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yellowocaballero · 8 months

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ORV Characters Ranked by Least to Most Likely to Commit White Collar Crime

You guys said you wanted my ORV takes, and I try not to say things unsolicited, so I'll drop the good meta-analysis and literary criticism that I'm known for. For comedy purposes please pretend that ORV is American.

Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint characters broken down by likelihood to commit white collar crime, least to most:

Lee Hyeonseong: he's convinced that he's never committed a crime in his life. Intentionally, of course not. Unintentionally, he takes shopping for groceries extremely seriously, and is sometimes so wrapped up in the fruit inspection experience that he'll leave without paying. Due to his innocent face, bulk, and sheer confidence, he's never caught. In an economically thrifty maneuver, KDJ always sends him on snack runs for parties and texts him math problems while he's there. He insists it's like couponing. It's not couponing.

Jeong Huiwon: similarly, of course she would never choose to commit a crime. Also similarly, when KDJ says, 'Hey, wanna commit a crime?' she always participates. Since the crime is normally targeted at rich people, KDJ can usually morally justify it to her. She calls this harm reduction. It's not harm reduction.

Lee Jihye: would love to commit a crime in theory, almost never in practice. She has an idealized image in her mind of the ideal high school experience and it involves grand theft auto. However, the worst she ever gets is breaking & entering and trespassing, mostly because she didn't stop to wonder if the building was abandoned or not. She can't even shoplift from Claire's.

Shin Yuseung: the kind of kid who sets the dissection frogs in the school laboratory free. Looks up illegal exotic animal trading on the deepweb and sighs in longing. But exotic pet trading isn't very Animal Rights of her, so she just leaks information to the CIA and busts the rings. Lee Gilyeong convinces her to track down shady sellers on Craigslist and bust their kneecaps. Neither of them view this as significantly different from the dissection frog liberation. KDJ gets her a rescued exotic cat for her birthday as a reward.

Lee Gilyeong: self-explanatory.

Han Suyeong: she's been pirating media since she was eleven and has never stopped. World-class expert in pirating everything. She's the unsung hero who rips the CDs and games and puts them online. Runs the pirating websites. Has never paid for a webnovel or manwha or manga in her life. Despite this, she insists that pirating books is immoral and that people should support small authors. The FBI knows she exists and has been trying to catch her for years. She brags about this constantly.

Yoo Sangah: has committed tax fraud before, will commit tax fraud tomorrow, is currently committing tax fraud. Embezzles her company's embezzlement. Insists that she's only committing victimless crimes, mainly because she doesn't view business executives as people. Her ability to evade the IRS is mythological and it's how KDJ got a crush on her.

Yoo Junghyeok: does not understand adult life well enough to knowingly commit any sort of white collar crime. He is this high on the list because he enables and helps KDJ in literally everything he does, especially using his clout as an influencer. This is because KDJ has convinced him that these things aren't crimes, and he doesn't understand adult life well enough to figure it out.

Kim Dokja: has done every white collar crime under the sun. I can't emphasize enough how much crime he does. He's currently blackmailing SYS's college tuition out of a US Senator. HSY makes the shell companies and launders so much money with him. Alternates between running a pyramid scheme and a ponzi scheme depending on the month. Started a cult that one time but we don't like to talk about that. Runs the betting ring for YJH's esports games. Fixes the games. YJH does not know he does this, but KDJ splits the profits and Yoo Mia also needs a college tuition so he decides not to think about it too hard. Big into crypto and runs every crypto scam you can possibly think of, which is normally where the the ponzi schemes come in. Steals YJH's identity often. Somehow everything he does is technically legal. The only crime he does not commit is pirating. Exclusively targets the wealthy and ultra-wealthy and has never stolen money from a poor person. Sugar daddies all of his friends and pays all college tuitions. Anonymously yet obviously sponsors huge amounts of money to YJH's Twitch streams, mostly in apology for the ID theft. Would really rather be living a quiet life in a big house with all of his friends, but that big house ain't gonna pay for itself.

