#140B

[takeo-tsunamoto]

「大阪名所図解」

あなたも私もよく知っている大阪の名所”かたち”大全。大阪人別冊「ザ・大阪のデザイン」記事を大幅に加筆して書籍化。

文：酒井一光　髙岡伸一　江弘毅

絵：綱本武雄

140B刊　2014年

[kerorowhump]

ive talked in the past about keroro's desire to keep things as they are, static, because it's the only way he can have both keron and earth, but while rewatching ep140b I realized it shows the opposite side of this struggle

that no matter his efforts, it's a futile attempt and nothing is improving because everything is staying exactly the same. he spent a week racking his brain for a solution but the episode ends by showing us that he doesn't find one. could it be because the whole time he was fighting alone?

(his voice breaks in the first screenshot...) this to me feels like the same motivation he would have for invading. wanting to leave a mark, making something of yourself, mattering.

chibikero is in shadow, like the gunpla's shadow. he's not real anymore but he represents all the expectations and lost potential on his shoulders. while the small gunpla is in light like keroro. that's the reality of it. but that's also how he feels. small. he hasn't achieved any of his goals. he hasn't lived up to anything he said he would, everything he based his identity on. he's a "pitiful invader". his desire to matter perfectly encapsulates his abandonment issues too.

this collection will outlive him. it will speak of his greatness when he's gone. it's as much his identity as the invasion. it's also his tomb in the exact same way.

he's so happy for a moment organizing his whole collection on the shelves that he thought were gonna solve everything, enjoying the moment as it was, but in the end nothing changed.

is it because he's expendable? easily replaceable, like by a clone? is it because he doesn't see his own worth, so he has to get some (the keron star, his collection, the invasion)? because if he's not useful, he'll be thrown out? or because he doesn't want to be forgotten and left behind?

and yet

he remains insignificant and his fight is fruitless.

[femadjecent]

gero gero gero...

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It's pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. THIS IS THE LAST DAY to pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

If Elon Musk wants to cut $2t from the US federal budget, there's a pretty straightforward way to get there – just eliminate all the beltway bandits who overcharge Uncle Sucker for everything from pharmaceuticals to roadworks to (of course) rockets, and then make the rich pay their taxes.

There is a ton of federal bloat, but it's not coming from useless programs or overpaid federal employees. As David Dayen writes in a long, fact-filled feature in The American Prospect, the bloat comes from the private sector's greedy suckling at the government teat:

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trillion-elon-musk-doge/

The federal workforce used to be huge. In 1960, federal employees were 4.3% of all US workers; today, it's 1.4%. Zeroing out the entire federal payroll would save $271b/year (while beaching the US economy!), a mere 4% of the federal budget.

On the other hand, zeroing out the budget for federal contractors would save over a trillion dollars – the US spends 4 times more on private sector contractors than it does on its own workers, and while some of those contractors are honest folks giving good value for money, the norm is for federal contractors to pick the public's pocket and then use the proceeds to lobby for more fat contracts.

One key job we ask our federal employees to do is root out private sector fraud in federal contracting. We should hire more of these people! Private contractors steal $274b/year from the public purse – nearly enough to pay for all the employees in the federal government:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106285.pdf

Musk doesn't know any of these, and he doesn't care to know. As Dayen writes, he's doing "policy by anecdote." Take Ashley Thomas, the director of climate diversification for the US International Development Finance Corporation. Musk sicced a mob on her, decrying her for doing a "fake job" that was somehow related to "DEI." But Thomas's job isn't employment diversification – it's crop diversification.

If Musk wanted to run DOGE as a force for waste-elimination, he wouldn't be attacking the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS (whose budget accounts for 0.012% of federal spending). He wouldn't be attacking federal fiber subsidies (he's mad that he can't get more subsidies for his dead-end satellite service that caps out at one ten-millionth of the speed of fiber). He wouldn't be attacking high-speed rail (which competes with his Tesla swasticars). He wouldn't be fighting with the SEC (which defends the public from costly stock swindles, which is why they've been investigating Musk for seven years).

