Meghan and Harry spat with royals explained

It works like this.  The king no longer rules, he and family are in charge of  British Public Relations. This includes a lot of boring stuff, ribbon cutting at a local senior center, honoring some British scientist, etc. They use lots of pomp and circumstance that tourists love and so it is a net win for UK to keep them funded—about the same  price as running a single NFL team with lots more ancilatory sales.  In projecting a good image, they are stuffy and boring, which has led a lot of Brits to shrug and say, “Let’s abolish the monarchy.” Exactly what the monarchy DOESN’T WANT. So they leak a lot of snippets of life of the royal family to give some spice to things.  Most the the Brits would rather see an occasional fight, rather than the Queen's Welsh Corgis, but this threatens the Institution.  So they hide most spats. Thus the paparazzi are fed and watered with trivia, but nothing is damaged.

            When a new person arrives on the scene, a child grown up or a new wife, they can be quite unsettling, not just to the family that has learned to be quite formal and stuffed shirted, but also the staff who have been working with them for decades.  And the staff are the ones who do most of the leaking to the tabloids. Such a newcomer was Diana, who wanted to cuddle her kids instead of assigning them to a nanny or farming out their coming of age to some crusty uncle who has a castle on the Scottish coast. Diana was mom in the modern romantic sense.  Ah, but there has hardly been an English king going back to Alfred the Great who didn’t have mistresses. So Charles and Diana had such a problem and her usurpation of staff's job of child rearing, ticked off the leak-givers.  All manner of events were retold by the tabloids that cast Diana in a poor light. 

            When Harry and Meghan married, the same oblique criticism of his new bride had already taken place.  Eventually, after it began it became a veiled racism by that minority of the press who wanted to indulge it.  Harry is pissed that no one rushed to defend his love, and so he did. The leaks were lies, after all.  Her approval ratings slid to low levels and she was offended, but according to Harry, no one at the palace wanted to talk about it.  He clamored for audience over this, but was rebuffed by the Queen’s staff (one of whom has now resigned, having been caught in a rather dogged race-laced grilling of another British citizen of Caribbean/African descent.) Meghan moved to Canada. Harry said he wanted to do less royal work.  Finally a meeting was arranged but he confronted a sheet of choices ranging from “Get out” to “stay completely in.”  He chose a middling option, to step down from royal duties somewhat, and he claims that his brother, William started screaming at him over his desires.  Willie wanted complete support and likely doesn’t like all that ceremonial ground-breaking for all those darned recreational centers and bridges.

            The upshot of this is that the world has the spectacle of a royal donnybrook, just what the commoner Brits want to spawn their discussions rather than that losing futball team.  Harry and Meghan are making money off it. People are interested worldwide.  And in the end nothing much happens to the stuffed shirts in Buckingham palace, whether you are a sympathizer or not of H&M.  The Institution goes on.  The only tragedy, from an American point of view is that the monarchy failed to integrate a very attractive and entertaining mixed-race member along with her interesting red-haired flame. And with it, world-wide interest in the British monarchy drops a notch.  It is as if the chefs of a high-class restaurant ran off Guy Fieri and none of the valets wanted to park his lousy old car. 

A HIDDEN STORY OF HOW YOUR TAXES WILL CHANGE NEXT YEAR.

 

IRS will require 1099K’s be issued for all purchases over $600 next year.  This has been the formal requirement by the feds ever since Obamacare, but if one’s accounting is faithful, it makes no difference in federal revenue, thus has rarely been don by businesses for small purchases.  It applies only to business transactions. But with the 87,000 new agents, IRS now wants to require it for all transactions over $600.  This will generate a mountain of paper with almost every transaction of certain businesses required to provide a 1099. The reason this came about with Obamacare was that it was perceived as a way to pay for it. But then IRS quickly yelled uncle because of the tons of paper that would be coming their way. 

            Whywas this part of Obamacare? Democrats believe that most small businessmen, tradesmen and farmers are crooks hiding income. After all, they vote 90% Republican. A small subset of them actually are petty tax cheats. By requiring 1099s Dems hope to find  more money.  But think about this.  If a return and accounting are honest, the 1099 (a note to the govt that you’ve paid someone some money) is unneeded.  It generates zero federal revenue. 