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #kim dokja #yjh #kdj #orv is about capitalism and systems of power and how they should be broken #and destroying the narratives of the powerful designed to keep us complacent and infighting and bootlicking #fucking shame how nobody's written a leverage au #'why do people tell stories' hope and love and the human condition :)#but also in order to control people determine their futures determine their fates #and even if the story isn't true you can make it true #like the fbi planting coke in black neighborhoods.#also hugely the capitalist exploitation of the entertainment industry #the chinese sweatshop worker makes the idol merchendise for the tired overworked korean #who works for little pay and no credit and overtime in the outsourced korean animation studios #for american cartoons that depressed americans watch because it offers a sliver of joy in our lives #bc the americans are being exploited by fascists and oligarchs #the korean idol is exploited by their superiors and dehumanized by their fans #i should probably make alla that a. different post jklasdf #anyway that's why they do so much crime fuck the system

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 6 months

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen defended the Internal Revenue Service in a speech Tuesday against repeated threats from Republicans to cut the agency’s funding.

“Playing politics with IRS funding is unacceptable. Cutting it would be damaging and irresponsible,” Yellen said.

The IRS was allocated an influx of $80 billion by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year. The funds are intended to help crack down on tax cheats and improve taxpayer service.

But the funding has become politically controversial.

Most recently, House Republicans voted to rescind $14.3 billion from the IRS to pay for an emergency aid package for Israel in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks, but the bill is unlikely to even get brought up for a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson said the IRS cuts would offset the spending for Israel, but independent budget experts have repeatedly said that taking money away from the IRS’ enforcement actions will actually add to the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last week that cutting $14.3 billion from the IRS would reduce the amount of tax revenue the agency can collect by $26.8 billion over 10 years.

The House GOP has made several efforts to claw back some IRS funds since taking control of the chamber in January, and some Representatives have even called for abolishing the IRS altogether. Earlier this year, Republicans were successful in rescinding $20 billion from the IRS as part of a deal to address the debt ceiling.

Many Republicans claim the IRS will use the money to hound middle-class taxpayers and small business owners, though the Biden administration has said that taxpayers earning less than $400,000 a year won’t face an increase in taxes due to the new funding.

“Let me be as clear as possible. The IRS agenda in using Inflation Reduction Act funds is as follows: If you are middle- or low-income, better service; if you are wealthy, more scrutiny,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel in a speech he gave Tuesday following Yellen’s remarks.

IRS IMPROVEMENTS

The Biden administration is eager to show how the new funding is helping the IRS improve its taxpayer services and ramp up enforcement efforts.

“The new funding is driving change across the IRS, and we are seeing a wave of improvements that the agency hasn’t seen in a generation,” Werfel said.

During the 2023 filing season, the IRS was able to answer 3 million more calls and cut phone wait times to three minutes from 28 minutes compared with the year before after hiring 5,000 new customer service representatives. And by ramping up enforcement on millionaires this year, the IRS has collected $160 million in back taxes.

The IRS has also already met its goal, set earlier this year, to make sure taxpayers can respond to all IRS correspondence online. Previously, there were certain forms that could only be responded to on paper through the mail. As a result of this change, the IRS estimates more than 94% of individual taxpayers will no longer have to send mail to the agency.

The IRS has also put a plan in motion to digitize all paper-filed tax returns by 2025. The move is expected to cut processing times in half and speed up refunds by four weeks.

There are more improvements the IRS expects to roll out next year.

For example, the existing online tool known as “Where’s My Refund?” will be able to give taxpayers more detailed information about the status of their refund after filing their federal tax return, including whether the IRS needs them to respond to a letter requesting additional information.

The IRS is also expecting to provide more in-person tax filing support at its Taxpayer Assistance Centers. Taxpayers can go to those sites to receive free help from trained volunteers. The agency’s goal is to increase the number of taxpayers receiving free tax preparation help by around 50,000 in filing season 2024.

While these improvements are intended to give taxpayers fewer reasons to call the IRS, new technology is cutting down on wait times when they have to pick up the phone. The main IRS line now has a call-back option when the expected wait time exceeds 15 minutes. A caller can hang up and receive a call back later.

In addition, the IRS is currently working on building its own free tax filing program, known as Direct File, that will launch as a limited pilot program next year and be available to some taxpayers in 13 states.

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striving-artist · 5 months

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Hi!! this is about the "we should still vote for Biden" post

Context: this is in good faith. I agree with the points you made in your addition and the post as a whole, I'm just looking to discuss it a little if that's okay. Another important bit of context— I keep up with news and politics and elections and everything, but next year's presidential election will be the first election I'll be old enough to vote in. So. Coming from a somewhat educated but also young and NOT an expert pov.

