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California’s proposed wealth tax, Bill 2028, would apply for a decade to anyone who spends 60 days in the state in a single year.

Here are the details.

• A 0.4% tax on residents with a worldwide net worth in excess of $30,000,000 ($15,000,000 for a married taxpayer filing separately).
• The proposed tax would apply to residents, part-year residents, and temporary residents.
• Temporary residents are defined as those who stay in the state more than 60 days during the calendar year. For part-year and temporary residents, the tax would apply proportionally based on the number of days they are in the state during the year.
• 10-year lookback provision : The portion of a taxpayer’s wealth subject to the wealth tax is multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which shall be years in residence in California over the 10 preceding years with 10 years being the denominator.  Read More

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases; the largest source of marine debris; the worst perpetrators of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; and the world’s largest consumer of trafficked wildlife and timber products. While the Chinese people have suffered the worst environmental impacts of its actions, Beijing also threatens the global economy and global health by unsustainably exploiting natural resources and exporting its willful disregard for the environment through its One Belt One Road initiative. Tragically, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) represses civil society and a free press, slowing changes that would benefit its citizens and people all over the world.”

China dumps millions of tons of plastic waste into the oceans every year. It pumps more mercury into the atmosphere than any other nation on earth. It does not simply lead the world in greenhouse gas emissions; its emissions are rising. It produces twice the CO2 emissions of the United States and one-third of all such emissions for the planet.

Ninety percent of all ocean plastic is carried by only 10 rivers. Eight of those are in Asia. The Yangtze in China is by far the worst. Three hundred and thirty-three metric tons of plastic wash out of the Yangtze alone every year. In fact, China is responsible for almost thirty percent of all the plastic ending up in our oceans and contributes the lion’s share of the refuse in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a tangle of plastic twice the size of Texas floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

China is, in short, an environmental toxic waste dump.

Gina McCarthy is Biden’s choice to be “Climate Czar.” McCarthy was Obama’s EPA chief. Most recently she has served as the CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Under McCarthy’s leadership, the NRDC filed over 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration, at one point bragging that it was filing a new lawsuit roughly every ten days. Read More

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New weekly jobless claims fell by 89,000 to 803,000 in the week that ended December 19, the Department of Labor said Wednesday.

The prior week’s initial claims number was revised up to 892,000 from the initial estimate of 885,000.

Economists had forecast a decline in claims to 875,000, according to Econoday.

Jobless claims can be volatile week to week so many economists prefer to look at the four-week average. This rose to 818,250, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised level.

Jobless claims—which are a proxy for layoffs—remain at extremely high levels. Prior to the pandemic, the highest level of claims was 695,000 hit in October of 1982. In March of 2009, at the depths of the financial crisis recession, jobless claims peaked at 665,000.