A "strict parent."

When you sell your soul, you find yourself saying evil things like this.

I have an idea: how about America start acting like a strict parent and cut Ray Dalio's allowance? Mindsets like this--abroad and here--are why I don't have any particular beef with soaking the rich.

Yes, I know--they have lawyers and accountants to help their cash escape capture. And I'm certainly no friend of the idea of a beefed-up IRS which will invariably audit the hell out of the middle class instead of the connected.

But, in principle, yes--sign me up for the billionaire tax. I long since stopped being an unpaid apologist for these sorts of people:

"As a top down country what they [China] are doing is--they behave like a strict parent."

Why could motivate someone to say something so heartless and stupid like that? 

Oh:

Per Axios, just a week ago Dalio’s firm announced that it had raised more than a billion dollars to launch its third investment fund in China. 

While Arendt's thesis is open to challenge, it seems pretty clear to me that in America, evil wears the most banal of guises. We're quite ok with that--so long as evil is well-dressed and deals in civil, soothing and ambiguous rhetoric.

Meanwhile, the poorest of the poor are spending a fifth to a quarter of their income on water and sewerage bills.

 Analysts developed a slate of policy recommendations they said could limit burdensome water costs and improve service.

Among their recommendations: Permanently prohibit water shutoffs for poor households.

Michigan communities were ordered to stop water shutoffs when the coronavirus pandemic hit last year. Detroit — where years ago the water department conducted a controversial shutoff campaign to amid its financial crisis — will continue its moratorium through 2022. 

A shutoff can be the last straw for families facing expenses they can't afford, creating problems ranging from stress to poor hygiene to lost parental rights, Read said. 

As well as banning shutoffs, analysts recommended utilities and state policymakers find ways to help households struggling to pay for water services, including forgiving existing debts, discounting services or providing well and septic system repair grants to needy families. 

They also recommended: 

• Addressing gaps in technical and financial capacity among Michigan water and sewer utilities by providing funding and expertise to cash-strapped utilities. 
• Improving data collection by requiring Michigan utilities to report on their finances, infrastructure and maintenance plans.
• Requiring utilities to seek input from the communities they serve before making infrastructure and planning decisions.
• Have the state take a larger role in utility oversight to ensure public health protection, water quality and appropriate water rates.

While water affordability is an acute problem in Detroit and other Michigan cities, it is not solely an urban problem, the analysts cautioned. Low-income residents of the Thumb spend 20-25% of their incomes on water and sewer bills; low-income residents in portions of central Michigan and the western Upper Peninsula spend 15-20%.

Michigan residents who have private water supplies, such as septic systems and wells, also face challenges. Analysts found about 20% of wells and 27% of septic systems in Michigan are in need of repair and replacement.

Water bills have certainly shot up in our humble suburb, but thanks be to God it doesn't eat a quarter of our income. But I know people who have experienced water shutoffs, and it left scars. 

Capturing some of the Dalio class' cash might help. Especially when you consider how many good-paying American jobs they have connived in shipping over to Xi's realm.