Anyways!! Now that that's out of the way.

I agree that the widespread determination not to vote for him again is harmful because if leftists and liberals aren't voting for Biden, conservatives are still going to vote for trump and get him back in office. I don't want that to happen. He is so much worse in so many ways and it especially scares me because he is very vocally transphobic. Voting Biden back in makes sense to me.

But the argument I've been seeing most is that if people vote for Democrats even when they actively assist with genocide, they'll learn that they can keep doing that without alienating their voter base, and they can do it without worrying about losing power. This also makes sense to me.

But I don't. I don't understand what else we can do. Not voting for him won't stop US aid to Israel. Wed just be trading Genocide Joe for Genocide Donald. It's not that I don't care about Palestinians— what's happening is horrible. What's happening Should Not Be Happening. But abstaining from voting to make a point to the democrats is just going to sentence us to four years under a guy who will do the exact same thing, probably worse, overseas, and commit atrocities against POC and immigrants and other minorities in the US too. It's not that I'm valuing American lives over Palestinian lives— its just that neither option will save Palestinian lives. Neither option will stop killing them.

I just don't know what we're supposed to do. I want to change things so bad but there just isn't a way to do that within the current system and in the meantime it's all just harm reduction.

Direct answers to what you asked about first before I go rambling into the bigger scope. Eternal Caveat: I am not an expert either.

Be loud. Be persistent.

Be present. Bring your friends.

Don't expect immediate results.

Here's a nice summary of things.

Contact your reps, do not lie about your residence, and don't give them an excuse to discard real constituents opinions bc you were spam calling from across the country. Contact their field offices, not just DC. Visit if you can.

Accept now that what you say today won't impact what happens today. It builds over time, and will impact months and years from now. The more persistent you are, the bigger and longer that impact will be.

Contact when you're mad, AND contact when you're thrilled. This is cross party. If you have a rep of the opposing party, and they do a thing you support, tell them. If you have a rep you voted for and they fuck up? Tell. Them.

Find advocacy groups. I love Run for Something. I love Leaders We Deserve. They can help amplify your voice. There are many. Find the one that fits you.

Lots more words under the cut.

I'll get into HOW to contact, but, I need to poke a hole in something you said. The election is a year out. There are some primary races, but incumbents rarely lose those. Bluntly? Most politicians don't think that their actions or stance about Gaza will impact elections. Americans have no long term memory for this. Shutdowns will have more impact. Taxes have more impact. A lot of young people will hold onto this, and we should make sure they hear us, but most americans aren't paying enough attention for it to matter to them in eleven months.

Sorry that's depressing af. Lets talk about best way to raise your voice so you can maximize your impact.

I'm sure you've heard all the advice about contacting reps before, Up and Down the Ballot, and I definitely know that it can be exhausting to keep going when it seems like nothing is changing. They don't hear the actual voicemails we leave, they don't read the actual emails or letters, that's their staff, but they and their Chief of Staff get counts at the end of every day with how many calls, and what people were calling about. Occasionally, staff will pass on excerpts or quotes to the elected guy, but its never a guarantee.

At the start of any major event, they get an initial ratio of calls that they translate as the people's gut reaction. Lets say they start out getting around a 50/50 split on a topic. Okay, that tells them to make their choice based on other factors, or to make their argument to their voters. But over time, that split changes, and the people that care more, that are more invested, will skew it. When it changes to 70/30 in favor, and they keep hearing that for weeks or months, that changes their math. It's telling them that the people who are more than flash-pan interested in the topic are strongly in favor. Might not have any impact this time, they may have already voted, but, it goes into their notes as a Thing That Matters to Voters.

So, great, you should contact them as much as possible. You knew that.

But, as you also know, Voicemail fills up. Emails spit back standard form responses. Even if you do reach a live human beings, they have to follow a script. Don't take that as them ignoring you. Sending custom responses to every single email is flat impossible over hot button issues. Staffers cannot randomly change their boss' stance bc you could be recording the call. Trust that they're keeping the tally, and keep calling.

I can get same day delivery from Amazon, I will not get same day change from politicians.

