Tag: taxes

Without Subsidies, Is AI Unaffordable?

Let’s pull all this into an undeniable conclusion: AI is based on massively subsidizing users’ costs.

What’s already abundantly clear but verboten to say as it would pop the bubble of AI valuations and triumphalism is that AI is unaffordable once the direct and indirect subsidies are withdrawn. Nothing that consumes this much electricity and requires such an immense scale of costly processing and memory capacity can be low-cost, never mind free.

The major AI platforms and vendors are subsidizing corporate and individual users in the hopes that they can achieve AI sector dominance –and the pricing power that comes with it–via the network effect, the dominance generated by having the majority of users bound by habit or dependence to your platform or tools.

This battle for network effect dominance is playing out in full view:

AI Giants Are Handing Out Tons of Free Computing Power to Grab Startup Share: (wsj.com) Pitched battle for business users comes as AI companies seek lasting streams of revenue.

Hans Ibarra, a founder building an AI-voice startup, has found himself on the receiving end of a big opportunity: Top artificial-intelligence companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and others desperate to win his business are ramping up discounts.

Across Silicon Valley, startup founders like Ibarra are enjoying a wave of computing credits and fielding competing offers from AI-model makers racing to land new enterprise customers. Cursor, the AI-coding company bought by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, offered a 75% discount through July 5.

“If I’m choosing between a really cheap Chinese model that I actually have to pay for, and a very expensive Anthropic model that I don’t have to pay for, I’m going to pick the Anthropic model,” Acker said. “I’m always going to pick the one for which I have free credits.”

Meanwhile, back in the real world of costs, AI Costs More Than The People It Replaced (forbes.com)(via Tom D.)

It turns out that experienced human workers doing the work right in the first place is cheaper than having AI run a probability distribution process that needs vetting and corrections. And remember, AI isn’t actually “intelligent,” it’s just a probability distribution using natural language.

As management guru Peter Drucker observed, enterprises don’t have profits, they have costs. Purveyors of AI platforms and tools have costs, and so do their customers. Those costs are currently being funded by investors, who are in effect subsidizing the AI companies’ “free” giveaways of horrendously costly “tokens” in a manic, desperate attempt to grab the brass ring of network effect dominance before their cash runs out.

This raises a question: Is this any way to run a railroad? In other words, is this actually a viable business model, burning billions of dollars in cash to lock in network effect dominance in a field that is rapidly obsoleting every iteration of an innately limited mode of computation? Is claiming that a probability distribution is “intelligent” in the same way humans are intelligent a viable business model when there is ample evidence this simply isn’t true?

AI and human intelligence are drastically different–here’s how (scientificamerican.com)

What happens when enterprises have to pay the unsubsidized costs of AI is they immediately curtail their AI spending because the customer-facing / financial benefits of AI are at best elusive and often negative. Peter Drucker was onto something that is currently being lost in the PR-propaganda push of those trying to cash in on the AI euphoria: enterprises don’t have profits, they have costs, and the real-world costs of AI are extraordinarily high while the payoffs are ambiguous.

There are many other hidden subsidies within the AI machinery. There are corporate tax write-off subsidies, energy subsidies, tax credit subsidies for building data centers, and so on. If these were stripped out, what would the real unsubsidized costs of AI be? No one knows, but they would be higher than what’s presented as the cost now.

Then there’s the if it’s legal, it’s moral, and what’s legal is for sale subsidy: AI is built on the systemic theft of copyrighted content. Last month alone, AI scrapers gorged on 246,000 pages from my Of Two Minds server, and hundreds of thousands of pages of my copyrighted works on my mirror site and other sites posting my work.

This is legal, but is it moral? Nobody asks such questions because the important thing is to avoid saddling AI users with the real costs. So if all those content creators get nothing–in effect, subsidizing both AI companies and the users of their AI platforms and tools–well, so what, because if it’s legal, it’s moral, and what’s legal is for sale.

