking |
 | greg lafortune on Sunk costs sinking |
| Erik Andersen on Sunk costs sinking |
 | e.a. foster on Sunk costs sinking |
| e.a. foster on Facts seem to support a progre… |
 | Randal Hadland on Sunk costs sinking |
Thank you Norm, for bringing me back to him.
Think I must have retweeted ten this am.
Things get lost in twitter world.
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Levin’s first tweet, above, quotes Nick Hanauer who has a great podcast called ‘Pitchfork Economics’ that I’m pretty sure a whole lot of Norm’s readers would dig.
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Brilliant… all of them. Thank you for sharing!
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Back in the days of analog and a much less politically correct life, about 1978, I played for the Vancouver Fijian rugby club.
I was easy to spot on the field! Bula!
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The people society most needs to embrace these ideas are the least likely to encounter or accept them.
They’re busy with other priorities, as shown by the events of January 06, 2021.
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There are at least 2 problems with the memes presented by Levin and I do believe he has been called out for it. Mind you they may not be of his own doing but that would mean he isn’t doing justice by fact checking.
The first meme speaks to tax avoidance. Tax evasion is illegal while tax avoidance is not and many people, myself included (and I suspect many of your readers) are involved in. The 60 day grace period at the beginning of the current tax year allowing you to park money in an RRSP from last year is an example of tax avoidance that if made illegal would upset numerous investment and retirement packages. Not a sound decision.
The quote by Roosevelt drops a key word. “It is whether or not we provide enough for those who have little” as in the meme versus “whether or not we provide enough for those who have ‘too’ little” which is the original version. I cannot speak for the man but it seems rather obvious to me that there is a significant difference between having little and having too little. Roosevelt was trying to build a better world for all and part of that was about raising the ultra-poor out of poverty. People who have little are not necessarily among the poor. We may class them as the working poor because they have little, but they generally have enough.
I get the mindset behind why you feel it important to repost these memes, however, they lose context when altered even the slightest.
As for the meme attempting to describe racism, while pointed it falls short of the mark as we are all a variety of different on the inside as much as the outside.
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Your quibble diminishes the point of Levin’s tweet about racism. What it clearly says is that people can be different on the outside and substantially the same on the inside.
A paper published by Harvard University reports:
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“This article approaches tax avoidance as a crime of globalization.”
“On 23 October 2015, the European Parliament presented a blacklist of corporate tax avoiders in Europe, which includes Amazon, Apple, Anheuser-Busch, Barclays, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Fiat, HSBC, IKEA, McDonald’s, Philip Morris, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, and Walt Disney…”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301703099_Corporate_tax_avoidance_a_crime_of_globalization
I believe this is the context in which Mr. Levin considers tax avoidance as allowed by nation states and practiced by multinationals a crime that should be “dealt with.” His view is that the laws governing this type of avoidance should be changed and he is far from alone in holding that opinion. It is not a matter of not understanding the difference between evasion and avoidance, nor failing to check facts.
The dropped word in the Roosevelt quote is a distinction without a difference for the purpose of making his point, and very unlikely to have been purposefully dropped to make it.
As for the egg example, I get the point being made. If it misses the mark for some, maybe they just prefer their eggs scrambled.
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It seems, to me, that UBI issued directly from a central bank would make a lot of sense to directly address poverty.
The best plan I’ve heard is for every person (with no age restriction) to be issued a citizen credit card that has a $250 limit (from the Bank of Canada).
Every month $250 of balance is forgiven, if the card is not used, nothing happens. If $250 is used and paid off in full within the month, the credit limit is doubled (max credit limit is $10,000; max monthly forgiveness remains at $250)
The balance is always interest free, the credit limit is use it or lose it (minimum is $250)
The $250 is based on the average spend on mpnthly food per person in Canada. This would be way better than food banks.
Coordinated through Interac, spending can be geofenced to Canada only and less desirable purchases can be excluded.
Because it’s a good idea, I’m certain no politician will ever entertain it our have the capacity to understand it. If only the Bank of Canada saw this as the most effective form of Quantitative Easing
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liked all of them
thank you for posting them, too bad we can’t get the MSM to carry them on the front page of their papers.
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