            So in 2023 if you go to Walmart and buy a TV for $601, will you have to remit a 1099 to Walmart? Yes, if any portion of its use is for business. A car repair? Yes, if the car is used for any deduction or business. (Keep your fuel receipts handy too.) What if you mow your neighbor’s lawn while he’s gone and he mows yours in return?  Technically, you are both engaged in a service business and must record fair market value for the services.  But of course, it will be hard to catch people doing such things. And what if a business buys something for nominally $601 and agress to 2 payments of $302? Then there is no 1099.  Do you see how this gets complicated? Is a staggering burden for small biz?

            The fed govt dreams of block chains.  That is, a crytodollar being used.  There will be no cash allowed.  Instead of transactions being secret, by lack of ID like they are in current crypto currencies, everyone’s business will be viewable by govt.  But we aren’t there yet.

            Think of the consequences of 2023.  A voter rebellion may be in store. Or bartering may occur.  Currently, stuff gets bartered—say, a dozen eggs for a haircut—by some very small players, often on welfare or with no visible means of support.  The origin of currencies came when a guy went to town with his load of firewood to barter for something else like flour.  It’s very cumbersome to haul your load of wood around town.  So a guy with a warehouse says, “Park it in my warehouse and I’ll give you a note to say you own so much wood.”  You could then go to the miller and agree on a rick of wood for a bushel of flour.  You give a claim note on your load, and he gives you one on his load of flour in the warehouse. And you both go to claim your stuff.  But maybe he needed milk more than firewood and traded the firewood note to a dairyman.  Eventually people got to the point where they were trading their notes.  And who verified the purchases? The guys sitting in the town square on benches “banks”.  They were often Jews making coins out of gold.  So notes and coins became a currency.  And states or businesses also made their own currencies from ancient times.  Multiple odd currencies were found all the way up into the 1950s. What would happen if the mafia wanted secret transactions after crypto dollars were put in place?  They’d devise their own secret notes/currency.  And maybe others would like handling this new “cash” so they would also trade mafiabucks.  In fact, this might happen even without crypto dollars, simply because govt has made the system too burdensome or too surveilled. 

            2023 is going to be an interesting year. 

More election analysis by Schoen

 

ANOTHER VOTER & ELECTION ANALYSIS by Doug Schoen puts up some pretty interesting numbers. 3 groups of voters emerge.  Progressives are a quarter of the electorate. They are just what we think—media, much educated elites, some poor people who envision a utopian ideal of large government and controlling gov’t.  Of these 25% of the electorate, Democrats win 24 to 1.  Next are True Populists who are 34% of the total.  They believe in God-given rights and American exceptionalism (patriotic and nationalistic) 6 out of 10 of this group are Rs and ¾ of them vote R.  Hence R’s carry this 34% by 26 to 8 points. Their main issues are the things that attack individual freedom—bad economy, crime, uncontrolled borders. Semi-populists comprise 35%.  They aren’t so sure of God giving the rights or of being so patriotic, but tend to agree with the 3 issues that also resonate with populists.  R’s carry this 34% by 20 to 14 points.

            If you add the points R’s get 47 vs. D’s 46. But there is another 7% which voted 5 to 2 in favor of R’s.  Schoen says: Warning to Democrats, your wokeism and big govt leftism only appeals to 25% of the electorate.  Warning to R’s: You have won the true populists but not the semis. Many of these guys remain registered Ds and if the Ds ever discard wokeism, they are likely to win them back. 

            Here’s what I think it tells us.  The strong trend of existentialism leading many to question whether religion is of any value and the lack of civics education in schools makes semi-populists think the way they do.  For indeed, the notion of God-given rights is part of our  Declaration “We hold these truths…” and Constitution with its references to a Higher Power. Sans religious faith, people just think maybe we can make up the rules as we go along, we are not the sovereign state. If Rs are to gain this muddled middle, we need to demand we teach civics and redouble our attempts to reach those who just shrug away their existence.