![\"amazontwodays2\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/AmazonTwoDays2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMy friends in real estate pay remarkably little Federal tax.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The IRS tax code is rife with exemptions, perks and sundries that really benefit real estate investors, developers and mavens. Many of these perks Donald J. Trump lobbied Congress for. Successfully, I might add. The New York Times did an exhaustive report on real estate and tax. It explains it all in simple language. The piece begins:<\/p>\n How Donald Trump Uses the Tax Code in Ways You Can’t<\/strong><\/p>\n The New York Times reported last week that Donald J. Trump had a $916 million net operating loss on his 1995 tax returns, which could have legally allowed him to avoid federal income taxes for nearly two decades. That figure may seem startling, but wealthy real estate developers like Mr. Trump enjoy federal income tax breaks largely unavailable to typical homeowners.<\/p>\n The headline is misleading. I have friends who use the techniques mentioned in the article to avoid paying Federal taxes, while making themselves rich by investing in real estate and becoming real estate developer as the IRS defines it. once your new profession is blessed by the IRS, you’re admitted to No-Tax Heaven<\/p>\n If you’re close to retirement or retired, you should read this piece very carefully. You may find in it the best career (or post career) move you ever made.<\/p>\n You can read the full piece here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0Wells Fargo is a cockroach stock. <\/strong><\/span>But it’s not easy.<\/p>\n Bad things:<\/p>\n + The new boss, Tim Sloan, was in on and knew about the fake accounts. He’s been a big part of the problem. Yet he’s been promoted!<\/p>\n + There’s a huge amount of “wrong” culture at Wells Fargo that pre-dates the fake accounts scandal. Google “Wells Fargo stole my house” and you’ll get an inkling.<\/p>\n + More and more Wells Fargo customers are coming out of the woodwork to report their unhappy experiences to the CFPB. Eventually the regulator will get the message and take harsh measures against Wells Fargo, which they deserve.<\/p>\n Good thing:<\/p>\n + Warren Buffett is a large shareholder in WFC. He probably just got Stumpf fired and he’s obviously behind some of the “repair” things they’re doing to the bank.<\/p>\n Hence, rather than shorting this cockroach stock, my view is to stay \u00a0away.<\/p>\n This year has given new meaning to the word volatile.<\/p>\n Would you invest in pot? <\/strong><\/span>From a recent business Insider.<\/p>\n At a late September breakfast in Beverly Hills, Entrepreneur’s Kim Lachance Shandrow asked five of the six Shark Tank sharks how they feel about the growing marijuana industry, and whether they’d invest.<\/p>\n Dallas billionaire Mark Cuban told her he’d keep his money out of it, for a reason that echoed many of the other sharks:<\/p>\n “Would I invest in the cannabis industry? No. Not because I have anything against pot. I don’t care. But right now it’s a gold rush. When everybody’s rushing in it’s hard to keep track of what everybody’s doing because there’s a new startup every single day.<\/p>\n “I think the oversaturation of the market creates a very difficult challenge. Plus, Snoop’s in it [laughs]. And if Snoop Dogg’s in it, it’s over for everyone else.”<\/p>\n He went on to highlight the difficulty of getting involved in an industry so hampered by regulations and red tape, and said again he thinks we’re late to the game:<\/p>\n “There’s a saying that I live by: ‘First there are the innovators. Then there are the imitators. Then there are the idiots.’ The three I’s. You have to know which one you are, and I think already in the cannabis industry, we’ve at least gotten to the imitators and we may already be to the idiots.”<\/p>\n Couldn’t happen to nicer people<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Bloomberg reports\u00a0Saudi Arabia’s crude oil revenue has fallen to 334 billion riyals this year from more than 1 trillion riyals in\u00a02011, a 68 percent drop<\/strong>. That’s like if the U.S. just forgot to collect most of its taxes. Maybe they’ll stop funding those madrases which teach terrorism.<\/p>\n Favorite recent cartoon Two evils targeting the White House.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Friends are reviled by both candidates. They talk about not voting, or writing in their dog’s name. This would be a mistake and perhaps be a vote for Trump, since his “supporters” will vote and bully their friends into voting for Donald. Hillary is by far the lesser of the two evils. Moreover she’s stable. So, please vote for Hillary, no matter how much of Donald’s smearing of her has stuck.<\/p>\n Here’s today’s Economist:<\/p>\n the Economist’s lead article contains:<\/p>\n \u00a0Very weak and ineffective<\/strong><\/p>\n I<\/strong>n distancing himself from Mr Trump, John McCain, an Arizona senator, wrote that “He alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences.” Really? The Republican Party nominated Mr Trump with a bumper vote in the primaries. Almost all its leaders endorsed him, as Mr McCain did, ignoring overwhelming evidence that he was a charlatan. The racism, misogyny and threats of violence that peppered his speeches were not merely apparent before he won their party’s nomination, they were his means of winning it. What explains that moral failure?