Douyin users criticize 'baiting crowd' for egging on Chinese influencer's livestream suicide



Bryan Ke
Mon, October 25, 2021

A Douyin influencer who livestreamed her suicide has prompted other users to question the social media platform’s prevention efforts and the “baiting crowd” phenomenon on China’s version of TikTok.

What happened: Luo Xiao Maomao, 25, posted a video on Douyin on the afternoon of Oct. 14, where she explained that she had been severely depressed and “had reached her lowest point,” according to SupChina.

Luo thanked her more than 760,000 fans “for everything,” adding that the video would probably be the last one she would publish. “If you want to know why I said that, come watch my livestream later,” Luo continued.

During the fashion influencer’s livestream later that day, around 1,200 viewers witnessed her drink a bottle of pesticide, which led some of them to debate whether her actions were serious or a stunt.

Luo eventually grabbed her throat, unable to stop gagging

The influencer reportedly turned off her camera and called an ambulance. She was later taken to a hospital, where she died the following day.

Cry for help: Following the news of her death, some social media users wondered if it could have been prevented had Douyin intervened after Luo’s post that afternoon.

Some netizens even condemned those who indirectly caused her death and called them “cold-blooded murderers.” One Weibo user said the livestream was Luo’s final cry for help and called the people who urged her to commit suicide “pure monsters.”

Doudou Rongyi E, a Douyin user who was a close friend of Luo, revealed that it was not her intention to end her life during that livestream. She was allegedly trying to catch the attention of her ex-boyfriend, Zhào Ruòlín, Global Times reported via 8Days.

Zhào, a basketball player, has over 2 million followers on Douyin. According to Doudou, Luo became the target of the basketball player's envious female fans after they began dating. Luo tried to reconcile her relationship with Zhào since their breakup over the summer.

Comments during Luo’s livestream included “Oh, my God” and “Good for you” as she showed difficulty breathing. One user, who has been banned on Douyin following Luo’s death, wrote, "Haha, you really did it" after she drank the pesticide.

Luo’s death is another case of "baiting crowd," a form of phenomenon where a group of unified anger that people have toward another person threatening to commit actions such as self-harm and suicide. A similar incident went viral in 2018 when people cheered for a sexual assault victim after she jumped from a building to her death in Qingyang, Gansu Province, China.

Criticism: Other netizens also questioned Douyin’s delayed response in preventing the suicide from happening. The platform has an option that lets users report "harmful content" that may promote self-harm or suicide.

A Zhihu user allegedly reported the video to Douyin that afternoon, but moderators deemed that the post was not against its community guidelines. However, Douyin retracted its initial decision 12 hours after Luo’s last livestream.

The social media platform asserted its stance against harassment and bullying in its statement shared after Luo’s death. It also released a list of banned accounts that failed to follow its community guidelines.

Luo is the fourth Chinese influencer known to have died since July 2021, The Independent Singapore reported.

Featured Image via Sohu

Lev Parnas Is a Reminder—and Warning—of Trump’s Sleazy Corruption

The Ukrainian-American businessman, convicted last week of campaign finance violations, was in the background of Trump’s first impeachment.

by KIMBERLY WEHLE

THE BULWARK
OCTOBER 25, 2021 5:30 AM

Lev Parnas walks into the Southern District of New York Courthouse on December 2, 2019 in New York City. A business associate of President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Parnas accused of conspiring to make illegal contributions to political committees supporting President Donald Trump and other Republicans, and wanting to use the donations to lobby U.S. politicians to support the removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. (Photo by Scott Heins/Getty Images)

Buried in last week’s news was the conviction by a Manhattan jury of Lev Parnas for arranging over $350,000 in illegal campaign donations to two pro-Trump super PACs and a Republican member of Congress in 2018. Parnas is a Ukrainian national who, according to former House Intelligence Committee counsel Daniel Goldman, resided “in the underbelly of the Ukraine story” that gave rise to Donald Trump’s first impeachment, and who operated as “[Rudy] Giuliani’s liaison to a lot of the significant officials in Ukraine.”