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Nick Shirley Drops New Bombshell Video Exposing New York Fraud: Over $190 Million in Personal Home Care Scams

Investigative reporter Nick Shirley on Friday released his latest video uncovering over $190 million in fraud in New York.

The fraudsters used the needy and elderly to steal more than $190 million in home care scams.

“Here is the full 53 minutes of my crew and I exposing New York fraud, we uncovered over $190,000,000 in fraud as these fraudsters use the elderly and needy to commit fraud through adult and personal home care scams in NYC,” Nick Shirley said.

“Your tax dollars are paying for elderly Koreans and Chinese to play ping pong and do tai chi, while the fraudsters give $ kickbacks to those who enroll. Like it and share this video, the fraud must STOP,” Nick Shirley said.

“We ALL work way too hard and pay too much in taxes for fraudsters to steal from our pockets. These fraudsters have been able to defraud American taxpayers for years without any pushback from the public and politicians. Time is up,” he said.

“Nobody speaks English here. Our tax dollars are going to places like these. Straight from NY Medicaid! No one can answer any questions!” Nick Shirley said.

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SoCal Education Leaders Stole Nearly $20M From Schools; Report

A new report has revealed that a pair of Southern California school leaders separately stole nearly $20 million from their schools in order to fund lavish personal lifestyles.

According to The New York Post, the report was co-authored by the State Financial Officers Foundation, a watchdog made up of state treasurers and auditors, and OpenTheBooks, a nonprofit focused on transparency in government spending.

The cases of the two Southern California educators were among the most expensive examples of K-12 education fraud documented nationwide.

Jorge Armando Contreras, the former fiscal services director for the Magnolia Elementary School District in Orange County, was charged with altering school checks over several years to funnel $16.7 million into his personal accounts.

Contreras was spending the money on everything from a luxury home and a BMW to designer clothes and pricey tequila and federal investigators found stacks of cash stuffed into a mini-fridge and luxury designer bags at his home.

He was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison in 2024 and order to pay $16.7 million in restitution to the Magnolia School District in Orange County.

Another case highlighted in the report revealed that Janis Bucknor, the head of the Community Preparatory Academy charter school in Los Angeles, stole more than $3 million in taxpayer funds to cover travel, restaurants, shopping and private school tuition for her children.

Bucknor also pleaded guilty to spending more than $220,600 on Disney cruise line vacations, theme park admissions, and other Disney-related expenses.

According to prosecutors, Bucknor admitted in 2020 to stealing the funds, and was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, State Financial Officers Foundation CEO OJ Oleka said:

All fraud is harmful, but defrauding education dollars meant to help kids learn and succeed is especially hideous. The findings in this report should alarm every family, teacher, and civic leader.

The California cases were part of nearly 90 cases identified by a coalition of auditors over the past six years involving embezzlement, phony invoices, inflated enrollment, bid-rigging and kickbacks, among other crimes.

The report follows the Trump administration’s promise to crack down on government waste, with Vice President JD Vance leading a nationwide “War on Fraud” that has raised new questions about oversight of federal education spending.

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Fauci: The Public Servant from Hell

If the allegations put forward by Tulsi Gabbard, former Director of National Intelligence, prove to be substantially true, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s legacy will be remembered as one of the greatest betrayals of the public trust in modern American history.

For four decades, Fauci occupied one of the most influential positions in the federal government. As Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), he controlled billions of taxpayer dollars, directed research priorities, advised presidents of both parties, and enjoyed a level of public credibility rarely afforded to unelected bureaucrats. Americans were encouraged to trust him — not because he was elected, but because he was presented as the embodiment of objective science.

That trust is precisely what makes the controversies surrounding his tenure so consequential. Fauci’s history in this position of power is one that should not be overlooked. That is why Senator Rand Paul, as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, issued a subpoena compelling Fauci to testify before Congress. Fauci had declined to appear voluntarily. 

