God knows there's a lot going on in the news these days. He knows even better that I've avoided talking about much of it, because I would be typing for the rest of my life and I just don't have the time. But there is one minor thing I wanted to draw attention to that I think might get lost in the weeds, so to speak.

This last week Bernie Sanders released an aggressive plan to introduce an extreme wealth tax should he become president. The tax would only affect households with a net worth of $32 million or more, starting at 1% of assessed net worth at that level and capping out at 8% for households with more than $10 billion. This wealth tax plan came on the heels of Elizabeth Warren's own, similar plan, but it's much more aggressive at the highest brackets and came with a reiteration of an idea that Bernie has expressed before; billionaires should not exist.

I'm going to largely ignore the predictable corporate responses to a plan like this - like one taxfoundation.org writer's claim that such a tax would "likely lead to a decline in national saving, which would make the nation poorer as a whole"1, as if somehow middle class people will stop putting $100 in their savings accounts every month because they're worried about the day when they'll hit $32 million and pay a small tax - and instead focus on what a billionaire is, and why Sanders is absolutely right that they shouldn't exist.

Now right up front there are those that will say that claims like this are some kind of violent form of fascist communism, or that Sanders and I hate hard-working rich people and want to take people's freedom away and live in a Stalinist hellhole! That's the most extreme example of course, but there are many others who will think to themselves in milder terms that such an idea is unfair; after all those people earned that money and should have the right to do with it as they please, and if they've become billionaires it must be due to hard work and business savvy. The great underlying lie, of course, that keeps working-class people voting conservative is that they too may one day become billionaires, and want to keep that money when they do.

I think the problem, though, is it's hard for us to imagine a billion dollars. We think of billionaires as just sort of bigger, better millionaires. It's easy to imagine a hard-working, smart, savvy entrepreneur striking it big with their idea and making a million dollars, and Sanders and I would both say that's great! People should be rewarded for hard work and good ideas! But we need to realize that a billion dollars is something completely different, because a billion dollars is 1,000 times a million dollars. A billionaire isn't just a bigger, better version of a millionaire, in the way someone with a MA in English is a bigger, better version of someone with a BA in English. No, a billionaire is 1,000 millionaires.

​To give a little perspective, I work my butt off in two jobs and various side hustles, and I'll probably earn about $25,000 this year after taxes. I could probably be making more, and indeed have turned down more lucrative work opportunities because I work for nonprofits that I believe in, but if I had a spouse making the same amount I would actually be at the median income for my area. At that yearly pay level, with no changes, I will earn a million dollars in about 40 years. Now obviously I won't have a million-dollar net worth in 40 years because I have to, you know, spend a lot of that money on silly things like housing and food, nor will I get anywhere close to $32 million where I would start paying a wealth tax under president Sanders, but I can earn a million dollars and most workers in the United States will earn a million dollars in their working lifetimes.

In order to earn a billion dollars, though, at my salary level, I would have to work for 40,000 years! Think about that; Hammurabi's law code dates to about 1750 BC, give or take. So to make a million dollars it will take about half my lifetime, and to make a billion dollars it will take more than 10 times as long as the Rule of Law has existed! Like, we could have an interesting debate on the morality of being a millionaire in a Christian context, and I might grudgingly admit that in a more secular ethics it's fine for millionaires who came by their fortunes legally to maintain them, but a billionaire is something else entirely! A billionaire is a greedy, bloated, wealth demon with an unconscionable amount of money that they cannot possibly justify having, let alone ever meaningfully deploy with any utility. And someone like Jeff Bezos isn't just a billionaire; his net worth is figured at $110 billion usd. Jeff Bezos is 110,000 millionaires put together. That is absurd. Billionaires should not exist. That's not socialism; it's morality.


1. https://taxfoundation.org/bernie-sanders-wealth-tax/

Oh! Why, hello there reader. I didn't see you come in! Please, make yourself comfortable. I know it's been a while since we've spoken to one another, but I can never stay away from you for long, ha ha!

Jokes aside though, it's great to be writing again. Life has been full and busy lately, and while what I've been doing has been incredibly rewarding it still feels good to take time and exercise my writing muscles when I can.

