#before panama

[maymaylyn]

Frank Woods x Reader

Husdon takes it too far, but maybe everything will work out??

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Warnings

Huson being an ass. Fighting done offsceen. Make out on screen. No gender placed on reader.

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The door slammed shut, making Woods chuckle. He rests his arms on the table and cleans his pistol with an old rag. Watching you intently, he could see the tension in your body language and smirked in your direction. “What’s with the attitude?”

“What attitude?” you say, not looking up at him. Usually, you get along and enjoy spending time with the Woods. But did he have to be here right now? Throwing the box of case files down on the table. Already annoyed with what you just, gracefully, walked away from. Huffing at the tone, he wasn't used to having a pissed-off tone from you directed at him.

Setting down his pistol and making his way around the table. Pushing the files away, he knocked his fist into your shoulder, forcing you to face him with unintentional strength. “The one that’s telling me you’re pissed off.”

He reserved these moments for you, the soft ones that called for secrecy and no prying eyes to judge him for letting you in. You both knew what line of work you were in and what you wanted; what was plain to see, even when trying to be hidden, only got you hurt more. After all, you couldn't trust anyone.

Frank and you had been tiptoeing along the unspoken boundary like the ground was liters with landmines. Still not looking up at him, you said quietly, “It’s nothing, Woods.”

The tone told him to back off, but come on, has he ever backed down? Coming up behind you now. Trying a different approach, he leaned down so his mouth was next to your ear. You could feel the roughness of his beard lightly brushing against your skin. “Don’t give me that bullshit, sweetheart. I know when somethings bothering you.”

Even though touch this light was foreign to the hardened soldier. It felt good, comforting not only to him but to you, which brought your mind straight back to the issue that was bothering you. You had feelings for him, and it was starting to get noticed by people around you. One person who was causing the biggest problem in this situation was Jason Hudson.

He was surprised when you stepped away from him. Looking down at you with a concerned gaze. Having you pull away from him hurt more than he’d like to admit. “Hey… hey, what’s going on? Why are you crying?”

Not even noticing the tears roll down. Shaking your head slightly to get the tears to stop only helped them fall faster. “Hudson just needs to learn how to shut his mouth.”

Wood’s hardened his gaze on hearing that name, “Tell me something I don’t know. What did he say this time?”

You didn’t want to tell Wood’s what Hudson would NEVER have the balls to say to Wood’s face. A snide comment that didn't register until he had slammed the door in your face. The very few times Woods and Hudson cross paths, it always ends in a fight, and up until today, Hudson has never harmed you.

Woods scowled, anger filling his bones at the Hudson speaking to you in a way to make you this upset. He must have crossed a line, “No, tell me what he said. I want to know.”

“It's fine Frank… I- I don't know-“

Frank and you weren't together, but everyone knew you two were close. Everyone also made their own assumptions. Some of them were right, most of them were wrong. Then again… Hudson’s actions also warranted him to get clocked, so maybe-

“He said that if you don't fuck the bitch out of me, he would.”

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Silence.

Turning to look at him finally showed you exactly what he was thinking. Red. Red. Red. His blood was boiling. He was absolutely livid, and it took everything to keep it together. Watching you look up at him with big teary eyes, nervous about his reaction. Taking a step towards you, filling the gap, he practically pressed himself against you. Successfully trapping you against the table, not planning on letting you escape. Wood’s clenched his fists tight and visibly held his breath in his chest. The thought of Hudson making such a crude comment about you set him on fire.

“I- I just asked him about these fucking files. I swear I wasn’t doing anything-“ Covering your eyes to try to hide from Wood's stare, trying to shield some tears from his view. Feeling a hand firmly take your arm down, another comes up to the back of your neck. Holding you steady against him, his touch shot down your spine. Wood’s leaned down and placed a rigid kiss against your forehead. “I’ll be back.”

The heat from the anger coming off his skin burned. You’ve seen Frank angry, yelling, this… this was different. An angry Frank was scary, but a calm Frank Wood’s? Suddenly, you were scared for Hudson.

Hardly getting out a ‘wait’ before Frank is out the door. Footsteps echo down the hall; he was on a mission.

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Overhearing one of the medics talk about a fight in the hall wasn't surprising. It also wasn't a surprise to hear that one of them is in medical with stitches and a broken nose. While the other is suspended pending corrective action. Shocking.

It wasn’t until later that night that you decided to seek out your knight. You went to the private barracks on base, where Woods was staying when the team was grounded. Knocking on the door took more courage than it ever had in the past. Listening for anything past the wooden door gave you the answer you needed, running water. It wasn’t loud enough to be a shower, probably just his sink. You tried the door handle to find that it was unlocked.

