We had a lot of great feedback and interesting comments on our megatrends observation we published on Friday. Some readers felt we missed a few major issues while a few felt we were too pessimistic about the future and that if anything the future is promising for the US and the world. Here’s the feedback from you all on our megatrends piece. We arranged the feedback by the order in which we received your emails. Some of the latest (most recently received) notes are at the very end of the document and are worth reading if readers have the time.

Chaos and a Non-Homage to Catalonia’s Referendum On Independence: 42.3% of Catalonia’s 5.32 million voters turned out for a referendum on independence from Spain, with 90% in favor, according to Catalan officials. The day was marked by violence with over 800 citizens suffering injuries and 319 of the approximate 2,300 polling stations closed by Spanish government police. Despite video footage of police storming polling stations and beating defenders of the Catalonian crowds, the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister proclaimed the police had “acted with professionalism and in a proportionate way.” In contrast, the Catalonian leader Carles Puigdemont declared “the citizens of Catalonia have won the right to an independent state in the form a republic,” but Spain’s Prime Minister countered “There has not been a referendum on self-determination in Catalonia.”

Catalonia is a wealthy region of Spain and enjoys a high degree of autonomy. It is home to 7.5 million people, and is in north eastern Spain. Anchored by Barcelona, Catalonia has its own language and culture.

Competing Reports From Trump And Journalists On Puerto Rico’s Recovery: It has been almost two weeks since Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, a US territory with about three and a half million American citizens. The entire island was devastated with vast parts of the island having no phone service, electricity, gasoline, or medicine supplies.

On Sunday, tweeting from his golf club in New Jersey where he spent a relaxing weekend, President Trump wrote “We have done a great job with the almost impossible situation in Puerto Rico. Outside of the Fake News or politically motivated ingrates, people are now starting to recognize the amazing work that has been done by FEMA and our great Military.” Journalists on the ground, witnessing the devastation first hand, beg to differ. A CNN reporter who was born on the island and has been reporting from there since the hurricane hit, said large swaths of land are still inaccessible, and often journalists arrived in some regions before first responders. In the reporter’s hometown of Corozal, cancer patients sought refuge in a classroom that had been without power for six days because its generator stopped running, she said. “They have no power, no medical attention, no food,” she continued. “Help is not arriving.” Trump insisted in another tweet that “all buildings” were inspected, which was news to Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló,  who said  he did not know of any such inspections, or to what buildings the president was referring.

Fortunately help is beginning to ramp up. Rossello said Sunday a surge of fuel, food supplies, and federal government personnel had begun to arrive. He expects that over the next two days, more than half a million barrels of diesel fuel and nearly a million barrels of gasoline would reach the island. The fuel is badly needed to power emergency generators and to distribute food and other supplies. Trump plans to visit the island Tuesday. Additional reading: what a day in Puerto Rico looks like right now.

Air France Flight 66’s Emergency Landing & All things Airplanes: During a routine trans-Atlantic flight from Paris to Los Angeles, an Air France Airbus A380 suffered a catastrophic engine failure on one of its four engines and landed at Goose Bay, Canada as a precaution. The failure happened whilst the flight was near Greenland and resulted in part of the downed engine liberating from the engine nacelle. Goose Bay is on the far eastern tip of Canada, and is often designated as a possible divert airfield for transoceanic crossings based on its long runway and geographic position relative to the northern air routes between North America and Europe. Air France dispatched two aircraft to ferry the passengers from Goose Bay to the original destination of Los Angeles.

The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger jet in the world. Under normal configuration, it holds 525 passengers on two decks, utilizing four engines rated at about 70,000 lbs. of thrust each. While alarming, it is important to keep this engine failure in perspective. The aircraft flew for an extended period post-engine failure, and issues of this type are extremely rare. Furthermore, the A380 can fly with minimal performance degradation on three engines, and can fly with only two operating engines as well. The chance of multiple engines failing on the same aircraft are extremely remote. The greatest danger of flying with an inoperative engine that suffered catastrophic failure during flight is the possibility of collateral damage to other aircraft systems (hydraulics, fuel system, electronics, flight controls) that may endanger the safety of the flight. Worldwide, on average, over 10.3 million passengers fly daily. The Air France flight had 497 passengers.

Additional Read #1: How significant climate change is quickly altering where and how airports are being built.

Additional Read #2: The British are worried that Boeing will turn off there military aircraft. Meaning, aircraft today are not too dissimilar from our computers and smartphones. It is typically not the hardware that we should be worried about but whether the software is functional. In the past few decades software companies have become industry giants whereas hardware companies have become commodified. And on that note, the next topic is on flying in high style and racking airline miles and then getting grounded-fired!

