What was meant to be a modest fiscal tweak has turned into an expensive lesson in capital flight. In 2022, Norway’s Labour-led government raised the wealth tax to 1.1%, hoping to boost annual revenues by $146 million. Instead, it triggered a migration of the wealthy—not just of assets, but of people.
Roughly 50 of Norway’s richest citizens packed their bags and left, including high-profile investors and founders of tech firms. Switzerland emerged as a favoured destination, thanks to its lenient tax regime and predictable fiscal policy. The net effect? A reported $594 million loss in tax revenue—four times the projected gain.
Norway is one of a shrinking handful of countries that still imposes an annual tax on net wealth, and the recent adjustment, though minor in absolute terms, served as a tipping point for those already disgruntled by rising fiscal burdens. The departures, legal but disruptive, highlight a growing tension in policymaking: the trade-off between progressive taxation and fiscal pragmatism.
The VA cancelled a $56,000 contract to water ~8 plants for 5 years. This is ~$1400/plant/year. The contract has been canceled and DOGE will water the plants free of charge. pic.twitter.com/CAj8xINzJG
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) March 7, 2025
Social Security is as big as government programs get. Naturally, even a glance at it with DOGE’s magnifying glass found plenty that seemed — charitably — not quite right.
“According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE,” Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk stated via X on February 16. “Maybe Twilight is real, and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security.”….
Trump critics insist that there is nothing to see here and that Musk and President Donald J. Trump are lying when they say that dead people are collecting Social Security — or that crooks are harvesting those checks on behalf of the deceased. …
Even if Trump and Musk are wrong, and Social Security is graft-free, what does it say about this federal database — and Uncle Sam’s technological prowess in general — if it “merely” is clogged with fake data about people who have been dead for centuries (if they ever even existed)?
“The fact that we are even discussing whether 1.3 million Americans over the age of 150 are receiving Social Security shows how antiquated the federal government’s IT systems are and how they need a dire update,” U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R – Tennessee) told me. The member of the Senate Finance Committee added: “That is exactly why President Trump has launched DOGE and brought in Elon Musk, who often jovially refers to himself as tech support. We need to make the Social Security Administration more efficient and improve its technology so we have transparency into who is receiving government benefits.”
Blackburn’s comment is, so far, the understatement of the year.
The Los Angeles Daily News reports the city’s Chief of Police advising citizens that, despite an $11.8 billion budget and 9,974 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, the third largest police department in the united States cannot protect you. Don’t wear valuable stuff, don’t drive expensive cars. The criminals rule the city.
People move to Los Angeles from all over the world for the weather, glitz, glamour and a Hollywood lifestyle that only the City of Angels can offer.
However, our crime problem is now so out of control that we are now being told to leave our watches, expensive cars and wallets at home in order to protect ourselves from emboldened criminals.
We have essentially collectively thrown in the towel on trying to do something to catch and punish the criminals and instead just resorted to hiding everything that they might want to steal from us.
On March 24 of last year, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told Angelenos to leave their flashy jewelry and cars at home.
“What we’re asking the public to do with these crime increases is if they’re going to wear expensive jewelry or drive high-end cars, when leaving restaurants, taverns and other locations, they need to be mindful of their surroundings, and be in well lit areas. [We ask that] they recognize there are opportunists that are willing to take advantage of them and many times, these individuals are armed with firearms,” said Moore.
Moore said the LAPD is “tracking the increase in armed robberies.” Armed robberies are up 44% since last year, the police department reported.
So, let me get this straight — With armed robberies at an all-time high, Los Angeles residents are being warned by LAPD not to go out in public while prominently displaying lots of expensive jewelry.
So … what? Mr. T isn’t supposed to leave his house for months?
We’re also being advised not to drive expensive-looking cars, which would explain the uptick in Prius sales.
Remember those bumper stickers that read, “My Other Car Is A Mercedes”? Who knew those people were just trying to not get carjacked?
Even wearing well-fitting, stylish, expensive-looking clothes can get you robbed. So I guess Rihanna has nothing to worry about.
At an LAPD press conference on Jan. 12 of this year, the public was told to leave literally nothing visible in the car.
The LAPD’s campaign to get law-abiding citizens to hide their valuables is known as “Stash It Don’t Flash It,” which is better than the more accurate name, “We Give Up.”
“It could be anything from a phone charger to change in the cup holder, that they’re gonna break the window out and take,” said Sgt. Gordon Helper, leader of the campaign.
“Absolutely, they’ll even break a window to get a bottle of water so they can recycle its container, whether it’s aluminum or plastic,” added Capt. Elaine Morales.
Of course, in reality, those nearly ten thousand cops certainly could stop crime in Los Angeles. Their government won’t let them. City government is controlled by a machine that stays in office by relying on a voting base whose foundation is the criminal/welfare class. That base is allied –of course– to precisely the same ideologically-deluded wet liberals who are the former predator’s natural prey. In US cities today, it’s as if the wildebeast and gazelles could be counted to vote against hunters harvesting lions and leopards.
And, as Jeffrey Carter notes, everywhere you look you can see Ayn Rand’s fictional vision of the future coming visibly to life.
If you look at Minneapolis, Chicago, and San Francisco, it is a race to see who can be Detroit first. NYC is terrible right now when it comes to crime and daily living. So is Los Angeles. New Orleans is the murder capital of the country. Memphis, St. Louis, Louisville? Please spare me the Chamber of Commerce pitch. No doubt, tourists are balking at going to those places due to fear of crime.
Name an urban area that is a delightful place to live, has great public schools, doesn’t have rising crime, and you can build wealth right now. The only ones I can think of are in the Old Confederacy.
John Galt is shrugging. He is moving places. It’s not the weather.
Last November, the information came out in connection with a secret internal report that Yale now had more administrators than faculty or students:
The numbers:
4,664 undergraduate students
4,962 faculty
5,042 administrators
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“I think we don’t yet have a Vice President for the rights of the left-handed, but I haven’t checked this month.” — Professor Leslie Brisman.
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The report discussing this astounding proliferation of bureaucracy (and its negative impact on teaching) was never released and quickly swept deeply under the Woodbridge Hall rug.
But these things have a way of coming out, despite coverup efforts and, what do you know? somebody evidently leaked the damaging report to the alumni reform organization “Fight for Yale.”
Sample:
“[T]here are currently 31 people with the title of ‘Vice President’ (or ‘Associate Vice President’) at Yale and also 7 with the title of ‘Vice Provost’; this may be compared to only 5 Vice Presidents in 2003-4 and 14 in 2012-13. Table 4 provides some
other counts of people with titles with the words ‘student affairs,’ ‘student engagement,’ ‘student life,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘strategic initiatives,’ or ‘sustainability’ in their job titles. …”
The AR-15’s .223 Remington cartridge (the virtually identical civilian version of the 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge) fires a 60 grain bullet at roughly 3000 feet per second.
The .30-06 Springfield’s (used in WWI and WWII) 110 grain service round bullet was fired at 3400 feet per second. A deer hunter is likely to use a 150 grain bullet (2900 feet per second) or a 180 grain bullet (2700 feet per second).
Correction: US service rounds were primarily 150 gr. I guess the 110 gr. surplus ammo I remembered must have been from some other country. Thanks for the correction in Comments. Complete .30-06 data here.
Governments world-wide have spent billions and billions to get you to switch from using gasoline refined from petroleum to electricity produced in plants that burn coal to power your car. Pure genius!