It wasn’t like Frank to leave a door unlocked. Carefully and slowly, opening it slightly. Before entering, you looked both ways down the hall and stepped in, seeing you were alone. The last thing you need today is more comments about the nature of your relationship or lack of with Frank.

Like calling the devil when the door clicked shut, the water turned off, and Frank came out of the small bathroom. He paused momentarily, looking at you, taking in your silhouette against the dark of his room. Leaning against the messy desk behind him, pushing several papers back without much care, he was far more focused on what was right in front of him. The question on your tongue dissolved as soon as his eyes met yours, but he answered your question regardless, “I figured you’d come by.”

Nodding in acknowledgment was the only answer you gave, unable to look away. Taking in his appearance, an old t-shirt, worn-out cargo pants, and bruised knuckles that made you hold your breath. Nothing could change this man.

We stood in front of each other, silently waiting for someone to move. He didn't do this because he thought you needed protection, and certainly not for you to say ‘thank you.’ So, doing what felt right under the watchful eye of a man who can’t be killed, you put one foot in front of the other. Every step sealed your fate as the eyes of a predator stalked your every move.

The heels of your boots clicked lightly on the floor. Getting dangerously close to him, you took his briused hand into your, and looked down at the bruised skin. Woods watched you silently, taking you in; it wasn’t every day you were this close.

Frank held his breath in his chest, unable to move from the overwhelming emotion in your eyes. Clenching his jaw slightly as he watched you examining his bruised and bloody knuckles, a mixture of pain and satisfaction coursing through him.

Looking up and locking on to worn blue eyes, not before giving his lips a once over. It took a split second of leaning into him to press your lips against his. Bring your hands up, rubbing them over his chest to cup his bearded face in your hands

Woods let out a low rumble as he felt your soft lips aggressively push against his in a sinful way. He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him and returning the kiss wholeheartedly.

His body was still tense from the adrenaline of the fight, but as your hands came down to his chest once more, getting closer to him, wanting to feel more, the tense muscles couldn't help but relax into you. Moving his hands down to your hips, holding onto your firmly as he deepened the kiss.

This was a first. Kissing was a new playing field for you two to concur on. The heat coming off of you from unspoken conversations and desires was finally pouring out. Wood’s hand came up, tangling in your hair. He tilted your head to the side, pulling you deeper into him as he practically devoured your mouth, not letting either of you breathe. He didn't need air. He needed you.

Spinning around and pushing you up on the desk made you gasp, letting the air rush into your lungs, making a lightheaded fuzzing feeling come up your spine. He didn't give you much more than a second before he was back on you, all teeth and tongue like a wild animal out of its cage. He was out for blood, looking at you with a hungry expression, his chest heaving against your own as he tried to catch his breath in between kisses.

Pulling away from your lips only to make a trail down your jaw to your neck. You felt a smirk against your sensitive skin before he dove into you once more. Sucking and nipping onto skin he had never touched before. He wanted to make damn sure he claimed it as his making you moan out into the cold air of the room.

Hearing the sweet wimpers come from your mouth sent shivers down his spine, making his grip on you tighten. His body pressed against yours in a possessive manner, making sure you couldn’t run from him. As if you ever would.

“Frank!” Pulling him off in a rough jerk after his teeth grazed your neck particularly hard. You take a minute to look each other over and share the same breath. He reluctantly pulled away from you, smiling a little too wide for a man who had just put another man in the infirmary. With swollen lips and his eyes dark with desire, he looked at you, panting, trapped by him. He still held you against the old desk, willing to give out at any point. “What is it, sweetheart?”

Letting out a small laugh of disbelief. Running your hands over Wood’s beard, wiping away saliva he smeared on himself. Biting your lips, taking in his appearance, his face flushed, and his eyes blown out. Now, this was a sight you could get used to. Bending over you with gruff huffs and an expression that told you exactly what he wanted, you kissed again. Sweetly, this time before pulling away and smiling up at him.

Wood’s couldn’t help but chuckle softly as you delicately ran your hands over his beard, a signature smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He didn’t hide the groan that came out as you pulled away from him, his eyes watching you intently. His body is now back to being tense, only now with desire as he looked you up and down. In a rough, low voice, he asked, “What was that for?”

“For this,” You take his hands in your own once more and bring them to your lips, giving each of them a soft kiss. You could feel his breath hitch in his chest. No one handled Frank Woods with care. “…A thank you..”

His expression softened slightly; he wasn't used to being treated like this. Like he mattered to someone, especially when he just got out of a physical fight. His heart clenched at the sight of you delicately caring for him.

