Allow Your Enemy Their Pride If You Don’t Outright Destroy Them

Something that everyone should remember: If one doesn’t out right destroy one’s enemy, allow them to march away with some semblance of pride

I found a few examples of this where people were able to find some dignity from their captors. The Army of Northern Virginia (after the Civil War) was one of these. Many rank and file soldiers found themselves only punished with an arduous march home and a grueling chore of picking up the pieces of their lives. This in exchange for an oath of allegiance.

But in history we have examples of where the victor required such a penalty to the vanquished that party left picking up the pieces kept a chip on their shoulder. A notable example was the Germans and Italians after the end of WWI in the “war guilt” clause of the Treaty of Versailles. The reparations were a sore spot and the fact that the Germans felt like they were left out of the negotiations. A few historians would say that many of the Allied parties were presenting a “take it or leave it” attitude with the treaty. (Nastier quotes are found online in regards to German responses).

To insult someone when they are already hurt doesn’t help.

And noted on this day in history March 4, 1665, the Second Anglo Dutch War started. Outside of continually tender political relations between the English and the Dutch, The Dutch were required by treaty to salute English ships first (I took this as “dipping their colors” first). The English often did not return the salute, which was customary at the time. (The English had privateers that would attack Dutch traders. These events among others helped push the Dutch into fighting again, often going beyond what they intended on doing to begin with.

I knew of an instance in someone close to me that had a run in with a knuckledragger security guard at a bar. The security guard roughed him up pretty good but he didn’t steal his wallet or put him in the hospital. The security ape picked him up and put him in his truck bed. The guy that got beat said: “At least I had the same amount of money in my pocket as what I left with” and “I woke up in my truck. F*ck; I don’t know why he did that for me”.

The shellacking victim didn’t go back and chalked it up to a bad day at the bar.

Folks, let the person or party leave with their dignity. If you win, don’t make the person lose forever.

PC 101: What’s Woke In English Is Sexist in Spanish (Reblog)

Once again, it is folly to let those that can find their own asses in the dark rewrite our language.

I loved learning the little bit of Spanish I knew. I do like the gendering of certain words. I also liked how a beautiful woman knew when she was beautiful. These guys weren’t calling out rape promises or threats.

It was a march away from the PC world I found in 2003, when I came back from that other time.

I am hoping that a stand will be made and that we may find some unforeseen event to turn the tide, outside of the daring pursuits of those that are fighting back.

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03/02/2021 Mark Tovey Courtesy of Mises.org

Emma Corrin has won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a TV Series for her portrayal of Princess Diana in Netflix’s The Crown.

Confusingly, Miss Corrin rejects the use of the term “actress,” like so many left-wing luvvies.

That didn’t stop her accepting the award, of course.

What’s the rationale for eliminating the word “actress”? Well, UK newspaper The Guardian explained in its 2010 style guide that it is sexist to distinguish between genders when referring to professions, as it harks back to a “time when professions were largely the preserve of one sex (usually men).”

But isn’t it a bit disconcerting to refer to an actor winning the Best Actress award?

What if I told you that it is supposed to be disconcerting, bamboozling, and alienating?

You see, politically correct language doesn’t follow a clear logic. Instead, it is designed to simply be contrary to common practices.

It is a signaling mechanism to separate the “insiders” from the “outsiders.”

I realized this after moving to South America and becoming proficient in Spanish—a long and painful process, as I didn’t start until I was twenty-four, by which point I had lost the brain plasticity of childhood.

I was disappointed to find that the “woke” politics of intersectionality had made the journey from the English-speaking world to South America long before I touched down in January 2018.

However, when it comes to politically correct language, social justice warriors (SJWs) south of the Mexican border have not been able to simply copy the US’s handbook. Clearly, the peculiar mandates of “newspeak” cannot be mapped precisely from English onto Spanish, which is distinct in its vocabulary and grammar.