Giuliani, you’ll recall, was in 2018 and 2019 acting as Trump’s personal lawyer—or really more of a fixer. With an eye on the 2020 presidential race and the expectation that Joe Biden would be a serious rival to Trump, Giuliani sought to persuade Ukrainian officials in 2019 to open a criminal investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The events culminated in Trump’s infamous July 2019 “quid pro quo” phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Compared to some of the intervening political crises, Trump’s pressuring Ukraine to announce a criminal investigation into Biden seems almost quaint, but less than two years ago it led to his first impeachment on abuse of power charges.

Today, Trump seems more emboldened than ever to secure power—dangling the possibility of another presidential run in front of the slavering, sycophantic Republican party. Parnas, however, faces prison time. It is worth taking a moment to revisit the basis of the charges against Parnas—which did not arise from his dealings with Giuliani—as a reminder of the kinds of corruption that surround Trump.

Federal law bans foreign donations to campaigns, and also requires public reporting to the Federal Election Commission of contributions and expenditures made in connection with federal elections. The Department of Justice indicted Parnas and three co-conspirators—Igor Fruman, David Correia, and Andrey Kukushkin—for allegedly having made false statements to the FEC, falsified records, conspired to defraud the United States by using a phony corporation to make campaign donations and by wiring hundreds of thousands of foreign-sourced dollars through a bank account under Fruman’s control. The straw company was called Global Energy Producers, a purported liquefied natural gas import-export business that Parnas incorporated with Fruman around the time of their illegal campaign contributions on behalf of a Russian financier who sought political influence to further his business interests in the U.S. marijuana industry.

Correia—who also has business ties to Giuliani—pleaded guilty in October 2020. Last month, Fruman pleaded guilty to soliciting donations from a foreign national, but made no agreement to testify against the others as part of his plea deal. Parnas and Kukushkin pleaded not guilty to all the charges and on Friday they were convicted at trial.

In January 2020, Parnas told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Trump “knew exactly what was going on” with Giuliani in Ukraine, and that former Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General William Barr were also “in the loop.” In July of this year, new audio was leaked of a 2019 phone call between Giuliani, former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, and Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Zelensky. In the forty-minute recording, Giuliani is captured saying: “All we need from the President [Zelensky] is to say, I’m gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he’s gonna investigate and dig up the evidence, that presently exists and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out.”

It should go without saying that it’s bad for the American system of government if a sitting president can use his unparalleled national security, law enforcement, financial, and diplomatic power to strongarm his way into more time in office. Yet that’s precisely what Donald Trump tried to do, and thus far there has been zero accountability for it. He was impeached, but Senate Republicans blocked his conviction. Far from distancing itself from him because of his Ukraine malversation, the GOP has stuck with Trump through the pandemic, through his attempt to steal the election, through the riot he incited at the Capitol, and through the first ten months of his conspiracy-theory-spreading ex-presidency.

Lest we forget, eleven other close associates were charged with crimes in connection with Donald Trump’s presidency, including Steve Bannon (fundraising fraud and now possibly criminal contempt of Congress); Tom Barrack (providing illegal intelligence to UAE officials); Elliott Broidy (conspiracy involving secret lobbying); Michael Cohen (illegal hush money payments on Trump’s behalf); Michael Flynn (lying to the FBI); Rick Gates (concealing funds relating to Ukraine lobbying work); Paul Manafort (conspiracy to obstruct justice); George Nader (sex crimes involving minors); George Papadopoulos (lying to investigators); Roger Stone (lying to Congress and threatening a witness); and Allen Weisselberg (tax crimes). Trump pardoned Manafort, Papadopoulos, and Stone.

And that’s just the old crowd. A younger generation of Trump-supporting Republicans, who have for the last five years seen Trump’s lies and corruption without punishment as the norm, is coming up behind them. This is the slate of villains, both familiar and new, who could be expected to populate a second Trump administration in 2025.

