Everybody Knows: The Perfect Anthem for Our Times

Seven years ago, I called #LeonardCohen's *Everybody Knows* "the perfect anthem for our times."

> Everybody knows the fight was fixed
> The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
> That’s how it goes
> Everybody knows https://t.co/CRHWwwvAe6 1/ pic.twitter.com/eFBqP93whb

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on https://t.co/iSBh8sqXw0, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:https://t.co/OHz0EJcniv 2/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

That was just after Cohen died, and while the world seems to want to settle on *Hallelujah* as his totemic song, *Everybody Knows* keeps inserting itself into the discourse, in the most toxic, hope-draining way possible. 3/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Whenever some awful scandal involving the great and the good breaches, we're told that "everybody knew" already, so let's move on.

This current has been running through our society for decades now. 4/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Remember when the @Snowden leaks hit and a yawning chorus of nihilists told us they knew already and so should anyone else any of sophistication? Back then @jayrosen_nyu coined a rejoinder to this counsel of despair: "Don't savvy me":https://t.co/febP1C8NsT 5/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Everybody knows. It's what we heard after the #PanamaPapers. #Swissleaks. #Luxleaks. The #ParadisePapers. Everybody knows! It's what the nothing-to-see-here crowd said about @Propublica's explosive #IRSLeaks, back in 2021:https://t.co/asvfYgiGVd 6/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

The leaks revealed the tax-dodges of the richest and most powerful people in America, which were jaw-dropping in their audacity and shamelessness. 7/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Sure, maybe you suspected that the 400 richest people in America paid less tax than you - but did you really guess that the *means* by which they did this was through taking massive deductions on their elite *hobbies*?https://t.co/wu9W6cgO5o 8/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Maybe "everybody knows" that the game is rigged, but did you know *how*? 9/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Like, did you know that #REITs - a tax shelter for mom-and-pop investors who buy an income property for their retirement - have become a tool for gutting unions at hotels, slashing wages and imposing brutal, dangerous working conditions?https://t.co/c27tlOHLKr 10/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Leaks are cumulative. Combining data leaks brings out a detailed picture of the conspiracy - and it *is* a conspiracy - among the utlrawealthy and their Renfields in law, real-estate and accounting to duck their responsibilities and mound ever-more treasure on their hoards. 11/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Take the #JerseyOffshore leaks (2020), comprising the internal memos of #LaHougue, a fantastically crooked firm of fixers on the Isle of Jersey, one of the lawless tax-crime jurisdictions that the UK pretends it has no control over. 12/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

La Hougue has a playbook, 11 tactics for lying about your taxes. The remarkable thing about these 11 tactics is how *flimsy* they are, how easy it is to penetrate their lies. 13/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

When Parliament says it can't possibly do anything about the criminal havens in the Channel, remember the Jersey Offshore leaks and remind yourself that not even Parliament is *that* credulous. They know. Everybody knows:https://t.co/EFV2mfQcR0 14/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Why do working people think the Democrats are just another party for the ultra-rich? Maybe it's Pelosi's relentless opposition to meaningful curbs on insider trading. 15/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Or maybe it's the kinds of politicians that the Democratic Machine likes to rally behind - like #TaliFarhadianWeinstein, who raised millions in 2021, in large-money donations from Democratic finance-sector donors in her bid to become the DA of Manhattan. 16/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Farhadian Weinstein and her husband have more than $100m in annual income, and yet, paid *no* federal tax in 2013, 2015 and 2017. In 2014, they paid $6,584:https://t.co/EgODMCsDmv 17/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Propublica isn't done with the IRS Files. Today, they published a long investigation into ultra-rich corporate executives who buy and sell their competitors' stock for *massive* profits with suspiciously precise timing. 18/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

The data comes from #1099B filings, which brokerages file with the IRS with each trade, but which the IRS doesn't share with the SEC:https://t.co/BcYSplsqCe 19/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Here are some examples:

Ohio billionaire #AugustTroendle, CEO of @WorkatMedpace, repeatedly bought and sold shares of @SyneosHealth - his company's archrival. 20/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

He timed the transactions with a management shakeup that dropped the stock by 16% in one day, and an SEC investigation that crushed Syneos's stock by 25%. His precision timing made him at least $2.3m in profit. 21/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

#IsaacLarian, CEO of #Bratz-maker @MGAEnt, made $28m trading shares in @Mattel, MGA's nemesis and frequent litigant - during a period when Mattel stock crashed by 57% (!). 22/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Larian boasts that "I made a LOT more money shorting Mattel stock than they did running a $4.5 billion toy company."

