Cory Doctorow: Retiring the US debt would retire the US dollar – October 21, 2024 As important as the numbers revealed by the Secret IRS Files were, I found the explanations even more interesting. The 99.9999% of us who never make contact with the secretive elite wealth management and tax cheating industry know, in the abstract, that there’s something scammy going on in those esoteric cults of wealth accumulation, but we’re pretty vague on the details. When I pondered the “tax loopholes” that the rich were exploiting, I pictured, you know, long lists of equations salted with Greek symbols, completely beyond my ken. But when Propublica’s series laid these secret tactics out, I learned that they were incredibly stupid ruses, tricks so thin that the only way they could possibly fool the IRS is if the IRS just didn’t give a shit (and they truly didn’t – after decades of cuts and attacks, the IRS was far more likely to audit a family earning less than $30k/year than a billionaire). This has become a somewhat familiar experience. If you read the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, Luxleaks, Swissleaks, or any of the other spectacular leaks from the oligarch-industrial complex, you’ll have seen the same thing: the rich employ the most tissue-thin ruses, and the tax authorities gobble them up.
A “tissue thin ruse” is being used to sell a dubious pandemic product! Someone brought my attention to a company that claims to have gotten around FDA and FTC rules by claiming that their drug is not a drug, by claiming it’s “drug free” just because they are using as the active ingredient, a substance on some FDA list of known “inactive ingredients”. They’re claiming it’s essentially a cosmetic or personal care product that’s a disease preventative – which except that’s the definition of a drug!
They proudly explain this trick they’re using too! In public!
You can’t do this, it’s quite obviously not a way it should be able to fool regulators. I reported all this to the FDA and FTC too. (I didn’t just post it on my blog). Maybe someday the FDA will issue a warning letter, like they have issued to other nasal spray vendors making improper claims. In the meantime of course, they’re making money off people desperate to avoid covid who don’t look too closely at their tissue-thin claims based on a prelim study conducted and funded by the company selling the product. (Always check the conflicts section!) And bonus PR, they have the seeming stamp of approval from Harvard. OOOh.
I imagine a lot of unproven dubious health products on the market are supposedly “getting around regulations” like this. BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately I’ve heard of people using these nose sprays so much they get sore throats and nose bleeds. I’m no doctor but damaging the delicate tissue inside the nasal passage probably isn’t the best way to avoid getting sick.
The best approach to covid prevention? This doctor says it’s not up your nose:
