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I hope this isn’t true about John Oliver’s medical debt forgiveness

In short, here’s what happened. As part of his segment on debt collectors, Oliver formed his own debt-collection company. Through that company, he then bought just under $15 million in medical debt — the debt of about 9,000 people — for $60,000. Once that debt had been bought, Oliver forgave it. Then, in a moment of self-adulation, he showered the stage with dollar bills as a symbol of his good act.

OK, it’s an intern at National Review writing this so details, details.

But if it was a company forgiving that debt than those whose debt was forgiven owe taxes on that debt forgiveness.

If it were a charity or an individual making a charitable act then they don’t. But corporations are assumed, unless otherwise detailed, to be operating for profit. And a for profit organisation forgiving debt is income to the debtor who gains that forgiveness. And taxable income too.

I do hope that Oliver got this the right way around.

Update: Apparently he donated it to a charity that then forgave it. So, settled then.

Stepping very close to the libel law here Aditya

But then, Green is used to cherry-picking which rules he plays by. Take this example: he buys Arcadia, the company that owns Topshop, then arranges for it to give his wife a dividend of £1.2bn. Since Tina Green is, conveniently, a resident of Monaco, the tax savings on that one payment alone are worth an estimated £300m.

Well, no, not really.

As The Guardian pointed out in a correction:

The following correction was printed in the Guardian’s Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday November 9 2004

Philip Green, the retailer, has asked us to point out that contrary to the impression given in the headline of this article, Arcadia has at all times been owned by his wife since the business was acquired in 2002.

Tsk.

Paul Mason’s cure for the British economy

So, if you want to prevent wealth flowing from productive people to the elite, you have to restructure the economy. You have to stop believing £24m annual paydays are the result of an accident. You have to make property speculation a crime and pursue policies that can suppress boom and bust, whether it is in the property market, the stock market or any other market.

And you have to tax assets, not just income. Executive pay is structured around share options, not just salaries and bonuses, because it is more “tax efficient”. A tax on shares held; a tax on the value of property designed to stop it rising faster than GDP – these are the measures that would actually work. Plus, make a positive case for rent controls.

If Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour can become the first advanced-country government to suppress the causes of obscene executive pay, it will reap a massive first-mover advantage. The property market will stabilise; housing will become affordable as billionaires – foreign and domestic – take their money elsewhere. The stock market then will move in line with the real economy, not the fantasy economy created by a shortage of housing and a glut of money.

Finally, the overpaid elite will drag their sorrows through the world to another jurisdiction. Personally, I cannot wait to see them go.

Err, yes, yes.

Let’s drive capital out of the country then Paul. Because, you know, it never does anything and we’ll not miss it when it’s gone.

Anyone remember the last time we had socialists in charge? They had to ban capital from leaving the country because it did actually make a difference…..

How long before this is asserted as fact?

The property tycoons Nick and Christian Candy have been accused of tax evasion in the high court,

My reading, my opinion, of this is that someone they lent money to is wriggling. And throwing around accusations. But I doubt it will take until the end of the day for me to see a statement that the Candys have already been found guilty of all sorts of nefarities.

Seriously, do note that it’s a claim in a civil case.

Wonder if that house in Ely is going to get smaller again?

Well, yes, this is true of course

Grumbling Green needs to understand he’s not dealing with a legal process
Nils Pratley

The work and pensions committee just wants to ask some legitimate questions and they can say what they like – that’s showbiz

As long as we all recall that Frank is doing showbusiness then we’ll be fine. As was Margaret, Lady Hoxa when she was at the PAC.

And as long, of course, as we don’t get ruled by theatre.

The disproof is contained within the proof

The fourth thing we can do is to support the link between science and government. Now more than ever science needs to underpin decision-making in all facets of society.

No one person or segment of society can claim to be totally free of bias and self-interest, and scientists are no exception. However, the checks and balances within the scientific community are stringent and tend to weed out ideas that are not based on rigorous evaluation and testing of competing hypotheses.

Government provides funding for this process in the way of scientific research into societal concerns, such as economic or environmental. The outcomes of that research are made freely available and should provide the basis for decision-making.

We’ve tried that rule by experts thing before. Didn’t work out well to be honest.

But within the same article we have this:

It is beyond question now that the three greatest threats to coral reefs worldwide are overfishing, pollution, and climate change. For the first two, there are tangible ways to affect positive outcomes by management of coastal zones, and through fisheries management.

But many scientists believe that even with these “local” efforts, and the observation that healthy ecosystems are better equipped to deal with thermal stress than disturbed ones, global climate change can quickly overwhelm even the best managed reefs. Part of any strategy to save coral reefs is to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to do it now. The COP21 conference agreement in Paris late last year provided a glimmer of hope by recognising that limiting global warming to 1.5C represents our best hope at maintaining ecosystems.