Also, the people who are sending mass faxes? Love that. Write physical letters too. Physical Thing Piling Up in the Office has more impact on a person than a number on a computer. Get your friends, order some pizza, write letters to every person that represents you. You'll get a form letter back. Accept that in advance. Your individual voice likely won't be heard. You are part of a larger crowd, all yelling the same thing. That shifts your rep, and as more reps shift, it puts pressure higher up the chain.

So, where does that leave us if we want them to literally hear Our Words? In person events.

Congress goes back to their districts pretty often, and (most) have public events. The closer to an election, the more they have. Show up. Politely, professionally, show up, and ask questions. Dress business casual if you can. Those events tend to be filled with older, more conservative constituents. Bring your friends, and choose who has the best speaking voice/prepared speech. Practice it, bring notecards. If any of you get handed the mic in a town hall, pass it over to that guy. (staff might be annoyed about this)

And look, I badly want to light things on fire until people listen. But I also know that doesn't help. Same reason we cannot scream or yell or threaten when we call/email/etc. If you start cursing at a staffer or a representative they are (often) allowed to hang up. They will dismiss you. It gets counted differently than if you said your piece in full.

It's a continuation of why protests that turn violent get dismissed so easily. "oh, they weren't there because they cared, they just wanted to steal/loot/burn." Screaming insults takes your message of 'constituent offended and angry about politicians actions' and turns it into 'shouty idiot we should ignore'

Again, it sucks that this is the case, but, to put it into scale with the internet: its the same as blocking someone. If you show up in my inbox with a real question, I am very here for it. If you show up and call me a 'libtard cunt' I just ignore it. Politicians do the same.

Older, but a nice overview on talking to politicians

Politicians want to stay in power. It is rare for someone to take actions in office that they know will see them lose their next election. Liz Cheney did it. Kinzinger did it. McCaskill did it. They're outliers. For most of them, they'll bend their morals to keep their seat. If the whole of their district is screaming for them to support A, even if they personally want B, they're gonna vote for A.

Now. ----------

Broader picture response. I'm sorry that this is your first election. My first was Obama in 08, and its been downhill ever since. But even then, I didn't like McCain's policies, but I respected him. That stayed true btw. You don't get to have that. You're starting with a rematch election that is simply exhausting to live through. My current consolation is that I don't think Biden will make it through four more years, so the VP will matter.

Some things to point out that, honestly, won't make you feel better, but might make things easier to swallow.

Joe Biden is not cackling in the White House and gleefully sending money with the hope that more Palestinian children get murdered. He just isn't. He isn't doing what we want, but that level of comic book evil isn't a thing in reality.

Calling him Genocide Joe is a product of the Trump era. It sounds like a trump insult. 'little marco' 'crooked hillary' 'lying ted cruz' You can hear it, right? It's tabloids and its trump. Don't do that. Don't reduce the opposition, or even your reluctant allies, down to a single trait. It is the start of dehumanizing someone, which becomes dehumanizing a group, which, you guessed it, leads to genocide like we are seeing in Gaza. It's how Trump started, its how he continued, and its how he is escalating.

Same reason you shouldn't say that Israel is doing this, or that Jews are doing this -- that flattens the group down to an action. Plenty of residents of Israel oppose this. Plenty of Jews oppose this. The people of Israel are not attacking Gaza, the Israeli government is. And even then, Bibi is not officially attacking Gaza, only Hamas. It's flagrant bullshit, but they're saying it as a veneer of acceptability.

You can simultaneously hate someone, and understand that they are a person with internal complexity and reasoning. You can hate the actions that a government is taking without assigning the guilt to whole nation.

Again, not to be bitchy or repetitive, but Bibi is taking the actions of Hamas, and laying the blame on all Gazans. Trump takes the actions of a few people and blames every immigrant. Don't do that. It's easy, its comforting, and its a trap.

Can't find a great source or article about how Trump changed political language so Dems use radicalized tone too, but this one is okay.

Next ------

America is not as strong as we pretend we are. It was already a waning power, and the Trump admin took a sledgehammer to it. It's improved with Biden, and a lot of the world is hoping we bounce back, but it's not the universal thing it once was. Lots of countries have nukes. Why would other countries listen to us when we legit look like our government might collapse at any moment? Maybe, maybe, fifty years ago, the US could have bullied in and demanded a stop to things. We can't now. Neither can Russia or China, actually.

