Lucia Walinchus
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walinchus.bsky.social
Lucia Walinchus
@walinchus.bsky.social
5.1K followers 590 following 1.3K posts
Managing Data Editor, NBC owned stations. Public records attorney, journalist, ice hockey player/coach. Former bylines: NY Times , Washington Post, Eye on Ohio, etc.

Hearts= likes OR bookmarks
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walinchus.bsky.social
2/5 like sports journalists and coaches. It seems there’s something about playing a game that intrinsically teaches you about physics.
120 LEONARD ZAICHKOWSKY AND DANIEL PETERSON down, you tap a copy of that off and run it into your neural simulator to anticipate the sensory consequences of your actions.? tion." 24 Wolpert terms this "the optimal way of combining informa-This movement analysis system is so useful that we even call on it, subconsciously, to predict the movements of others. Since we have mastered the task of dribbling a basketball, we under. stand the physics of the motion, even when watching someone else do it. While observing a player with the ball coming at us, our brain monitors the ball using the same combination of visual stimuli and internal prediction code as if we were dribbling. Experienced players use this finely tuned monitoring program to anticipate and guard oncoming attackers. In a fascinating example of this, Italian researchers found that expert basketball players could predict the success of another player's jump shot before the ball even left the hand of the shooter." They asked three groups of volunteers—professional basketball players, coaches, and those who never watch basketball-to view partial video clips of jump shots, then guess if the shot went in or missed; both were equally represented in the sample of shots. The video was stopped at several different points, including before the ball left the shooter's hand to several points in the arc of the shot toward the basket. By comparing expert players to coaches, the researchers tried to tease apart the neural advantages of playing the sport versus just watching the sport. Sure enough, the players were better and faster at predicting the outcome of a shot than either the coaches or the neutral ob-servers, even before the ball had left the shooter's fingers. "This indicates that elite athletes, but not expert watchers or novices, were able to extract relevant information on the fate of the shots at the basket by using kinematic cues from the player's body movements," the researchers concluded. THE PLAYMAKER'S ADV…
November 19, 2025 at 2:08 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
1/5: Fascinating: researchers recruited elite basketball players, avid basketball fans, and regular folks to predict who would make a basket in a series of videos showing people about to shoot.

Players were much better at successfully predicting this. Even over “expert” watchers
Book cover of The playmaker’s advantage by Leonard Zaichkowsky and Daniel Peterson
November 19, 2025 at 2:08 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
Note: this could be better labeled- it's really an aggregate of everyone's mean. So on average New Yorkers spent ~593.33 years commuting to work in 2023. And that is ALL those who work outside the home in that area.

Thank you @ryebreadnyc.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy for helping me clarify that!
November 18, 2025 at 1:06 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
It's the mean commute time per year for all commuters. If you want to look at any variables use
vars <- load_variables(2023, "acs1", cache = TRUE).

So here we are filtering for B08013_001:

I should label this better though- thank you for pointing this out- it's a sum of the average for everyone.
Showing the Census B08013_001 variable, Estimate!!Aggregate travel time to work (in minutes) and it's breakdown by sex.
November 18, 2025 at 12:59 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
Wow commute times in NYC are solidly twice per year what they are in any other major city.