I wanted to talk for a moment today about the dangers of reading just the headline to a story and allowing it to shape our worldview and guide our emotions without us really delving into the story and finding out the truth. There has been a lot of talk in the last year about "fake news", and while we do have a problem with purported "news" outlets that literally make up stories and report on events that never occurred I have often found that the more insidious problem is sensationalist organizations - looking to increase their viewer count and create ad revenue - that take a nugget of truth out of a story and twist it to get clicks. These organizations are not concerned with informing their audience, but merely with engaging them, and I have seen many careless viewers allow themselves to become outraged merely by reading the headline of a story without regard for the actual facts.

One really excellent example of this problem that I like to use to demonstrate my point comes from a story several years ago out of Portland. The headline and information that was shared on social media told readers that Portland police had dragged a 12-year-old girl off of a MAX lite rail train, tackled her to the ground, and shot her at close range with a beanbag shotgun! Oh, and the 12-year-old girl was black. People were immediately outraged; there were protests, accusations of racism, brutality, and child abuse, and the officer involved was placed on administrative leave just to satisfy the crowd.

I decided that it might be a good idea when seeing such an unbelievable headline like that to look into the facts of the case, and after digging around and finding an actual story from a real journalistic source everything made much more sense. What the folks frothing at the mouth on Facebook had left out was that the "12-year-old girl" in question was a 6'2" 240lb. behemoth with a criminal record the length of my arm. The incident occurred around 2:00am, after this "12-year-old girl" was seen leaving a party with many prominent gang members and violent drug dealers in attendance. She had already received a lifetime ban from riding Trimet for purse snatching on the train, which is why she was removed, and when officers attempted to arrest her she assaulted them and thrashed violently resisting arrest.

There was security footage of the whole event, by the way, showing this enormous criminal fighting with a police officer who is struggling to subdue her. A 2nd police officer, our suspended friend from before, comes on camera with his beanbag shotgun. He can clearly be seen giving her verbal warnings about the force he is about to use (as he noted in his report) and when she fails to comply he fires a single beanbag into her thigh. The best part of the whole story, at least to me, is that it worked! After the beanbag impacts she ceases her resistance and allows the officers to cuff her, get her on her feet, and take her in. Any reasonable person watching and knowing the fact would say "well yeah, that looks like a pretty reasonable and effective use of force to me", but because sensationalism was allowed to take over there were hearings, accusations, statements from the police department, and a whole lot of other nonsense.

It's perfectly acceptable to be outraged by the news; I'm outraged by a lot of the news I see these days. But it is also critically important to make sure we have all the facts available to us. Once we have all the facts, only then we can make a calm, reasoned decision to be outraged if the situation warrants it.

This afternoon I received an email from the White House asking me to share my "Obamacare Disaster Story" with the president, and I found that I just couldn't help myself, so I went to the White House website and wrote a response. I wanted to share with you all what I decided to write:

"Oh man, Obamacare has been a complete disaster! Let me tell you how.

I was able to stay on my parents' health plan until I was 26, which meant that I didn't have to pull myself up by my bootstraps and either go into massive debt to pay for medical care or ignore potentially life-threatening problems.

Then, when I couldn't be on my parents' health plan anymore, Obamacare made it so that I could very easily go online to healthcare.gov and choose an affordable plan with almost no deductible and a monthly premium I could handle, and the poor insurance company couldn't refuse to treat my pre-existing conditions, so I was able to continue to get care for my chronic issues and have actually seen improvement since I have been able to see the medical professionals I need to see without worrying about the costs.

Even now Obamacare is an utter failure, because I am able to see a therapist and only have to pay a $5.00 copay! That therapist is helping my manage my stress better, and even develop strategies to change my attitude about my health and diet. If it weren't for Obamacare, I would still have to suck it up and deal with it all myself, which as we all know is the American Way! What a shame.

Finally, you are absolutely right that Obamacare has led to fewer health options for me! For instance, I no longer have the option to go without coverage, crossing my fingers and hoping I don't get sick! I also no longer have the option to go bankrupt in order to receive the most basic care, or the option to wait until a minor health problem is out of control and requires a costly trip to the emergency room! How dare the government take away my worries! For shame.

To summarize, Mr. President, please kindly take your proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act and stick it right where it belongs: as far up your orange, lying, Nazi ass as you can get it!"

To all my wonderful readers who have been helped tremendously by the passage of the Affordable Care Act, I would encourage you to go to https://www.whitehouse.gov/obamacare-share-your-story and give them a piece of your mind. Even if it doesn't change that oaf's mind, at least it will make you feel a little bit better :)