The Vampire Vixen

1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs.

According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate. Only 3.6 percent of taxpayers in the top .1% were classified as entrepreneurs based on 2004 tax returns. A 2009 Kauffman Foundation study found that the great majority of entrepreneurs come from middle-class backgrounds, with less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs coming from very rich or very poor backgrounds.

2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us.

In a world listing compiled by a reputable research team (which nevertheless prompted double-checking), the U.S. has greater wealth inequality than every measured country in the world except for Namibia, Zimbabwe, Denmark, and Switzerland.

3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world’s Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that’s $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession.

After paying an average of 22.5% from 1987 to 2008, corporations have paid an annual rate of 10% since. This represents a sudden $250 billion annual loss in taxes.

U.S. corporations have shown a pattern of tax reluctance for more than 50 years, despite building their businesses with American research and infrastructure. They’ve passed the responsibility on to their workers. For every dollar of workers’ payroll tax paid in the 1950s, corporations paid three dollars. Now it’s 22 cents.

5. Just TEN Americans made a total of FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in one year.

That’s enough to pay the salaries of over a million nurses or teachers or emergency responders.

That’s enough, according to 2008 estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN’s World Food Program, to feed the 870 million people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.

For the free-market advocates who say “they’ve earned it”: Point #1 above makes it clear how the wealthy make their money.

6. Tax deductions for the rich could pay off 100 PERCENT of the deficit.

Another stat that required a double-check. Based on research by the Tax Policy Center, tax deferrals and deductions and other forms of tax expenditures (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes), which largely benefit the rich, are worth about 7.4% of the GDP, or about $1.1 trillion.

Other sources have estimated that about two-thirds of the annual $850 billion in tax expenditures goes to the top quintile of taxpayers.

7. The average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 IN NET WORTH.

The Insight Center for Community Economic Development reported that median wealth for black and Hispanic women is a little over $100. That’s much less than one percent of the median wealth for single white women ($41,500).

Other studies confirm the racially-charged economic inequality in our country. For every dollar of NON-HOME wealth owned by white families, people of color have only one cent.

8. Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has dropped significantly over the past 15 years, serving only about a quarter of the families in poverty, and paying less than $400 per month for a family of three for housing and other necessities. Ninety percent of the available benefits go to the elderly, the disabled, or working households.

Food stamp recipients get $4.30 a day.

9. Young adults have lost TWO-THIRDS OF THEIR NET WORTH since 1984.

21- to 35-year-olds: Your median net worth has dropped 68% since 1984. It’s now less than $4,000.

That $4,000 has to pay for student loans that average $27,200. Or, if you’re still in school, for $12,700 in credit card debt.

With an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%, two out of every five recent college graduates are living with their parents. But your favorite company may be hiring. Apple, which makes a profit of $420,000 per employee, can pay you about $12 per hour.

10. The American public paid about FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS to bail out the banks.

That’s about the same amount of money made by America’s richest 10% in one year. But we all paid for the bailout. And because of it, we lost the opportunity for jobs, mortgage relief, and educational funding.

Bonus for the super-rich: A QUADRILLION DOLLARS in securities trading nets ZERO sales tax revenue for the U.S.

The world derivatives market is estimated to be worth over a quadrillion dollars (a thousand trillion). At least $200 trillion of that is in the United States. In 2011 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported a trading volume of over $1 quadrillion on 3.4 billion annual contracts.

A quadrillion dollars. A sales tax of ONE-TENTH OF A PENNY on a quadrillion dollars could pay off the deficit. But the total sales tax was ZERO.

As well as supporting meghan murphy they are really pushing the idea of trans women as male predators. Miranda Yardley is an English trans woman who repeats TERF talking points for them and was very well received for opposing updating the Gender Recognition Act in the UK. The reference to Stonewall UK also suggests that the new staff are completely in bed with English TERFs, who have links to US Evangelical funding.

Yah. Past AE peeps are NOT impressed with what’s happened, what with now being so openly transphobic, as well as literally erasing ALL work from authors who are trans-inclusive and all articles that spoke positively about trans people in any manner whatsoever.

Friend of mine on fb just shared this. Tw for outdated language in the article. I’ve heard stories and had my own suspicions, but seeing it all laid out like this is pretty compelling.

