[Insider] Hunter Biden struggled to pay his taxes and bills in 2018 and 2019, emails reviewed by CNN revealed as federal prosecutors investigate President Joe Biden's son for possible tax violations and other crimes.
The CNN report references a 2018 email from Hunter Biden's assistant, asking what to do about paying health insurance, a Porsche payment, and her own salary.
"Pay the health care. Pay the Porsche," Biden responded, and he told her she should pay herself half of the salary she said she was owed, according to CNN.
An automated Wells Fargo "insufficient funds" email from December 2018 stated that one of his accounts lacked $1,700 for his Porsche payment.
In March 2019, his assistant pleaded with him to let her know if there was a new plan for paying about $370,000 in taxes and $120,000 in other bank debt, CNN reported.
The emails include several from his accountant, telling Biden that his tax payments were late.
Biden's lawyer told CNN that he has fully paid his IRS tax debts and that Biden struggled during that period with alcohol and drug addiction — something Biden wrote about extensively in his memoir, "Beautiful Things."
With all the corrupt money Hunter has gotten (Burisma, China, etc., etc.), he really cannot pay his bills? Where on earth did all the money go (and I'm beting we haven't seen the half of it yet)? Just how much can you spend on hookers and cocaine?
Posted by: Tom ||
07/30/2022 7:11 Comments ||
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#3
See this is why Donks can never be let near the public treasury. They treat the treasury like they treat their own income stream. No matter how much they take in, its never enough to cover their 'life style'.
#4
Tom there have been alot of rich people who went broke smoking crack.
Posted by: Chris ||
07/30/2022 10:56 Comments ||
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#5
Yes and no. There is a list of people who have unlimited credit because of their connections. The Banks know, one way or another, the tab will be paid. They also know if they rattle too much, they get "investigated". Its a win-win for those involved.
[Spectator] The youth aren’t doing well — not in America, at least. Even before Covid, experts were ringing the alarm bells about a decade-or-so-long trend of American teens and tweens experiencing a steady uptick in anxiety, depression and self-harm symptoms.
Late last year, US surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy published an official advisory attempting to raise awareness of this issue. As the accompanying press release explained, "from 2009 to 2019, the share of high school students who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 40 percent, to more than one in three students. Suicidal behaviors among high school students also increased during the decade preceding Covid, with 19 percent seriously considering attempting suicide, a 36 percent increase from 2009 to 2019, and about 16 percent having made a suicide plan in the prior year, a 44 percent increase from 2009 to 2019." Murthy described the situation as a "dual crisis" — the terrible impact of Covid layered atop an already dire youth-mental-health landscape.
The most viscerally upsetting presentation of the stats I’ve seen is a graphic representation of CDC data for emergency room visits for self-inflicted injuries among 10- to 19-year-olds. It shows a truly jarring and sudden uptick that started in 2009 — a terrifyingly steep line shooting up toward the heavens.
Both sexes are suffering, but the pain hasn’t been distributed equally between them. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has written at length about this phenomenon, put it in testimony he submitted to a congressional subcommittee, "the base rate for mood disorders is always higher for girls than boys, particularly after puberty, which means that a doubling of the rate produces far more additional sick girls than boys... [and] there are some disorders and age groups for which girls are up far more, especially for self-harm, which is a much more common way of manifesting anxiety in girls than in boys."
What’s going on, exactly? The short answer is that no one knows for sure. One possibility is that the 2008 financial crisis, a genuinely world-historical event, had some medium- and long-term effects. Think of the millions of kids raised in households hit with a sudden jolt of genuine, novel precarity — whether from a home foreclosure forcing a move, a parent losing a job or other factors — and then having to live with the aftermath. Researchers have believed for a long time that traumatic events suffered at a young age have a particularly brutal impact on young people’s wellbeing. It makes sound theoretical sense that the recession would leave an impact on the children hit hardest by it, and that the effects would linger for years. (Of course it left an impact on adults as well — by one 2013 estimate published in the British Medical Journal, the largest suicide rate increase in the Americas occurred among men aged 45-64, a group hard hit by layoffs and foreclosures.)
And not long after the recession, another world-historical development: the explosive rise of social media on mobile devices. Facebook accessed via a shared clunker of a desktop computer in the family room on dial-up is one thing; Facebook on a smartphone is quite another. Starting around 2010, teenagers were able to mainline information about their classmates, and to communicate with them 24/7, in a manner never before possible.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/30/2022 10:32 ||
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#1
maybe it's the parents coddling the shit out of them and trying to be their friends. I have 2 at this age, 1 pays all his own bills and works all the time. The other is starting UGA this year while working on getting a real estate license in the mean time. Pay attention to what your kids are doing instead of making fucking tik tok vids with them.
