TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
You might have expected that the collapse of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, the arrest of crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried, and various other scandals and crashes of the past year would have killed the market for lengthy features on bizarre crypto schemes … but maybe that’s why you’re not an editor at the New York Times. In August in the year of our lord 2023 the newspaper of record published a long piece [[link removed]] marveling at Worldcoin, whose mission is to use a device they actually call The Orb to scan the irises of every person on earth, and to pay them in cryptocurrency for that biometric data.
The company behind Worldcoin is called “Tools for Humanity,” which sounds like something ChatGPT might come up with if prompted to generate a name that might be used by space aliens trying to hide their intentions to exterminate Earth . Which is, in fact, a plausible origin story, because Tools for Humanity was founded by Sam Altman, who is also the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. His comprehensive vision, the NYT explains, is that his AI software will rapidly become so good that nobody will have jobs, so the orb-based identity system can be used to distribute crypto to the world as a sort of privatized Universal Basic Income scheme where the whole world is his company store . And sure, that could be a solid character sketch for a second-rate super-villain, but why on earth would anyone take it all seriously in the business section at a time when crypto has become part of the true-crime beat?
Make it make sense.
Three Numbers [[link removed]]
5.8% GDP growth [[link removed]] is now projected for the 3rd quarter, according to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow [[link removed]] real-time estimation. A year ago, Bloomberg economists declared there was a 100% probability [[link removed]] of recession this year.
65% [[link removed]] of new clean energy investments sparked by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act are located in counties with above-average poverty rates [[link removed]] . The new jobs created by these investments will strengthen the middle class, spurring economic growth in places that have been left behind for too long.
10% wage increases [[link removed]] have been shown to reduce the time it takes employers to fill job vacancies by up to 40% [[link removed]] . In other words: the solution to the labor shortage is just as obvious as it seemed.
A Chart [[link removed]]
After years of being intentionally starved of resources by trickle-downers, the IRS got a much-needed infusion of resources as part of the Inflation Reduction Act — and the results [[link removed]] are already apparent. A few weeks ago, the agency reported collecting $40 million in back taxes from 175 wealthy tax cheats — at least one of whom had spent the tax money he owed on a Maserati and a Bentley . But at least as important for the 99% of people who try to pay their taxes instead of paying lawyers to find ways to avoid taxes: the chart below shows phone wait times at the IRS call center are down from an average of almost 30 minutes last year to just 4 minutes this year. Making the experience of filing income taxes less unpleasant is a small but important part of making taxes feel less onerous — which is perhaps why for years, the system seemed to be designed to be as frustrating as possible.
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Blowing up the Groupchat [[link removed]]
In an apparent effort to beat out the Wall Street Journal Lifestyle section for hate clicks, Bloomberg conducted a poll of 1,000 [[link removed]] people whose incomes put them in the top 10% of the country… and found that a quarter of “objectively rich” people reported they were “very poor,” “poor,” or “getting by but things are tight” ... including a non-zero number of those people with incomes above $5 million. Sure, some of that may just be rich people trolling the pollsters. But the economic anxieties expressed in the follow-up profiles of the poor little rich people are in fact remarkably relatable: struggles to afford education, stay on top of housing costs, and just to feel the kind of security and confidence that not too long ago came with simply being middle income in the U.S., let alone being part of the millionaire class. After decades of failed neoliberal economic policies, we’re in a moment where the breadth of economic insecurity expressed across income distribution could be an opportunity for solidarity … or it could be another excuse to cut taxes at the top to give the anxious rich a little more breathing room. Only time — and politics — will tell.
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