Woods pulled you closer, wrapping his arms around your waist and burying his face in the crook of your neck. He held you tightly against him, his body relaxing as he inhaled your scent. Warmth was festering in his chest; he didn't think feelings this intense were supposed to exist. He knew that things would be different between you from now on, and for once, he wasn’t afraid of it. This was the start of something new for both of you. The softness and the warmth that you both deserved.

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I really tried on this so dont make fun of me. Also who tf knows how to kiss? I dont.

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[courtana]

Today is the anniversary of the U.S.'s military invasion of Panamá, which occurred on December 20, 1989.

Julio Yao writes in the article "Legacies of the U.S. Invasion of Panama":

On December 20, 1989, former president George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama. The U.S. 82nd Airborne division pummeled Panama City from the air, as U.S. soldiers from the 193rd Brigade clashed in the streets with troops from the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) and the Dignity Battalions, a militia of workers and campesinos. Thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire as the heavily populated El Chorrillo neighborhood was set ablaze. By the time General Manuel Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990, 23 U.S. soldiers and 314 PDF troops had been officially killed in the fighting. Civilian casualties were estimated in the thousands. According to an independent investigation by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, as many as 7,000 people may have been killed. Mass graves were uncovered after U.S. troops had withdrawn, and over 15,000 civilians were displaced.

Despite the civilian body count, no Panamanian government since has authorized a commission to investigate the killings that took place during the foreign military aggression. No administration has attempted to demand reparations from the United States, nor filed a lawsuit against the United States before the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

Over twenty two years later, the U.S. “Christmas invasion” of Panama is being lost to memory, yet its legacy lives on in profound ways that continue to shape both domestic and foreign policy in Panama.

[...]

Panama’s tendency to submit to U.S. policy has resulted in a foreign policy devoid of independence. For example, Panama is one of the few countries in the world that has not established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, though it maintains relations with Taiwan in accordance with “checkbook diplomacy.” The U.S. government has prohibited Panama’s gestures toward diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Guided by this protectorate concept and right-wing policy, Martinelli’s administration [(2009-2014) had] offered its unconditional support to Israel and withdrawn all backing for Palestine. It [had] distanced Panama from the Central American process of regional integration, withdrawn from the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), and increased ties with France and Italy’s conservative former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was blackmailed by Italian arms company Finmeccanica into brokering a corrupt bilateral security agreement with Panama in which Panama was overcharged for military hardware, including helicopters, radar, and mapping systems. It signed a free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, and [had] given natural resources to foreign corporations, especially mining companies, including Vancouver-based Bellhaven Copper and Gold, Ontario’s Aur Resources, Toronto’s Inmet Mining, and New York’s Dominium Minerals Corporation. All of these actions [were] fully aligned with the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.

This was, after all, the ultimate goal of the 1989 U.S. invasion. At a meeting on December 10, 1985, four years before Bush ordered Operation Just Cause, then U.S. national security adviser John Poindexter met with Noriega with several U.S. demands: (1) Panama should allow the training of Nicaraguan Contras in the Canal Zone; (2) PDF troops should invade Nicaragua to justify U.S. aggression toward Nicaragua’s Sandinista government; (3) Panama should help dismantle the Contadora Group, a regional initiative to resolve the military conflicts that were destabilizing Central America; and (4) Panama should consent to continued U.S. military presence in Panama.

[...]

The move [of the invasion] destroyed Panamanian sovereignty and the PDF, dismantled security structures, reformed the political system, and returned power to the old oligarchy. This paved the way for new forms of foreign domination, and the Panamanian people continue to suffer its legacy.

More Resources to learn about Panamá's Invasion:

Julio Yao's "Legacies of the U.S. Invasion of Panama," NACLA (March 22, 2012).

John Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle (Duke University Press, 2003).

The documentary The Panama Deception (2002) on YouTube

The documentary INVASIÓN (2014)

Stephen Kinzer's chapter "You're No Good," in his book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Times Books, 2007)

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Photo Credits & Description: Images taken on the morning of December 20, 1989, when various parts of the capital city were under US military control | Images from Panamá Vieja Escuela or (@PaViejaEscuela on Twitter).

[nmoroder]

another fast couple of things for the little Raiden AU

first ive been thinking abt reconstructing cyborg bodies into something AU’d characters would wear, and the half-circular thing around Monsoon’s head heavily resembled the visor part of a cap which he wears backwards. then i also remembered the panama thing and now we have these monstrosities

and then theres a thing i almost instantly thought abt while thinking how Mistral and Jack would’ve faired; it’s a reference to that canon moment where she blows a kiss at Raiden and he goes dead serious “i’ve just dodged a bullet”. Only that he’d have to physically dodge the ‘bullet’ in this case

[fictionadventurer]

History Channel guys: So glad to have you onboard for our docudrama. Here's the script telling you everything you need to know to play Ulysses S. Grant.

Actor: This just says, "Stare off into the distance and take a long drag on a cigar."

History Channel guys: Yeah, we're pretty sure he ended 75% of his conversations that way, so this show is going to reflect that.

Actor: Okay, then. Throat cancer, here I come!

[pissfizz]

I’m going to lose my mind oh my god I am so scared for this quincenera wtf

[quinnmorgendorffer]

1980s music tournament - 1985

So far we've had six winners - "Under Pressure", "Holding Out for a Hero", "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", "Don't You (Forget About Me)", "Call Me", and "In the Air Tonight". For this round, I thought it'd be fun to dive in 1985.

No, I don’t mean the year. I mean the seminal classic “1985” by Bowling for Soup!

Below are references to specific songs from the song and the video. Since I only want one song per artist to make it, Blondie is not on the list. For the artists mentioned, I chose songs I haven't used before in any poll that were still big hits of theirs.

Please vote below and PLEASE reblog for others!

All previous/any future upcoming polls are under my blog tagged "80s music tournament"

[lvpercalia]

My brother had a panic attack and tried to calm down watching a movie about an earthquake and an actual earthquake happened LOL

[cryingforcrocodiles]

first world cup points amen amen 🙏🏿🇯🇲

[rionsuke]

I did crawfish boil prep and made myself scrambled eggs with the boil leftovers. Would have been nice to cook a little more while I was here, but its the little things that count the most.

[kaiserin-belladonna]

Reblog and share and boycott.

Boycott ExpressVPN

[elijones94]

🌊 This morning I walked from the hotel to the jetty in St. Andrews State Park and back again! 🌊

[fromfaewithlove]

bro i am so sad and miss my boyfriend so much being long distance is the worst. He isn’t my only friend but realistically after you graduate college you only have like 3 friends and the other two are out of town :-(

[matsinko]

don’t you love punishing yourself by postponing sleep because the tasks tomorrow seem too daunting only for the lack of sleep to make them so much more difficult.

[clubsmarties]

"It's the stories I used to read to her before I left. Sometimes she picks it. She has the hard copy at home and I read it from the screen. We face time so she can see my face and she can go to sleep knowing I've made it another day." The smile was soft and warm. He really did love his siblings. Took him long enough to admit they were his siblings. He snorted not believing her stories would be that bad. "I'm curious, what did you do that could be considered embarrassing?"

He smiled softly giving her that twinkle of his eye. "Good. I don't want you to blowout the glow because someone doesn't see your worth." That was a good idea he thought. "I like that. I don't have many recipes but we can try one and make it our own. Let's borrow a kitchen."

"I've got no idea why Texas. This state is fucking upside down in weather but I guess it was just where the needle stopped. I'm not mad at it now. I met you. Not too shabby if you ask me. Makes it easier to deal with the heat when I've got your pretty eyes to keep me company." Eli laughed and sighed. "They have plenty of stories to share and I'm sure they'll be bursting at the seams to tell you. Colorado is nice. It's cold but nice. There's this hot chocolate shop, I hate coffee that serves the best hot chocolate. You can ask my siblings. I don't really love to share."

The way his eyes glued to her made it seem like he was fully checking her out. A part of him was but the other part liked the way his clothes looked on her. He didn't really pay attention to it before. He'd let Issac borrow shit and it didn't have the same effect. But laurel standing there with his clothes and the fit being the thing that enabled from looking away was a first.

He walked over and grabbed her hand to sit her down on his bed. Opening his legs up for her to squeeze between them. "They look better on you than they do on me." His voice came out a silky honey as he looked at her and wiped a strand of hair away from her face. "I got you to my room but I'm not sure what we should do now." Not that he'd push boundaries but he did want to put that out there.

Perhaps, Laurel spent a little too long watching his lips, caught up in the way he licked them. Oh, she was a goner. “Woah, you are really smart with your class schedule. How do you pick the stories you read?" His words saddened her, thinking of the prospect of someone being used to not having a home. But, the brief optimism was a good note. Surely, he'd find a home eventually, and while they were in school, she'd try to help find that space. "For my sake, I hope you're right about the lack of embarrassing." Her mind was already turning with ideas for Juju and Aaron's upcoming visit. "Hm, I'll need to bribe them too, to behave."

Despite the variety of topics they had covered already, this was what made her cheeks warm up with a pink flush. How he had only known her for this short amount of time, and yet he saw her. The way he spoke, he saw something in her that she hadn't really bothered seeing in herself lately. "That's very kind of you, I really appreciate it. I'll keep my glow on, just for you." The idea of cooking had never really enticed her too much, but now the prospect of jumping into this new adventure with him excited her. "Kitchen heaven, oh that sounds like our place. I'll plan that one, and I'll send you the details when we can take over the kitchen. Maybe, we each bring a recipe we want to try."

