Dog Town

Walking together with my wife; the fourth corner of the road.

—I infrequently check DMs

[Dog Town @ironsky]

Driving down that dark, two lane highway, know this:

73% of drivers concealed by those oncoming high-beams believe they are ABOVE AVERAGE DRIVERS!

48% of the male cohort believe they can SUCCESSFULLY LAND AN AIRLINER if both pilots become incapacitated.

Let that sink in 😱

[Old Salty Marine @BamaSaltyMarine]

HISTORY LESSON ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD:
Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe it. Be sure and show it to your family and friends. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are FACTS.

Up until the 1980's, Social Security cards expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes.
Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, it became convenient to use it anyway and the "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" message was removed.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. His promises are in black, with updates in brackets.

1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary [No longer voluntary],

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program [Now 7.65% on the first $90,000, and 15% on the first $90,000 if you’re self-employed],

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year [No longer tax deductible]

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program [Under Johnson the money was moved to the General Fund and spent]

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income [Under Clinton & Gore up to 85% of your Social Security can be taxed].

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away’ — you may be interested in the following.

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

AND MY FAVORITE:

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments!

The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!

Now, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, though.

Some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn’t so but it’s worth a try.

How many people can YOU send this to?

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 BREAKING: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just announced the effective ABOLISHMENT of most homeowner property taxes across the state, which will require a vote on the ballot this November

LET'S GO!! ☀️

The amendment would also BLOCK local governments from wasting that portion of tax revenue, making sure it ONLY goes to services like police, fire, school, etc.

The plan PRIORITIZES young people and those with low-to-medium value homes, giving immediate zero taxes to 60% of Florida primary homeowners, later rising to 90% or more

DESANTIS CONVENING THE LEGISLATURE:

"Begin with an initial raising of the homestead limit to $250,000 for all Florida homesteaders."

$250K limit = the first $250,000 value of a home is $0 TAXED

Then the plan is to raise it to $500,000, which gives over 90% of Florida homeowners $0 IN TAXES 🔥

"A $250,000 limit, that eliminates property tax for 60% of Florida homeowners. Once you put a schedule in, and this would be something that we'd work with the legislature on after the vote is taken in November, if it's successful, when you raise to $500,000 limit, that's 92% of all Florida residents would be tax-free."

"I'd rather focus on folks who are new homeowners, young people, seniors on fixed income, you know, are middle-class folks, and so this will be really significant."

[Dog Town @ironsky]

https://t.co/Xa3QFbhHgr

[Bull Theory @BullTheoryio]

🚨 THE ENTIRE AI BOOM MIGHT BE BUILT ON FAKE REVENUE.

Latest corporate filings show that OpenAI and Anthropic alone make up over half of the entire $2 trillion future cloud backlog held by Microsoft, Oracle, Google, and Amazon.

This massive pipeline is actually being created through a circular accounting trick called a round trip revenue loop.

But how it works ?

A tech giant gives billions of dollars to an AI startup as an "investment". But hidden in the contract is a strict rule forcing the startup to hand that exact same money straight back to the tech giant to rent their computer servers.

Look at the documented case of Microsoft and OpenAI.

When Microsoft invested $13 billion into OpenAI, it didn't just give them cash; it gave them "cloud credits" to use Microsoft servers. OpenAI used those exact credits to train its AI models, and Microsoft then turned around and recorded that server usage as brand new "cloud revenue" from a customer.

The tech giant is literally paying itself with its own money and calling it a sale.

This is why OpenAI’s annual cloud bill has ballooned to over $60 billion, double its actual revenue of $25 billion, kept alive solely by this recycled funding loop.

Anthropic runs the exact same play, spending $2.66 billion on Amazon Web Services in just nine months, which was basically 100% of all the money it earned at the time.

This manufactured demand triggers a second accounting trick where tech giants book massive paper profits. Every time a startup gets a higher value from a new funding round, the tech giant updates the value of its investment on its books and counts that unearned paper gain as direct profit.

In Q1 2026, Alphabet reported a record $62.6 billion profit, but $28.7 billion nearly half, was just a paper markup on its Anthropic investment. In the same quarter, Amazon reported $30.3 billion in profit, but $16.8 billion of it was just an Anthropic paper gain.

While Amazon reported record profits, its actual free cash flow collapsed 95% to just $1.2 billion because it had to spend $44.2 billion in real cash to build physical data centers.

This has created a massive danger where these giant companies rely heavily on just one or two unstable startups. Microsoft has 49% of its $627 billion future backlog tied to OpenAI, while Oracle has an incredible 54% of its entire $553 billion pipeline relying on OpenAI alone.

This perfectly mirrors the 2001 dot-com crash when Global Crossing and Qwest Communications swapped identical fiber-optic network capacity with each other just to book fake sales.

