Taxpayers vote for programs sold as a solution to a problem, but are implemented as further oppression at their expense.
May 20, 2024
By: Bobby Casey, Managing Director GWP
“If authoritarianism is on your side today, rest assured it will not be tomorrow.” ~History.
Put those two together and you get crowds of people cheering for policies they think are for one group, but ultimately come for them.
You had a group of people rooting for the cancellation of anyone they deemed “hateful” or criticized the current narrative of information as “spreading misinformation”.
Those same people are now the targets of the same thing and they don’t like it too much.
Likewise, we have groups of people rooting for some sort of “collective action” to save the planet… and yet the government and its cronies are conspicuously exempt through various loopholes.
When President Joe Biden enacted a bill to expand the IRS, people were sold on the idea that people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk would be targeted with that new entourage; or at the very least hedge fund managers who park their wealth offshore! All those Panama Paper folks right?
Nope.
Fine. What about those just making over $400k?
Nope.
As of last summer, 63% of new audits targeted taxpayers with income of less than $200,000. Only a small overall share reached the very highest earners, while 80% of audits covered filers earning less than $1 million.
If you recall an article we did a while back, pointing out the priorities of the IRS when its budget was cut a few years back. What was found was not what you would think:
- The IRS went after mistakes made by businesses that filed their taxes rather than going after businesses that never filed at all.
- The IRS went after the poor rather than the uberwealthy because they were rated by how many cases they could open and close not how much money they could actually capture. It takes around three years to audit offshore wealth and most of those accounts are gate kept by the country itself along with a team of CPAs and tax attorneys.
Fast forward to today, and the IRS is still reticent to go after the very people everyone thought they would. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for the rich to be targeted either. But every time the government offers up the rich as tribute, to pay for more welfare schemes or bolster the IRS, it ultimately comes down on the middle class.
I think Dave Chappelle captured it perfectly when he explained why Donald Trump is so loved. He called him an “honest liar“.
“If you want me to pay my taxes,” he said, “you’ll change the tax code. But I know you won’t. Because your friends and your donors enjoy the same tax breaks I do.”
There’s no scenario where the structures in place for the ultrarich are going anywhere, which is precisely why you should use them too. We all have access to them.
The tax code isn’t the only case where it was rules for thee but not for me. Energy and ecological impact seems to also be a double standard.
People are told to conserve energy. But also told to buy electric cars and switch to electric stoves.
Well those chickens came home to roost in a few places including California and Hawaii. The neglect or failures of the electric companies have led to black-outs and fires.
California leads the US in rolling black-outs, with Florida coming in second. The top five largest wildfires in California trace back to utility companies.
And lest we forget about Maui. The headline reads: New data reveals dozens of power grid malfunctions as Maui wildfires began. The article outlines several fires in Hawaii that were due to the utility companies.
Fast forward to 2024, and you have articles coming out about the Magnificent 7: Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG and GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), NVIDIA (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), Meta Platforms (META) rallying, with other AI companies like Supermicro also performing strong in the markets.
That’s fine and all, but every single one of those have data centers that requires a LOT of energy to support:
A major factor behind the skyrocketing demand is the rapid innovation in artificial intelligence, which is driving the construction of large warehouses of computing infrastructure that require exponentially more power than traditional data centers. AI is also part of a huge scale-up of cloud computing. Tech firms like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft are scouring the nation for sites for new data centers, and many lesser-known firms are also on the hunt.
While you’re sitting in the dark with your rations of expensive energy, the aforementioned cronies as well as the government itself will be taking as much as it needs. So yes, the stock market is doing well. But your energy bill will likely be going up because those needs are coming form Virginia:
The area is known as “Data Center Alley” because it’s home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers. Some call the area ‘spy country’ because of the number of data centers used by the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies.
Given the exponential proliferation of smartphones, streaming services, smart devices, and now generative artificial intelligence, the power demanded by data centers in Northern Virginia will need nuclear reactors worth of power, if not much more, according to utility Dominion Energy.
Chief Executive Officer Bob Blue said the following:
“A single data center typically had a demand of 30 megawatts or greater. However, we’re now receiving individual requests for demand of 60 to 90 megawatts or greater, and it hasn’t stopped there. We get regular requests to support larger data center campuses that include multiple buildings and require total capacity ranging from 300 megawatts to as many as several gigawatts.”
Heaven forbid the state stop spying on its people to allow for affordable supply of energy! The Panopticon never sleeps, I guess.
This will cost taxpayers millions of dollars in upgrades, energy, and expansions. Not only are people voting for their own oppression, they’re paying for it, too.
Like I said from the start: if authoritarianism favors you today, rest assured it won’t tomorrow. This is historical fact, and currently corroborated fact, and a future certainty.
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