Who Owns What, When It's All Debt?

Update: Thanks again to Steve in Manhattan for including this article at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! 

P.S. I am waiting at home this morning to get new toilets installed, so while I'm sitting here I'd like to promote my book Notice a Trend to help pay the bills uh encourage more man reading! And women reading! And sentient rock creatures who travel through space! And...

This is something Comrade Misfit posted over the weekend, and I wanted to delve into this nightmare a little more (by Victor Tangermann at Futurism):

AI companies are pouring untold billions of dollars into enormous data centers in their efforts to sustain increasingly complex and resource-intensive AI models.

It’s an extremely costly undertaking built on seemingly bottomless hype — and a mountain of debt. As Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei Asia found in a recent investigation, just five US tech giants — Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle — are hiding an estimated $1.65 trillion in debt that doesn’t appear on balance sheets. That’s even more than the $1.35 trillion in debt the five companies officially reported in their financial data for the most recent quarter.

This is the sort of thing that screams FRAUD. And nobody's doing anything about it except let it pile up.

Meta alone has amassed around $420 billion in off-balance-sheet debt, according to Nikkei, highlighting how precarious the AI industry’s steep investment in AI has become, and inspiring comparisons to energy company Enron, which collapsed in spectacular fashion in 2001 because of similar debts hidden behind shell companies. Like Enron, they’re using special purpose vehicles, or off-balance sheet arrangements such as legally distinct subsidiaries, as a way to make their financial reporting look healthier than it actually is — often a glaring sign that something is deeply amiss behind the scenes...

That none of these accounting tricks - those shell companies or "special purpose vehicles" - were outlawed when we had the chance spells out just how broken our federal government is when policing the uber-rich megacorps that are "too big to fail."

For the love of God, in my own lifetime we've witnessed financial collapse - the bankrupting of Savings and Loans - after financial collapse - the era of Enron and other tech companies collapsing under their own greed - after financial collapse - the mortgage industry meltdown of 2007-08 that led to a near decade of unemployment and housing woes. That last one directly affected me and my poor parents when I lost my job in 2008, and spent four years looking for a job and unable to sell my home to afford relocating to places where jobs were available.

I've learned a lot from that last economic collapse. For starters, I learned that we shouldn't bail out the CEOs first, we should bail out their victims - us - first, and then send those goddamn bastards to jail for their incompetence and greed. 'Cause one of the things I guarantee you is that these tech companies are getting us to pay in some form or another to cover for the massive costs they're adding up to keep their bubbles afloat. We've seen what happens when those bubbles pop: us taxpayers foot the goddamn bills (again).

I've also come to wonder why these businesses are allowed to accrue so much debt in the first place. My basic understanding of economics tells me debt is bad, and too much of it is very bad. I understand that in the complexities of running a business, companies may borrow loans to cover for expenses today on an understanding that in the future they will have more money to be able to pay off such debts. That they can use those debts to obtain more loans and add more debt to where they have more debts than money on hand is where things start looking insane IMHO.

This is where something like regulations and laws should be in place demanding that businesses hold themselves accountable to some degree: To prevent them from building up too much debt in the first place. You know, some sort of debt cap that says "whoa there, pay this off first before you go putting yourselves into billions more in debt." Without those regulations in place - and we've seen the damage when we've deregulated financial systems like Savings and Loans and the securities/financial markets - those corporate idiots can't stop themselves, spiraling into an ongoing cycle of borrowing and debt all because they're hoping their ship of gold-pressed latinum reaches port that big tech breakthrough pays off.

And this begs the question "WHO is lending these greedheads more and more money to put them further into debt?" The large international banks, obviously, but you have to ask them "At what point do you call in those debts? At what point do you stop lending to these guys - these techbros addicted to their AI hopes - when it's clear they're not going to deliver on any profit?"

In what way is all of this debt any good? Who benefits from this?

Because debt leads to one thing: Control. Any person - or business - deep in debt to another person has to obey the creditor. Otherwise, you lose your business, your car, your home, your livelihood, your very identity.

Debt is another form of slavery.

And if the megacorps collapse under debt, that cascade of financial ruin spreads out: Every other person doing business with them loses money and goes into debt they can't pay, which spreads out even further. A lot of us fell into debt after the housing crisis almost 20 years ago (!), and a lot of us are still paying that off.

Who owns all that debt? We don't, and yet we're the ones who are going to get stuck paying for it (again).

Goddammit. This cycle of economic short-sightedness and greed needs to end.

Marco Rubio's Debts

From the great state of rip-off artistry - uh, sunshine - comes this champion of fiscal prudence and restrained personal habits Marco Rubio.  And yes, I'm being sarcastic, let this link to Business Insider show you why:

The New York Times reports that while the senator was juggling multiple loans and mortgages, he bought a speedboat, a luxury SUV, and made questionable investment decisions.
Rubio has a history of accruing massive debts and then spending big when money comes his way.
According to The Times, Rubio faced huge debts in 2012. Then a miracle appeared: He got an $800,000 advance on a book deal. But instead of using all of the money responsibly, Rubio went out and bought a $80,000 speedboat.
The Times notes that despite the senator's financial woes, Rubio also leased a $50,000 Audi Q7 SUV...

...Rubio's troubling spending habits are well known within Republican political circles. According to The Times, when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's team vetted Rubio as a potential vice presidential candidate, they found that the Florida senator's financial decisions were bad enough that they could damage the campaign...