In fact, on the question of gender-neutral professions, Spanish-speaking SJWs have had to take precisely the opposite stand.

In Argentina, the socialist vice president Cristina Kirchner made headlines in December 2019 when she called an opposition party senator sexist for not using a feminized title. 

In Spanish, most nouns signal male or female by ending in o or a, respectively (a male doctor would be el médico, a female doctor la médica).

However, presidente is one of those rare nouns that does not have a gender, and so—following the logic of politically correct speech in English—you would imagine that followers of “woke” politics in Argentina would be happy about that.

But no. Vice President Cristina Kirchner instead demanded that an a ending be substituted and called her colleague a sexist when he protested at this bastardization of the Spanish language.

He eventually conceded: “Perdón, presidenta.”

Could there be any clearer example that new-fangled, politically correct speech is just an arbitrary signaling mechanism? They want to watch you struggle through the growingly treacherous lexical quagmire.

And if at any moment you should trip and fall, you’ll be revealed for the outsider that they always knew you were. Maybe you’ll even get “canceled” if you’re unlucky enough to work for an organization that has capitulated to these unthinking bullies.

My advice? Learn a foreign language. Bilingual brains are less malleable to “newspeak,” as they see the inevitable inconsistencies created by a system of arbitrary verbal diktats, which cannot be neatly imposed on distinct lexical and grammatical structures.

In addition, psychologists have found that people who learn a second language are less susceptible to emotional manipulation in that language, as they have less of an emotional connection to the words. (This is easily demonstrated by thinking about how swear words in foreign languages do not evoke feelings of offense.) 

So, get on a language-learning app. And let’s all raise a glass to Miss Corrin, a skilled actress and deserving winner of her Golden Globe.

https://mises.org/power-market/pc-101-whats-woke-english-sexist-spanish

The Matters w/ Matt: Not My Special Lady Friend

Every Wednesday: I never fail to be disgusted with advice columns. I am unsure why they still get paid to do what they do. As always, I am in awe when it comes to awful examples like Dear Prudence and Dear Abby. The columnists seem to get rewarded for giving you bad advice. I think that people get terrible advice from them. I don’t blame anyone that calls advice column responses garbage. I use my postings to correct these responses and help society by being an utmost asshole, (as always, a hat tip to Aaron Clarey at Asshole Consulting).

Consider this piece from Ask Amy’s column (courtesy of Arcamax) from March 3, 2021:

(Dear Matters):

My husband of 13 years is having boundary issues with a colleague. They became close when he had a depressive episode last year and confided in her instead of me. He said a lot of things to her that made me uncomfortable, including comments about our relationship and our finances.

I read his messages and have proof.

I confessed to him that I read his messages, and we talked about it. He said that he no longer considers her “a friend.”

I am still reading his messages because I don’t trust him, and today I read a reply from him to her where he said he would “love to see her.” He hasn’t told me about it. Hmmm. They aren’t friends? I don’t believe him.

We have a close and intimate partnership otherwise, and I never make him feel unsafe with his issues.

I know they don’t have a physical relationship, but I am sick of being lied to and don’t understand why he can’t just be open with me.

We both have therapists but can’t afford therapy together. I feel like I’ve already done the nuclear option and now I don’t know what else to do. I also know what I am doing is very bad, but I can’t just stop, knowing all this. What now?

– Upset

(Dear Upset):

You are right to be concerned about your relationship. His drifting toward a co-worker is very unhealthy. It is beyond the red flags of an emotional affair.

He is having issues at home and in his personal life that he feels like he can’t discuss with you. Decent evidence lies in what you had mentioned in your letter, specifically your snooping and reading of his messages.

In the worst sense of irony, he is correct to say that he shouldn’t be talking about them with you. He should be talking this over with a close friend or a therapist, preferably a healthy male friend in his life that shows stability.