He could, instead, go after private sector Medicare waste. 33 million seniors have been suckered into switching from federally provided Medicare to privately provided Medicare Advantage. Overbilling from Medicare Advantage (whose doctors are ordered to "upcode" patients to generate additional bills) costs the public $83b/year:

https://www.medpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Mar24_ExecutiveSummary_MedPAC_Report_To_Congress_SEC.pdf

Medicare Advantage patients are, on average, healthier than Medicare patients (Medicare Advantage giants like Unitedhealtcare cream off the cheapest-to-service patients). Yet, this healthy cohort costs more to treat than their sicker cousins on the public plan – the fraud costs us about 11-14% of the total Medicare bill, and we could save $140b/year by zeroing that out:

https://pnhp.org/system/assets/uploads/2023/09/MAOverpaymentReport_Final.pdf

Zeroing out Medicare Advantage overbilling would pay for "an out-of-pocket spending cap, a public drug benefit, and dental, hearing, and vision benefits" for every Medicare patient with tens of billions to spare.

Of course, as Dayen points out, the guy in charge of Medicare is Dr Oz, who has spent years shilling for Medicare Advantage, while holding massive amounts of stock in Unitedhealthcare, the nation's largest Medicare Advantage provider, and the worst offender for Medicare Advantage overbilling.

Then there's Medicare itself. Rates for Medicare doctor reimbursement are set by committees of specialists, who award themselves sky-high rates while paying rock-bottom wages to the frontline general practitioners who do the heavy lifting. Lowering specialists rates to match the rates paid in Canada and Germany would save the federal government $100b/year:

https://cepr.net/rfk-jr-physicians-pay-schedules-and-the-elites-big-lie/

Then there's Big Pharma. For years, Congress legally forbade Medicare and Medicaid from negotiating drug prices, which is why the US government pays the highest rates in the world for drugs developed in the US, with US federal subsidies. US drug prices are 178% more than other wealthy countries, and many drugs are sold at 20-30x the cost of production:

https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/comparing-prescription-drugs

A few of these drug prices are going to come down in the coming years, thanks to timid, but long overdue action from the Biden administration. To really tackle a source of government waste, the US government could use its "march in rights" to federalize production of the most expensive drugs:

https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/force-drug-companies-to-lower-prices/

One possibility floated by economist Dean Baker is for the US government to invest $100b/year in clinical trials, keeping the patents for itself and licensing multiple manufacturers to compete to produce these publicly owned drugs, which would save an estimated $500b/year:

https://cepr.net/financing-drug-development-what-the-pandemic-has-taught-us/

Then there's price-gouging, useless middlemen like Group Purchasing Organizations who soak the public purse for $20b/year – a "moderate" enforcement action could cut that to $10b. Speaking of eliminating middlemen, community health centers are a way cheaper source of care than big hospitals – $2371/year cheaper per patient, per year. By subsidizing these, the US government could save another $20b/year:

https://www.ohiochc.org/news/310956/Landmark-Study-Confirms-Medicaid-Cost-Savings-at-Health-Centers.htm

Next, Dayen moves onto the Pentagon, which pulled in $841b last year but has failed seven consecutive audits:

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4992913-pentagon-fails-7th-audit-in-a-row-but-says-progress-made/

The DoD firehoses money over private sector contractors, like the $3.6b it hands over to Musk's Spacex every year – a number Musk hopes to grow through Spacex's participation in a new consortium:

https://www.ft.com/content/6cfdfe2b-6872-4963-bde8-dc6c43be5093

Military contractor wastage is the stuff of legend, like the $2t F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a lemon that has over 800 outstanding defects and was just greenlit for another year's worth of full funding:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-13/lockheed-f-35-s-tally-of-flaws-tops-800-as-new-issues-surface