In an interview for my YouTube show SimplePolitics, Ruth Ben-Ghiat—a professor at New York University, author of the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, and expert in fascism, global autocracy, and propaganda—described “a great sense of dread” watching Trump on the campaign trail back in 2015. Although “classic fascism is a one-party state with no opposition of any sort” that uses “a combination of propaganda and repression and corruption to rule,” she explained, to think of Trump’s initial entry into politics as fascism would be a mistake. Benito Mussollini led a democracy for three years, and only slowly chipped away at it over time. Said Ben-Ghiat: “Today, it’s incremental. . . . It’s evolution and not revolution.”

What she saw “very tragically” in four years of Trump was “a shift from a culture that supports the rule of a law to a culture of corruption, a culture that supports violence, and a culture that supports lawlessness basically. Because the essence of authoritarianism is getting away with things.” Time and again, conservative elites have looked at figures like Trump and thought “that they’re going to dominate and control this outsider, this hothead, and instead the opposite happens.” Likewise, Trump “got ahold of the GOP and they were ready for a person like him. And then he instituted a kind of an authoritarian-style party discipline.”

Ben-Ghiat mapped out the next stage of democracy’s death, whereby authoritarians populate government with “zealots,” “sycophants,” and “people who are going to do your bidding.” (“The Nazis and the fascists used to hire criminals,” she added, “because they were more easy to corrupt.”) Then, once they’re in power, “the law becomes weaponized by these modern autocrats. And they use less overt mass violence and more use of regulatory codes, fiscal codes, tax codes. So they have armies of lawyers working for them. And that’s how they get at their enemies.”

Parnas’s case—the sleazy corruption and foreign influence in U.S. politics—is a reminder of what Trump administration’s was. But it’s also a harbinger of what a second Trump term might be, if Democrats in Congress and Merrick Garland at the helm of DOJ don’t avail themselves of every ounce of political and legal capital to save democracy. The clock is ticking.

Kimberly Wehle is a contributor to The Bulwark. She is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, a former assistant U.S. attorney and associate independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, and the author of How to Read the Constitution—and Why (HarperCollins). Her latest book is What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why (HarperCollins). Twitter: @kimwehle.

Climate migration doesn’t have to be a crisis

Mike Bebernes
·Senior Editor
Mon, October 25, 2021
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debate

What’s happening

The Biden administration on Wednesday released a report that predicts climate change will force “tens of millions” of people around the world to be displaced in the next few decades. The report echoes the findings of a number of previous studies that suggest worsening climate impacts — sudden disasters like fires and storms, plus more gradual problems like rising seas and drought — could displace as many as 200 million people before 2050.

Climate change affects the whole world, but the citizens of certain low-income countries everywhere from Central America to sub-Saharan Africa are especially vulnerable to climate-related displacement. Beyond the harm of millions of people being forced from their homes, climate migration could threaten the stability of resource-strained countries and increase the risk of conflict between nations, according to a separate national security assessment released this week.

While estimates paint a particularly dire picture of the future, some of the effects of climate displacement are already being felt around the world. The United Nations estimates that an average of 21.5 million people worldwide are displaced by sudden disasters every year. Droughts and storms in Central America are believed to be one of many reasons for an influx of migrants heading to the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. The Syrian civil war, which has created a devastating humanitarian crisis and displaced more than 13 million people over the past 10 years, has been partially attributed to a drought that forced rural farmers to flood into urban areas.
Why there’s debate

As worrying as some forecasts of the future are, a range of experts say that with the right preparation and investment, climate migration can be managed to limit suffering and prevent countries from falling into chaos.

A key step, most experts argue, is for rich countries like the U.S. to do everything within their power to prevent people from being forced to migrate in the first place. That starts with limiting greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Doing so would reduce the potential severity of storms, droughts and other factors that drive people from their homes. Rich countries also need to offer aid to poorer countries to adapt to climate change — for example, helping low-income countries build infrastructure to handle higher sea levels and stronger storm surges and dealing with major population shifts within their borders, since most climate migrants relocate to new areas of their home countries.