"As long as you don't want to be far from me, then I'll be buying all the portable fans. Well, hey I'm not complaining on the idea because it brought you here." The idea didn't seem too logical to her, but how could she judge it when it meant he arrived here with her? That had to be some version of destiny, if she even believed in all that. Laurel was hanging on to each word, a string pulling him toward her. Was he always so charming and romantic? "I..." her words trailed off, completely in a daze. "I'm inclined to believe that, I'm glad the string brought us here. Having us meet halfway, hm guess I'd just be curious why Texas, of all places." The thought of a string pulling him to a place that he didn't like was so interesting, completely grateful that he did listen to that string tugging him here. "The more, the merrier and I'd love to meet them. Maybe, get some of those stories about you." Laurel's smile remained, her curiosity on Colorado growing. He had the ability to make anything sound interesting, even a state she had never given second thought to. "There's more to Brazil than Carnival though, promise I'm not a party animal. I'm intrigued by Colorado now, and Panama, really? That sounds like a fun spot too, probably some really good beaches." Oh, she was completely pleased with herself when he agreed and gave her a look. Lucky for her, they both were not the sharing type. "Good to know, because I really have no intention of sharing you with anyone here. Just a heads up."

She was shaking her head, silently telling him it was not necessary at all. Laurel understood house rules, and really didn't mind just hanging out here, even on the floor. It beat being in her dorm listening to Jenny complain about being ditched earlier. But, Laurel looked at him and knew that there was no chance of saying no. "Okay, but only because you insist." She took the items Eli handed her, and nodded reluctantly. "I believe you," she said with soft laugh. "This is more than enough, don't worry. I'll be right back." With that, she stepped away to change. Changing into the bottoms was quick and easy, the hoodie - well, that had more thought going into it. He did say no outside clothes, her blouse definitely counted under that umbrella, but was it too bold to wear his hoodie with no shirt underneath? Maybe so, but she would follow instructions, so she pulled her blouse and quickly changed into the soft hoodie. Once her outside clothes were folded, she stepped back out and grinned widely. "Ta-da, fits pretty well! Confirming I'm free of outside clothes," she teased as she stuffed her clothes in her backpack for now.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Retiring the US debt would retire the US dollar

THIS WEDNESDAY (October 23) at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, GEORGIA, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

One of the most consequential series of investigative journalism of this decade was the Propublica series that Jesse Eisinger helmed, in which Eisinger and colleagues analyzed a trove of leaked IRS tax returns for the richest people in America:

https://www.propublica.org/series/the-secret-irs-files

The Secret IRS Files revealed the fact that many of America's oligarchs pay no tax at all. Some of them even get subsidies intended for poor families, like Jeff Bezos, whose tax affairs are so scammy that he was able to claim to be among the working poor and receive a federal Child Tax Credit, a $4,000 gift from the American public to one of the richest men who ever lived:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

As important as the numbers revealed by the Secret IRS Files were, I found the explanations even more interesting. The 99.9999% of us who never make contact with the secretive elite wealth management and tax cheating industry know, in the abstract, that there's something scammy going on in those esoteric cults of wealth accumulation, but we're pretty vague on the details. When I pondered the "tax loopholes" that the rich were exploiting, I pictured, you know, long lists of equations salted with Greek symbols, completely beyond my ken.

But when Propublica's series laid these secret tactics out, I learned that they were incredibly stupid ruses, tricks so thin that the only way they could possibly fool the IRS is if the IRS just didn't give a shit (and they truly didn't – after decades of cuts and attacks, the IRS was far more likely to audit a family earning less than $30k/year than a billionaire).

This has become a somewhat familiar experience. If you read the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, Luxleaks, Swissleaks, or any of the other spectacular leaks from the oligarch-industrial complex, you'll have seen the same thing: the rich employ the most tissue-thin ruses, and the tax authorities gobble them up. It's like the tax collectors don't want to fight with these ultrawealthy monsters whose net worth is larger than most nations, and merely require some excuse to allow them to cheat, anything they can scribble in the box explaining why they are worth billions and paying little, or nothing, or even entitled to free public money from programs intended to lift hungry children out of poverty.