This kind of wasteage isn't merely shameful, it's illegal. The Nunn-McCurdy Act requires that these large-scale boondoggles be reviewed with an eye to shutting them down. But when beltway bandits like Northrop Grumman’s produce expensive lemons like Sentinel, the DoD continues to hand public money to them, citing "national security":

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3829985/department-of-defense-announces-results-of-sentinel-nunn-mccurdy-review/

The DoD contracts out so much of its essential functions that it literally doesn't know what it has. It pays contractors and subcontractors to produce parts for its systems, but has no way to know if those parts have actually been produced. Meanwhile, private equity rollups like Transdigm have merged every single-source aerospace supplier and jacked up the price of spare parts for existing military systems, pulling down 4,500%+ markups:

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/28/ro-khanna-transdigm-refund-pentagon/

To estimate the easy military savings – the ones that won't require shutting down jobs programs scattered in every key Congressional district – Dayen takes the CBO's estimate and cuts it in half, to get an annual savings of $150b/year.

Then there's general prodcurement, where the GAO estimates the US loses $150b/year to bid-rigging and another $521b/year to fraud (the USG also spends $70b/year on management consultants who do no discernible useful work). Dayen estimates the annual savings from "stringently enforcing fraud and abuse, insourcing operations, and no longer paying for bad advice" at $150b/year.

Then there's tax cheating. The IRS estimates that it undercollects about $606b/year in taxes. The top 1% account for $163b/year of that (Elon Musk's own effective tax rate is just 3.27% as of the five years preceding 2021, the year for which we have his leaked tax return; he paid no taxes in 2018). Every dollar the IRS spends on auditing brings in $2.17 in tax, and every dollar the IRS spends auditing the wealthy generates $6.29 in tax. A dollar spent auditing the top 10% brings in $10:

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2024/dec/01/opinion-the-irs-shows-what-government-efficiency/

Audits are durable sources of tax. People who've been burned by an audit are far more honest in the decade after that audit.

The GOP has zeroed out Biden's IRS increases. The CBO estimates that a fully funded IRS could easily increase the taxes it collected by a net figure of $200b/year.

There's also new sources of tax. Dayen likes Dean Baker's proposal for taxes on stock returns: just add dividends and stock appreciation at the end of the year, then multiply by the tax rate. Baker says this is a loophole-free way to bring the effective corporate tax rate up from 20% to 25%, generating $65b/year:

https://cepr.net/winning-the-tax-game-tax-stock-returns/

This would be especially hard on heavily financialized companies with "impossibly high stock price/earnings ratios" – e.g. Tesla.

Dayen also proposes rejigging the tax rate on retirement and health insurance plans, where nearly all the tax breaks are scooped by the highest earners. The Tax Policy Center has $1.12-$1.38t/year worth of other tax reforms that would shift the tax burden from working people to the idle rich:

https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-largest-tax-expenditures

Dayen says, "let's ask for about 20% of that" and ballparks the tax income at $200b/year.

How about subsidy cuts? $10b/year in fossil fuel subsidies. Eliminating the notorious sources of fraud in crop insurance would save $5b/year:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-06-878t.pdf

There's $7b/year in subsidies to the Home Bank Loan system and $5b/year lost to pass-through entity loopholes.

Add it all up and you're saving $1.4215t/year without even breaking a sweat, just by tacking (some of) the country's worst looting and tax evasion. Dayen points out US expenditures will fall even more than this, because it won't be paying as much T-bill interest if it doesn't spend this money. We could also just make the Fed stop using the blunt, expensive tool of interest rate hikes to manage inflation. There's plenty of scenarios where interest payments result in the remaining $580b/year in savings, bringing the total up to $2t.

Now, sucking $2t/year out of the US economy all at once – even $2t in waste and fraud – would not be good for America! That kind of economic shock would bring the US economy to its knees, for years to come. All that money still fuels the demand side of the economy. But a slow rampup, and more public spending on useful programs (say, climate resiliency and retrofitting), would strengthen the economy while still bankrupting the fraud sector.

