Look at the way capital gains works, and how someone on the tier Elon Musk is at operates. The assets they have (say a large percentage of Twitter/X and Tesla) can be used as collateral for a loan, the interest on which is a loss for actual income purposes. Meanwhile, when they pay the loan back by selling off assets, they do so at the capital gains rate, vs income tax. That's provided they don't take out another loan using assets as collateral to pay off the first loan.

That's assuming you don't incorporate and have everything run through your organization as a business expense. Like Trump. That's another layer.

What we're talking about are variants of the same financialization as shell game.

I'd think that having had the Panama Papers in our collective rear view mirror, this kind of corruption would be common knowledge, but yes. The rich are playing with insider rules. DEI, too, is a way to deal in sponsored minorities including the vapid social media addicts you noticed.

As you're realizing, it's a big club and we ain't in it.