This is something, by the way, that's raised a red flag as far back as 2006 (dear God, where do the years of political headdesking get to?) as this 2010 article from the St. Pete Tampa Bay Times attests to:

...On the campaign trail, Rubio likes to say "politicians don't create jobs." But politics, directly and indirectly, has generated Rubio's sizeable income, even as he has accumulated substantial debt and saw one of his homes nearly go into foreclosure...
...When Rubio joined the Florida House of Representatives in 2000, he did not own a home, had few possessions and made $72,000 as a lawyer.
But he had $30,000 in "assorted credit and retail debt" (as described on his financial disclosure form) and in 2001 listed $165,000 in loans from the University of Florida and University of Miami Law School.
As Rubio climbed the ranks, he began to use little-noticed political committees to fund his travel and other expenses and later had a Republican Party of Florida credit card.
What emerged, records show, is a pattern of blending personal and political spending. Over and over again Rubio proved sloppy, at best, in complying with disclosure requirements...

I've written before about the Florida Republicans - and it's looking like Republicans in general - have these bad personal AND political habits of spending like drunken teenagers in possession of their parents' credit cards.   Rubio's name came up often during these reports from 2010 and onward, and now that's he running for the Presidency the national media outlets are starting to dig into his past.

It's troubling how a politician from a party that hypes itself as fiscally responsible is himself a debt-riding hypocrite.  It's troubling because it's been made clear how Rubio plans on clearing that debt: using other's people money.  Feeding off deep-pocket sugar daddies whose money he can use to keep living the high life despite the weak regulations in place.  This is a man who received an $800,000 book advance and still went out and wasted the money on personal indulgences instead of taking care of his debts.

How the hell can we trust this man - trust anyone from the Republican ranks who view these political campaigns as money-making schemes - with our nation's economy?

Drunken Teenagers with Their Parents' Credit Cards

This entry's title - Drunken Teenagers with their parents' credit cards - is a phrase I've been using to describe the fiscal destructiveness of the modern Republican Party.  How they spent and spent for two massive unfinished wars, a Medicare 'reform' that was in truth a payout to the Pharmaceutical companies, and constant bumping up of our debt limit put our nation into such a huge hole that China could own us without firing a shot.  I'm not the only one who noticed, and even some who are right-of-center noticed as well.

So I dare compare the Republican Party - fiscally irresponsible, spend-crazy, adding debt like there's no bill due - to drunken teens using their parents' credit cards to rack up more debt and buy crazy sh-t to satisfy their indulgences.  But I was just being figurative.

Well, here in Florida the Republicans just went and made it literal.

The local papers - so far the St. Pete Times and Orlando Sentinel leading the way - are pursuing reports of how a minor staffer with the state's GOP organization racked up over $1 MILLION on a party-issued credit card.  Expenditures of shopping sprees across the globe.  Travel tickets everywhere.  TOYS!  Further reports are examining how other leaders in the party - including current senatorial frontrunner Rubio - racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending as well.

Obviously, that staffer with the million-dollar credit debt didn't spend all that on herself or her family: evidence points to higher-ranking members of the state party - our old favorite Sansom gets a name-drop - using her card as a convenient means of side-stepping their expenditure reports.  Problem is, that credit card statement still has to go somewhere, and the papers found out.  And how the Republicans have to go into "Explain It Away" mode because while people expect the Republicans to live extravagantly they don't much like it when 12 percent of the state is STILL OUT OF WORK AND STRUGGLING FROM DAY TO DAY.

At least two questions come quickly to mind:

• Who's gonna pay all these credit card bills when they come due? (obvious answer: the deep-pocket campaign fundraisers who pretty much use this as a form of legalized bribery)
• Why are these GOP leaders spending so much of other people's money when all of them - Rubio, Sansom, even Crist had questionable spending sprees of his own - are fully employed at good wages and could well afford these things out of their OWN pocket?

I'm not sure the Republicans are gonna like the way this story is gonna play out, especially as it's coming on the heels of reports on how their National party organization the RNC went and spent money on questionable items as well... including a memorable stop at an expensive (yet tastefully refined) lesbian bondage club.

This seriously needs more play on the national stage.  This is more than just a Florida scandal: this is endemic of how the Republican leadership really behaves with people's finances.  This is a perfect example of how the Republicans are truly FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE: they spend other people's money - in some cases flat-out embezzle - to fulfill their personal needs and then have other people pay their bills.

So anyways, this isn't even the major news story in Florida right now.  Everyone's up in arms about the Florida legislature's attempt to destroy our state's educational system, with a bill SB6 sitting on Crist's desk awaiting a possible veto.  This has major ramifications: if it passes you can kiss all the good teachers goodbye (as the bill ends tenure and forces teachers onto an annual contract, no one is gonna want to work without job security).  If Crist vetoes it, he guarantees the Far Right wingnuts (who hate the Democratic-heavy teachers' unions) running the primary between him and Rubio will make him pay for it (and it's not like he's won them over anyway).  So a good number of political commentators are convinced if he vetoes it Crist is going to have to run as an Indy... so there's that drama going on today.

The third major story in the state today?  It's about a monkey!  There's an escaped rhesus macaque who's been free for over a year moving all over the bay area, and the locals keep an eye out for him. Watch the video.