DOGE is wildly unpopular with the American electorate – even large pluralities of Republicans think its stupid. Campaigning on cutting fraud and profiteering would be a wildly popular way for Democrats to separate themselves from Republicans. Few Democrats are rising to the occasion, though.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/27/beltway-bandits/#henhouse-foxes

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/52005460639/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[azspot]

The most disappointing thing about our elected officials is not that they’re whores, but what cheap whores they are. For his $250m investment in Trump, the wealthiest man in the world was able to increase his purse by $140b (56,000% ROI). The increase in wealth had nothing to do with the performance of his businesses, but the market’s belief that we are now in a kleptocracy and the distinction between winners and losers is no longer about innovation but proximity to power. The polar vortex of corruption is here, as greater incentives, fewer guardrails, and the sense that character is no longer valued in America have cast a chill across capitalism.

America For Sale

[insert-witty-user-name-here]

10+ Good Things Biden has Done: Education & Immigration Edition

Just a list of 10+ good things Biden has done in the last 4 years because I’ve been hearing too much rhetoric that it doesn’t matter who you vote for. It does make a difference. 

Find more good things here, here, and here.

Canceled over $140B of student debt for nearly 40 million borrowers. (x)

Strengthened protections for sexual assault survivors, pregnant and parenting students, and LGBTQ+ students in schools through an updated Title IX rule. This updated rule strengthens sexual assault survivors rights to investigation– something that had been gutted under the Trump administration, strengthens requirements that schools provide modifications for students based on pregnancy, prohibits harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and more. (x) 

Revoked an order that limited diversity and inclusion training. (x)

Cracked down on for profit colleges. (x)

Reaffirmed students’ federal civil rights protections for non-discrimination based on race, national origin, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender in schools. Specifically, the Department of Education made clear students with disabilities’ right to school, limiting the use of out of school suspensions and expulsions against them. (x) (x) 

Enhanced the Civil Rights Data Collection, a national survey that captures data on students’ equal access to educational opportunities. These changes will improve the tracking of civil rights violations for students, critical for advocates to respond to instances of discrimination. 

Provided guidance on how colleges and universities can still uphold racial diversity in higher education following the Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action. (x)

Designated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) status for immigrants from Cameroon, Haiti, ​​El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sudan, and more. (x) 

Ended the discriminatory Muslim and African bans (x). 

Provided a pathway to citizenship for spouses of U.S. citizens that have been living in the country without documentation. (x) 

Expanded healthcare to DACA recipients (x) 

This one is… barely a win but not by fault of the Biden Administration. The Department of Homeland Security as of Feb 2023 has reunited nearly 700 immigrant children that were separated from their families under Trump’s Zero Tolerance Policy. From 2017-2021, 3,881 children were separated from their families. About 74% of those have been reunited with their families: 2,176 before the task force was created and 689 afterward. But that still leaves nearly 1,000 children who remain tragically separated from their families from under the Trump Administration. (x)

(okay this one is maybe only exciting for me who’s a census nerd) Revised federal standards for the collection of race and ethnicity data, allowing for federal data that better reflect the country’s diversity. Now, government forms will include a Middle Eastern/ North African category (when previously those individuals would check “white”). Additionally, forms will now have combined the race & ethnicity question allowing for individuals to check “Latino/a” as their race (previously Latine individuals would be encouraged to check “Latino” for ethnicity and “white” for race… which doesn’t really resonate with many folks). (x) (I know this sounds boring but let me tell you this is BIG when it comes to better data collection– and better advocacy!).

Rescinded a Trump order that would have excluded undocumented immigrants from the 2020 Census which would have taken away critical funds from those communities.

Has proposed investments in a lot of programs including universal pre-k, childcare, mental health programs in schools, a national medical leave program for all workers and more. (x) 

Last… let’s also not forget all the truly terrible things Trump did when he was in office. If you need a reminder, scroll this list, this one mostly for giggles + horror, for actual horror about what a Trump presidency has in store, learn about ‘Project 2025’ from the Heritage Foundation. I know this post is about reasons to vote FOR Biden but let’s not forget the many, many reasons to vote for him over Trump.