Many also argue the U.S. will need to update its immigration system to prepare for the unique challenges of managing climate migration. Some immigrant rights activists say climate displacement should be added to the list of reasons a person can qualify for refugee status. That’s controversial on both the left and the right. There’s broad agreement among experts, though, that a more permissive immigration system — with less focus on aggressive border enforcement and more pathways to enter the country legally — could not only prevent unnecessary suffering, but also create benefits for the U.S. economy.
What’s next

Climate migration is expected to be one of many important issues discussed by world leaders at the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Representatives from nearly 200 countries will meet over the course of two weeks in hopes of reaching an agreement on an emissions reduction strategy to avert the worst potential impacts of climate change.
Perspectives

Strict immigration enforcement isn’t the answer

“States that have grown addicted and accustomed to solving problems with walls and weapons are acting to news of climate-linked mobility by trying to repel people, hoping to insulate themselves. ... Not only will this cause ever more human suffering, it will fail on its own terms.” — Todd Miller, Independent

Fear-inducing rhetoric about the threat of climate migration must end

“When most people think of ‘climate’ and ‘immigration,’ they think at the global scale — which can be scary. The idea that a changing, increasingly inhospitable climate will drive mass migration is frightening. ... But migration is, and has always been, a form of adaptation — and it can be a major benefit to receiving communities.” — Claire Elise Thompson, Grist

Immigration laws need to be updated to recognize climate displacement

“A lack of lawful migration opportunities forces many of those moving for climate-related reasons to do so without authorisation and at risk of exploitation and abuse. But solutions are within our grasp.” — Tamara Wood and Edwin Abuya, Thomson Reuters Foundation

With the right planning, climate migrants can help the U.S. thrive

“Migration can bring great opportunity not just to migrants but also to the places they go. As the United States and other parts of the global North face a demographic decline, for instance, an injection of new people into an aging work force could be to everyone’s benefit.” — Abrahm Lustgarten, New York Times

The U.S. must provide extensive support for vulnerable countries

“The best deterrent to migration is hope. We must provide the leadership that allows the people

in our own hemisphere the chance to survive and prosper at home.” — Cecilia Muñoz, The Hill

Climate shouldn’t be treated as the only reason people leave their homes

“In general, illegal border crossings can be traced to any number of factors: job opportunities, drug trafficking, political shifts, and, yes, climate change. There’s nothing wrong with bringing attention to these issues by examining them in print. But to solve a problem, you have to properly define it first. We can and should address the border crisis and climate change at the same time. But conflating the two only makes that task more difficult.” — Sean-Michael Pigeon, National Review

Limiting climate change will reduce the need for climate migration in the first place

“The most useful thing that the developed countries of the West can do to help endangered societies elsewhere is to rapidly limit our own carbon emissions — for if we fail to do so and temperatures rise uncontrollably, then weak states around the world will assuredly fail.” — Anatol Lieven, Foreign Policy

We should start helping people relocate before their situation becomes desperate

“Real change — like relocating entire neighborhoods and communities out of harm’s way — would be far better handled not in times of crisis, when the displaced must weigh complex decisions in the midst of chaos and loss, but before a crisis hits.” — Alexandra Tempus, New York Times

Climate migrants can be an enormous asset if given the right opportunities

“The easier we make it for the young to move to places where they can contribute productively, such as by building more sustainable housing and irrigation systems, the better our odds during the turbulent decades ahead.” — Parag Khanna, National Geographic

Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It)

 (The University Center for Human Values Series Book 50) 

Kindle Edition

 Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments—and why we can't see it

One in four American workers says their workplace is a "dictatorship." Yet that number probably would be even higher if we recognized most employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives, on duty and off. We normally think of government as something only the state does, yet many of us are governed far more—and far more obtrusively—by the private government of the workplace. In this provocative and compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson argues that the failure to see this stems from long-standing confusions. These confusions explain why, despite all evidence to the contrary, we still talk as if free markets make workers free—and why so many employers advocate less government even while they act as dictators in their businesses.

In many workplaces, employers minutely regulate workers' speech, clothing, and manners, leaving them with little privacy and few other rights. And employers often extend their authority to workers' off-duty lives. Workers can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. Yet we continue to talk as if early advocates of market society—from John Locke and Adam Smith to Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln—were right when they argued that it would free workers from oppressive authorities. That dream was shattered by the Industrial Revolution, but the myth endures.

