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The intent of ProPublica's entire series of articles is to imply that wealthy Americans are immorally building their wealth. They are taking advantage of the fa
by jppope 5y ago
The intent of ProPublica's entire series of articles is to imply that wealthy Americans are immorally building their wealth. They are taking advantage of the fact that the public doesn't have basic financial literacy to turn the public against wealthy Americans and some of our most important systems in America (Entrepreneurship, Joint-stock companies, etc).
Thiel bought a lotto ticket in his Roth IRA, after which he invested the earnings into other high-risk ventures which also worked out.
- nickpp 5y agoIt is fascinating how the ProPublica articles are redistributed in mainstream media (BBC, CNN, etc) even though they are obviously wrong, biased and even based on stolen private data. It’s almost as if someone is having an agenda…
- medvezhenok 5y agoThe big argument was whether it was a true lotto ticket (say buying Bitcoin at 1 cent, where everyone accepts it's valued at 1 cent), or whether it was actually self dealing (real best-estimate value of shares was maybe $0.10 a share, and he bought in IRA for $0.001 a share). That means the true value of his IRA "contribution" becomes $170,000 instead of $1,700, which is clearly tax evasion. Still a lotto ticket, but that first transaction becomes a lot less innocent.
- FabHK 5y agoI have basic financial literacy, and found that article insightful and alarming. Maybe your political views coloured your dismissal of the article series and “the public”. I don’t think tax shelters for retirement accounts were designed to let financiers such as Thiel and Romney buy undervalued promising lottery tickets from themselves or their buddies, or should be used as such.
- jppope 5y agoThe (self directed) Roth IRA was "designed" to let people invest their money into assets that they choose.