Posted by: Chris ||
07/30/2022 15:49 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe the white ones are depressed because they are being told they are the cause of all of the worlds problems. The kids of color are depressed because they are being told everything is rigged against them.
[Guardian] The US’s biggest oil companies pumped out record profits over the last few months as Americans struggled to pay for gasoline, food and other basic necessities.
On Friday, ExxonMobil reported an unprecedented $17.85bn (£14.77bn) profit for the second quarter, nearly four times as much as the same period a year ago, and Chevron made a record $11.62bn (£9.61bn). The sky-high profits were announced one day after the UK’s Shell shattered its own profit record.
Soaring energy prices have rattled consumers and become a political flashpoint. "We’re going to make sure everybody knows Exxon’s profits," Joe Biden said in June. "Exxon made more money than God this year."
The record profits came after similarly outsized gains in the first quarter when the largest oil companies made close to $100bn in profits.
High energy prices are one of the leading factors driving inflation to a four-decade high in the US. Gas prices have fallen slightly in recent weeks but are now averaging $4.25 a gallon across the US, more than $1 a gallon higher than a year ago.
Consumers are facing high fuel prices not just at the pump. Soaring energy prices are being baked into delivery costs, which is driving up the cost of everything from apples to toilet paper.
One reason gasoline prices have been so high is that fewer refineries are operating in the US than before the pandemic, so there is a limit to how much gasoline can be produced.
Biden has called for the companies to increase production and refining capacities in an attempt to bring down prices. On Friday Exxon said it was expanding refinery and production in Texas and New Mexico.
Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, increased its oil and gas production as crude prices hovered above $100 a barrel. Revenue at Exxon soared to $115.68bn, up from $67.74bn during the same quarter last year.
Natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices are also elevated due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing sanctions against Russia, a large supplier of natural gas. Many European nations have been scrambling for alternatives to Russian natural gas, and have been competing for boatloads of LNG, driving up prices for natural gas globally and in the US.
In addition to oil company executives, shareholders also reaped the benefits of high energy prices during the quarter. Since the start of 2022, Exxon and Chevron shares have risen close to 46% and 26%, respectively.
#2
I figger they're talking about pre-tax profits, so the government gets half, amirite?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/30/2022 7:43 Comments ||
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#3
Given, we are told we are using LESS Oil/Gas/Diesel at double the price. Are these earning figures Mathematically possible WITHOUT some slick industry manipulation ?
#4
The fastest way to lose money in the oil business is to drill a dry hole. With drilling shut down, the oil companies are turning to the aspects of their operations that they can operate, and those are making unusual profits in the current distorted market.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/30/2022 9:13 Comments ||
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#6
Is 'the big guy' getting his 10% from "The Big Guy"?
How else would he know how much money God makes?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/30/2022 9:39 Comments ||
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#7
Number two squarely nails it. There is probably nothing taxed more heavily than the oil and gas industry. Permit to well head, to refinery, to gas station, to consumer. Off-shore and gov't lands are even more lucrative for our D.C. masters.
#9
I question the veracity of the source, and the Grauniard.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
07/30/2022 11:05 Comments ||
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#10
It is nearly word for word a Daily Mail article about a month and a half ago explaining why their energy producers are having record profits at consumer expense so taxes need to be raised to give consumers tax relief on energy prices.
#13
After 12 years in the oil industry I can tell you that the numbers on paper aren't reality. Because you need to explore and deal with delays, those profits vanish when a hurricane ends drilling for 3 weeks and the rigs have to flee or a drill string gets stuck down hole and costs you an extra 5-6 million to deal with. Operating costs in this industry are HIGH.
[Oilprice.com] The Biden administration has earmarked $5 billion ready to be disbursed to states with EV charging infrastructure plans in place. States are on board with the shift to EVs and are indeed making plans for charging infrastructure. But the people at the end of the line, those who will host the chargers, are having misgivings. Utility Dive reported this week that convenience store owners have sounded the alarm about the EV infrastructure bill, saying the legislation behind it is discouraging private investment, which is going to be essential for the successful shift to EVs.
The report cited Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores, as saying that the sector was concerned about turning in a profit from EV chargers in the current political framework regarding these.
"There is no way to build out the infrastructure that’s needed to charge vehicles without private investment. To just do it with public money, that’s not going to happen," Doug Kantor said.
Retailers’ main worries have to do with demand charges and the option for regulated utilities to own EV chargers. According to the NACS, the charges need to be reduced or eliminated, and fair competition between regulated utilities and private businesses in EV charging needs to be ensured.