Private Government offers a better way to talk about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.

Based on the prestigious Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, Private Government is edited and introduced by Stephen Macedo and includes commentary by cultural critic David Bromwich, economist Tyler Cowen, historian Ann Hughes, and philosopher Niko Kolodny.

AMAZON ALLOWS A FREE CHAPTER DOWNLOAD WITH KINDLE

CAPITALIST CRISIS; OVERPRODUCTION

'Millions of Cases' of Truly Hard Seltzer Will Be Destroyed as Hard Seltzer Boom Fades

Mike Pomranz
Mon, October 25, 2021

Cases of Truly Hard Seltzer

Shutterstock

The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and on Friday, the makers of Truly Hard Seltzer admitted their massive bet on the popular brand had come crashing down with a resounding thud, including choosing to destroy millions of cases of the fizzy alcoholic beverage.

Truly is America's second most popular hard seltzer brand after White Claw, and as the hard seltzer category exploded over the past few years, Boston Beer Company — the parent company behind Truly, as well as other brands such as Sam Adams, Angry Orchard, Twisted Tea, and Dogfish Head — ramped up production in line with the projected growth.

But though hard seltzer still claims a significant percentage of beer sales, the astronomical growth has slowed to more sensible levels, catching Boston Beer overcommitted to the waning phenomenon. In July, the company's stock plummeted after poor second-quarter results tied specifically to Truly's underperformance. Shortly after, Bloomberg reported that hard seltzer sales were up just 4 percent for the four weeks ending on July 11 as opposed to 49 percent growth over the previous 12 months. And when announcing their third-quarter earnings last week, Boston Beer admitted they were still dealing with these miscalculations.

On Friday, Jim Koch — who became a bit of a household name in the '90s handling Sam Adams ads himself and who is still chairman of Boston Beer — spoke to CNBC about the Truly's stumbles. "We were very aggressive about adding capacity, adding inventory, buying raw materials, like cans and flavors, and, frankly, we overbought… And when the growth stopped, we had more of all those things than we were going to be able to use, because there is a shelf life," Koch said in an interview. "We want Truly to have that fresh, bright taste, so we're going to crush millions of cases of product before it goes stale."

If destroying perfectly drinkable booze sounds a bit unreasonable, CNBC seemed to agree, pressing Koch on why the brand couldn't try to move the product at a discount. "You know, that's just not what we do at Boston Beer Co.," Koch continued. "Our mission is to sell high-quality products and to build high-quality brands. So rather than take a chance of it getting out in the market and going stale and consumers having a bad experience, we decided to make the hard decision and eat a lot of product, just to make sure consumers didn't get stale product and have a bad Truly."

Still, despite the slowed growth, Koch was optimistic about hard seltzer as a permanent fixture on the drinking scene. "I think us and White Claw together are close to that 70 percent [of the total hard seltzer market], and then there's a lot of clutter, and I think a lot of that long-tail clutter will go away," he added. "I think that will be very helpful for long-term growth of the hard seltzer category because consumers won't get so confused."

STATEHOOD OR INDEPENDENCE
Puerto Rico Bankruptcy Judge Threatens Dismissal of Case Without Plan



Michelle Kaske
Mon, October 25, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- The judge overseeing Puerto Rico’s record bankruptcy threatened to consider dismissing the island’s more than four-year case if she is unable to confirm a debt restructuring plan soon, U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain said during a hearing Monday.

The judge’s comments came in a hearing Monday to discuss an impasse that has delayed the passage of legislation that would allow for a debt-restructuring plan to move forward.

“I will be frank with you, my patience is wearing thin,” Swain said during the hearing. “I’m not convinced that further delays are at the interest of Puerto Rico.”

A dismissal of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy would upend years of negotiations with bondholders, insurance companies and labor groups to find a way to resolve $33 billion of bonds and other obligations, including $22 billion of general obligations and debt backed by the commonwealth. It would allow investors to sue Puerto Rico for repayment of bonds as a stay on such actions would be lifted without bankruptcy protection.

