Of course, these companies may have reported zero GAAP-basis income tax expense, they still paid cash income taxes in cash. For example, Tesla paid about $1.2 billion in cash income taxes net of refunds in their FY 2025 ($28 million US federal; $151 million state; remainder foreign). United paid $65 million in cash income taxes. This is very clearly disclosed in TSLA's footnote 12, page 86 of Tesla's SEC-filed financial statements that ITEP so closely "analyzed." Same for United, whose disclosure is on page 59 of its financial statements.
I also would like some more accounting-literate editing of articles when people go spelunking into financial statements!
It's a common mistake! But it illustrates your point very clearly: an expert would see a problem right away, but ITEP wasn't interested enough in being correct.
I would like to continue this pressure campaign for more expertise-specific editors. Us accountants can keep our day jobs and will happily moonlight for the moments when unsuspecting writers are badly misconstruing the numbers they lifted from a pile of 10-Ks. Shit, they don't even have to pay me. I'll do it for the love of the game!
Double for science. Science reporting is terrible, mostly because reporters tend to treat scientific press releases as disinterested facts when they should treat them like they came from politicians. It's not hard to find some jaded post-docs in any given field who can identify problems all day for you. But which is better from a business perspective? Reporting the latest observational study about some health thing in maximally alarmist terms, or reporting that it's meaningless garbage?
I totally sympathize with feeling frustration when you see a basic error about economics go unchallenged. But... The Argument has published two pieces that at least heavily implied that post-pandemic inflation was bad for workers, specifically low-income workers. It published Kelsey Piper's piece disputing an object-level fact about how LLMs work. That one really stood out to me because it was based on a misunderstanding of why LLMs don't *sound* like autocomplete, a misunderstanding that could have been corrected by reading the excellent "The Many Masks LLMs Wear." Which I found because it was restacked by one Jerusalem Demsas, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Argument Magazine... the same week Piper's piece came out.
Anyway. I love much of what this magazine publishes, including most of Piper's pieces, which is why I subscribe. It's super valuable, generally lucid, many times a great antidote to a bad narrative. I tend to comment only when I disagree with something; it's a character flaw. I'm working on it. This is mostly just to note that everyone has certain little claims they tend to let slide, and a plea not to. And also to say, if you feel frustrated with cultural writing when it touches on economics... imagine what it's like being a scientist.
On the one hand, of course you’re right, along with the hundreds of others who criticized the video. On the other hand, that’s a lot more links, views, and discussion than most NY Times content gets. Perhaps there is an incentive problem here.
I worked as a cater waiter for 15 years. I am grateful for all that profligate spending on fancy NYC events. It was a miserable job, but it was flexible and paid remarkably well.
Reminds me of this TikTok. I’ve spent a lot of time in politics, both activism and party politics. I don’t think it’s good for my mental health, and this is exactly the reason. Thanks for pointing this out. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CbfGwDFXb/
You can probably nitpick every single interview the times does. The bottom line is the broad strokes of the whole conversation were pretty true. Corporations are screwing over people and there is a level of revenge that is ok for some people. I’m pretty sure both of them acknowledged(jia did for sure) that when it comes to making a difference these small bits of revenge are meaningless. The main truth still holds - corporations suck and people are fed up. Yes it would be great if everyone was right all the time, especially the times, but based on the set up and tone I was expecting more of a vibes interview than a scholarly one.
Who are we worried about getting fooled by culture writers? If you’re such an avid NYT or Atlantic reader that you make it to the culture articles, you probably already read the deep policy articles in these publications.
Of course, these companies may have reported zero GAAP-basis income tax expense, they still paid cash income taxes in cash. For example, Tesla paid about $1.2 billion in cash income taxes net of refunds in their FY 2025 ($28 million US federal; $151 million state; remainder foreign). United paid $65 million in cash income taxes. This is very clearly disclosed in TSLA's footnote 12, page 86 of Tesla's SEC-filed financial statements that ITEP so closely "analyzed." Same for United, whose disclosure is on page 59 of its financial statements.
I also would like some more accounting-literate editing of articles when people go spelunking into financial statements!
actual lol but I wanted to be fair to Spiegelman because there really is a tax line that says 0 and I didn’t want to imply she made it up
It's a common mistake! But it illustrates your point very clearly: an expert would see a problem right away, but ITEP wasn't interested enough in being correct.
I would like to continue this pressure campaign for more expertise-specific editors. Us accountants can keep our day jobs and will happily moonlight for the moments when unsuspecting writers are badly misconstruing the numbers they lifted from a pile of 10-Ks. Shit, they don't even have to pay me. I'll do it for the love of the game!
Double for science. Science reporting is terrible, mostly because reporters tend to treat scientific press releases as disinterested facts when they should treat them like they came from politicians. It's not hard to find some jaded post-docs in any given field who can identify problems all day for you. But which is better from a business perspective? Reporting the latest observational study about some health thing in maximally alarmist terms, or reporting that it's meaningless garbage?
I totally sympathize with feeling frustration when you see a basic error about economics go unchallenged. But... The Argument has published two pieces that at least heavily implied that post-pandemic inflation was bad for workers, specifically low-income workers. It published Kelsey Piper's piece disputing an object-level fact about how LLMs work. That one really stood out to me because it was based on a misunderstanding of why LLMs don't *sound* like autocomplete, a misunderstanding that could have been corrected by reading the excellent "The Many Masks LLMs Wear." Which I found because it was restacked by one Jerusalem Demsas, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Argument Magazine... the same week Piper's piece came out.
Anyway. I love much of what this magazine publishes, including most of Piper's pieces, which is why I subscribe. It's super valuable, generally lucid, many times a great antidote to a bad narrative. I tend to comment only when I disagree with something; it's a character flaw. I'm working on it. This is mostly just to note that everyone has certain little claims they tend to let slide, and a plea not to. And also to say, if you feel frustrated with cultural writing when it touches on economics... imagine what it's like being a scientist.
On the one hand, of course you’re right, along with the hundreds of others who criticized the video. On the other hand, that’s a lot more links, views, and discussion than most NY Times content gets. Perhaps there is an incentive problem here.
I have wondered if this podcast episode wasn’t intentional rage bait. It’s so hard to tell these days.
Fantastic. Unfortunate, but so true. NYT seems keen on living up to being a left-wing caricature of what right-wing trolls accuse it of.
And with it, I finally took the step to cancel my NYT subscription and gladly signed up to be a paid subscriber of The Argument. Keep it up.
That video conversation is the closest I've come to cancelling my NYT subscription - still mulling it over. Terrible judgment putting that out there.
I worked as a cater waiter for 15 years. I am grateful for all that profligate spending on fancy NYC events. It was a miserable job, but it was flexible and paid remarkably well.
Reminds me of this TikTok. I’ve spent a lot of time in politics, both activism and party politics. I don’t think it’s good for my mental health, and this is exactly the reason. Thanks for pointing this out. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CbfGwDFXb/
You can probably nitpick every single interview the times does. The bottom line is the broad strokes of the whole conversation were pretty true. Corporations are screwing over people and there is a level of revenge that is ok for some people. I’m pretty sure both of them acknowledged(jia did for sure) that when it comes to making a difference these small bits of revenge are meaningless. The main truth still holds - corporations suck and people are fed up. Yes it would be great if everyone was right all the time, especially the times, but based on the set up and tone I was expecting more of a vibes interview than a scholarly one.
Who are we worried about getting fooled by culture writers? If you’re such an avid NYT or Atlantic reader that you make it to the culture articles, you probably already read the deep policy articles in these publications.
You can disagree with Piker all you want but that sort of comment will get removed.