I would take an hour on a train though over half that in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Created in #rstats using @kylewalker.bsky.social's #tidycensus
Mean commute times for several cities per year. Data from the American Community Survey
November 18, 2025 at 12:32 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
5/9 In some ways suburbanization led to positive changes- ethnic groups became much more integrated. But redline mortgage policies meant that black Catholics were still segregated.
132 / Chapter Five saipulations, however, went unheeded, indicating that even as ta re he challenged his parishioners, "because of black and poor" peolen t raculous Medal. "I want you to hear the Gospel," Connolly pled and territorial definitions of the parish increasingly los their mannt remained.2 the suburban Church the racial boundares nhat de het Cathole pace body of American Catholicism, a process that had begun as ach ei ous ethnically inflected forms of Catholicism into one religouty ines Postwar suburbanization helped complete the amalgamation of group became further removed from the experience of immigration. la Postwar suburbs laity who had seen themselves as frish, Pollsh or kule set themselves simply as Catholic, Parishes established to serve burpen immigrants shed their ethnic affiliations and the names of new wbut Catholics when they lived in urban ethnie enclaves came incuralle parishes, the feasts and rituals they observed, and the lay amocation du animated them were no longer dehned by ethnicity. However, because suburbla's deep racial segregation, newly suburbanized Catholic ahor ing wartime and suburban homeownership in the postwar period bestones creasingly identified themselves as white. Loyal support of the nationd. of talian Catholics in particular yatus as white Americans which to had frequently been denied in past generations. Despite the bes elfors ol Church leaders and some lay activists to support civil rights and parib is tegration, others among the laity sought to maintain residential sees tion and defined the boundaries of their parish through racial exclusi Meanwhile, suburbia's comparatively small community of Black Cabdis demanded that their Church live up to its teachings on race and racim. ad address their unique needs. Even as the civil rights movement progressed toward its denoueen. Latin American immigration to Long Island, which had begun in the 1950% increased dramatically in the 1970s. The Diocese of Rockville Centre and is…
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
4/9 Parish schools depended on the free labor of sisters. When fewer women entered the convent, the cost of schools soared even higher which drove more parents to take their children out of parish schools as they became more expensive.

Religion classes didn’t have quite the same impact as schools.
of religious educatio their own chill or at nily 160 first-gradere eceived religious inse n calechetical centen. o d like longstandinaces i such programs chang oyed new methods dis necessitated by arept directors of Our Lety & conary world; in wit earning about God, te nan now …with main raine Smith, a voltes efended this nev mobs eed students as they has , discuss, to debar te ever, Smith admined o teachers*, who taugna us X Parish in Plainies, hurch was "facing and faith." Religion trashes ecause they stressed te parents to pray that thei ole disintegration taking enters was by no mes there was near uninese san officials that, com rograms were waily the faith. Andren Ge-ot a functional alteme of certain liberal Catte teological objectios a 4 percent of Carat n his weekly syndica education programs do atholic schools-mutt NOUS CCD enthusia at Suburban Catholic Education / 177 the 1960s thought it would be." Although his 1976 study. Catholic Schools in a Declining Church, had shown that CCD produced very little if any effect on those who have participated in it," Greeley suggested that such programs ma cuilt reducer" for bishops and pastors who were too lazy to raise the money" to keep parochial schools open, and for parents who thought "a bigger car is more important than parochial school tuition.*19 In 1972, even Mary Perkins Ryan, who had argued that parochial schools should be replaced with afterschool catechetical programs, wrote that concerns about the state of religious education were "becoming increasingly urgent." She confessed that she had been "astonishingly naive" to suggest, as she had in 1964, that the Liturgy "could become by itself the chief means of Christian education for individuals and communities. * Such assessments marked a drastic shift from the euphoria of the 1950s suburban building boom and the optimism surrounding religious education in the 1960s. While not ascribing blame as Greeley had, many priests of the Diocese of Rockville Centre str… Teaching sisters in Nassau and Suffolk counties from 1945 to 1985
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
3/9 Suburban parishes struggled to provide for more people with fewer resources.
102 / Chapter Four the people and they had come "out strong in grabbing it Week*" ions, not answers " Rechill said.? Suburtan panshes dramatically altered the balance of power bes sens and laly by transpining Priesty ministry the relicou pet the laity joined, and the role laymen and women played in thelda. of the Church.' Rechill's rhetoric about the founding and devdo s St Gerard a telected the spun of vaucan do al Rechll himsell ward tes so alteh a Break from the sobered parishes ot the prottro decade a de Fruition of the changes that suburbanization wrought on Catholic pant lay associations paests, and laypeople. At discused in chapter LeaF the faithful to take up the lay apostolate and Catholic Action dated bad a least to the 1930s, but postwar suburbanization accelcrated and dhended lay partsparon in the mintes and adminttration of the Chutch t led to a graduat tane or author from cent to laty. in norty be suburbs, power structures were often completely open and louble" on sense of ownership ord their panshes, and the suburbs insufhcent nuns of clergy and religious drove the laity into previously unthinkable ata ol ministry, most especially the religious instruction of youth Suburbia's emphasis on domesticity and family life also changed the types of lay associations that the faithful joined. Traditional parish socie like the Holy Name Society and the Rosary Society, which were single gr der, met in parish facilities and focused on bringing members togthat for ritual prayer and service to the parish community gave way to family apos Colates. These new associations welcomed couples, were based in famin homes and were aimed more at training members for family life, buildins small community, and providing avenues of service to the broader com munity than providing a communal spirituality. Unlike traditional parish societies, the family apostolates were also founded and led by laypeople which furthered the expectation that a highly educated laity would now be able …
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
2/9 Many factors led to a steep decline in church membership in the 1970s. The book’s central thesis is that suburbanization is never mentioned, but chief among them.