It was this experience that fueled my interest in forensic accounting, which led to my bestselling techno-crime-thriller series starring the two-fisted, scambusting forensic accountant Martin Hench, who made his debut in 2022's Red Team Blues:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

The double outrage of finding out how badly the powerful are ripping off the rest of us, and how stupid and transparent their accounting tricks are, is at the center of Chokepoint Capitalism, the book about how tech and entertainment companies steal from creative workers (and how to stop them) that Rebecca Giblin and I co-authored, which also came out in 2022:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Now that I've written four novels and a nonfiction book about finance scams, I think I can safely call myself a oligarch ripoff hobbyist. I find this stuff endlessly fascinating, enraging, and, most importantly, energizing. So naturally, when PJ Vogt devoted two episodes of his excellent Search Engine podcast to the subject last week, I gobbled them up:

https://www.searchengine.show/listen/search-engine-1/why-is-it-so-hard-to-tax-billionaires-part-1

I love the way Vogt unpacks complex subjects. Maybe you've had the experience of following a commentator and admiring their knowledge of subjects you're unfamiliar with, only have them cover something you're an expert in and find them making a bunch of errors (this is basically the experience of using an LLM, which can give you authoritative seeming answers when the subject is one you're unfamiliar with, but which reveals itself to be a Bullshit Machine as soon as you ask it about something whose lore you know backwards and forwards).

Well, Vogt has covered many subjects that I am an expert in, and I had the opposite experience, finding that even when he covers my own specialist topics, I still learn something. I don't always agree with him, but always find those disagreements productive in that they make me clarify my own interests. (Full disclosure: I was one of Vogt's experts on his previous podcast, Reply All, talking about the inkjet printerization of everything:)

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/brho54

Vogt's series on taxing billionaires was no exception. His interview subjects (including Eisinger) were very good, and he got into a lot of great detail on the leaker himself, Charles Littlejohn, who plead guilty and was sentenced to five years:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/charles-littlejohn-irs-whistleblower-pro-publica-tax-evasion-prosecution

Vogt also delved into the history of the federal income tax, how it was sold to the American public, and a rather hilarious story of Republican Congressional gamesmanship that backfired spectacularly. I'd never encountered this stuff before and boy was it interesting.

But then Vogt got into the nature of taxation, and its relationship to the federal debt, another subject I've written about extensively, and that's where one of those productive disagreements emerged. Yesterday, I set out to write him a brief note unpacking this objection and ended up writing a giant essay (sorry, PJ!), and this morning I found myself still thinking about it. So I thought, why not clean up the email a little and publish it here?

As much as I enjoyed these episodes, I took serious exception to one – fairly important! – aspect of your analysis: the relationship of taxes to the national debt.

There's two ways of approaching this question, which I think of as akin to classical vs quantum physics. In the orthodox, classical telling, the government taxes us to pay for programs. This is crudely true at 10,000 feet and as a rule of thumb, it's fine in many cases. But on the ground – at the quantum level, in this analogy – the opposite is actually going on.

There is only one source of US dollars: the US Treasury (you can try and make your own dollars, but they'll put you in prison for a long-ass time if they catch you.).

If dollars can only originate with the US government, then it follows that:

a) The US government doesn't need our taxes to get US dollars (for the same reason Apple doesn't need us to redeem our iTunes cards to get more iTunes gift codes);

b) All the dollars in circulation start with spending by the US government (taxes can't be paid until dollars are first spent by their issuer, the US government); and

c) That spending must happen before anyone has been taxed, because the way dollars enter circulation is through spending.

You've probably heard people say, "Government spending isn't like household spending." That is obviously true: households are currency users while governments are currency issuers.

But the implications of this are very interesting.

First, the total dollars in circulation are:

a) All the dollars the government has ever spent into existence funding programs, transferring to the states, and paying its own employees, minus

b) All the dollars that the government has taxed away from us, and subsequently annihilated.

(Because governments spend money into existence and tax money out of existence.)

The net of dollars the government spends in a given year minus the dollars the government taxes out of existence that year is called "the national deficit." The total of all those national deficits is called "the national debt." All the dollars in circulation today are the result of this national debt. If the US government didn't have a debt, there would be no dollars in circulation.

The only way to eliminate the national debt is to tax every dollar in circulation out of existence. Because the national debt is "all the dollars the government has ever spent," minus "all the dollars the government has ever taxed." In accounting terms, "The US deficit is the public's credit."

When billionaires like Warren Buffet tell Jesse Eisinger that he doesn't pay tax because "he thinks his money is better spent on charitable works rather than contributing to an insignificant reduction of the deficit," he is, at best, technically wrong about why we tax, and at worst, he's telling a self-serving lie. The US government doesn't need to eliminate its debt. Doing so would be catastrophic. "Retiring the US debt" is the same thing as "retiring the US dollar."

So if the USG isn't taxing to retire its debts, why does it tax? Because when the USG – or any other currency issuer – creates a token, that token is, on its face, useless. If I offered to sell you some "Corycoins," you would quite rightly say that Corycoins have no value and thus you don't need any of them.