We can bribe people, we can undermine countries and governments the way we did in South America, we can push and prod and beg, but we do not have the ability to throw weight around and immediately win.

Its scary and confusing for americans, bc we're raised on this idea that we can kick in any door and force a change. We can't. We shouldn't.

Far more likely than the US supporting Israel with this shit, is that we're telling them to stop and Israel is not listening. Since the remaining global authority of America is built on the idea that we have authority... I don't know, maybe its as simple as that. The US can't stop them, so we're pretending that we're allowing it and trying to fix it in the background. The Biden admin has done similar before. It usually works better than public demands.

It's horrifying because we live in the internet age, and we are watching videos of massacres that we wouldn't have seen fifty years ago. That doesn't mean we let it slide bc we might have before, just that if this feels like its worse? That's because we aren't as separated from it as before.

And, personally, my feelings on this are complex. I don't think America should be walking into other countries and doing whatever we want. We don't get to impose our preferences or our morals on other people. Top to bottom. I don't want american evangelicals showing up in Uganda and pushing to make homosexuality punishable by death (they did this). I don't want american soldiers pushing our agenda in impoverished nations. At the same time, I want someone to step in and stop genocides and land grab wars. I want someone to bring in medicine and aid, even if they have to bribe a corrupt official to get there. I want someone to just go fix it so we don't have child labor mining for cobalt and picking acai and farming quinoa and chocolate.

But if someone showed up in the states, marched soldiers into, lets say Texas, and imposed martial law so women had abortion access, that wouldn't be okay, even though I support the goal.

Geopolitics is complex. It will always be complex. If its overwhelming and you feel guilty, take a breath. That's true for everyone.

Additions ------

I do not believe in non-violent protest as a true solution. A protest is a tacit threat of violence. It is a group showing up to say 'hey, we outnumber you, and we're pissed' That said, participating in a protest is dangerous because it can become violent, and the crowd might outnumber, but the cops has more weapons, and they're trigger happy af.

No group is a monolith. Not even That Group. Treating them like one makes it easier for their leaders to manipulate them. You make them into a tighter group by lumping them together.

Gen Z gives me a lot of hope. Also a lot of fear. There is a ton of access to info that I couldn't easily reach at your age. Then again, the trend to making everything a 30 second snapshot is terrible. Propaganda spreads so so easily online, and our parents did not set you up with the tools you need to check it.

Last. The moral arc bends towards freedom. More rights, more safety, more health, more safety. That doesn't mean it is a linear path. But when I first voted, Gay Marriage was a pipe dream. When my mom first voted, women getting verbally harassed was exciting cause at least it wasn't physical anymore. When my grandma first voted, interracial marriage wasn't legal everywhere.

Things get better. Slowly, with blood under our nails and scars from the fights we lose, things get better.

You are already doing the right thing, you are already helping by paying attention. Keep watching, take breaks so you don't burn out, and get back in the fight when you can.

#us politics #israel palestine conflict #Can you tell I want/ed to be a speech writer?#sorry for typos #still having keyboard issues

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oconnor2023 · 13 hours

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nationalpropertytax · 8 days

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The O’Connor approach | National Property Tax

The O’Connor approach has created a breakthrough solution to the problem which when applied properly, will lead to our clients paying far lower property taxes than ever before. Visit https://www.nationalpropertytax.com/about-us/

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hotelpropertytaxes · 9 months

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p-oconnor · 1 year

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cutmytaxes1 · 1 year

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Protest the value of your commercial property annually. Protest each and every year. Even if the value did not change, protest the value. The assessor’s values are based on the cost approach, the least reliable method of appraisal. You can protest both excessive value and unequal value each year. To know more, visit https://www.cutmytaxes.com/how-can-i-lower-my-taxes/

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 10 months

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“How hot is it?”

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

JUL 7, 2023

July 4, 2023, set the record for the warmest global temperature since scientists began tracking that measure forty years ago. Three days later, the “reddest” states are facing the most extreme temperatures in the US during a summer filled with extreme temperatures. Take a moment to review the charts included in The Washington Post, 41 million people in the U.S. may be exposed to dangerous heat today.