Urban parishes were a central part of the community- a neighborhood gathering place and social infrastructure.
Grade school students in Parish schools in Nassau and Suffolk counties from 1945 to 1985 10 / Introduction largest denomination. 24 because Catholic historians have long lamented that mainstream histories of twentieth-century America rarely engage with Catholicism despite the Fact that one in four Ameticans is Catholic, and they comprise the nation's Such engagement with American Catholics requires meeting them where gued, the "transformation of the United States into a suburban nation" is scholarly omission, because as Kevin Kruse and Thomas Sugrue have they live. The history of suburbia is particularly useful in correcting this to the formation of postwar suburbs. Crabgrass Catholicism, indeed, shows how the study of US Catholicism, with its hierarchical leadership and its central to the story of postwar America.25 American Catholics were essentia structure of archdioceses, dioceses, and parishes, allows for a truly metro politan approach to urban, political, and religious history. It argues that formed, were crucial in creating suburban infrastructure and culture. It also the ecclesial institutions Catholics built, and the faith communities they shows, in turn, how suburban life intensified Catholics assimilation, transformed their practice of the faith and their role in the Church's institutions, and reshaped their political priorities and allegiances. More than that, Crabgrass Catholicism puts American Catholics at the center of the most significant political developments of the late twentieth century. Recent scholarship on the politics of the suburbs has focused almost exclusively on evangelical Protestants and the rise of the right in the Sunbelt South. 26 Meanwhile, recent scholarship on Catholics and postwar politics has stressed how racial backlash and opposition to abortion drove Catholic voters toward an alliance with conservatives:" But his studyshovs how, from at least the 1950s, the economic pressures of suburbanization led bishops to redouble their quest for state funds for parochial schools, and led. lay Catholics to demand relief from …
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
1/9 Fascinating book on a little-studied slice of sociology: the intersection of politics, race, suburbanization, & America’s largest church.

This is probably particularly interesting for Catholics but some good food for thought for anyone hoping to understand how the US has changed. 📚💙
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
3/6 But of course nothing can match Austen's poise with prose.

If you read one classic, this is a great one to start with. And it's now in the public domain.

@gutenberg.org
www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/1...
“Indeed, you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of peculiar, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world, must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia’s character. Excuse me,—for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed; and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous;—a flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty is also comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh, my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?{289}”
November 13, 2025 at 6:35 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
1/6 The irony of Pride & Prejudice is that Jane Austen never married the man she loved because of the prejudice she faced.

She had little $, his family didn't approve.