The debt-cutting agreement struck with major bondholders has been imperiled by the territory’s legislature, which failed to approve a measure that would allow Puerto Rico to issue new debt to implement it. Under the deal, investors would exchange their debt for a lesser amount of new bonds, reducing what the government owes.

Puerto Rico’s legislative leaders late Sunday, however, reached an agreement that could end the stalemate.

Puerto Rico has been in bankruptcy since May 2017, after years of population loss, economic decline and borrowing to pay for operating expenses.

Billionaires Blast Wealth Tax: ‘One-Way Ticket to Venezuela’

Noah Kirsch
Mon, October 25, 2021


REUTERS

It has been a summer of scrutiny for the ultra-rich—and now the billionaires are fighting amongst themselves.

The culprit: a so-called “Billionaire Income Tax” that Democrats in Congress are reportedly mulling to help finance Biden’s agenda. The proposal would only target several hundred of the wealthiest Americans by taxing the rising values of certain assets, like stocks, even before they are sold.

“I doubt it’s legal, and it’s stupid,” the billionaire investor Leon Cooperman complained to The Daily Beast. “What made America great was the people who started with nothing like me making a lot of money and giving it back. A relentless attack on wealthy people makes no sense.”

Another billionaire, the grocery chain magnate John Catsimatidis, shared his comrade’s ire. “These people are just nuts. They're trying to change our way of life, and it’s not going to happen,” he said. “If they don't like the United States the way it is, I'm buying them a one-way ticket to Venezuela.”

Other billionaires were less aggrieved, including the real estate developer John Sobrato and restaurant entrepreneur Jimmy John Liatuaud, founder of his namesake sandwich chain.

“I know a lot of people that… have accumulated massive, massive wealth, and then they take loans against that to live on. And that's tax free. And I think it’s bullshit,” Liautaud said.

“[With] Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, every year this shit’s compounding,” he added, referring to stock investments that are typically not taxed until they are sold. “I paid more tax than Warren Buffett. And I'm worth 2 billion fucking dollars.”

The debate follows a series of explosive media reports on the low tax rates enjoyed by the ultra-rich.

In June, ProPublica published an investigation which found that a number of billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Carl Icahn, and Goerge Soros, paid no federal income taxes in certain years.

The report also used an invented term, “true tax rate,” to depict the percentage of a billionaire’s wealth they had paid in taxes during the four years ending in 2018. Warren Buffett’s “true” rate, for instance, stood at just 0.1 percent, while Musk’s stood at a comparatively high 3.27 percent.

Any person who holds appreciating assets—billionaire or not— would likely have a lower “true” tax rate than the percentage of income they pay in federal and state taxes. But the numbers were nonetheless striking.

In September, The White House added to the uproar with a report asserting that the wealthiest 400 billionaires in the U.S. paid an average of 8.2 percent of their income in federal taxes between 2010 and 2018, though it also lumped in assets that aren’t traditionally taxable.

“Biden is fanning the flames of resentment,” fumed Cooperman, who argued that the administration’s methodology was distortive.

He also assailed the viability of a “Billionaire Income Tax,” which could theoretically force wealthy stockholders to sell shares in order to meet tax obligations. “Is Bill Gates gonna have to sell his Microsoft Holdings, is Jeff Bezos gonna have to sell his Amazon holdings?” Cooperman said.

He also pointed out the challenge of taxing individuals on the value of a high-priced stock, since its value could later drop. The 78-year-old investor said he favors other revenue generating measures, like eliminating the “carried-interest” tax loophole for private equity tycoons, and regulating 1031 exchanges, which allow investors to roll over gains indefinitely.

Cooperman said that he pays an effective tax rate of roughly 34 percent and would support a minimum tax on the ultra-rich as high as 50 percent.

It’s unclear if Democrats will be able to find the votes to move forward with a “Billionaire Income Tax.”.

Catsimatidis is skeptical. “Everybody knows it’s never going to happen. I think they’re just trying to make everybody feel like, ‘We're going to go after those people.’”

But it’s not just left-wing activists who are assailing the 0.1 percent. Liautaud took aim at billionaires with publicly traded companies, who are able to take out cheap loans backed by their stock, thereby preventing them from ever needing to sell a significant portion of their shares.