Looking for more?

10+ good things Biden has done in climate and labor

10+ good things Biden has done in healthcare and housing

10+ good things Biden has done in the justice and courts system

A few other notes

Voting for Biden or Trump shouldn’t be the only reason you vote. You know what elections have more power over your life? LOCAL elections. If you’re not feeling jazzed about Biden… vote for someone really cool running for mayor, or your rep, or on your school board and then begrudgingly vote for Biden. 

A reminder that if someone online is trying to discourage you to vote there’s a good chance they are a paid actor to do so. Voter suppression was a well-documented tactic during the 2016 election and I’m sure the trolls are out in force again. 

Check your voter registration here, make a plan to vote, and encourage your friends to vote as well. 

All in all, yeah… there’s a lot of shitty things still happening. There’s always going to be shit but things aren’t going to change on their own. And that change starts (it certainly doesn’t end) with voting. 

Go vote in November.

[idabbleincrazy]

Good for us.

[newsclickofficial]

Tether, the company behind the $USDT stablecoin, announced plans to launch $USDT on Bitcoin’s base layer and the Lightning Network. That’s big, big news – $USDT carries a $140B market cap in the stablecoin sector, which itself accounts for some $224B of the $3.7T total crypto market cap. Now, Tether wants to combine $USDT with Bitcoin, the biggest name in crypto, to provide faster and more reliable solutions for remittances, payments, and other financial applications. By leveraging Bitcoin’s base layer and the Lightning Network, Tether aims to improve transaction efficiency involving $USDT. $USDT is already integrated with a number of other important chains – including Ethereum, Tron, Solana, and Binance Smart Chain – but adding Bitcoin via the Lightning Network would be huge, with far-reaching implications. As Bitcoin looks set to expand with $USDT, hype for the next 100x meme coins grows. Here’s our list of ones you need to keep your eyes on. 1. Solaxy ($SOLX) – Brilliant Solana Layer-2 Upgrade with 240% Staking Solaxy rides a pure meme coin wave – but there’s real utility here, also. Solaxy aims to combine Solana’s speed with Ethereum’s reliability for a multi-chain solution and Solana upgrade. And memes, of course. The $SOLX token is a meme coin with added utility, including 240% staking for users who purchase and stake $SOLX during the presale period. Staking rewards will be disbursed over the course of three years after the presale ends. The tokenomics of the project reserve significant numbers of tokens for protocol development (30%) and rewards for early adopters (25%). With over $16.6M raised in the presale, there’s a genuine opportunity for early supporters to see major returns on their investment. Solana climbed 136% in 2024; can $SOLX do 100x? To learn more, or if you’d like to buy some Solaxy, check out the $SOLX presale page. 2. MIND of Pepe ($MIND) – Crypto’s Green Frog Gains AI Superpowers MIND of Pepe combines AI with Pepe to give you an all-knowing green frog. The $MIND token is currently in presale, but the techmap outlines plans for an AI agent launch on X, AI-powered market analysis and insights, and exclusive alpha for token holders. Eventually, the MIND of Pepe will understand the crypto market enough to market and deploy its own tokens. That’s a lot of power invested in Pepe, but his $MIND is big enough to handle it. And a fully autonomous AI with the power to dominate the meme coin market could make big gains for early investors. $MIND token holders can stake their tokens at a current rate of 488%, another incentive to join one of the best crypto presales early. Tokens are currently worth $0.0032273 in the ongoing presale, which has raised $4.5M so far. Learn more about $MIND on its presale page. 3. Catslap ($SLAP) – Slap-to-Earn in Token Airdrop Everyone loves a good airdrop, and everyone loves cats. Catslap adds a simple game to the mix – Slap-to-Earn. Connect your wallet (Best Wallet integrates smoothly) and start slapping. At the end of the game’s season, accumulated $SLAP tokens are distributed in a Slapdrop (airdrop). The Catslap project regularly burns $SLAP tokens to keep deflationary pressure on the token’s price, an important feature for anyone wanting to make a long-term crypto play. $SLAP currently trades on a number of DEXs, and investors can purchase tokens there, on the presale website, or earn them by slapping. Catslap combines memes and cats, the original source of all memes, for a fun project with a strong and growing community. Can the project expand from here? Never count a cat out. Visit Catslap here. 4. Fartcoin ($FARTCOIN) – Terrible Name, Fantastic Meme Despite a name only a degen could love, $FARTCOIN is up 14% for the month. That’s great – but on the year, Fartcoin is up 1,700%. That’s incredible and shows just how fast the best new meme coins can grow when conditions are right. Fartcoin provides no real utility; it’s a meme coin, pure and simple. Despite that limitation, Fartcoin was one of the biggest winners of 2024, setting an example for other new meme coins to follow. Could it go on another run? Don’t count it out. 5. SPX6900 – Pure Meme Coin Madness with Incredible Growth One of the few tokens to improve on Fartcoin’s performance, SPX6900 – a meme coin spin on the S&P500 – is up a whopping 74,751% in a year. That’s mind-blowingly impressive, the kind of big gains most meme coins dream of. And yet, there’s always room for further growth. SPX6900 sports a $1B+ market cap and ranks in the top 100 cryptos, demonstrating how fast – and how far – meme coins can go. Bitcoin Gets Bigger, Tether Expands – Meme Coins Set To Explode in 2025 The biggest crypto of them all looks set to benefit from $USDT’s integration, and that bodes well for both projects. Do your own research before investing in any of the above tokens; this is not financial advice. But with two giants of crypto coming together, meme coins stand to benefit. Will one of these projects go another 100x?