This is the latest chapter in the EV infrastructure story unfolding in the United States under the ambitious Biden administration’s plans to electrify transport. Per these plans, the country should have half a million chargers installed in the coming years, for which the administration allocated $5 billion.
#1
See also: Connecticut grounding its entire fleet of electric buses after one of them catches fire (and apparently lithium fires are just about impossible to put out.)
Posted by: Tom ||
07/30/2022 7:13 Comments ||
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#2
Lithium-ion batteries burning are considered a 'Class B' fire (as the batteries contain liquid electrolytes that provide a conductive pathway), so a standard 'ABC' fire extinguisher should be used.
Since lithium-ion batteries aren’t made with metallic lithium, a Class D dry powder extinguisher would not be effective.
Even so, with the larger batteries, it takes a LOT of extinguishing chemicals to put them out. Your tiny kitchen extinguisher wouldn't do it.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/30/2022 8:31 Comments ||
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#3
Son is a Metro-Atlanta area firefighter.
He has handled a dozen or so EV fires.
If I understood him correctly. The general process is to Surround, Contain, protect the surround area and watch it burn itself into a Hazmat Environment Mess.
YAA December 19, 2021 - Justin Fischer = "EV battery fires require A LOT more water to extinguish. ... Some fires have needed 30,000 gallons of water to extinguish. ... Once the fire appears fully extinguished, there’s a chance it could still flare up, even days later. Towing services and junkyards are advised to park damaged electric vehicles at least 50 feet from other vehicles in the yard. "
An EV with a typical 60 kWh battery pack, will take 60 hours 2.5 DAYS to fully recharge and still only have a 200 to 320 miles driving range.
The amount of energy used to produce, power and recharge an EV, is something like 3.5 times more than needed to make and use a gallon gas. Which refills in under 10 mins and drives 300+ miles per tank fill.
Plus, we have not discussed Environment issues of mining Rare Earths and production for the EV battery and disposal at end of the currently seen 5-6 year lifecycle.
[ET via ZERO] Former President Donald Trump has warned that America’s economy is on track for a bigger disaster than a recession, with his remarks coming shortly before government statistics showed GDP printing negative for the second consecutive quarter, which is a rule-of-thumb definition for a recession.
"Where we’re going now could be a very bad place," Trump said at a rally in Arizona last week.
"We got to get this act in order, we have to get this country going, or we’re going to have a serious problem."
The former president singled out the collapse in Americans’ real wages, a historically depressed labor force participation rate, and the Democrat push for the Green New Deal that he said would crush economic growth.
"Not recession. Recession’s a nice word. We’re going to have a much bigger problem than recession. We’ll have a depression," the former president said.
Trump’s remarks came several days before the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released data showing that real U.S. GDP fell by an annualized 0.9 percent in the second quarter after contracting 1.6 percent in the first quarter.
Two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth are a common rule-of-thumb definition for a recession, although recessions in the United States are officially declared by a committee of economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) using a broader definition than the two-quarter rule.
#2
^^^ I tend to agree with the above comment, except the timeline is short, try 6 to 8 years, at a depth, of -19% GDP from baseline 2018, which will make the Great Depression look like a 12-year Recession. Hence the "something worse" Mr. Trump is alluding toward in his comment.
#3
Probably not. As I read the financial press, most people expect the Fed to wimp out sometime late this year or early next year.
Which, of course, a la 1975, will just feed a yet more vicious round of inflation which will eventually require a repeat of the horrific 1979-82 recession to cure it.
Posted by: Tom ||
07/30/2022 7:15 Comments ||
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#4
The best explanation I have ever heard was from Kevin McCarthy, presumptive next Speaker of the House. For math challenged fellow citizens its ideal:
Imagine what you would do if you were told that you had to give up a full month's salary.
Inflation is currently at 9.1 percent, and a month's salary is 8.33 percent of your annual income, so you are losing more than a months income in increased prices.
Even the victims of our woke educational system will understand.
#5
Shop around it pays.
We shop Alidis, Lidls, Wally World (WW) and others for the best prices. Eg Today... eggs at WW $4.85 for 18 at Lidls $2.38.
A tub of Butter at KJ's $8.95 at WW $5.95.
Banquent Turkey TV Dinners $1.95 at Food Lion 2 for $2.50 at KJ's.
Aldis sandwich bread $1 vs $2.85+++?
Folgers med. 42oz coffee Sams $12.95 .. at other stores the smaller 22oz size is selling for $11.95.
To hell with customet loyality.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Insider] Hunter Biden struggled to pay his taxes and bills in 2018 and 2019, emails reviewed by CNN revealed as federal prosecutors investigate President Joe Biden's son for possible tax violations and other crimes.