Australia has a special responsibility to cut emissions as the 2016 and earlier bleaching events illustrate that global warming has already had a huge negative effect on the Great Barrier Reef. But we also have a unique opportunity to play a global leading role by keeping coal in the ground and refusing foreign investors to develop what will amount to substantial increases in global CO2 gas emissions.

So the second thing Australia needs to do is to place a moratorium on coal – greenhouse gases need to be cut now, and Australia can play a vital role.

The actual science here says that over some number of decades to come it might be a good idea for us to reduce our fossil fuel emissions. That’s a fair distillation of the IPCC reports. A scientific analysis of what we are doing would also show that that is what we are doing. A1FI, RCP 8.5, we’ve already taken measures to make sure that neither of those pathways will actually happen.

COP21, an entirely political process, might well call for more. But that’s not exactly science, is it? And it’s entirely contrary to the economic science in the Stern Review. Which flat out states that a temperature target is not the right way to do this, but a cost/benefit target is. Further, that the correct way to get to a cost/benefit target is to tax emissions, not use regulatory means.

Thus we find that this appeal to science is actually an appeal to YOU DAMN PROLES DO WHAT I TELL YOU TO DO AND DO IT NOW YOU BASTARDS.

Which is why that rule by experts didn’t work out all that well when we tried it before.

This one puzzles me

Human-caused climate change appears to have driven the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species into the history books, with the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that lives on a tiny island in the eastern Torres Strait, being completely wiped-out from its only known location.

Marsupials are of course mammals. Rodents are not marsupials. And Australia is rather famous for not having rodents but for having marsupials.

So, first order thought would be that this was an introduced species in the first place.

Second order thought is that this might not be quite true up around the Torres Strait and Cape York. Because that’s where those two biospheres, the one with rodents in and the one with marsupials in, sorta meet. Umm, maybe: as you can tell I’m not claiming expertise here.

Third thought is that any species which lives only on one 5 hectare (or whatever) island isn’t going to have a long run as a species. You only need a bit of erosion and it’s gone. Or a decent tsunami or summat.

Not quite the importance to it that some are claiming then I would have thought.

It is also the first recorded extinction of a mammal anywhere in the world thought to be primarily due to human-caused climate change.

Unconvinced to put it mildly.

Aha! Via twatter, I am enlightened:

The small population size means genetic drift, disease and introduced species all pose a threat to the species.

Habitat loss via erosion of the cay is the single most important threat, particularly given that sea levels are predicted to rise thanks to climate change. Bramble Cay is by no means stable. Between 1958 and 1987, the cay decreased in size; but in 2011 it had returned to a size comparable to 1958.

While the size of the cay varies, the vegetation on it is shrinking, and this might be the main cause of the melomys’ decline.

Climate change and rising sea levels not so much then perhaps?

Mass slaughter is the same as being against marriage equality

The hesitancy in certain quarters, including rightwing British pundits on TV as well as American reactionaries, to label this as a homophobic hate crime, plain and simple, at first blush appears puzzling. After all, the standard script these days for political leaders immediately after a terrorist atrocity almost anywhere in the west involves describing an assault on “our values and way of life”, defined to include a degree of tolerance and an aversion to persecuting anybody on grounds of sexuality. The bullishness with which this tolerance is asserted, however, may sometimes be about compensating for the shallowness of its roots. In the UK, for example, Whitehall makes an entirely appropriate stand against bullying laws that Vladimir Putin signs against supposed “pro-gay” propaganda, and yet as recently as the late 1980s the British government was itself drafting statutes purely to spread smears, through the notorious section 28. Indeed, large numbers of serving Conservative MPs declined to back its repeal as recently as 2003. Even more recently, in the last parliament, very many MPs, including a plurality of the Tories, voted against equal civil marriage for gay people.

So, children, can we all say “false equivalence“?

Columnist in barking mad claim

The Orlando shooting grew out of everyday homophobia – we cannot be complacent
RUTH HUNT
STONEWALL CEO

No, no it wasn’t.

You’ve got to claim so because everything Stonewall was set up to achieve has been achieved. But there’s a bureaucracy looking for paycheques which remains and demands to be fed. Thus ludicrous claims.

Everyday homophobia is at about the level of gingerism these days. This specific shooting grew out of an attachment to a pre-medieval religious cult.

Columnist in false equivalence shocker

Islam does have a problem with homosexuality. But so do western conservatives
TIM STANLEY

Err, yeah.

It’s almost exactly two centuries since Britain executed more people for homosexual acts (being homosexual has never been a crime) than it did for murder in the one year. Probably shouldn’t have done that back then but we’re certainly not going to so that now, are we? As opposed to Isis throwing people off buildings……

The definition of “problem” is doing a lot of work there, isn’t it?