You should push him to undergo healthy lifestyle changes to include exercise. He needs to return to his mental professional or counselor right away. If he is lacking healthy male friends, I would encourage him to find them. He needs to find better things to focus his energy on.

(Although I am not a lawyer or a mental professional, his work sister connection can end with heartbreak for him. He is at work to work, not to go to therapy. He easily can end it more depressed and feeling worse when his friend turns out to be something unhealthy for him. It is also stepping over professional boundaries and stomping a huge personal bylaw that men should observe: Don’t sh*t where you eat).

I do think that you need to go to therapy alone yourself. You are not 100% healthy enough to be the care taker that you think you are. You do not have the ability to see what you can do to help with the situation. You are a part of the relationship too. The weight is not carried by him alone.

I do wish you luck but I would put the darts down before you think that you don’t have rings on you too.

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I don’t imagine that I will have a shortage of emails to answer. I would love to start doing this for anyone that sends me an email. If this is you; email us at freemattpodcast@gmail.com

If you hate advice columns; I don’t blame you. If it isn’t soft people giving advice; it is someone trying to justify acting like an insensitive asshole. Till next week.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2486541

Why Aren’t Hiroshima and Nagasaki War Crimes? (Reblog)

Although I found this politely dated piece, I found it thought provoking.

My questions for you:

(a) Is the fact that our massive bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki not considered war crimes have anything to do with our winning the war?

(b) What is the cut off for legal brutality in normal combat? Does a new weapon automatically broach this?

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 Jacob G. Hornberger

May 12, 2016

I don’t get it. On the one hand, we’re told that the intentional targeting of civilians in wartime is a war crime. On the other hand, we’re told that the intentional targeting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs was not a war crime.

Which is it?

The issue is back in the news with President Obama’s decision to visit Hiroshima. The question that is being debated is whether he should apologize for President Truman’s decision to order U.S. troops to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

If the targeting of civilians in wartime is okay, then clearly the decision to nuke the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not a war crime.

But if that’s the case, then why was U.S. Army Lt. William Calley prosecuted during the Vietnam War? He’s the officer who intentionally killed several defenseless women and children in a Vietnamese village. The military prosecuted and convicted him of a war crime. Why? If it’s not a war crime to intentionally kill women and children in wartime, then why was Calley prosecuted and convicted of war crimes?

The fact is that it is a war crime for troops to intentionally target non-combatants in wartime. Nobody disputes that. But then given such, why the pass on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Everyone agrees that Truman was targeting non-combatants — mainly women, children, and seniors — when he ordered the nuking of those two cities. How do defenders of Truman’s decision avoid the inexorable conclusion that Truman’s action constituted a war crime?

Their primary argument is that the nuclear bombings of the cities shortened the war, thereby saving the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers who would have died had the war been continued to be waged, especially if an invasion of Japan had been necessary.

That’s in fact the rationale that has been cited for decades by U.S. soldiers who were fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. Many of them have expressed gratitude over the years for what Truman did because it enabled them to live the rest of their natural lives while, otherwise, they might have been killed in subsequent battles.

But there are big problems with that rationale.

For one, the fact that killing non-combatants might or will shorten a war is not a legal defense to the war crime. Suppose Calley had said that his killing of those women and children had shortened the Vietnam War or that he intended to shorten the war by his actions. Would that have constituted a legal defense at his war crimes trial? Or suppose U.S. airmen who have bombed all those wedding parties in Afghanistan were to say, “We did it on purpose because we felt it would shorten the war.” Would they be let off the hook at their war crimes trial?

The answer is: No because that is not a legal defense to the war crime. The law does not say that the crime is excused if it succeeds in shortening the war or if it is intended to shorten the war.

Moreover, once that rationale is accepted, then doesn’t it logically apply to both sides in a war? What’s to prevent an enemy nation from intentionally targeting American non-combatants during war under the rationale that by doing so, it is bringing the war to an early conclusion, thereby saving the lives of many of its soldiers? Once both sides are relying on that rationale, doesn’t that effectively nullify the legal prohibition?