If only she could've made a living as a writer. After all she did create some of the most enduring works of English literature.💙📚
Portrait of Austen's "one who got away"- Thomas LeFroy 1810 Portrait of Jane Austen
November 13, 2025 at 6:35 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
To get an idea of the sheer scale of this change. 👇

Props to the reporters who were not allowed to film inside the courthouse but still managed to get some key glimpses of what is happening behind closed doors.
In all of 2024, ICE arrested 603 people in San Diego. From January 1 through July 31, 2025, ICE arrested 1,990 people. Of those, 1,037 did not have a criminal conviction
November 12, 2025 at 5:18 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
10/12 Fear of an aristocracy was once a key concern for American policymakers. Why have we shied away from this?
irony: the United States found itself playing catch-up with the more egalitarian systems from which it had previously sought to disassociate. Europe, where wealth and power devolved through family inheritance. Avoiding this fate in the United States was a matter of critical concern, particularly for Thomas rony efferson, who wrote to John Adams about the need for the nation to distinguish between the "natural aristocracy based on virtue and talents" and the threat of the "artificial aristocracy" based on wealth and birth. As Jefferson wrote, The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy."® Jefferson's most immediate tool for limiting the impact of inherited wealth was to change the English rules of inheritance that had been in force in the US during the colonial period.' England had long preserved family wealth and privilege through the system known as primogeniture, in which land passed to the eldest male son (or in the absence of a son, to the eldest male heir).º Primogeniture has provided endless plot points for English stories-from Pride and Prejudice to Downton Abbey-on the problems faced by families with daughters instead of sons. The system also maximized the power of dynastic wealth by keeping property together and under the control of a single heir across generations. By contrast, the US rejection of primogeniture meant that large accumulations of inherited wealth were less likely to occur, because family property was divided among mul. tiple children rather than consolidated under just one. In 1830, Alexis de Tocqueville noted this lack of hereditary wealth and saw it as playing a central role in shaping the American work ethic: "Amongst a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living, or has worked, or is born of parents who have worked. The notion of labor is therefore presented to the mind on every side as the necessary, natural, and honest condition of human existence.""! In addition to altering inheritance rules to encourage the breakup of inherited wealth, the new nation was quick to tax inherited wealth when the country faced financial needs. Whenever there was a need for additional revenue-to fund the creation of the country's first navy, to finance the Civil War, to finance the Spanish-American War-the first place the country turned was taxes on inherited wealth. This system worked well enough to keep inherited wealth in check during the country's first century, but the post-Civil War industrialization period produced a seismic shift. Mark Twain satirically referred to this time in the late nineteenth century as the Gilded Age, reflecting his belief that American elites had gilded over the deep-seated social and economic divides. During the period, figures like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Car-negie, J. P. Morgan, Andrew Mellon, and other "robber bar-ons" amassed enormous fortunes by securing monopolistic control over steel, petroleum, railroads, tobacco, and other industries that had undergone explosive growth in that era due to the development of new technologies!" Faced with no meaningful taxes or government regulation, these men's riches grew at exponential rates and were passed on, relatively undiminished, to the next generation. *
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
9/12 Millionaires like Carnegie and Mellon advocated for the estate tax, arguing that a class of idle heirs violated American ideals.
68 • CHAPTER THREE divisions caused by extreme concentration ma mie as Carnegle described it, the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brothe 277z7151 gether the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.?4 According to Larncgic, not all wealth inequality wasd problem, because the creation of wealth t- 713 to the betterment of the masses, such that taxes. hy people lived better than the wealthiest of their fo. By He also made clear that his concern was not with "mod. crate sums saved by mar t==ee- eturns on which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families.s. The focus of Carnegie's concern was whether the wealthy should be able to pass "great for. tunes" down to the next generation. Here, Carnegie was an adamant no: "Why should men leave great fortunes. to theit children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the state... Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their families and of the state, such bequests are an improper use of their means."' Carnegie argued that the best thing for wealthy people to do was to give their money away to good causes during their lifetimes. But for those who chose not to, Carnegie strongly supported heavy estate taxes: "Of all forms of taxation, [the estate tax seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of JUBILEE - 69 which for public ends would work good to the community, hould be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death, the state marks its condem nation of the selfish millionaires unworthy life. The essay had a significant impact on the development of political support for the imposing of heavy estate taxes. As a result, faxes were not just supported by the ra…
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
8/12 Perhaps the most shocking thing though, is that for years Congress plugged the many tax loopholes, but eventually stopped doing this.

