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Crémieux Profile picture
@cremieuxrecueil
Dec 12, 2024 • 26 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
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The COVID era Paycheck Protection Program was defrauded at an incredible scale. People received PPP loans for total nonsense at stunning rates.

Thread of funny claims.

Dodge Hellcat LLCImage
Reparations for Indigenous People LLCImage
Just Traffic TicketsImage
Free Money LLCImage
LobsterImage
They're Stealing Your Hubcaps IncImage
Fuck the System LLCImage
PPP, LLCImage
Rent LLCImage
Just read it Image
I Got LunchImage
VacationImage
GR&ASSImage
Wakanda MurkledoveImage
If you spend enough time going through this, it becomes apparent:

There are tons of businesses that have suspicious employee numbers (usually 1) and often enough, these suspicious loans were at the cap for sole proprietorships ($20,833), and they're addressed to wrong people.
The Small Business Administration estimated that at least 70,000 of these loans are fraudulent, and given that these are denominates in the thousands, that adds up fast.

People used these loans to buy Lamborghinis, Teslas, Ferraris, and lots of Dodge Hellcats.
The nature of fraudulent PPP loans seems to mirror other low-class behavior.

For example, tons of Hellcats obtained with PPP might be related to tons of Hellcats being targets for theft. Image
The excessive spending of PPP loans on travel might be related to record numbers of unruly plane passengers. Image
Excessive spending of PPP loans on lobster and crab was well-known.

I invite you to search for the keywords "crabs", "lobster", "steak", "travel", and so on coupled with "PPP". It's stunning.

Perhaps those record crab sales after loans went out were related. Image
Free Money! New Wakanda! Reparations!

There was an unreal amount of scamming going on and, per NBC, the dollar value may be 10% of the program's total spending.

A program designed to go after this and recover funds seems laudable, but I doubt they're very recoverable.

Ah well.
Here's a search tool if you want to look into this yourself: projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/ba… and h/t @ManDaveJobGood, who's been cataloguing so much of this.

NBC: nbcnews.com/politics/justi…

Hellcat theft: jgdattack.eu/blog/en/hellca…

Crabs: seafoodnews.com/Story/1183203/…
And yes, these things seem to be related:
Here's the estimated scale of the fraud from the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Small Business Administration: sba.gov/document/repor…Image
Apparently Baltimore cops are going after known criminals for their PPP shenanigans.

If anyone has more info on this and anything like it, post it please.

As a reminder in case you skipped over it, Free Money LLC had their loans forgiven.

They got to keep that fraudulently obtained money.

Feel like a sucker yet?
As noted in the thread, there were also plenty of cases of people registering businesses to other people's addresses. You can even find people online claiming that they got PPP loans for businesses they didn't own.

It's not hard to see why this fraud could be hard to investigate Link: https://www.propublica.org/article/ppp-farms

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More from @cremieuxrecueil

Crémieux Profile picture
Jul 4
Do you know the most patriotic drink you can have today?

It's a wine from a little island controlled by Portugal.

It was definitely the Founding Fathers' favorite drink, and it's likely the most important drink in American—and thus world—history.

Let's talk about Madeira🧵Image
Our Colonial forebears "swam in a sea of booze from breakfast till bedtime".

It was safer than drinking the water, but that wasn't the only reason they did it.

They were also rowdy, young, and they liked to drink. When it came time to party, they showed it! Image
Before the Revolution, the British vigorously curtailed the import of French and Spanish wines into the colonies.

So, what could the colonists drink? Rum, brandy, spirits, and their favorite: wine from the Portuguese island of Madeira! Image
Read 15 tweets
Crémieux Profile picture
Jun 30
Amy Wax got in trouble for remarking that she'd not seen a Black student in the top quarter of a Penn Law class.

Thanks to hacked Columbia data, we can see that she was...

Probably right!

In the decade before her statement, there were just two top-25% Black students. Image
It is *totally* plausible that she never met these students. And it's also plausible that she rarely saw Black students in the top *half*, because each year, the number of them was just 1-4.

But, despite being 8% of the class, they were ~40% of the bottom 10%-ranked students: Image
Note: Penn is on-par/slightly less elite than Columbia, so it's likely that the Black students there were somewhat *worse*, as the article notes, making her claims more likely.

This all comes from @zagrebbi's latest article. It's well worth a read!

Link: rightrationalism.art/p/black-law-st…
Read 4 tweets
Crémieux Profile picture
Jun 30
And there it is:

The Supreme Court has decided to maintain Birthright Citizenship.
Big day if you think Roe v. Wade was correctly decided.

My favorite part (note that I've only read 150 pages so far) was Thomas explaining that, no, the Founding g Fathers did not adopt the English feudal system.

This fact was clearly lost on the other side. Image
The Court's reliance on a random remark from a case that ultimately didn't even produce lasting changes raises the question of whether that sort of thing even matters.

Why shouldn't I cite the Dred Scott case as the law of the land? Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Crémieux Profile picture
Jun 26
The medical community has cured a mountain of diseases in the past several decades.

Diseases cured thread🧵

In 2013, hepatitis C was cured by direct-acting antivirals. Image
Peptic ulcers are now curable in more than 90% of patients via antibiotic triple/quad therapy (1994). Image
Sickle cell anemia was cured in 2023 for >96% of patients. Image
Read 22 tweets
Crémieux Profile picture
Jun 9
Because America has made the wise decision to compensate blood donors, it has ended up supplying some 70% of the world's blood plasma.

This is one of America's top exports, and each year, America saves hundreds of thousands of lives because it does this. Image
Some people argue against plasma donation on the basis of it being disproportionately used by poorer people

They say it's exploitative: they feel that selling something your body makes is wrong if disparate in ways they care about

But it's a lifesaver!

There's also research indicating that plasma donation can be healthy!

(And there's more indicating that, with compensation, it might reduce crime in the local area.)

Read 4 tweets
Crémieux Profile picture
Jun 7
It's Pride Month, so let's talk about why San Francisco is so incredibly gay.

Military policy.

🧵 Image
In 1982, Randy Shilts published his biography of Harvey Milk, entitled "The Mayor of Castro Street".

For those who don't know, Harvey Milk was the first open homosexual to be voted into public office in the state of California.

He was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Image
The biography contains a fair bit of background, not just about Harvey Milk, but about San Francisco's gay community more generally.

In its early years, San Francisco attracted large waves of mainly male migrants motivated by the promise of gold in California. Image
Read 18 tweets

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