Larian's trades also involved some very precise timing. 23/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Sometimes, he took positions just before his own company announced its upcoming products, and others positions immediately preceded major disclosures from Mattel. 24/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Larian's subordinates told Propublica that he is "is a boss with an endless appetite for information about his company and its competitors, constantly grilling subordinates on minutiae about the industry."

Larian couldn't explain the timing of these trades. 25/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

His lawyer told Propublica that it was "false and defamatory" to suggest that he "possessed material, nonpublic information that Larian knew was obtained in breach of a duty." 26/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Next up is #GeraldBoelte, founder and chair of the massive oil company #LLOGExploration. LLOG partners with other companies for its oil drilling. Companies like Stone Energy. 27/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Boelte bought a huge position in Stone the day before the company's 2015 earnings report, in which they revealed an increase their reserves' value, pulling in a 65% one day profit. He'd never bought shares in Stone before. 28/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Boetle told Propublica, "I do not and have never traded on any material, non-public information of competitors, business partners or others... Any implication that I was investing based upon advance knowledge is therefore clearly false." 29/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

#JimSankey is CEO of @invuesecurity. He bought $3.2m worth of shares in his rival Checkpoint, while checkpoint was in secret negotiations to be acquired by CCL Industries. Sankey was already thoroughly connected to Checkpoint, having sold a $150m product line to them in 2007. 30/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

There's no record that he'd ever traded Checkpoint before. He made $2.3m. Sankey says "he did not know Checkpoint was going to be acquired." He says that his company was not approached by Checkpoint as a potential acquirer. 31/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

#BarryWish was a board member of @Ocwen_Help, a company he co-founded. After the #GreatFinancialCrisis, Ocwen bid unsuccessfully to buy $215b worth of Bank of America mortgages. The winning bidder was #Nationstar. 32/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Three weeks before Nationstar's winning bid was announced, Wish bought $600k worth of Nationstar shares. After the bid was announced, he sold them for for a $157k profit. 33/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Wish told Propublica that he never traded competitors' stock: "No, not at all." Propublica read him the details of the trade from his leaked 1099-B. He said "You might see it, but I don’t have any recollection" and hung up. 34/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

#StevenGrossman is a cardboard heir - a #nepobaby who inherited #SouthernContainerCorp from his grandpa. After he sold the company to #RockTenn for $1b in 2013, he stayed on as a senior exec. 35/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Over the next 5 years, he traded large blocks of shares in Rock-Tenn's competitors, companies like #TempleInland, a company that he made a 37% profit on after its acquisition was announced in 2011, one week after Grossman started buying its shares. 36/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Grossman falsely told Propublica, "I haven’t traded stock since then." IRS records show that Grossman continued to trade. Grossman also told Propublica that he had no role with Rock-Tenn, despite being on their payroll for five years. 37/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

When asked about his extremely lucky timing buying and selling Temple-Inland, he said "That was 10 years ago" and hung up. 38/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

As Propublica's @RobertFaturechi and @emsimani write, Securities regulations have their origins in the crash of 1929, and the subsequent collapse in confidence in markets and capitalism, the sense that the system was rigged for the wealthy and political insiders. 39/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

That is a pretty good summation of sentiment today:https://t.co/xzOI3LNXkC

It's not just that corporate executives are corrupt, it's that they're lavishly, shamelessly, endlessly, incorrigibly corrupt. 40/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Take @CanadianPacific and #KansasCitySouthern, the sixth- and seventh-largest Class I railroads in the USA, whose merger was just approved by the #SurfaceTransportationBoard.