The fact is that soldiers die in war. That’s the nature of war. What’s one to say about a soldier who exclaims, “Thank you for killing those defenseless women, children, and seniors so that I could live out my natural life”? It’s certainly difficult to imagine Gen. George Patton ever saying such a thing. One cannot imagine that Patton would ever have been willing to kill defenseless women, children, and seniors if it meant that the lives of his soldiers would be spared. I think Patton would have said, “Get out there and fight. If you die, so be it. We are not going to kill defenseless women, children, and seniors just so you can live a longer life.”

Some defenders of the nuclear attacks say that since Japan started the war, the Japanese people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki had it coming to them. But since when do individual citizens have much say as to when their nation goes to war or not? How much say did the American people have in George W. Bush’s and the U.S. national-security state’s decision to go to war against Iraq and Afghanistan?

And let’s not forget who intentionally maneuvered, postured, and provoked Japan into attacking the United States, especially with his oil embargo on Japan, his freezing of Japanese bank accounts, and his settlement terms that were deliberately humiliating to Japanese officials. That would be none other than President Franklin Roosevelt, who was willing to sacrifice the soldiers at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines in order to circumvent widespread opposition among the American people to getting involved in World War II. Isn’t there something unsavory about provoking a nation into starting a war and then using that nation’s starting the war to justify nuking its citizens in an attempt to bring the war to a quicker conclusion? Wouldn’t it have been better and less destructive to not have provoked Japan into attacking the United States in the first place?

Defenders of the nuclear attacks also say that Truman had only two choices: nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continuing the war until Japan surrendered. But that’s just not true. There was another option open to Truman — a negotiated surrender. Given Truman’s steadfast insistence, however, on “unconditional surrender” —a ludicrous and destructive position if there ever was one — a negotiated surrender was an option that he refused to explore, choosing instead to kill hundreds of thousands of non-combatants in order to secure his “unconditional surrender” from Japan, which, by the way, turned out to not be “unconditional” after all since Japan was permitted to keep its emperor as part of its surrender.

The real reason why so many Americans still cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the nuclear attacks on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes is their inability or unwillingness to acknowledge that their own government, including their own president and their own military, were capable of committing and actually did commit a grave war crime–the intentional killing of noncombatants consisting primarily of women, children, and seniors. In the minds of many Americans, that’s something only foreign governments are capable of and willing to do, not their own government.

Why Aren’t Hiroshima and Nagasaki War Crimes?

Prelude To A Screw: Another Navy Story

Years ago, feeling uninspired like many of my fellow shipmates were, I found myself in a usual spiral of Groundhog Day proportions. I imagine that I found myself lurking around various places on the ship, enjoying some sun, and basking like a lizard. It wasn’t that I was ultimately lazy, but I was loathed to find some productive to do.

That day end like most. My usual group of suspects would pass along their work status to others through the informal channels. (I heard from that person who said “x”). We made loose plans, and someone had mentioned to have everyone meet up at our usual place, (somewhere where I had previously slept and partied before).

Everyone got cleaned up and did the pow wow. We decided that we were going out to a certain place. This place was somewhere I was fond of, even though the place was occasionally in the news for having patrons that would either get into fights or have some type of ruckus that would get the cops called.

As I always, I was ready to rock. I slammed a few drinks from the place we started at. (Generosity was noted and I had even brought some booze that night). A few of pre-gamed like the best. Someone else was driving and I was not concerned.

We had a decent night at the destination. Food and drinks flowed. Service was decent. Between that place and a neighboring place, I had a shit ton of booze. Damn good bartenders never cut us off.

Like this night, I often was jealous of a friend of mine. This guy had an un natural flow with women and his boyish grin could hypnotize the best of them.

