Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #MEGO
Most recents (5)
With the #IRSFiles, @propublica ripped away the veil of performative complexity disguising the scams that the ultra-rich use to amass billions and billions (and billions and billions) of dollars, paying next to no tax, or even no tax at all.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/04/24/tax…
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pluralistic.net/2023/04/24/tax…
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Each scam is its own little shell game, a set of semantic and accounting tricks used to gussy up otherwise banal rip-offs. The finance sector has a cute name for this kind of complexity: #MEGO, which stands for "#MyEyesGlazeOver."
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*Red Team Blues* is my next novel, a #PostCyberpunk anti-finance finance #thriller; it's a major title for my publishers @torbooks and @HoZ_Books, and it's swept the trade press with starred reviews all 'round. Despite all that, #Audible will not sell the #audiobook. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/ant… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/ant… 2/
In fact, Audible won't sell *any* of my audiobooks. Instead, I have to independently produce them and sell them through @Kickstarter:
kickstarter.com/projects/docto… 3/
kickstarter.com/projects/docto… 3/
The #ShieldOfBoringness - c.f. @MizDanaClaire - is a scammer's weapon. Layering scams in complexity lets villains get away with all kinds of nastiness. Some things are hard to understand because they're complex, but some things are complex so they'll be hard to understand. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2022/05/05/meg… 2/
pluralistic.net/2022/05/05/meg… 2/
In finance, this is sometimes called #MEGO: "#MyEyesGlazeOver" - complex scams designed to bore their victims into submission. 3/
This week on my podcast, I read the first part of "The Internet Heist," a three-part series I wrote for @Medium on the #BroadcastFlag, which was invented 20 years ago, on my first day on the job at @EFF. It's basically my origin-story.
onezero.medium.com/the-internet-h… 1/
onezero.medium.com/the-internet-h… 1/
If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2022/02/07/bro… 2/
pluralistic.net/2022/02/07/bro… 2/
The Broadcast Flag was an incredibly gnarly, high-stakes digital technology issue. It combined three esoteric fields - spectrum allocation, computer science, and copyright - and threatened to ban all free/open source software. 3/
By now, you've likely heard about the #PandoraPapers - the landmark reporting on financial secrecy havens, corruption, and the hidden wealth brought to you by the @ICIJorg and its 140 media partners worldwide.
icij.org/investigations…
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icij.org/investigations…
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This isn't the ICIJ's first rodeo: they're the same consortium that brought us the #PanamaPapers and #ParadisePapers, leaks from the world's tax havens and the elite law and accounting firms that enable the wealthy and powerful to live by different rules from the rest of us.
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Each of these leaks have been almost unimaginably large: millions of documents, the otherwise invisible paper-trail left by likewise unimaginably vast fortunes amassed by the 0.1%. The scale and scope of these secrets makes them too big for any one news org to report out.
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