Fauci is no stranger to controversy. As director of NIAID (1984–2022), he oversaw the institute that funded much of the nation’s HIV/AIDS research. For two decades, beginning in 1985, NIAID conducted research involving the treatment of society’s most vulnerable children during the AIDS epidemic. Investigative journalist Liam Scheff alleged that HIV-positive foster children and orphans were enrolled in experimental drug trials without adequate informed consent or independent advocacy. Official reviews raised legitimate ethical concerns about research involving vulnerable children.

Critics alleged that the treatment children received was brutal and unethical, with staff and doctors prioritizing trial compliance over the children’s well-being. Scheff reported that some children experienced significant side effects, and those who resisted the drugs were held down and force-fed. It is also on record that persistent refusers underwent surgical insertion of gastric (stomach) tubes for direct drug delivery. One reason this policy faced little resistance is that the foster children had no parents protecting their interests.

But this wasn’t the only experimentation under Fauci that exploited a vulnerable population.

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Trump Admin Targets Medicare Fraud After 7,100% Surge In Transplant Claims

The Trump administration says it has uncovered a dramatic increase in Medicare claims for tissue and organ transplants, resulting in a broad crackdown on suspected fraud that officials say has already blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable payments.

Administration officials said Medicare claims for tissue and organ transplants, known as allografts, climbed from $200 million in 2019 to $14.4 billion in 2025—a 7,100 percent increase.

The surge led the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force, headed by Vice President JD Vance, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to intensify their review of claims. Since March, the agency has denied 96 percent of allograft claims identified during the review.

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said the agency identified 4,200 potentially fraudulent allograft claims totaling $224 million through May.

“That’s a lot of money,” Oz said during a Wednesday news conference in Milwaukee.

“And that bankrupts not just hospital systems and physician groups, but it causes major problems across the entire landscape.”

The agency also announced enforcement actions involving Durable Medical Equipment (DME) including wheelchairs, walkers, hospital beds and other medical equipment.

According to CMS, payments have been suspended to 102 suppliers, while billing privileges have been revoked for another 725 suppliers. The agency said those suppliers accounted for 8.6 percent of all Medicare-funded DME in 2025.

CMS officials reported they identified suspected fraud involving claims for equipment that was not medically necessary or ordered, equipment that was more expensive than prescribed, and equipment that was never delivered.

“In just six months, the task force has effectively wiped out Durable Medical Equipment fraud in America,” a spokesperson for Vance’s office said.

“After the vice president and Dr. Oz announced a moratorium on new DME companies, paired with aggressive enforcement actions by DOJ and HHS, this kind of fraud has effectively ended.”

Oz said the administration’s efforts have already prevented significant losses.

“Thanks to the whole-of-government approach spearheaded by the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force, we stopped nearly $220 million in fraudulent skin substitute claims and suspended or revoked billing privileges for over 800 DME suppliers,” Oz told Fox News Digital. “We are keeping our promise to the American people: we will root out corruption, protect vulnerable patients, and hold every bad actor accountable.”

Oz also warned those engaged in health care fraud that the administration intends to continue its enforcement campaign.

“To anyone out there, and I’m talking to you if you’re a fraudster, for anyone out there who thinks they can get away by stealing from the American people, especially American patients, I’ve got a bit of advice for you: Do not walk away from this press conference. Don’t walk away from us. You start running because the vice president and this task force are coming after you,” Oz said.

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Not Making Headlines: Dr. Oz Announces Crackdown on Durable Medical Equipment Fraudsters and Fraudulent Medicare Tissue and Organ Transplant Claims – Saving American Taxpayers Millions

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced on Thursday that 725 durable medical equipment suppliers had their billing privileges revoked.

According to Dr. Oz, these suppliers represent more than $1.5 billion billed to Medicare just last year!

In just six months Dr. Oz and the Trump administration have effectively wiped out Durable Medical Equipment (DMS) fraud in America.