This night was not unlike others. It wasn’t that I was shitty at conversations but I was hit and miss. I wasn’t nervous or anything. I felt like a bluster would seal the deal. I turned to the woman I was talking to and told her that I think we should spend the night together.

Instead of a slap or an exasperation, she politely said to me with a smile:

“I think you are a handsome, intelligent man, but you have had entirely too much to drink. Maybe when we are both sober”

I wasn’t upset but damn did she get my proverbial license plate number on this one. Yeah, it was a great lesson.

Outside of drunk-drunk chicks, the vast majority of women want a man with a nearly full set of cognitive functions. Give them that and they might be more inclined to go with you.

Video Time: A Time To Snitch

Folks, I put together a video. Had a few minutes to record this weekend. Looking to put together an article based commentary episode, possibly using a guest host to help out.

I remind you that to snitch in regards to such “small fries” is ridiculous. To burn because of butthurt is folly!

Why Dominion’s Defamation Lawsuits Are Garbage (Reblog)

Just like Diebold, among others, I dont trust many companies protected by luxurious political connections.

I also dont believe that corporations should have legal protections like people. It is harder to kill a company/corporation. For a person, you just have to end their life.

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02/24/2021 Ryan McMaken

Dominion Voting Systems is suing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for $1.3 billion. This comes in the wake of other Dominion lawsuits against Trump advisors Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. All are accused of lying about Dominion’s supposed complicity in using the company’s vote-counting software to favor presidential candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

The company claims Lindell’s accusations “have caused irreparable harm to Dominion’s good reputation and threatened the safety of our employees and customers.” In the case of Giuliani, the company claims: “For Dominion—whose business is producing and providing voting systems for elections—there are no accusations [other than Giuliani’s claims of fraud and election fixing] that could do more to damage Dominion’s business or to impugn Dominion’s integrity, ethics, honesty, and financial integrity.”

Behind all of this is the usual logic of a defamation lawsuit. Dominion’s owners are concerned that Lindell, Giuliani, and Powell have cost the company money by saying things that could potentially hurt Dominion financially.

It’s entirely possible that Dominion may have a case, at least legally speaking. Dominion is nominally a private company. But will need to prove the usual elements of a defamation suit, namely, that Lindell et al. made false statements about Dominion and that they knew these statements were false. Dominion must also show it suffered damages.

Fortunately, this is very difficult to do in American courts. This is especially true for government officials and “public figures” of any kind. In those cases, a plaintiff must also prove that the defamation was committed with malicious intent and recklessness.

This presents a very high legal standard to meet. And rightly so.

In any case, a respect for freedom of speech would render most, if not all, defamation suits null and void. As I’ve noted in the past, defamation law opens a Pandora’s box of legal strategies that can be employed to silence people the regime and its allies find to be inconvenient.

In the case of Dominion Voting Systems, however, the company should not be able to sue for defamation at all. This is because Dominion is a private company in name only, and in reality is a de facto government agency.

Governments (in America) Can’t Sue for Defamation

In the 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan, the US Supreme Court concluded:

For good reason, “no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the American system of jurisprudence.”

The reasons for this should be obvious. Government agencies enjoy monopoly privileges and are funded through the coercive collection of taxes. Even the most blue-pilled regime sympathizer can probably see the danger that arises from also granting this monopolistic agency the right to sue people for criticizing it. After all, the liberal notion of “free speech” was codified in documents like the Bill of Rights primarily for the purposes of ensuring critics of the regime would be legally immune from the regime’s attempts to retaliate.

This brings us to “private” organizations like Dominion.

In its lawsuits against Lindell, Giuliani, and Powell, the company is proceeding as if it were just another private company. The basic claim is “we’re just a poor, innocent group of entrepreneurs being defamed!”