Avoiding tax was so unthinkable, it was once the butt of a popular Steve Martin joke. Now it is expected.
2 THE TAX-AVOIDANCE PLAYBOOK During the late 1970s, Steve Martin was the most popular comedian in the United States, regularly performing in front of sold-out crowds in the country's largest arenas. His comedy was revelatory not only for its odd mix of warmth and absurdity, but for its subversion of the traditional stand-up form. "What if there were no punch lines?" Martin wrote in his memoir, Born Standing Up. "What if I created tension and never released it? What would the audience do with all that tension?" In one of his most famous routines, Martin turned his attention to taxes. In the voice of a pitchman speaking directly to the audience, Martin loudly announced: "You can be a millionaire and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire and never pay taxes! You say, 'Steve, how can I be a millionaire and never pay taxes?' First, get a million dollars. Now, you say, 'Steve, what do I say to the tax man when he 24 • CHAPTER TWO comes to my door and says, "You have never paid taxes"? Two simple words. Two simple words in the English lan-guage: 'I forgot!'" The joke was extremely popular, so much so that Martin chose it to open one of his many high-profile appearances on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. One reason it consistently landed so well was that in the 1970s—with taxes imposed at historically high rates and payments enforced by a well-funded Internal Revenue Service-the idea of a rich person not paying taxes truly seemed absurd! Yet today, the joke feels almost nonsensical. Not only has the idea of a rich person not paying taxes ceased to be absurd, it's expected. While many Americans understand that rich people often don't pay taxes, what they understand less well is how they manage to do so. This is particularly vexing because, for the vast majority of Americans, taxes are both burdensome and unavoidable. So, how are the rich able to easily accomplish what so many other Americans can't? In the simplest terms, it's because the tax code allows for different treatment for different types of income-earnings, investments, and in-heritances. The wealthy can exploit those differences in treatment to their advantage. To do so, they follow a set of strategies that limit, and in some cases altogether elimi-nate, their exposure to federal taxation. These strategies make up what I'll call the Tax-Avoidance Playbook, and they involve three broad tactics: avoid salaries; invest and hold investments until death (while borrowing against
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
7/12 diluted that it’s pretty much useless.

The author argues that we should scrap the estate tax altogether and just add it into the income tax because that’s what people think happens anyway.
166 • CHAPTER SIX assumption of the existence of a robust estate tax. Because of that assumption, the income tax has conspicuously avoided the most common sources of wealth of the richest Americans: inheritances and investments. In other words, the existence of the estate tax has served to legitimate the shortcomings of the income tax system. The effect of excluding gifts and inheritances from the income tax is that these sources of income are not only not taxed to the recipient-they are not even reported (nor are the costs of the exclusion calculated in the tax expenditure budget. This exclusion from income taxes is understandable in a world where there is a robust estate and gift tax imposing heavy taxes on these transfers for the giver. How-ever, without a meaningful estate tax, the exclusion is non-sensical. When a lucky heir receives a windfall inheritance or gift, that is just as much income as are earnings, lottery winnings, prize money, or found money on the street-all of which are subject to income taxes at the highest ordinary income rates, A system that requires someone who earns $100,000 to pay almost 30 percent in payroll and income taxes while giving another person who inherits $10 million a free pass is indefensible-which is why the system relies so heavily on misinformation. Although the tax code does not explicitly exclude investment gains from the income tax, the results are the same as if it did. Through techniques like buy, borrow, die, which allows owners of wealth to defer taxes on gains until they are sold and, accordingly, to avoid taxes altogether by holding investments until death-the evasion of income taxes Cal15 BR T
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
6/12 If you earn money, win money, find money— not mentioned in this book, but even if you barter for something— you are supposed to pay taxes on that. But bizarrely that does not apply to inheritance. If you inherit $100 million that does not get taxed.