He offered the example of a hypothetical billionaire who wanted to buy a $1 billion yacht. One option would be to sell roughly $1.5 billion in shares, which would incur a massive tax obligation. The other option, Liautaud said, is “he takes a loan against [his shares], buys his yacht, pays no tax whatsoever, and spends one or 2 percent on interest... instead of paying a $400 or $500 million tax bill.”

Liautaud, who donated to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, outlined what he described as a middle-of-the-road approach. “I don't want to disincentivize the guys that are creating this wealth for you and I,” he said. “But we shouldn't wait 70 years for Warren Buffett to pay.”

Ex-Alitalia Flight Attendants Strip In Labor Protest


AP
Mon, October 25, 2021, 3:30 AM·1 min read

Dozens of former flight attendants from defunct Italian airline Alitalia stripped off their uniforms Wednesday, wearing only undergarments in a silent, choreographed protest in central Rome.

Long financially ailing, Italy’s decades-old airline flew its last flight on Oct. 14. A new airline, ITA, began flying the next day, using some of Alitalia’s aircraft. It also bought the Alitalia brand, but it is taking on fewer than 3,000 of Alitalia’s 10,000 employees.

Union officials say those who will work for ITA are being hired at significantly lower pay scales.

Some 50 former flight attendants stood in rows in a square atop Rome’s Capitoline Hill, lowered their company shoulder bags to the cobblestone pavement, then slowly and in synch, removed their overcoats, then uniform jackets, then skirts, then stepped out of their high-heeled shoes.

They remained barefoot, wearing only a slip, in silence for a few minutes. Then they carefully gathered up their garments and shoes and together shouted, “We are Alitalia!”

Union leaders have been pressing for the government to extend unemployment benefits for as long as five years.

U.S. Dairy Cows Too Expensive to Feed, Causing Herd to Plummet


Elizabeth Elkin
Mon, October 25, 2021, 11:53 AM·1 min read

(Bloomberg) -- The number of dairy cows in the U.S. is plunging at a pace not seen in more than a decade, signaling elevated costs for products like butter.

The cost of feeding dairy cows has been soaring, said Nate Donnay, director of dairy market insight at StoneX Group. That’s forcing dairy farmers to slash herds. Corn futures in Chicago are up 29% from a year ago and touched an eight-year high back in May.

The U.S. herd shrank by 85,000 cows between June and September, the biggest four-month drop since 2009. Milk production is consequently less than expected, rising in September just 0.2% from last year, falling way short of StoneX’s forecast of 1.3%.

Lower milk production could mean that prices for dairy products could be more expensive, and add to rising food inflation that’s already hitting Americans’ wallets.

“We’ve never seen a drop this big without a more severe drop in margins preceding it,” Donnay said in a report.

Prices for American dairy products have been climbing recently, helped by the bullish production report, said Matt Gould, editor of The Dairy Market Analyst. Global milk supplies are tight, and butter in particular is limited, he said.

THEY EAT THEY FART THEY CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING

Alibaba Has Lost $344 Billion in World's Biggest Wipeout



Jeanny Yu
Mon, October 25, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Few people could have predicted the downward spiral for Alibaba Group Holding, when founder Jack Ma delivered a blunt criticism of China’s financial system last October.

Yet one year on, the technology titan has lost a whopping $344 billion in market capitalization -- the biggest wipe-out of shareholder value globally, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Shortly after the now infamous speech, Beijing suspended the listing of its fintech arm Ant Group and has since followed up with a widespread crackdown on the country’s most vibrant sectors -- causing Chinese stocks to tank.

Alibaba shares sank from an all-time high that month to a record low three weeks ago in Hong Kong, as Beijing stepped up its scrutiny of the company’s practices and urged a restructure of its fintech business. Despite a 30% recovery from Oct. 5, the stock is still 43% lower than its October 2020 peak.

Bloomberg Intelligence expects fiscal second-quarter active users at the e-commerce giant to have beaten consensus projections as a result of China’s zero-Covid policy. Alibaba is set to report earnings on Nov. 5.