Dr. Oz and the Trump Administration also cracked down on fraudulent Medicare claims for tissue and organ transplants.

Pro Trump News and IJR reported:

The Trump administration says a dramatic increase in Medicare claims for tissue and organ transplants has led to a nationwide fraud crackdown that is blocking millions of dollars in suspicious billing.

According to Fox News, new figures released Wednesday show Medicare claims for allografts, or tissue and organ transplants, climbed from approximately $200 million in 2019 to $14.4 billion in 2025.

Administration officials said the 7,100% increase prompted a closer review by the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

CMS, led by Administrator Mehmet Oz, said it identified about 4,200 suspicious transplant claims totaling $224 million through May. Since March, the agency has denied 96% of claims submitted in that category.

Speaking in Milwaukee, Oz said the sharp rise in billing posed a significant financial threat.

“That’s a lot of money,” he said. “And that bankrupts not just hospital systems and physician groups, but it causes major problems across the entire system.”

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Democrats Want To Eliminate The Wealthy So They Can Control Everyone Else

alifornia Democrats, supported by prominent left-wing leaders across the country, have proposed a ballot measure for a “one-time wealth tax” on the Golden State’s billionaires. California is already in the top ten states for per capita taxes, with a net domestic migration of about two million residents since 2016. More than 250 billionaires live there, who collectively possess more than $2 trillion. Democrats in favor of the tax see a $100 billion windfall to shore up medical spending. But skeptics see a good reason for billionaires to flee the Left Coast for more pro-business destinations.

If only Democrats in California were an outlier in fiscally disastrous ideas. But no. Apparently, they all suffer fever dreams of America’s wealthy swimming in gold like Scrooge McDuck.

Voices across the Left seem to think that solving America’s problems is as simple as transferring wealth from a few bank accounts to many. Yet such state intervention would not only accomplish the opposite, but empower government to control (and impoverish) ordinary citizens.

Complaints About The Wealthy Are A Bait and Switch

Granted, there are natural reasons for everyday Americans to bristle at hearing stories of billionaires and trillionaires. The tales of excess and unimaginable wealth is far removed from the experience of the average worker, whose median income is around $65,000 a year.

The uber-wealthy don’t have to worry about changes in grocery or gas prices, or whether they can afford a vacation this year. About one in 15 Americans are millionaires, which means it’s possible you know a millionaire, though probably one who is a small business owner with some capital, rather than one ostentatiously flaunting money around.

Remember when former president Joe Biden in his January 2025 farewell address claimed the “ultra-wealthy” are a threat to “our entire democracy?” Later that year, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani more explicitly declared: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”

This is not a unique position among Democrats. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a discussed presidential Democrat contender for 2028, asserted in 2020: “billionaires should not exist.” Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders, a previous presidential candidate, is on the record saying: “I think billionaires should not exist.” And don’t get the Left started on Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire, something Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ro Khanna, and new Democrat darling Graham Platner all found viscerally despicable.

Yet as much as we can be cynical towards uber-wealthy Americans, there’s just as much reason to be skeptical of those demanding their downfall. Think for a moment about who has the loudest, and most influential voice in American politics today.

As John O. McGinnis argues in his recent book Why Democracy Needs the Rich, the answer is obvious: it is “the intelligentsia, or chattering class, including journalists, intellectuals, and entertainers,” who leverage the media, academy, and entertainment industry, to sway public opinion. “Like an unseen current in a river, their influence is constant, even as often relatively inexperienced political appointees with different views struggle to control the flow.” To disempower and silence the wealthy would effectively grant more power and influence to woke power blocs.

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Supreme Court rejects Michigan family’s claim that county committed ‘home equity theft’ over $2,200 tax debt

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously sided with Isabella County, Michigan, rejecting a family’s claim that local governments must pay homeowners the full fair market value of property seized and sold in tax foreclosures rather than the lower price obtained at public auction.

