Capitalism
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Blue Cross Blue Shield $2.67 billion settlement checks sent soon. Who is eligible
“The lawsuit claimed the BC/BS plans illegally entered into an agreement not to compete with each other, and to restrict competition among themselves.”
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“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.”
— Edward Bernays
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“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.”
— John Maynard Keynes
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Amazon accused of secretly tracking consumer movements via cellphones By Investing.com
“This code, the lawsuit alleges, allowed Amazon to gather a large volume of timestamped geolocation data. This data provided Amazon with information about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, potentially revealing sensitive details such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations, and health concerns.”
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Red dye No. 3: FDA bans ingredient from food | CNN
“The US Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of red dye No. 3 in food, beverages and ingested drugs, more than 30 years after scientists discovered links to cancer in animals, the agency announced Wednesday. Manufacturers using red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs have until January 15, 2027, and January 18, 2028, respectively, to reformulate their products, according to the FDA.”
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“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer; a rat race where the rats are winning.”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Federal Taxes
Long-term capital gains tax rates (2025):
- 0% for income up to $44,625 (single filer).
- 15% for income between $44,626 and $492,300.
California State Taxes
California does not have a separate tax rate for capital gains; they’re taxed as regular income.
2025 California income tax brackets (estimated, based on recent years):
- For income up to $10,099 (single filer), the tax rate is 1%.
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Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man’s rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.
— Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
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My Dinner With Andre: Conspiracy Theory Scene HD
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“Money doesn’t change men, it merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish or arrogant or greedy, the money brings that out, that’s all.”
— Henry Ford
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Uh Oh: New Lab Tests Reveal McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish Boxes Contain Banned Chemicals
“In May of 2022, the FDA deauthorized the use of 23 phthalates in food packaging, following a petition. Six of those chemicals – dimethyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, diisobutyl phthalate, dibutyl phthalate, benzylbutyl phthalate and didecyl phthalate – were detected in the Filet-O-Fish box tested by Symbio Laboratories. All six chemicals have been linked to an increased risk of impaired male reproductive development. Or, as Fuck McDonald’s puts it, they’ll ‘super-shrink a peen’.”