11. Pine Baron

EPISODE 10: Self-made millionaire Pine Baron comes on to discuss the absurd new Inflation Reduction Act AKA The Inflation Will Continue Unabated Act of 2022.Pine Baron is a financial marketer and founder of new investment research brand Wealthpin. Like me, he is a small business owner. We both pay our taxes in full, and spend quite a bit of money on accounting in order to do so. Yet we’re both concerned about this bill…Topics include:* The middling bureaucratic bugworld of top-of-funnel brand marketing versus the savage masculine enterprise of direct response marketing.* How to beat the TikTok algorithm.* Financial marketing’s perverse incentives, particularly in a recession. * The Orwellian “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” and how its plan to spend $80 billion to shake down small business owners for $204 billion will only end up harassing the middle class and making inflation worse.* Around 50% of people don’t pay taxes at all. * Around 60% of people are employed by small business owners.* The private equity / hedge fund class—which is also being protected by this bill in other ways for e.g. continuance of the carried interest loophole—can afford to make it unaffordable for the IRS to audit them at all. * Thus, who is this $204 billion in inflation-fighting “profits” going to come from? Middle class small business owners. * Further proven by the fact that an amendment to protect households making less than $400k a year from auditing failed in the senate with every Democrat voting against it.* Why the IRS is susceptible to the Principal-Agent Dilemma.* The Biden Administration’s propaganda fight around the definition of “recession,” which Pine Baron says we are most definitely in.* Why, despite this new bill, starting your own business is the solution to your problems. Thanks for reading The Carousel!Follow Pine Baron on Twitter, and sign up for Wealthpin on its website, or follow on TikTok!You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe