That's the sad reality of today's politics. The billionaires are major donors for various political parties, so none of the mainstream parties would favor a law which would remove the loopholes used by the super-rich to avoid taxes. Every now and then, they will increase and decrease the income tax and capital gains tax, just to fool the ordinary people. None of these tax increases (or decreases) will have any real impact on the billionaires. There should be a complete overhaul on how the taxes are being paid.

OK. What was his crime in the first place? Could you please explain?

For setting up an anonymous marketplace, you want a 29-year old individual to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He wasn't directly involved in drug trafficking. And as far as I know, he never promoted any drugs personally. His crime was that he went against the system. And for that offense, the judges think that he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison. And for your information, the vendors who sold the greatest amount of drugs using Silk Road were Paul Howard, Peter Ward, Richard Hiley, James Ellingson and Thomas White. None of them received more than 6 years imprisonment. 

Any news on the resumption of PSL? The PCB was initially claiming that the tournament will resume by early next month in UAE. But that looks doubtful now, as UAE has imposed a travel ban on individuals from Pakistan. And apart from the UAE, I don't think that the tournament can be hosted elsewhere. Some 20 matches remains to be played in PSL 2021, and the PCB was in talks with the Emirates Cricket Board to resume it soon. There is another suggestion to play the remaining matches in Sri Lanka, but I don't think that it is practical.

People become "butthurt" when they get really old, after realizing that they have remained as losers during their entire life. This has happened to Warren Buffet as well. Every now and then, he suffers from verbal diarrhoea due to his jealousy towards Bitcoin. The same has happened to Yellen. She is bitter due to the fact that it is impossible to control Bitcoin, similar to how the feds control the fiat currency. There may be outbursts and violent seizures happening to such people very frequently, but we need to ignore them.  

Well guys, this may be a sign that Zucker's hatred towards Bitcoin is melting away. First of all, his anti-Bitcoin stance was triggered probably because of the involvement of the Winklevoss twins. Now Bitcoin has grown much bigger than the Winklevii and he don't need to bother about them. And hopefully he has realized that integration of Bitcoin into Facebook can be mutually beneficial. It can boost Facebook as well, at a time when it is facing stagnancy.

It is the duty of the government to remove those loopholes, which allow billionaires such as Buffet and Gates to avoid paying taxes. Whenever the tax rates are increased, it is the middle class which suffer. The billionaires are not affected, because they almost never sell their shares. When was the last time that Warren Buffet sold his shares in Berkshire Hathaway? So it is clear that increasing the capital gains tax or the income tax will not have an impact on these people.

They have such huge assets, so probably don't have to worry for the next 10 generations or so. Still they are doing the right thing by focusing on the future. It's not just tourism. The UAE has zero income tax and corporate tax, and this has resulted in a large number of corporations moving there. They have been very successful in diversification, unlike some of their neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And this is what liberal laws can result in.

Samson was a very poor choice for wicket keeper. For me, Rishabh Pant is the automatic pick (although Rahul and Buttler are not that bad either). Now Devdutt Padikkal is someone who in my eyes represent the future for India. Unfortunately the selectors have ignored him for quite a long time. Almost all the other youngsters have got a chance to represent India, but Devdutt is still waiting for his chance. Perhaps he doesn't have powerful backers in national team unlike the case with some of the other younger players.

I first registered to this forum 9 years ago, in 2012. When I made my first post here, the price of Bitcoin was $10 per coin. Ever since then, I am witnessing such threads. Nine years have passed and there is no shortage of FUD here. And during the same time, the Bitcoin prices went up from $10 to $60,000. People like me had their lives changed for the better, thanks to Bitcoin. If I had believed in such posts back then in 2012, then I would still be leading a hand to mouth existence. Bitcoin gave me respect in the society. 

At least as far as Ethereum and Bitcoin are concerned, the high fee is here to stay. Both the coins don't have any mechanism to cope with an expanding user base and increase in the number of transactions. The miners usually give the excuse of Lightning Network for Bitcoin and ETH 2.0 for Ethereum, fully knowing that these are just excuses and don't really resolve the issue. Don't be surprised if the fee increases much higher in the near future. What we can do is to keep BTC and ETH reserved for high value transactions (>$1,000) and use coins such as ETC, BCH and LTC for smaller amounts.

Things don't work like that. Zucker could have integrated Bitcoin to Facebook and it could have been mutually beneficial for both the sides. But he had other things in mind. He wanted to steal the technology and hype from Bitcoin and wanted to use it for himself (if we believe the Winklevii, Zucker did the same thing back in 2003-04). Unfortunately for Zucker, this time his blatant plagiarism wasn't received well and he had to shelve his plans. My advice to him still stands. It is never late to become a Bitcoiner. Integration of Bitcoin in to Facebook can do wonders. All Zucker needs to do is to put his ego on a shelf.