For a token to be liquid – for it to be redeemable for valuable things, like labor, goods and services – there needs to be something that someone desires that can be purchased with that token. Remember when Disney issued "Disney dollars" that you could only spend at Disney theme parks? They traded more or less at face value, even outside of Disney parks, because everyone knew someone who was planning a Disney vacation and could make use of those Disney tokens.

But if you go down to a local carny and play skeeball and win a fistful of tickets, you'll find it hard to trade those with anyone outside of the skeeball counter, especially once you leave the carny. There's two reasons for this:

1) The things you can get at the skeeball counter are pretty crappy so most people don't desire them; and ' 2) Most people aren't planning on visiting the carny, so there's no way for them to redeem the skeeball tickets even if they want the stuff behind the counter (this is also why it's hard to sell your Iranian rials if you bring them back to the US – there's not much you can buy in Iran, and even someone you wanted to buy something there, it's really hard for US citizens to get to Iran).

But when a sovereign currency issuer – one with the power of the law behind it – demands a tax denominated in its own currency, they create demand for that token. Everyone desires USD because almost everyone in the USA has to pay taxes in USD to the government every year, or they will go to prison. That fact is why there is such a liquid market for USD. Far more people want USD to pay their taxes than will ever want Disney dollars to spend on Dole Whips, and even if you are hoping to buy a Dole Whip in Fantasyland, that desire is far less important to you than your desire not to go to prison for dodging your taxes.

Even if you're not paying taxes, you know someone who is. The underlying liquidity of the USD is inextricably tied to taxation, and that's the first reason we tax. By issuing a token – the USD – and then laying on a tax that can only be paid in that token (you cannot pay federal income tax in anything except USD – not crypto, not euros, not rials – only USD), the US government creates demand for that token.

And because the US government is the only source of dollars, the US government can purchase anything that is within its sovereign territory. Anything denominated in US dollars is available to the US government: the labor of every US-residing person, the land and resources in US territory, and the goods produced within the US borders. The US doesn't need to tax us to buy these things (remember, it makes new money by typing numbers into a spreadsheet at the Federal Reserve). But it does tax us, and if the taxes it levies don't equal the spending it's making, it also sells us T-bills to make up the shortfall.

So the US government kinda acts like classical physics is true, that is, like it is a household and thus a currency user, and not a currency issuer. If it spends more than it taxes, it "borrows" (issues T-bills) to make up the difference. Why does it do this? To fight inflation.

The US government has no monetary constraints, it can make as many dollars as it cares to (by typing numbers into a spreadsheet). But the US government is fiscally constrained, because it can only buy things that are denominated in US dollars (this is why it's such a big deal that global oil is priced in USD – it means the US government can buy oil from anywhere, not only the USA, just by typing numbers into a spreadsheet).

The supply of dollars is infinite, but the supply of labor and goods denominated in US dollars is finite, and, what's more, the people inside the USA expect to use that labor and goods for their own needs. If the US government issues so many dollars that it can outbid every private construction company for the labor of electricians, bricklayers, crane drivers, etc, and puts them all to work building federal buildings, there will be no private construction.

Indeed, every time the US government bids against the private sector for anything – labor, resources, land, finished goods – the price of that thing goes up. That's one way to get inflation (and it's why inflation hawks are so horny for slashing government spending – to get government bidders out of the auction for goods, services and labor).

But while the supply of goods for sale in US dollars is finite, it's not fixed. If the US government takes away some of the private sector's productive capacity in order to build interstates, train skilled professionals, treat sick people so they can go to work (or at least not burden their working-age relations), etc, then the supply of goods and services denominated in USD goes up, and that makes more fiscal space, meaning the government and the private sector can both consume more of those goods and services and still not bid against one another, thus creating no inflationary pressure.

Thus, taxes create liquidity for US dollars, but they do something else that's really important: they reduce the spending power of the private sector. If the US only ever spent money into existence and never taxed it out of existence, that would create incredible inflation, because the supply of dollars would go up and up and up, while the supply of goods and services you could buy with dollars would grow much more slowly, because the US government wouldn't have the looming threat of taxes with which to coerce us into doing the work to build highways, care for the sick, or teach people how to be doctors, engineers, etc.

Taxes coercively reduce the purchasing power of the private sector (they're a stick). T-bills do the same thing, but voluntarily (they the carrot).

A T-bill is a bargain offered by the US government: "Voluntarily park your money instead of spending it. That will create fiscal space for us to buy things without bidding against you, because it removes your money from circulation temporarily. That means we, the US government, can buy more stuff and use it to increase the amount of goods and services you can buy with your money when the bond matures, while keeping the supply of dollars and the supply of dollar-denominated stuff in rough equilibrium."