Quite lovely logic here, just quite lovely

House builders are not going to do that: Persimmon convincingly evidences today that restricting supply is in their own best interests.

So, let us go and look at the link Ritchie tells us proves this.

A leading City investor has called on housebuilder Persimmon to cut back an executive pay plan that could see the management share £600m over the next five years.
The scheme is one of the largest ever at a FTSE 100 company outside banking.
The biggest beneficiary will be chief executive Jeff Fairburn, who could earn more than £100m.
Mike Fox, from Royal London Asset Management, said the payments were too high “in all circumstances”.
He called on the board to show restraint in the light of the housing crisis and government support for the housebuilding industry.
When the scheme was put in place, the housing market had begun to recover from the 2008 recession. About 150 managers were given the opportunity to earn shares worth up to 10% of the company’s total value, provided they hit tough targets on returning money to investors.
The company recently said it was running well ahead of those targets, and analysts say it is likely the scheme will pay out in full. Persimmon shares have more than tripled in value since the incentive plan was put in place, rising from £6.20 to about £20.

Hmm, so, executives incentivised to deliver profits to shareholders. We might think of this as a solution to the principal agent problem but it’s difficult to see why this means that the company won’t be building housing.

The company has defended the payouts, saying that since the scheme was put in place. Persimmon has increased the number of new homes it builds by half and invested more than £2bn in new land.

So it’s built more housing and stuck even more money into land to build yet more housing.

This proves that not building more housing is in the best interests of private market actors, does it?

Just where is it that he buys his logic from? Because I want some. With this sort of thing I could prove to my wife that having a girlfriend was my being even more faithful than monogamy.

Like Fuck

Britain’s authority within EU will rise after “In” vote: PM Cameron
Britain’s influence in the European Union will be stronger if it votes to remain in the bloc in a June 23 referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday with the latest polls showing Britons almost evenly split over whether to stay or go.

That’s not how negotiations go is it?

“I’m leaving unless you….”

And then you don’t leave and they then, well, do they or don’t they? You’ve bottled it so they know they’ve got you over a barrel of course.

So which way around does this work then?

An actress who played a prostitute in Game of Thrones is actually a real-life hooker who charges up to £900 for her services, it has been revealed.
Saeeda Vorajee, 41, starred in the first two series of the hit show as a prostitute called Armeca where she took part in a controversial lesbian sex scene and acted alongside Jerome Flynn.

Is it that there are no actresses who can convincingly play a tart and therefore they got someone in who isn’t acting? Or is it that she’s a good actress who just has different venues for her performances?

She’s got a point

But when it came to citing the split on the grounds of his suspected adultery – although there was no evidence of infidelity – she was stunned to discover that the law says adultery can only happen between a man and a woman.
She told Sheron Boyle for the Sunday Mirror: ‘I’ve always believed he cheated. The law now accepts same-sex marriage.
‘Divorce needs to adjust for same-sex affairs.’
Sara added: ‘The law is out of sync with 21st century life.’
Instead, the couple reluctantly agreed to divorce in January for ‘unreasonable behaviour’.
Now the mother-of-three is campaigning for a change in the divorce rules, demanding that the process should be the same for all marriages.

More amusingly, is it the same the other way around? A heterosexual shag is not adultery in a homosexual marriage?

The assault rifle used in Orlando

When Omar Mateen entered an Orlando, Florida, nightclub on Sunday to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in US history, he wielded a weapon that has been used in massacres from California to Connecticut: a military-inspired semi-automatic rifle.

Though so-called assault rifles account for a small fraction of the United States’ 30,000 annual gun deaths, they have been used in at least 10 mass shootings since 2011, according to a database compiled by Mother Jones magazine.

Hmm.

The AR-15 was developed from the US military’s M-16 rifle, used in the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Unlike the military version, the AR-15 is not fully automatic, meaning users must pull the trigger each time they want to fire a shot. Like the military version, many AR-15s combine light weight with a relatively modest recoil.

OK:

An assault rifle is a fully automatic selective-fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine.

So it’s not an assault weapon then?

Err, what?

Researchers from the Universities of Coventry and Warwick placed Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped presenter Matt Tebbutt in a metabolic ‘calorie chamber’, which measured every calorie burned while he was fed celery over a 12-hour period.
He was fed 326 grams of raw celery and a celery smoothie, both worth 53 calories.
The results showed he burned 72 calories while eating the solid celery and 112 calories drinking the liquidised celery.

Surely there’s more to it than this.

How many calories were the expecting him to use over 12 hours to begin with? More than 106?