We do have an estate tax but it’s now so…
to provide or people rference, ovide the t tax pur-spouses dical ex: tax-free. erit up g in ex- ide an lerate heirs ption e es- lar get Ise cal OUR COMMON WEALTH • 171 de Tocqueville: 'What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands? "27 Our experience with families with dynastic wealth undermining the estate tax provides good evidence of the problems dynastic wealth can create. Look North; or, Tax Unrealized Gains at Death As has been discussed, there are many practical reasons for not taxing unrealized gains during life, most notably due to the difficulty of valuation and also problems raised by potential lack of liquidity, if people have to pay tax on unrealized gains. However, while these justifications make a lot of sense during a person's life, they no longer do once that person has given up ownership. Both President Nixon and President Obama proposed that, to create a fairer tax system that treats investment income more like income from earnings, gains should be taxed upon the transfer of property by gift or at death. This rule was adopted in Canada, and we should do so here to ensure that those gains are taxed to the person who earned them.?8 Just looking at the Forbes 400 list, there are hundreds of billions, and perhaps even trillions, of dollars in untaxed gains. Recent research from the Brookings Institution suggests that as much as one-third of all bequeathable wealth comprises unrealized gains." There is no reason for the American tax system to give owners of those profits a free pass. In addition, taxing gains when property is transferred
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
5/12 There is now a truly staggering amount of money in donor-advised funds, which provide an immediate tax break for donors (& therefore cost the government money) but often never actually get spent on charity.
134 • CHAPTER FIVE they provide pio meaningful obligation/for the funds to ever be spent. In 2024, over $1.7 trillion was set aside in private foundations and donor-advised funds, awaiting instructions from donors and providing fees for money managers?® Meanwhile, charities-and taxpayers who partnered in the creation of these funds-have no assurances that the funds will ever put to use for society's benefit. This is not by design, but by/regulatory failure. The rules on the books are designed to ensure that tax-benefited dollars make their way to working charities. However, congressional inaction in this century has allowed wealthy taxpayers to exploit a loophole that threatens to undermine the integrity of the whole charitable tax system. By permitting the "deduct now, donate later" donor-advised funds, Congress severed the connection between le giving and giving to chart a t ble giv-
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
4/ The oft-quoted statistic that 40% of all income taxes are paid by the top 1% of earners is true but—key words:

• INCOME tax is our largest tax revenue stream but all earners pay PAYROLL (FICA) taxes.

• If you get compensated in stock etc instead of wages you are NOT an EARNER & can avoid taxes.
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
2/12 Borrowers can avoid income taxes by using stock as collateral, but eventually this puts all shares in jeopardy as an owner with a need for liquidity may sell many shares at once.

