Tag Archives: culture

Truth and Courage

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On the matter of woke culture and canceling, The Wall Street Journal editors wrote about McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski’s private text to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot following her visit to the McDonald’s restaurant that was the scene of the murder of a 7-year-old child. That text was, in pertinent part,

p.s. tragic shootings in last week, both at our restaurant yesterday and with Adam Toldeo [sic]. With both, the parents failed those kids which I know is something you can’t say. Even harder to fix[.]

The mob howled and Kempczinski went directly to his knees and begged forgiveness.

The Editors had this about the matter, and they’re right as far as they went.

It’s a sign of our destructive times that saying in a private text that adults have some responsibility for the fate of their children is unacceptable.

But that’s far from all of the matter. It’s also a sign of our destructive times that American CEOs like Chris Kempczinski are such abject cowards and beg to apologize for having spoken uncomfortable truths.

We don’t have a Canadian-style truth code, but with company pseudo-leaders like Kempczinski, we don’t need one.

Desperation

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…of a different sort. “The Sounds of Silence” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal review of a piece of “music” that was “composed” by John Cage. And no, nor WSJ nor Cage were playing off a Simon & Garfunkle song.

Cage’s contribution to a 1952 open-air concert was a four minute and thirty-three second bit of silence in three movements not played on a piano. The pianist sat—silently—on his bench in front of the array of keys and indicated the end of each movement by closing the keyboard lid, subsequently indicating the beginning of the next movement, after the designated period of quiet, by reopening the lid. As the reviewer put it,

All the rest was stillness; throughout the performance he didn’t make a sound.

Then the desperation:

But Cage’s “4’33″” is actually not about silence at all. Though most members of the audience were focused on the absence of music, there were also ambient vibrations they ignored: wind stirring outside, raindrops pattering on the tin roof—and, toward the end of the performance, the listeners themselves making “all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out. Music is continuous,” the composer explained. “It is only we who turn away.”

Nature abhors a vacuum, including that of the absence of sound. Who was the more desperate here, though—the composer, or the audience? Or the WSJ with this review of a piece that premiered in 1952 and died then (at least to my plebian sensibilities)? Or me, for spending a post on this subject instead of something that matters?

A Taliban Threat

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The Taliban gang ruling over Afghanistan’s territory is saying, “Give us the money, or….”

Taliban officials are warning—or threatening—that unless Western governments and financial institutions release frozen foreign reserves and aid funds, the West could be flooded with a tide of Afghan migrants.

The vast majority of the frozen funds, some $9.5 billion, is held by the Biden-Harris administration’s Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund also is withholding direct aid and drawing rights.

Did I say “threat?” Continuing the freeze sounds like a better evacuation plan than the one Biden-Harris used a couple months ago.

Punish Success

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Punish, especially, those who are successful.

[T]he $1.75 trillion [reconciliation] package restores limits on so-called “mega IRAs,” preventing more money from being added to a Roth or traditional individual retirement account if its value exceeded $10 million. The restriction…would apply to individuals who make over $400,000 and married joint filers with more than $450,000 in annual income.

There’s that marriage penalty back, too.

And (and contradictorily to the income limit posited above)

[W]ealthy Americans with account balances above $10 million would have to draw down their accounts by a certain threshold each year, thereby triggering taxes on the money.
…. The general rule is that anyone with more than $10 million in an account must withdraw at least 50%. Those with more than $20 million would be required to withdraw 100% of anything over that $20 million threshold in their Roth accounts.

Regardless of their income. And to hell with their heirs. Or their intended charities.

Here’s another aspect of their game, from Steven Rosenthal of the Tax Policy Center:

A big first step to strip retirement tax benefits from those who don’t need the help[.]

Because Leftists know the needs of Americans better than those who’ve earned the wealth with which to satisfy their own needs.

Really, though, it’s not even that much. It’s much pettier.

Jealousy… is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

 

Disingenuosity of a Progressive-Democrat

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Recall that last spring’s reconciliation bill included an expanded child tax credit, which payments were automatic monthly payments that went to families without income as well as to those with income.

Progressive-Democrats, in the current reconciliation bill, want to make those credits permanent, and still automatic. Progressive-Democrats also want to start paying out a universal basic income to all Americans. But, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, MD) is denying that the child tax credit is a step toward a universal basic income.

As constructed, though, this “credit,” paid automatically regardless of “need,” is itself income, and given the breadth of Americans who receive it, it’s virtually universal all by itself.

And, of course, it’s income.

What is Hoyer’s limiting principle that proves this child tax credit is not a step on the road to a fully universal basic income? What hard principle prevents him from changing his mind on this, or that prevents any of his colleagues from changing this “credit,” later?

Hoyer has none. He’s simply being disingenuous when he claims the nearly universal child tax credit isn’t a step—a huge step, nearly spanning the gap, I say—toward a universal basic income.