Trump Says Goodbye to All That is Tom Price – What’chu Talkin’ ‘Bout, Tillerson?: Last Thursday we reported on various members of the Trump administration billing taxpayers for their usage of private airplanes for official business, as opposed to flying commercial. In particular, Tom Price, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, racked up about $400,000 flying to places in chartered jets. But that wasn’t all. He also took trips with his wife on military planes, including to Africa, Europe, and Asia, to the tune of $500,000 and change. All together, fiscally-conservative-minded Price whipped up a whopping million dollar plus tab while simultaneously slashing the HHS budget and staff. And when the president said on Wednesday that he “wasn’t happy” about that, Price offered on Thursday to reimburse the government …for his seat on those flights. In other words, he offered to pay back about $52,000, you know, the cost to fly one seat on a plane, not counting  all the other seats, pilots and crew that also had to make the trip. By Friday, it was all just too much. Trump a la the Apprentice mode told Price “you are fired!” We don’t think Price will be accruing airfare tabs anymore that get close to millions of dollars but he might be singing and humming along to Chamillionaire’s song “riding dirty.”

Price didn’t survive the Trump administration’s game of thrones and it looks like U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is also increasingly on thin ice. Tillerson was speaking at a press conference in Beijing Saturday, trying to calm things down after furious tweet wars between President Trump and Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Tillerson said the goal was to use direct communication to lower tension between the two hostile nations. And that the U.S. made it clear through its direct channels to North Korea that it was seeking peace through talks. “I think the most immediate action that we need is to calm things down,” Tillerson added. But Trump was having none of that, taking to Twitter to directly contradict Tillerson, saying “I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!” And just for emphasis, Trump tweeted  again Sunday afternoon: “Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.”

US Pulls Embassy Staff From Cuba Amid Possible Sonic Attacks: The Pnut previously reported on the unusually high incident rate of several inexplicable symptoms suffered by members of the US embassy staff in Cuba. Now, the US has decided to only retain approximately 40% of the embassy staff, and returning the other 60% and all family members. What will remain in Cuba will be only the minimum required staff to perform “core consular and diplomatic functions.” The State Department is also advising US citizens to not travel to Cuba.

21 American diplomats and family members have suffered permanent hearing loss, brain injuries, dizziness, tinnitus, problems with balance, visual impairment, headaches, fatigue, cognitive issues and difficulties sleeping in the last several months, but there does not appear to be an explanation forthcoming. These “attacks” have largely occurred in hotels, but not suffered by other guests, fueling conjecture that either Cuba or a third party is targeting the American diplomatic corps. The exact cause is still a mystery and has intelligence officials and diplomats alike baffled.

(Bonus section) The Republican Plan To Overhaul Taxes: (This is a longer section as it is difficult to cover a complicated subject like tax policy in a super condensed manner) The Republican Tax Plan, currently a nine page framework with expected modifications to come, would actually simplify income tax filings. It also seems to have few benefits for the middle class and most proposals, such as lowering the top tax rate and eliminating the estate tax and alternative minimum tax, clearly benefit high earners and the mega-wealthy, including President Trump.

Specifically, for businesses, the GOP plan would lower the current 35% corporate tax rate to 20%, and eliminate some business deductions and credits. The plan creates a new 25% tax rate for “pass-through” businesses — sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations that currently pay taxes at the individual rate of their owners. Pass-throughs now make up about 95 percent of businesses in the country and the bulk of corporate tax revenue for the government. Most pass-throughs are small sole proprietorships currently paying less than a 25 percent marginal rate. But a few are quite large – 1.7 percent of pass-through businesses generate more than 40 percent of all pass-through income and are taxed at the top 39.6 percent rate. The plan would be a windfall for these high-earning pass-throughs. The plan will rely on congressional committees to adopt measures to prevent wealthy individuals from incorporating as pass-through companies to pay a lower tax rate on their income. Finally, the plan implements a one-time repatriation tax on profits overseas.

For individuals, the plan would reduce the seven current marginal income tax brackets to three— 12, 25 and 35 percent, and leave open the option for a fourth, higher rate. The plan does not specify which income levels would be taxed at each rate. We don’t know which rate someone earning $50,000 or $80,000 will pay, for example, but if the highest rate is set at 35 percent, it would greatly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, who currently pay a top rate of 39.6 percent on income greater than $418,400 for single filers. The standard deduction (currently $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for married couples) will nearly double. Single filers, and married filers with no children would get a higher deduction. But anyone married with two children would lose about $5,000. (A married couple earning $24,000 or less or an individual earning $12,000 or less won’t pay any taxes.) The plan eliminates what’s known as the additional standard deduction, most itemized deductions, and the popular personal exemption. There is real uncertainty about the effects of the proposed larger standard deduction, which affects lower and middle income earners, primarily because the elimination of other personal exemptions would significantly reduce the benefit for some people and conceivably wipe it out for others.

The plan also promises a “significant increase” to the child tax credit (it’s currently $1,000 per child) and that middle class Americans can keep using the mortgage interest deduction as well as tax breaks for retirement savings (e.g. 401ks) and higher education. But it eliminates the state and local tax deduction, which is used by many in high-tax states like New York and California.

The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) would go away under the plan, and this has critics on both the right and the left. Currently the AMT applies mainly to individuals earning more than $130,000 and married couples earning more than $160,00. Also, the plan would eliminate the estate tax, a long-time Republican goal. Currently inherited wealth greater than $5.49 million is subject to a maximum rate of 40%. Six charts to explain the tax plan.

Please support Daily Pnut!