A genre of jokes includes the set-up line, “How hot is it?”, but it is no joke when tens of millions of Americans are exposed to “dangerous” heat. Human-caused climate change is challenging to fight because its effects are often imperceptibly small and occur over long periods. But within the living memory of tens of millions of Americans, the length and severity of heat waves in the southern portion of the US have changed perceptibly—even dramatically. Spring arrives earlier, summers are hotter, and fall arrives later. See, e.g., Climate Change Indicators: Length of Growing Season | US EPA, and Seasonality and Climate Change | US EPA.

So, what’s wrong with an extended, warmer growing season? Those indicators correlate with drier landscapes, more wildfires, more extreme hurricane seasons, and greater vulnerability to agricultural pests. (If you think the latter is not a grave threat to agriculture and the US economy, speak to a farmer.) Indeed, it is possible that the re-emergence of malaria-bearing mosquitos in Florida is the latest consequence of climate change. See The Guardian, Experts say climate change likely to increase US malaria cases.

Climate change is the most daunting and complicated challenge we face. Fortunately, it is one of the areas where President Biden has demonstrated unparalleled leadership. His infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act are the most significant investments in renewable energy by any country at any time in history.

From a political standpoint, the good news is that most Americans agree with most efforts to confront human-caused climate change. A Pew Research survey conducted between May 30 to June 4, 2023, found the following:

74% of Americans say they support the country’s participation in international efforts to reduce the effects of climate change.

67% of U.S. adults prioritize the development of alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen power over increasing the production of fossil fuel energy sources.

76% favor providing a tax credit to businesses that develop carbon capture technologies and 70% support taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions.

61% favor requiring power plants to eliminate all carbon emissions by the year 2040.

69% of Americans say they’ve experienced at least one of five types of extreme weather in the past year: Long periods of unusually hot weather (45%), severe weather such as floods or intense storms (44%), droughts or water shortages (33%), major wildfires (18%) and rising sea levels that erode beaches and shorelines (16%).

The fact that 60% of Americans have experienced extreme weather events in the last year alone suggests that climate change denialism should diminish over time—as it is in the US. (Sadly, the right wing’s growing acceptance of climate change has been re-purposed into grounds for anti-immigration policies. See The Guardian, Climate denial is waning on the right. What’s replacing it might be just as scary.)

Despite the encouraging findings in the Pew Research survey, most Americans oppose the complete elimination of gasoline for cars and fossil-fuels for the electrical grid. So, we have our work cut out for us. In order to make significant progress, we must overcome public reluctance to eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels for electricity and transportation.

What can we do? The most direct, effective step we can take is to elect representatives at every level of government who are committed to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Climate change cannot be a “background” or “secondary” issue for Democrats. It is a “kitchen table” issue that affects people where they live and work. Just ask red-state citizens who are struggling with dangerous heat this week.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#climate change #David Horsey #hot #heat #climate #science #rising sea levels #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 21 days

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In February US company LanzaJet, which produces sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from ethanol, announced that it intended to build a second, larger plant on US soil.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was a "big influence", says Jimmy Samartzis, its chief executive.

The second plant would add to its facility in Soperton, Georgia - the world's first commercial scale ethanol-to-SAF plant.

"We have a global landscape that we are pursuing…[but] we have doubled down on building here in the United States because of the tax credits in the IRA, and because of the overall support system that the US government has put in place."

Signed into law by President Biden in August 2022, the IRA, along with the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) enacted in November 2021, are intended, amongst other things, to funnel billions of federal dollars into developing clean energy.

The aim is to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and incentivise private investment, to encourage the growth of green industries and jobs: a new foundation for the US economy.

With a 10-year lifespan, and a cost originally estimated at $391bn (£310bn) but now predicted to reach over $1tn - the final figure is unknown - the IRA offers new and juicer tax credits, as well as loans and loan guarantees for the deployment of emissions reducing technology.

The tax credits are available to companies for either domestically producing clean energy, or domestically manufacturing the equipment needed for the energy transition, including electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries.

Consumers can also receive tax credits, for example for buying an EV or installing a heat pump. The tax credit for SAF producers like LanzaJet is new in the IRA and, offers between $1.25 to $1.75 per gallon of SAF (though it only lasts five years).

Complementary is the BIL, which runs for five years and provides direct investment largely in the form of government grants for research and development and capital projects. Under the BIL, about $77bn (£61bn) will go to clean energy technology projects, according to the Brookings Institution which monitors the law.

