In the midst of a thumbs-up for the estate tax repeal and the step-up basis retention, a warning: If the bill is passed without changes to these provisions, then planning will focus on maximizing basis step-up at death, perhaps with additional lifetime gift planning in anticipation of a reasonably likely future return of the estate …
The Tasteless Suburbs Were the Creation of the Government
Well, somewhat: What image springs to mind when you picture “federally subsidized housing”? Most people imagine a low-income public housing tower, a homeless shelter, or a shoddy apartment building. Nope—suburban homeowners are the single biggest recipient of housing subsidies. As a result, suburbs dominate housing in the United States. For decades, federal finance regulations incentivized single-family homes through …
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Inside of Intersectionality is an Intersection Where Collisions Take Place
That's what's going on in Los Angeles' Boyle Heights neighbourhood: If “the revolution devours its own,” as the saying has it, then anti-gentrification activists in Boyle Heights, a heavily Latino district just east of downtown Los Angeles, have been feasting. They have greeted liberal artists and hipsters with racial taunts, vandalism, boycotts, and mask-wearing demonstrators. In several cases, they have …
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Be Careful Before You Encourage Unpatriotism
It never ends: now we have a stink over NFL (and other) players "taking the knee" during the National Anthem. Our President and just above everybody else is involved. It's another way to fill up Twitter with vitriol, as if we don't have enough. My attitude towards the traditional respect given towards the National Anthem …
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Maybe It's a Good Time to Make Your Speeches Online
Given the hatred the left feels for Trump and that former FBI Director James Comey is a career martyr to the cause, you'd think he'd be welcome on campuses. But no... Students at Howard University loudly protested former FBI Director James Comey Friday as he delivered a convocation address. As Comey, making a rare public …
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Why I Just Can't Get Excited about #DACA
With the major hurricanes done for the moment and a debt crisis averted by Trump's deal with the Democrats, Congress must turn to the issues in front of it. Tax reform code is at the top of the list, although I'm not holding my breath. Behind that is the DACA program, or the "Dreamers," where …
If You Can Lead Sheep, You're Ready for Politics
I could not pass up this gem from Philo Judaeus, in his Life of a Man Occupied with Affairs of State, or on Joseph, I: Now, this man (Joseph) began from the time he was seventeen years of age to be occupied with the consideration of the business of a shepherd, which corresponds to political …
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Having a Form of Diversity, but Denying the Power Thereof
Millennials' legendary capacity for diversity may be just that: A recent study conducted by a Grand Valley State University professor suggests that political correctness, at least among millennials, is little more than a charade. In an August 16 study, Professor Karen Pezzetti explains that millennials pursuing careers in education “position themselves as good, non-racist people,” …
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Evidently Twitter Doesn't Like My Post on Trump and Palm Beach Clubs
One of the most popular posts I have on this site is Trump Opens the Club to Blacks and Jews? Not Quite, which is about two years old. It's gotten a good deal of traffic and the gamut of reactions. I'm glad to inject a little Palm Beach perspective to this question, because both what …
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My Facebook Rant re the White "Supremacists"
I was kind of nudged by one of my illustrious relatives (who is now in the Old Country) on the subject of our Confederate ancestors, and this is what I came back with: I think that what's been neglected in this debate is an answer to the simple question "How did the 'Lost Cause' lose?" …
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Positive Infinity 