In the 9-0 decision, the court ruled that under the Fifth Amendment, “the proper baseline under the Takings Clause is the price obtained in a tax sale, at least when the sale is fairly conducted in light of our country’s history of tax sales.”

Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito explained that “neither the Fifth nor the Eighth Amendment requires the government to compensate former owners based on the hypothetical fair market value of their property.”

The high court noted that creating a fair-market-value baseline would impose “unprecedented burdens” on local governments seeking to collect unpaid taxes, making these sales “impractical.”

“Under Pung’s rule, a tax sale to collect $20,000 in delinquent taxes would net the government a $20,000 loss—a loss paid out to the delinquent taxpayer himself,” Alito continued. “The possibility of such a perverse result would render tax sales infeasible as a debt-collection mechanism.”

The ruling comes amid a decade-long legal battle between Isabella County and the Pung family over what they called “home equity theft.” Isabella County foreclosed on the family’s 3,000-square-foot home over a disputed $2,241.93 tax bill stemming from a revoked Principal Residence Exemption, subsequently selling the $194,400 property at auction for just $76,008. Michael Pung, acting as the personal representative of the estate, disputed the bill and brought the legal challenge on behalf of the family.

While the county eventually returned the surplus auction proceeds, the family argued the Constitution required “just compensation” based on the home’s actual worth, rather than a low-ball auction price that destroyed more than $118,000 in equity.

However, the court said on Tuesday it would not “resolve any of Pung’s newfound contentions that the procedure the County followed in seizing and selling his property was unfair.”

The court ultimately vacated and remanded the case, sending it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to reconsider those procedural claims.

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Corrupt Illinois Democrat State Rep and County Clerk Husband INDICTED In Mass NGO Kickback and Fraud Scheme — Just Weeks After Daughter Busted For COVID Fraud

Another corrupt Illinois Democrat family caught with their hands in the till.

Urbana Democrat State Representative Carol Ammons and her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, were indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on multiple felony counts including wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The indictment lays out a brazen scheme where Ammons allegedly used her campaign committee, Friends of Carol Ammons, to issue overpayments and then took cash kickbacks disguised as “gifts.”

At the same time, she used her position as a state lawmaker to steer massive state grants to friendly nonprofits that then put her daughter Titianna Ammons on the payroll, WCIA reported.

According to the federal indictment:

  • Carol Ammons allegedly caused campaign funds to be paid to herself and family members through excess checks and then received cash kickbacks to hide the scheme. She also falsely reported expenditures to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
  • She helped secure over $1.6 million in state grants for nonprofits including:
    • Bridgewater Sullivan Community Life Center ($612,000 grant) — where daughter Titianna was paid more than $60,000 as Program Director (Ammons even helped draft her employment contract).
    • Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (over $1 million in grants) — where Titianna was paid nearly $10,000 as a digital marketing coordinator.
    • Another grant to Hood Vote that also funneled money to the daughter.

Prosecutors say Ammons and her daughter received financial benefits in excess of $100,000 through this web of campaign misuse and grant steering between 2017 and roughly 2023.

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U.K. Police Offer ‘Unreserved Apology’ and £25,000 to Irish Comedian and Writer Graham Linehan After Armed Arrest at Heathrow Airport for ‘Gender-Critical’ X Posts

In September 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, best known for creating Father Ted and The IT Crowd, was arrested at Heathrow Airport over social media posts criticizing transgender ideology.

Linehan was met by five armed officers on arrival in London and detained in connection with three posts made on X.

The posts under investigation included one in which Linehan wrote that men entering female-only spaces were committing abusive acts and should be challenged, with police called if necessary.

A second post read, “Make a scene, call the cops, and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

The third post flagged read, “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** ’em.”

Linehan said he was taken into custody, locked in a cell, and later taken to the hospital because of stress.

He added that the condition for his release was that he stop posting on X.

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