The system doesn't stop you from lying, it punishes you afterwards. One charming consequence is that in the United States, anybody can be you. Are we not an inventive people, up to and including identity theft?
The alleged hustle is the classic: funds pump up their own valuations by buying illiquid shares, including in their own subsidiaries, then use their inflated stock as loan collateral. Naive, buyable or cowardly officials fail to recognise the problem. Expensive legal teams suppress any criticism.
The DC Office of Tax and Revenue later tells me it has no record of Fusion Swirl LLC, the company named on my receipt. . . . I also look up the Virginia license plate of the shiny blue truck for traffic violations. Since last October, it has racked up 27 tickets totaling $2,842, mostly for illegal parking and not displaying a front license plate.
And if AI scammers can steal royalties without consequences, this will metastasize like a cancer throughout the music economy. The fact that Spotify is encouraging listeners to check out these albums is especially troubling.
Over years, Youngblood convinced a small, interconnected group of families in Austin, Texas, that their loved ones faced cartel violence, then cast himself as their defender, taking millions of dollars from them and uprooting their lives in startling ways.
8mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