<\/p>\n The answer starts with the Republican voters. In the dowdier parts of white America, a combination of economic and cultural anxieties has caused real misery. That cannot be dismissed. Yet it has also exacerbated deep chauvinisms without which the explosive success of Mr Trump’s racist dog-whistling and the seething mood of his lily-white crowds cannot easily be explained. Cynical partisans, especially the conservative talk-radio hosts from whom millions of older whites get their views, made money fuelling those prejudices (see Schumpeter). By pushing a form of “common sense” conservatism that demonised immigrants, liberals and scroungers, and throwing in a good dose of conspiracy theory, they gave them a voice. Mr Trump’s success was built on his understanding that no Republican leader subscribed to this guff to anything like the same degree as millions of Republican voters did, and that that created an opening for an unscrupulous demagogue.<\/p>\n Mr Trump’s lies-that Barack Obama is a Muslim, say, or that global warming is a Chinese con-are the sorts of thing his audience has been hearing on the radio and reading on blogs for years. So are his insults; Mr Trump’s mocking impression of a disabled reporter was in essence an attack on the hated mainstream media and the culture of political correctness his supporters loathe. Republican leaders were blind-sided by the gulf revealed between themselves and a large portion of their voters and feared widening it.<\/p>\n There were exceptions to this spinelessness. Ben Sasse, a senator from Nebraska, took an early and trenchant stand against Mr Trump. John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, refused to attend Mr Trump’s coronation at the Republican convention even though it was in his state. The semi-retired Mr Romney and Jeb Bush were openly critical. But as the Trump train kept rolling, most of the party’s leaders shrugged and wrapped themselves in a predictable partisan excuse: Mrs Clinton is worse.<\/p>\n More striking than the recent denunciations of Mr Trump is the fact that the majority of elected Republicans are still on board the train. Mr Trump can take some credit for that, having steadied their nerves with a competent showing in the second televised debate, in St Louis, Missouri on October 9th. It was a disgraceful performance. Mr Trump held a press conference, shortly before the debate, flanked by three women who claim to have been abused by Bill Clinton. Continuing the attack, he sought to shift attention from questions about the tape by telling Mrs Clinton that, if he was elected president, he would have her thrown “in jail” over her use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state.<\/p>\n Mr Trump’s followers are convinced that the e-mail affair amounts to a set of crimes that should see Mrs Clinton in a cell. Never mind that the issue has been investigated by the State Department’s independent watchdog and the FBI, which released a 250-page report last month to support its argument that Mrs Clinton was guilty of nothing except carelessness; Mr Trump said he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her-and the verdict, he made clear, would not be in doubt.<\/p>\n With this unprecedented threat he continued to subvert America’s democracy, and also delighted Republicans beyond his core support. It is not only those who turn up at Mr Trump’s rallies who like an aggressive conspiracy theory. Mainstream Republicans have been spinning them about the Clintons for decades-another reason why they have found Mr Trump’s calumnies easier to swallow than they should.<\/p>\n There have been no further renunciations of Mr Trump. Indeed, on October 11th, the other senator from Nebraska, Deb Fischer, who had previously called on him to quit, said she would vote for him anyhow. Most Republican congressmen fear renouncing him might cost them his supporters-perhaps permanently splitting the party. They also fear it would depress Republican turnout at the general election, which would hurt them in the congressional races on the ballot.<\/p>\n If Mrs Clinton won by a decent margin, the Democrats would probably capture the Senate; there are 24 Republicans up for re-election, and the Democrats need a net gain of only four seats. A majority in the Senate would allow a second President Clinton to get her cabinet and judicial nominations approved. But the real prize, because it would also enable her to pass legislation, would be if the Democrats could take the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are up for grabs, and the Republicans are defending a much bigger majority.<\/p>\n For that to happen, the Democrats would need to improve their current tally by 30 seats. That looks a stretch, given how few competitive seats gerrymandering has left. But if Mrs Clinton won by a landslide it might be possible. Staving off such a defeat is an imperative for Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House. He has put as much distance between himself and his party’s nominee for the Oval Office as he can without formally unendorsing him.<\/p>\n You can read the full article here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n