I find it amusing that multiple Boston Area Colleges lost millions to Madoff and his Ponzi scheme.

I find this parable possibly relevant to cryptocurrency created out of nothing. Parable: The Emperor Has No Clothes | by Mattimore Cronin | Medium

Lots of people in Stage 1: Shock + Denial here

The 5 Stages Of Getting Orange-Pilled | ZeroHedge

You can buy a boatload of Bitcoin with Tether. Too bad you can not invest in the issuer of Tether.

According to a recent study, 70 percent of Bitcoin trading is done in Tethers. On any given day, Tether is by far the most-traded coin, its volume often double that of Bitcoin. If you want to gamble at the crypto casino, you need Tethers.

Ben McKenzie on Tether, the potential danger at the center of the crypto economy..

Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

I'm old enough to remember when Buffet would spout off non-stop about how the "rich" should pay more in taxes. Then Propublica got a dump of IRS data on the richest people in America. No more sermonizing from Buffet once this story got published:

No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes.


Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
2014-2018 Wealth Growth:
$24.3B
Total Income Reported:
$125M (0.51% of wealth)
Total Taxes Paid:
$23.7M (0.10% of wealth)
Note: Values in the graphic are rounded.
That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.

The problem is the rich are able to buy enough congressman to make laws to help them avoid taxes. Term limits would be a good way to stop this.

"As of July 2020—when he donated about 16 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares, worth around $2.9 billion—Buffett had given away more than $37.4 billion to philanthropic causes, according to Reuters.

Earlier in the year, Buffett topped Forbes and SHOOK Research’s list of the biggest philanthropic donors in America after giving away $14.7 billion, or about 16 percent of his net worth, over a five-year span.

In June 2021, news of Buffett's largest donation to date was somewhat overshadowed by the news he also had resigned from the Gates Foundation board. However, the 4.1 billion stock donation in 2021 surpassed his previous top donation in 2019, when he gave away $3.6 billion, according to Reuters."

From: How Much Has Warren Buffett Donated to Charity?

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”

~ Judge Learned Hand
(1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals
in the case of Gregory v. Helvering 69 F.2d 809, 810 (2d Cir. 1934), aff'd, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596 (1935)

"The top 10 percent of earners bore responsibility for over 71 percent of all income taxes paid and the top 25 percent paid 87 percent of all income taxes. Both of those figures represent an increased tax share compared to 2017. The top fifty percent of filers earned 88 percent of all income and were responsible for 97 percent of all income taxes paid in 2018."

From: Who Pays Income Taxes? - Foundation - National Taxpayers Union

"On Wednesday, the Tax Policy Center (TPC) released estimates on the portion of households with no federal income tax liability, finding that in 2020, about 60.6 percent of households did not pay income tax, up from 43.6 percent of households in 2019."

From: Increasing Share of U.S. Households Paying No Income Tax

This may explain some of the carnage seen in bitcoin lately.

One type of cryptocurrency, a so-called stablecoin, is meant to keep its value at $1. But on Monday, the third-biggest stablecoin, TerraUSD, fell as low as 69 cents, causing a flood of investors to sell their holdings.

Cryptocurrency TerraUSD Falls Below Fixed Value, Triggering Selloff - WSJ

The crypto whales will do everything they can to keep bitcoin above $30. A good time if you are a trader.

:bigbow:

Now Tether is starting to look a little shaky. If it goes look out below.

Tether price | index, chart and news | WorldCoinIndex

But those were big pages!!!

https://constitutioncenter.org/media...nstitution.pdf

Foundations are tax shelters for rich. They get to control money and pass it out to relatives on million dollar plus payrolls. All while the deducting it off as tax breaks.

So what's the point? His accountants followed the tax laws and he paid what our laws said he should. I imagine he was arguing that the laws should be changed. In the meantime, are you implying he should just ignore the laws and make a donation to the government? Instead he donated billions to charity and has pledged to give away 99% of his net worth. I say good for him.