There are plenty of good reasons for the STB to have blocked this merger. 41/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

The rail industry is already excessively concentrated, and its top execs are so convinced that they're both #TooBigToFail and #TooBigToJail that they're rendering entire towns permanently uninhabitable in order to eke out a few more points in profit:https://t.co/n5ekH54jCp 42/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

But there are *specific* reasons to block *this* merger, like the whistleblower report about CP and KCS executives illegally gathering for a three-day "retreat" at @TheBreakers, a notorious site for GOP operatives to collude with the business lobby:https://t.co/QmJo30gjui 43/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

As @lukewgoldstein writes for @TheProspect, both companies spent millions in 2020 and 2022 on campaign contributions to "grease the skids" for the merger. 44/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

In particular, ensuring that the combined company could transport Alberta #TarSands oil (the filthiest, most energy intensive oil in the world) to US refineries. 45/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Though the STB was informed of the illegal meeting - in which the two companies behaved as though the merger had already been finalized - STB chair #MartinOberman told Goldstein that the Board did not write to the companies for explanation before waving through their merger. 46/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Instead, Oberman dismissed the complaint on the grounds that "Railroads have to be able to talk to one another to function." Typically this takes place over a free phone call, though - not on a three-day executive junket at a hotel where the rooms run $1,500/night. 47/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Oberman knows what happened at that meeting.

Everybody knows.

It comes as no surprise to learn that before #FTX imploded and destroyed the savings of its depositors, it paid out $3b to its top executives, including the criminal #SamBankmanFried:https://t.co/JS2WIUEEnY 48/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

It comes as no surprise that #SiliconValleyBank paid out bonuses to its execs and employees hours before it collapsed:https://t.co/Badu0ewJ5W

Everybody knows. 49/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

It's comforting to think that the tax code loopholes that the ultrawealthy exploit are an epiphenomenon of complexity, an unavoidable consequence of the technical requirements of a big regulation that spans 300m+ people. 50/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

But the truth is, the loopholes in the US tax code were inserted by politicians who got massive campaign contributions from donors who directly benefited from those loopholes. 51/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Senator #RonJohnson got $20m from Dick and Liz Uihlein, owners of @Uline, and roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, then blocked the Trump tax bill until lawmakers inserted a loophole worth $215m to the Uihleins and Hendricks, in just the first year:https://t.co/EROOZMbRFO 52/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

It's not even surprising that a sitting US Senator amended a bill to give hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaires who gave him tens of millions of dollars.

Everybody knows. 53/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

It's weirdly comforting to think that everyday people vote for demagogue wreckers because #Facebook hired evil sorcerers to fashion a mind-control ray from #BigData and #AI, but FB lies about *everything*, and everyone who ever claimed to have a mind-control ray was a liar. 54/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Maybe people vote for demagogue wreckers because they believe the system is rotten, and maybe they believe the system is rotten because the system *is* rotten. 55/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Maybe the self-described evil sorcerers of #BigTech aren't "hacking our dopamine loops" - maybe they're just helping opportunists target people who are justifiably angry:https://t.co/Us0SPxCNLd 56/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

The problem with this is it requires "progressive" parties to actually *do stuff* to demonstrate that they are on the side of people, not the side of paperclip-maximizing immortal colony organisms and the corporate executives who pretend to run them:https://t.co/pJSSfRbC3G 57/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

I try to have hope - that is, I try to believe that if we can only make changes to our material circumstances, however small they may seem, that we might attain a new vantagepoint that reveals more possible changes within our grasp:https://t.co/YZ4nzvf8ln 58/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023

Some days, it's hard to have hope. Some days, it's so obvious that #EverybodyKnows, all that I can muster is *fury*. Fury is not a full substitute for hope, but it'll do. It's a far superior alternative to the fatalism that "everybody knows" and thus nothing can be done. 59/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 16, 2023