But “private” is clearly not an appropriate term for describing a company like Dominion. And “entrepreneurship” has very little to do with it. This is a company that is overwhelmingly geared toward serving only government agencies and performing what can only be described as government services. Dominion provides ballot-counting software and related services. Its only “clients” are apparently government agencies. As such, Dominion’s revenue comes from tax revenue. The company and its founders are not “entrepreneurial” in any sense except in the sense of a “political entrepreneur,” who seeks profit through government subsidies and contracts. The company does not interact in a free and open marketplace where real customers exchange money with the company in exchange for a good or service. Rather, taxpayers are forced to support Dominion through taxation, and taxpayers have no meaningful say in whether or not they “pay” Dominion. In short, the relationship between Dominion and the people who ultimately fund Dominion is one of coercion and exploitation.

In this sense, Dominion is like many other de facto government agencies which rather unconvincingly claim to be “private” in any sense other than the legal. One such example is Academi—formerly known as Blackwater—which supplies mercenary troops and related services to government agencies. The company was founded and managed by former CIA agents and other bureaucrats who presumably wanted to cash in the on the lucrative business of government contracts. Academi’s revenue has overwhelmingly come through these contracts, and as such, it is funded by the sweat and toil of the taxpayer.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped Academi’s founder, Erik Prince, from ridiculously claiming to be some sort of free market entrepreneur.

We might also point to other “private” companies that cater to governments. This would include weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, or even road construction companies whose business plan is based around construction of government projects.

It’s not unusual to encounter engineers and owners from companies like these who make snide remarks about “government bureaucrats.” In truth, these people are only describing themselves. If their income comes primarily from tax dollars, they are de facto government employees.

Naturally, we could see the danger that arises from allowing these companies to sue their detractors for defamation. For example, given that Academi has been a key component of the brutal and bloody US occupation of Iraq, many critics have claimed over the years that Academi has murdered countless Iraqis. Are such statements defamation? A court could agree. Were Academi to sue such critics, though, the company would just be using tax dollars to sue taxpayers for daring to criticize an agency carrying out government policy.

This is also true of Dominion when it attempts to sue critics for defamation.

So, was Dominion defamed by its critics? Who cares? This should be considered of no more importance than whether or not the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) is being defamed when critics of the Waco massacre contend that federal agents murdered Branch Davidian women and children. Allowing a government agency to sue in such cases would be a direct assault on free speech and the freedom to verbally attack perceived abuses by the regime.

De facto government agencies like Dominion (or Academi or Raytheon) should not be allowed to pose as legitimate private companies deserving of private sector legal protections. If they don’t like it, these firms can get in the business of offering real, voluntary services in the marketplace sans the taxpayer largesse.

https://mises.org/wire/why-dominions-defamation-lawsuits-are-garbage

Your Small Part In Taking Pride

It was a nasty and rainy day in our neck of the woods. The weather made it somewhat depressing. We were on our way to attend an all start basketball tournament that a family member’s team had been invited to. A few of the low-lying roads near a regionally important river were swamped. A local smokie warned us with his flashing lights to avoid part of the flooded road.

We made it to the basketball gym, located at a rec center in the middle of nowhere. I don’t remember seeing a school nearby, but this place wasn’t near a whole of anything. The building was dirty and old. The parking lot was no better. The doors didn’t seem to keep anyone in or out. It was a sad looking place.

I walked inside and found a place to sit on the bleachers, which looked like something that Snuffy Smith took pride in before “that sunavabitch Johnson ruined everything”. The floor was filthy for a basketball court. There was trash near the walls and divots where disrespectful idiots marred the veneers that made the surface.

I watched one of the yokel rec teams play the family member’s team. Uneventful, outside of some of the inbred looking people that came in from the back forty. But I was surprised by one thing. In the middle of the floor was this grass ball/chewing tobacco/horse puck looking object.

My father had noticed  a few of the players almost trip on it. He tried to get someone’s attention but none of the staff were available. There seemed to be a lack of staff around and of course the locals overlooked this. He ran on to the court and grabbed the trip hazard, pitching it out of everyone’s way. (I could tell he was mad).