One company to benefit so far is EV battery recycling company Ascend Elements.

It has won BIL grants totalling $480m (£380m), which it is matching a similar amount in private investment to build its second commercial facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

"[The IRA and BIL] are massive investments… larger than the infrastructure related provisions in the New Deal," says Adie Tromer from the Brookings. "There is a clear sense that America has become more serious about transitioning to a cleaner economy."

While rules for some tax credits are still being finalized, tens of billions in actual public spending is flowing into the economy, says Trevor Houser at the Rhodium Group, an independent research provider. Rhodium, together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, runs the Clean Investment Monitor (CIM) to track US clean technology investments.

According to recently updated CIM data, in the 2023 fiscal year, the federal government invested approximately $34bn (£27bn) into clean energy, the vast majority through tax credits.

The extent to which the policy instruments are so far spurring not just announcements - of which there are plenty - but real extra private investment is harder to know: clean energy investment has been on a general upward trend anyway and the IRA hasn't been around long. But experts believe it is rising.

Total clean energy investment in the US in the 2023 calendar year including from both private and government sources reached a record $239bn (£190bn), up 38% from 2022 according to the CIM data.

Clean energy investment in the US, as a share of total private investment, rose from 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 5% in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The IRA has had two main positive effects thus far, says Mr. Houser.

It has "supercharged" private investment in more mature technologies which were already growing very rapidly like solar, EVs and batteries.

It has also, combined with the BIL, led to a "dramatic growth" in investment in emerging climate technologies like clean hydrogen, carbon dioxide capture and removal and SAF. While the total magnitude of those investments are still relatively small compared to the more mature technologies, "the IRA fundamentally changed the economics" says Mr. Houser.

But the IRA is failing to reach some parts of the green economy: so far it hasn't lifted investment in more mature technologies which have been falling like wind and heat pumps, though Mr. Houser notes things may have fallen further without the IRA.

On the industry's mind is the fate of the laws, particularly the longer-to-run IRA, should there be a change of government in the US November elections.

Repealing or amending the IRA (or BIL) would require Republican control of the Presidency, Senate and House - though wholesale repeal would likely face meaningful opposition from within. The rub is many of the projects that the IRA is incentivising are being or will be built in Republican states or counties.

Yet a Republican president alone could potentially frustrate things for example by slowing or deferring loans or grants, or amending the rules which serve the laws. "A Trump presidency would definitely chill the atmosphere and possibly more," says Ashur Nissan of Kaya Partners, a climate policy advice firm.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and purveyor of hard-right ideas for the next conservative President, advocates repeal for both the IRA and BIL. For the organization's Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a former Trump administration official, it is fiscally irresponsible for the US, with its vast deficit and debt, to be spending like this.

It is also time, she says, that renewable energy such as solar and wind, into which subsidies have been poured for years, stood on their own feet.

Yet others argue the US can't afford not to do take this path. And the point of the loans program is to take risks to help unlock new solutions that scale. "It would be failing if there weren't any so called 'failures' within it," says Richard Youngman, of Cleantech Group, a research and consulting firm.

Meanwhile, the US's approach is putting competitive pressure on Europe to do more.

Some European clean energy manufacturing companies are now building facilities in the US to take advantage of the tax credits that otherwise would have been built in Europe including solar panel maker Meyer Burger and electrolyser manufacturers Nel and John Cockerill.

"The US wasn't a market for some of these companies in the past because Europe was more active," says Brandon Hurlbut, of Boundary Stone Partners, a clean energy advisory firm.

The EU's Net Zero Industrial Act (NZIA) is expected to enter into force this year. It doesn't involve new money, but seeks to coordinate existing financing and introduces domestic favourability for the first time - putting in place a non-binding target for the bloc to locally manufacture 40% of its clean energy equipment needs by 2030.

In the UK, chancellor Jeremy Hunt has made clear he isn't interested, nor can the UK afford to copy the IRA's approach in some "distortive global subsidy race" and will stick to other ways of helping. The Labour party recently scrapped its $28bn green investment plan seen as a stab at leaning into an IRA style policy.

A global audience will be watching as the US's clean energy juggernaut unfolds. And if it leads others to ask what more they can do to produce clean energy products - even if just for reasons of economic opportunity - it will be good for humanity's sake, says Mr. Hurlbut.

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