Qwest had to erase $1.4 billion in fake income, and Global Crossing went completely bankrupt.

The only difference is that the dot-com swaps were illegal, but today's AI loop is fully legal under current accounting rules.

This legal loop inflates tech company stock prices, forcing automatic retirement accounts and index funds to buy even more of these tech stocks. It is a self feeding loop where investments, sales, and stock prices all go up on paper without the AI technology ever making real cash profits.

[Lawrence McDonald @Convertbond]

University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment

May 2026: 44.8
June 2022: 50.5
Sept 2008: 70.3

[Peter Schiff @PeterSchiff]

Consumer confidence “unexpectedly” plunged from 48.2 in March to a record low of 44.8 in April. Contrary to the Fed’s claim that inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2%, consumers expect inflation of 4.8% over the next year, and for it to average 3.9% over the next ten!

[Jeffrey Gundlach @TruthGundlach]

When you “dump troubled assets” you take a big loss, No exceptions.

[Dog Town @ironsky]

If only someone warned us margin borrowing was oat unsustainable levels. If only 😪

[Global Markets Investor @GlobalMktObserv]

🚨HOLY COW:

US margin debt SPIKED $83 BILLION in April, to $1.3 TRILLION, an all-time high.

Leveraged borrowing has soared $453 billion, or +53%, over the last year alone.

TAP IMAGE TO SEE FULL INSIGHT👇
https://t.co/XIsm8zs52p

[Dog Town @ironsky]

Insider traading?

https://t.co/FlqER3KfEG

[Michael A. Gayed, CFA @leadlagreport]

I once tweeted AI is bullshit.

Have been playing around with Perplexity Computer to automate workflows.

It’s not bullshit - it’s going to fundamentally alter the world.

I believe it now.

By the end of the year, I believe we see huge layoffs.

Block is a sign of what’s to come.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

The Los Angeles River carries roughly 4.5 million pounds (2,250 tons) of trash towards the ocean every year

New trash cleaning robots are being deployed to try and capture some of this trash. “The rovers then skim the surface collecting trash, and each rover can pick up up to 200 pounds of trash”

They are semi-autonomous robots that can canvas the marinas and ports navigating the water via remote control or following pre-planned paths

There is a trash boom just north of Long Beach but it’s only able to catch about 1,000 tons or so out of the 2,250 tons of trash and debris that flows from the LA river

Long Beach is where it ends up

Anyone’s who been to the beach knows you’ll see trash and empty plastic bags in the water where people try and enjoy the beach. I’m sure there’s needles too

[Tony Seruga @TonySeruga]

Mocking armchair critics who have probably never touched a gun, let alone faced a crazed demon, asking “Why not tase him / shoot him in the leg / talk to him?” or some similar nonsense.

FACT: He was tased and shot multiple times.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

American has health insurance and he needs a testicular ultrasound

With insurance, he was quoted $7,000

I looked it up, cash price for this same procedure is only $200

In Mexico this same procedure is offered for roughly $310

But if you’re an American with health insurance, you could get a quote for $7,000

You can make this make sense

[Peter St Onge, Ph.D. @profstonge]

Family and home are the glue that holds society together.

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

BREAKING: The Federal Reserve is asking major US banks for details about their exposure to private credit following a surge in redemptions from the funds and a rise in troubled loans in the industry, per Bloomberg

[Dog Town @ironsky]

One of the better and more informative channels on YouTube, so the Algol decides to kill it. YouTube should be immediately stripped of it's section 230 immunity as punishment for censorship!

https://t.co/RYo69bWkRk

[Andrew Lokenauth @FluentInFinance]

Median family income in the US increased from $10,000 in 1971 to $106,000 today, a 10x increase.

However, the median cost of homes increased from $25,000 to $445,000, a 17x increase.

And the median cost of cars increased from $3,600 to $50,000, a 14x increase.

The median cost of college increased from $2,900 a year to $45,000, a 16x increase.

And the average cost of healthcare per person increased from $350 to $14,600, a 42x increase.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

[Dog Town @ironsky]

That failure can be traced back to the 70s full integration into the workforce and the loss of high paying manufacturing jobs.

That said. It's important that you own a house, not necessarily LIVE in that house!

Also, we've trained multiple generations for a job market that is no longer.

[Dog Town @ironsky]

@PeterSchiff If you're the world's reserve currency, then the job at hand is to keep shipping open, the cost of goods low, and export dollars. Doesn't matter the constitution. It's a job. Of course, keeping the straits open hugely benefits China.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

This is in Los Angeles supporting the liberation of Iran

California would turn Red without Voter fraud

Pass the SAVE Act

Donald Trump is toppling dictator after dictator and we can’t even get the GOP to show up and stand there for a filibuster….