Billionaire chronicles

Good to know, but it’s not “writing off” student loan debt.

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It’s writing it off as an expense, the same way that billionaires write of losses, right?

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When you’re having to choose between dinner and paying rent because you have too much debt, it’s not the same thing, no.

This is a real serious problem, and “just write it off” doesn’t really help with the heart of it. It’s not nearly enough to off-set the actual cost of paying these loans off.

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I’m just saying that the original tweeter seems to confuse tax write offs and loan forgiveness

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It’s true that the two kinds of losses aren’t exactly the same kinds of losses, but in a sense, they both are “losses.” And “investments.” And one can be written off, while the other can’t, no?

We can get a tax deduction for the interest paid on student loans, but not for the entirety of the student loans (which strikes me as the actual parallel to “investment losses”).

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[…]

Larry Ellison’s son David has done rather better in recent years by founding Skydance Media, which has teamed with Paramount on projects including Top Gun: Maverick, Mission: Impossible movies, and Trek flicks. In a 2022 interview he explained that part of Skydance’s strategy is making sequels – to give audiences more of what they already like.

As befits the scion of a family that made its billions with SQL.

Earlier this year, Paramount Global dangled the possibility of a sale, and the owners of a majority of voting interests – the Redstone family – eventually agreed to merge with Skydance. The transaction was structured so that Skydance paid billions for the privilege. Larry Ellison helped to fund the deal.

Lawyers are now finalizing the transaction, which this week resulted in the emergence of a filing [8MB PDF] that details the structure of the merged entity and reveals an org named Pinnacle Media – which Larry Ellison controls – will hold a majority voting interest.

Ellison senior contributed $1 billion to help Elon Musk buy Twitter, and now joins him as another owner of a troubled media company.

[…]

Paramount Global, however, includes CBS and its venerable news operation. Which is where things get interesting, as one of the few profitable broadcast news orgs in recent years is Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, which wears its ideology on its sleeve – often in support of causes its proprietor favours.

Ellison senior certainly has a few things he might like the US government to consider – such as a deal that would see Oracle run more of TikTok, and giant federal cloud deals.

[…]

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I don’t want to see the day this topic needs a longer title:

Money Tax The Rich GIF by Women’s March

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Billionaire class is shuffling money around just in case Harris actually manages to enact policies that would result in them paying slightly higher taxes on their obscene wealth.

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are almost entirely unaffected by anything that actually happens to the rest of us - are so into converting the country into a neo-feudal hellscape is that there are a couple of things that, despite their unimaginable wealth, they would have a hard time getting away with anywhere in the world.

Specifically, they want literal slaves, including child slaves, with all that implies.

Atrios at 10:30

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Interesting how the people that get rich in the “AI boom” are the ones selling the shovels…

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And the pickaxes, rope, and dynamite.

Food, booze, and sex too.

The massive gambling is just a side hustle though.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-mark-cuban-says-hes-interested-in-purchasing-fox-news-and-x

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No.1 strategy for living without regrets: win (virtual) billions of lottery dollars, duh!

Somehow I think when OpenAI implodes into its divide-by-zero, this guy won’t have to worry about paying the rent.

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The tech leader encouraged high school students to think about taking calculated risks in their future careers.

Of course not everyone is living in a situation that encourages taking such risks.

Even if you don’t come from great wealth or have a family willing to sink money into your startup idea, there’s a world of difference between being a 20something who will end up homeless and hungry if their Big Idea doesn’t work out and being a 20something who might have to crash in their parents’ guestroom for a few months if their Big Idea doesn’t work out.

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He’s got it all figured out, per wikipedia:

(I’ll bet he’s one of those rich folks who is up all night worrying about how to instill loyalty in his servants and bodyguards after the collapse of society when money and laws mean nothing.)

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Big Sur doesn’t look like the easiest place to land a plane. Oh well, I’m sure the airports will keep working through whatever apocalypse he’s imagining.

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I assume Altman is doing his best to encourage young innovators by lobbying for universal health care, free university, and other social safety nets. Right?

Nah, he makes a point of remembering all their names. They love him.

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