Apparently, Spiro may be the reason I’m still depressed, easily fatigued and confused, and have a potbelly despite having lost weight everywhere else. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I have been on 200 mg for several years and I experience many of the listed side-effects.

Thankfully, there are alternatives, but until additional research is done, Spiro will continue to be pushed by many.

- don’t knee jerk delete. I know it’s tempting to peace out immediately but hang on and do the other steps first. Out right ghosting and erasing everything is how fandoms die.

- archive everything on your blog you want to keep

- tell your followers how they can archive and keep your work too. A lot of fic and art were only saved from ff.net and lj because other people saved it first. If you’re cool with other people saving your work for them to personally keep, let them know this. You can absolutely discourage reposting but I really do highly recommend you allow people to personally save fic and art they like and are worried will disappear forever. Digital Dark Ages are a real thing.

- tell people where you’re jumping ship to. Give links. Keep that info up, even if you’ve left the site.

- go through who you follow and find out where else you can follow them. Save their work if they’ll allow it. It’s tedious as hell but if you want to keep up with people on here clicking on their page to check in is the best way to do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique

“Both sides” journalism needs to die.

A journalist’s job isn’t to create false equivalencies.

A journalist’s job isn’t to be a stenographer for the police.

A journalist’s job isn’t to promote corporations.

So, if you’re like me and work in a place with public bathrooms, you most likely have seen this shit before. Some racist fuck graffiti’d up your bathroom with nazi bullshit with a permanent marker.

Tired of this bullshit? Me too, so I’m gonna show you how to get rid of it nice and quick! 

The tools you need: A cleaner appropriate for the surface, the appropriate tool to to wipe said surfaces, and the crucial piece: A dry erase marker.

It’s embarrassingly easy to get rid of and is gonna make those nazi fucks upset that we don’t tolerate their bullshit. 

Just grab your marker…

…and draw over it

then you spray it with your cleaner and then… wipe

ta-fucking-da

now you too can use your new-found hack to get rid of sharpie graffiti

So I just told them to add the $20 something onto my bill, and I thought she was going to break down crying right there.

I understand. Having a healthy fear is okay. Having a healthy fear is what makes us keep our distance. I feel like most of the time people get stung, its by total accident. Once I was trimming the edge of my lawn with gardening shears (the weedwacker was broken) and then started cutting the grass just above a nest some wasps made in the ground, and they swarmed out and stung me right on my face. A rational person like you or me would take that to mean that I got too close to the nest and they thought I was attacking it. Naturally, in order to increase their chance of survival, they defended the nest. 

But the sad truth is, most people wont interpret the situation like that. This is the common “stings out of nowhere” argument you see. “I didn’t have the intention of hurting them, why did they hurt me? They must have done it because they are psychotic killers.” Few are willing to put themselves in the place of the wasp. 

It also doesn’t help when people create stuff like this:

It absolutely breaks my heart. 

On the internet, nobody fact checks anything. Nobody cares enough to fact check anything. They see a funny meme and share it. I can’t claim to know these people’s intentions while creating these. But, I can tell you the effects are disastrous for our relationship with nature. We all know that “sleeps with your wife” and “hopes you have a horrible day” are not valid reasons to hate wasps. But with enough repeated exposure to this garbage, all of this gets stuck in people’s heads. Not to mention the very blatant misinformation it spread, namely that wasps don’t have a purpose. If these people bothered to research anything, they would find they are so very very wrong. And if people would go outside and actually bother to observe the complexities of nature, they would also find that wasps don’t sting “without reason.” I also want to point out that in the U.S. alone, around 100 people die from bee stings every year. And yet, I never see the same “we have no purpose in life” stuff I see attached to wasps. 

I am most disturbed by the very last one, which says that honeybees “do you a service” by dying if they sting you. 

Which reaches the core of the problem: people think that nature owes them something. 

By viewing the world through a human filter, we have come to think that we are separated from everything else. We are different. We are special. Therefore, if there is something about nature that fails to please us, that means it must be actively plotting to destroy us. Cause we are just that special. 

This gives us no room for empathy. If it is not perceived as useful or pretty to us, or it has a way of hunting or defending itself that isn’t pleasant, that gives us the right to advocate its removal from existence.