[newspagesonline]

SoftBank, which sources say is in talks to invest $15B-$25B in OpenAI and $18B in Stargate, could borrow against its $140B+ Arm stake to fund the investments (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:SoftBank, which sources say is in talks to invest $15B-$25B in OpenAI and $18B in Stargate, could borrow against its $140B+ Arm stake to fund the investments  —  Japanese conglomerate is in talks to spend up to $43 billion to boost the ChatGPT developer  —  In his newly built palace near Tokyo …   Read More

[gerdfeed]

The most disappointing thing about our elected officials is not that they’re whores, but what cheap whores they are. For his $250m investment in Trump, the wealthiest man in the world was able to increase his purse by $140b (56,000% ROI). The increase in wealth had nothing to do with the performance of his businesses, but the market’s belief that we are now in a kleptocracy and the distinction between winners and losers is no longer about innovation but proximity to power. The polar vortex of corruption is here, as greater incentives, fewer guardrails, and the sense that character is no longer valued in America have cast a chill across capitalism.

America For Sale | No Mercy / No Malice

[news247worldpressposts]

#Breaking: #Tether is on track for $10B in net profits for 2024, with USDT's market cap hitting $140B and adoption booming across 109M wallets

#Tether is on track for $10B in net profits for 2024, with USDT’s market cap hitting $140B and adoption booming across 109M wallets. With investments in #Bitcoinmining, #AI, and more, Tether is gearing up for an even bigger 2025. Source: X

[kerorowhump]

proof #83724 that the way they draw his room in every ep reflects his inner feelings:

when he feels like he's finally overcoming things, the boxes in the room shift in such a way to permit him to stand on top of them easily...

[femadjecent]

me when I make a tulpa of myself to rationalize my shopping addiction

[timberexchange]

Egypt's Prime Minister unveils plans to attract over $20 billion in foreign investment and exceed $140 billion in exports by 2030. To stay updated on Egypt’s investment landscape and other important economic developments, subscribe to our newsletter today. For deeper insights and real-time data on global market trends, particularly within the timber industry, don’t forget to sign up for our Market Data Hub.

[shivasart]

Quick cover of I’m So Tired by Fugazi on my Wurli 140b.

Shot, recorded, and edited on my IPhone 13 mini for the sake of spontaneous creation.