So a bond isn't a debt – it's more like a savings account. When you move money from your checking to your savings, you reduce its liquidity, meaning the bank can treat it as a reserve without worrying quite so much about you spending it. In exchange, the bank gives you some interest, as a carrot.

I know, I know, this is a big-ass wall of text. Congrats if you made it this far! But here's the upshot. We should tax billionaires, because it will reduce their economic power and thus their political power.

But we absolutely don't need to tax billionaires to have nice things. For example: the US government could hire every single unemployed person without creating inflationary pressure on wages, because inflation only happens when the US government tries to buy something that the private sector is also trying to buy, bidding up the price. To be "unemployed" is to have labor that the private sector isn't trying to buy. They're synonyms. By definition, the feds could put every unemployed person to work (say, training one another to be teachers, construction workers, etc – and then going out and taking care of the sick, addressing the housing crisis, etc etc) without buying any labor that the private sector is also trying to buy.

What's even more true than this is that our taxes are not going to reduce the national debt. That guest you had who said, "Even if we tax billionaires, we will never pay off the national debt,"" was 100% right, because the national debt equals all the money in circulation.

Which is why that guest was also very, very wrong when she said, "We will have to tax normal people too in order to pay off the debt." We don't have to pay off the debt. We shouldn't pay off the debt. We can't pay off the debt. Paying off the debt is another way of saying "eliminating the dollar."

Taxation isn't a way for the government to pay for things. Taxation is a way to create demand for US dollars, to convince people to sell goods and services to the US government, and to constrain private sector spending, which creates fiscal space for the US government to buy goods and services without bidding up their prices.

And in a "classical physics" sense, all of the preceding is kinda a way of saying, "Taxes pay for government spending." As a rough approximation, you can think of taxes like this and generally not get into trouble.

But when you start to make policy – when you contemplate when, whether, and how much to tax billionaires – you leave behind the crude, high-level approximation and descend into the nitty-gritty world of things as they are, and you need to jettison the convenience of the easy-to-grasp approximation.

If you're interested in learning more about this, you can tune into this TED Talk by Stephanie Kelton, formerly formerly advisor to the Senate Budget Committee chair, now back teaching and researching econ at University of Missouri at Kansas City:

https://www.ted.com/talks/stephanie_kelton_the_big_myth_of_government_deficits?subtitle=en

Stephanie has written a great book about this, The Deficit Myth:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/14/everybody-poops/#deficit-myth

There's a really good feature length doc about it too, called "Finding the Money":

https://findingmoneyfilm.com/

If you'd like to read more of my own work on this, here's a column I wrote about the nature of currency in light of Web3, crypto, etc:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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/2024/10/21/we-can-have-nice-things/#public-funds-not-taxpayer-dollars

[reasonsforhope]

"A surprise discovery from the University of Birmingham shows that we may be significantly underestimating the potential of trees to regulate the variables of climate change.

That’s because they found microbes living inside trees’ bark absorb the greenhouse gas methane about as significantly as microbes living in the soil.

It’s long been thought that soil is the only effective terrestrial methane sink, as certain microorganisms use methane as a food source, but similar creatures live under a tree’s layer of bark, meaning that not only do our woody cousins withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their roots, but also remove methane as well, about as effectively or perhaps more so than soil.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas for the few short years it exists in the atmosphere before degrading.

Professor Vincent Gauci of U. Birmingham led the study, published in the journal Nature.

In the study, the researchers investigated upland tropical, temperate, and boreal forest trees. Specifically, they took measurements spanning tropical forests in the Amazon and Panama; temperate broadleaf trees in the UK; and boreal coniferous forests in Sweden.

The methane absorption was strongest in the tropical forests, probably because microbes thrive in the warm wet conditions found there. On average the newly discovered methane absorption adds around 10% to the climate benefit that temperate and tropical trees provide.

By studying methane exchange between the atmosphere and the tree bark at multiple heights, the researchers were able to show that while at soil level the trees were likely to emit a small amount of methane, from a couple of meters up the direction of exchange switches and methane from the atmosphere is consumed.

In addition, the team used laser scanning methods to quantify the overall global forest tree bark surface area, with preliminary calculations indicating that the total global contribution of trees is between 24.6-49.9 Tg (millions of tonnes) of methane. This fills a big gap in understanding the global sources and sinks of methane.

“Tree woody surfaces add a third dimension to the way life on Earth interacts with the atmosphere, and this third dimension is teeming with life, and with surprises,” said co-author Yadvinder Malhi of the University of Oxford."

-via Good News Network, July 31, 2024