Here in my country less than 1% of those who got vaccinated suffered from any adverse reaction. And in only one-tenth of such cases, the reaction was moderate to severe. And as far as I know, no one in my country died after taking the CoVID 19 vaccine. At least be happy that you are now having some immunity against the Coronavirus. I am yet to get my first dose, as the authorities are prioritizing the elderly population first. Here we are mostly using Pfizer and Moderna, but the government is in talks with AstraZeneca and Sinovac as well.

I can understand at least partially what is going through your mind. Bad times don't last forever. Even if things don't change much in your country in the near future, you have already chosen the right path by becoming a Bitcoiner. All you need to do is to keep your coins safe and secure. The next rally should make all of us insanely rich. And once you are rich, you don't need to worry about how people treat you. In the modern world, money means everything. Once you have the money, no one will ask for your nationality. 

I posted that because the markets are already at ATH levels. That doesn't mean that they won't go up further, but the potential upside may be more limited. If I have the choice, then I would rather go for some asset which is protected against inflation. I am talking about assets such as Bitcoin or Gold, which are suitable for very long term investment. Going for stocks at this point is not preferred. Because in most cases, you can't hold stocks for more than 3-4 years. And that means that you won't be left with much returns, after the tax cut and inflation.

From what I heard, the BCCI is planning to conduct the remainder of the IPL sometime in September, just before the T20 World Cup. The BCCI bosses (at least some of them) believe that it may still be possible to stage the remaining 31 matches in India (although Ganguly is against this idea). Can the situation change a lot in 2-3 months? I don't think so. And they are also trying their best to conduct the T20 World Cup in India, which is a stupid idea.

This is epic:


The school children doesn't need to be embarrassed about getting fooled by the freebie propaganda. Because in the most powerful country in the world, the voters were fooled with the same propaganda in 2020. In an ideal socialist paradise, the Communist Party would provide you everything - food, housing, healthcare, education.etc. The party will decide whether you should become a farmer or a factory worker. The party will decide whether you should marry someone or not. The problem occurs when the leadership of the party ends up in the hands of people like Lavrentiy Beria. The syphilis infested monster treated the ordinary citizens as his slaves and destroyed the lives of thousands of women. Thankfully the Soviets executed him after he tried to rape Stalin's daughter. In most of the socialist countries, you will find such people. Kim Jong Un is a perfect example. 

Investment doesn't look like a good option. Because in many of the states the capital gains will be taxed at a rate above 50% according to the latest plan from Biden. Now taking the inflation in to account, you will most likely incur a net loss if you invest in assets such as equity and bullion. And there is always a chance of stock market crash or a dip in the gold prices occuring in the near future. If you are an American citizen, there is hardly any option available to beat inflation.

For many of the athletes from developing nations such as India and Nigeria, the protocol means that they will qualify for the Pfizer vaccine which is otherwise not available in their countries. And ironically, this means that they have a better chance of survival, if they participate in the Olympics. For those athletes from the richer nations, I assume almost all of them are already vaccinated. Now if you ask me whether there are chances of contracting CoVID 19 despite the vaccination, then it is true that there is a small chance. But at this point, it is too small to be taken seriously.

Dhoni was part of the CSK team which selected the players during auctions. Despite widespread criticism that the team is full of 35 plus players, he took no additional step to include fresh blood. There were no replacement for players who became unavailable. When Suresh Raina pulled out (due to some issues with the CSK management), the replacement for him was not available. Even this time, CSK went for players such as Robin Uthappa, who belongs to the 35 plus category.

The first three years of Trump presidency went really well. The debt was kept under control and the expenses were cut down. Trump made sure that the defense spending is not going to shoot up beyond a limit. He made no military interventions on third world countries (unlike all those presidents before him), and even made significant moves to reduce the American intervention in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The idea behind the reduction in corporate tax was to rejuvenate the manufacturing units within the US, which were making plans to move to countries such as Mexico and China due to higher taxes. And that plan also worked well to some extent.

Now what went wrong was the CoVID 19 pandemic. Trump made a horrible decision to ignore the pandemic, and he resisted lockdown measures until the last moment. This probably cost him the election. Until this moment, he was ahead in betting odds. The pandemic wreaked havoc in the US and left tens of millions jobless. And now he had to go for the stimulus to get the economy back on track. And that meant that the federal debt shot up by a few trillion $$$.