For example, instead of drawing a salary, a billionaire may get extra stock instead and takes out a loan of…
30 • CHAPTER TWO Borrowing by Those with Plenty Borrowing against assets is an extraordinarily popular way for rich Americans to finance their lifestyles while avoiding income taxes. As one wealth adviser describes the advantages of borrowing: "You could buy a boat, you could go to Disney World, you could buy a company... The tax benefits are stunning.** These benefits are particularly valu. able for the richest Americans, who have plenty of willing creditors and —since they would otherwise be subject to tax at the highest rates —the most to gain by not paying taxes. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle Corporation, is one of the richest people in the world, with wealth in 2024 in excess of $230 billion. Ellison has long practiced the art of borrowing to support his lifestyle. As far back as 2002, Ellison had borrowed and spent so much money on homes and high-end assets, including a $194 million yacht, that his accountant famously advised him to "slow down" with his spending because "his spending was like a 'freight train' hitting a 'debt wall? "4 Since then, Ellison has continued his practice of debt-financed spending, including the purchase of most of Hawaiis sixth-largest island, Lanai. That purchase has enabled Ellison to simultaneously create a playground for the rich and a modern-day company town: Ellison now owns virtually all the businesses on the island, including two Four Seasons resorts, the only non-Four Seasons hotel, the island's main grocery store, the only gas station, and the community newspaper In effect, Ellison is now the boss, landlord, THE TAX-AVOIDANCE PLAYBOOK • 51 of both to the islands three thousand inhabitants—a stun ming experiment in opulence and power. According to one article, many residents both rent from him and work for him and a provision in his residential leases say that if you're terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can he kicked out of your home too." Residents say that no other entity can balance Ellison's con… 52 • CHAPTER TWO cover margin calls, spooking investors and driving Green Mountain Cofice to remove him as board chair.* Similarly, in May 2023, a speculator released a report on billionaire Carl Icahn's investment company, Icahn Enterprises (IEP), showing that Icahn had pledged over 50 percent of the total shares in the company. In response, IEP's value dropped by roughly 40 percent in a matter of days, and Icahn was forced to renegotiate his personal loans to untie them from IEP stock.* More broadly than these examples, significant corporate pledging creates what the corporate governance adviser Jun Frank calls "a mismatch between the control you can exercise over the company and the economic interest you have in the company."" Because of these concerns, more than rwo-thirds of S&P 500 companies ban company employees and shareholders from pledging shares as collateral; only 3.4 percent fully permit the practice. However, over 20 percent of the companies that broadly prohibit pledging still grant exemptions to it, typically to their most/powerful shareholders./ Most notably Oracle bans all directors and executive officersfrom pledging company shares, with the single exception of one individual/ Larry Ellison. Oracle is not alone in bowing to the interests of its largest shareholder. The publicly traded medical conglomerate Danaher Corporation exempted its cofounders, brothers Mitchell and Steven Rales, from its ban on pledging, stating simply, "[Their] shares had been pledged for decades.. The two founders have pledged over 85 percent of their respective shares, leaving Danaher vulnerable to a potential margin call. Some companies are more discreet when making spe-dal deals for insiders. For example, the oil and gas pipeline i Kinder Morgan prohibits the pledging of shares based on the individuals annual salary * These rules require cor-conte insiders to retain full ownership of shares equal to chree times their salary, meaning if they make $1 million a year hey ca…
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
1/12 Really interesting book on the foundations of our federal fiscal fiasco.

I get that reading a book on tax policy sounds boring. But actually, this was really well-written and eye-opening.

I suggest reading the whole thing but a few highlights:
📚💙 🧵👇
Book cover: The Second Estate HOW THE TAX CODE MADE AN AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY by Ray D. Madoff This chart is not in the book, but I added it because I thought it gave context to what we are talking about here: federal tax revenue
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
Shout out to this librarian who had the perfect Halloween costume for spotting among the stacks.

@columbuslibrary.bsky.social
October 31, 2025 at 5:22 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
Some really great journalism out of @nbcchicago.com's investigative team: www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/n...
Throughout 'Operation: Midway Blitz,' the White House has promised to arrest the "worst of the worst" in immigration operations, but has that been the case? From the start, the messaging has been direct: “We have focused overwhelmingly day after day after day on bringing in the worst of the worst and getting them off of our streets. Those are the murderers, the rapists the pedophiles…” said U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem during an appearance in July. The government has continued to plaster its motto and marching orders on crisp web pages and in frequent statements, reinforcing they're after the "worst of the worst." ICE has taken to posting pictures and backgrounds of criminal fugitives who are thought to be in the U.S. illegally. Now though, according to its own data, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the embattled agency known as ICE, is falling far short of maximizing an extensive law enforcement effort that has resulted in tens of thousands of arrests in Chicago and across the country. The past year of ICE data analyzed by NBC 5 Investigates shows, on average nationally, 84% of detainees have no criminal convictions. That is a figure that also reflects what we have found in Chicago since Operation Midway Blitz began on September 9th.
October 30, 2025 at 8:10 PM
walinchus.bsky.social
Found the cutest little indie bookstore/ brunch bar this weekend.

And so neat: they give you a passport if you want to visit them all.

@twodollarradio.bsky.social 📚💙
“visit central Ohio indie bookstores” pamphlet. Shows you the location and is like a little passport for each where you can get it stamped
October 27, 2025 at 12:22 PM