My main reason in bringing up his actions was that I had learned from early on that taking just a little pride in your surroundings or your life means something. To my dad, an unscuffed putting green or a well “swepped” ball court meant something. I saw this in his attitude about changing lightbulbs too. It wasn’t his job but it was his surroundings.

(I saw this in my mother also. She would tidy up and make beds where she worked, although it would have been the proper thing to call housekeeping to do so. Her eyes had a different reaction when she spoke about leaving the room ready for someone else. I would dare to say that the room was no longer in a state of flux but ready to be handed over to the people that needed it the most).

I found myself sweeping our massive floor the other day. It isn’t anyone’s job but it is my small piece of my workplace. It is my small opportunity to show pride, not like the people that owned the basketball court.

New Video/Update From The Underground Bunker

Guys, I started making a few videos. Hoping to get some articles together and put some commentary together. Possibly get a Zoom together with someone.

Enjoy the current events and newsworthy video content when you can. Travel may be amongst us.

Billionaire Charitable Giving A “Capitalist PR Scam”, Says CEO Who Slashed His Own Pay By $1 Million (Reblog)

Getting attention and patting yourself on the back is often the goal for a lot of charitable giving.

The irony is that this includes conservative business owners/investors and the liberal counterparts as well.

It is one thing that giving at the smallest level does more for those that need it. But it is another if the person handing out money might not care for what the goals of the charitable are.

Please ponder these concerns when you feel your heart tugged while reading news reports.

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Courtesy of Tyler Durden @ Zero Hedge

The CEO of credit-card processing company Gravity Payments, Dan Price, has not only cut his own pay by $1 million and raised his employees minimum salary to $70,000 per year, but he’s also blowing the whistle on “charitable” giving by billionaires.

Billionaire philanthropy is “one of capitalism’s biggest PR scams”, Price proclaimed, according to the Daily Mail. He noted that the average billionaire donates only 1% of their worth to charity each year. Another estimate from Giving USA has put that number closer to 2%.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1363603074984669193&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Fbillionaire-charitable-giving-capitalist-pr-scam-says-ceo-who-slashed-his-own-pay-1-million%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2Bzerohedge%252Ffeed%2B%2528zero%2Bhedge%2B-%2Bon%2Ba%2Blong%2Benough%2Btimeline%252C%2Bthe%2Bsurvival%2Brate%2Bfor%2Beveryone%2Bdrops%2Bto%2Bzero%2529&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px

His comments come in the midst of supporting a bill that would increase taxes on wealthy business owners like him. HB 1406 proposes a net worth tax that would apply a 1% levy to anyone with a net worth over $1 billion. Price thinks the bill could help the state’s budget shortfalls and correct a broken tax system where low income households pay too much. 

Charitable giving “helps them avoid having to face steeper bills,” 36 year old Price said. Price became a millionaire at the age of 31.

“The average billionaire donates 1% of their fortune to charity yearly – less than non-billionaires. But when you donate $200 you don’t get glowing articles, a hospital named after you and a massive tax write off,” Price wrote on Twitter this week.

“In reality, the amount they donate is a fraction of what they would pay if their tax rates were in line with the working class,” Price said.

He also shares a link to an article showing the top charitable contributions of 2020. The name at the top of that list was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, but alas, his “increase in donations did not correspond with his increase in wealth,” the Daily Mail reported. Bezos’ net worth is now approaching $200 billion and the new proposed tax could cost him $2 billion per year. 

In 2020, he pledged $10 billion to the Bezos Earth Fund – his fund to combat climate change. He also donated $100 million to Feeding America.

Price become a celebrity in 2015 when he announced that he was raising the minimum wage at his Seattle headquarters to $70,000 per year and taking a nearly million dollar pay cut so that his salary could match his staff’s. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/billionaire-charitable-giving-capitalist-pr-scam-says-ceo-who-slashed-his-own-pay-1-million?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29