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Books

Noam Chomsky books: Where to start?

The renowned American philosopher, historian and social critic, Noam Chomsky, has been a free-thinker almost all his life and has written books challenging the many ways society has programed us to think and believe. Chomsky is among one of the most cited living authors across the globe.

Growing up in a politically active household, he learned from an early age the concepts of politics and anarchism. By age 10 he had written an essay on fascism and by 16 years old he was studying philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. And although he has contributed greatly to the field of linguistics, below are some title, which are among the best and noteworthy books to read on politics, war and media.

The Essential Chomsky

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For fifty years, Noam Chomsky’s writings on politics and language have established him as a preeminent public intellectual and as one of the most original and wide-ranging social critics of our time. Among the seminal figures in linguistic theory over the past century, since the 1960s Chomsky has also secured a place as perhaps the leading dissident voice in the United States.

Chomsky’s many bestselling works–including Manufacturing Consent, Hegemony or Survival, Understanding Power, and Failed States–have served as essential touchstones for dissidents, activists, scholars, and concerned citizens on subjects ranging from the media to human rights to intellectual freedom. His scathing critiques of the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Central America, and the Middle East have been the intellectual inspiration for antiwar movements over nearly five decades. As the political landscape has changed over the course of Chomsky’s life, he has remained a steadfast voice on the left, never wavering in his convictions and always questioning entrenched power.

The Essential Chomsky assembles the core of his most important writings, including excerpts from his most influential texts. Here is an unprecedented, comprehensive overview of Chomsky’s thought.

On Anarchism

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With the specter of anarchy being invoked by the Right to sow fear, a cogent explanation of the political philosophy known as anarchism has never been more urgently needed. In On Anarchism, radical linguist, philosopher, and activist Noam Chomsky provides it. Known for his brilliant evisceration of American foreign policy, state capitalism, and the mainstream media, Chomsky remains a formidable and unapologetic critic of established authority and perhaps the world’s most famous anarchist.

On Anarchism sheds a much-needed light on the foundations of Chomsky’s thought, specifically his constant questioning of the legitimacy of entrenched power. The book gathers his essays and interviews to provide a short, accessible introduction to his distinctively optimistic brand of anarchism. Chomsky eloquently refutes the notion of anarchism as a fixed idea, suggesting that it is part of a living, evolving tradition, and he disputes the traditional fault lines between anarchism and socialism, emphasizing the power of collective, rather than individualist, action.

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

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Noam Chomsky’s backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control begins by asserting two models of democracy–one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky, propaganda is to democracy as the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state, and the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the United States.

From an examination of how Woodrow Wilson’s Creel Commission succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population, to Bush Sr.’s war on Iraq, Chomsky examines how the mass media and public relations industries have been used as propaganda to generate public support for going to war. Chomsky further touches on how the modern public relations industry has been influenced by Walter Lippmann’s theory of spectator democracy, in which the public is seen as a bewildered herd that needs to be directed, not empowered; and how the public relations industry in the United States focuses on controlling the public mind, and not on informing it. Media Control is an invaluable primer on the secret workings of disinformation in democratic societies.

Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance

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An immediate national bestseller, Hegemony or Survival demonstrates how, for more than half a century the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing-as in the Cuban missile crisis-to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks.

World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this perilous moment and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species. With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky tracks the U.S. government’s aggressive pursuit of full spectrum dominance and vividly lays out how the most recent manifestations of the politics of global control-from unilateralism to the dismantling of international agreements to state terrorism-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our existence. Lucidly written, thoroughly documented, and featuring a new afterword by the author, Hegemony or Survival is a definitive statement from one of today’s most influential thinkers.

Who Rules the World?

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n an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky examines the way that the United States, despite the rise of Europe and Asia, still largely sets the terms of global discourse. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from the sordid history of U.S. involvement with Cuba to the sanctions on Iran, he details how America’s rhetoric of freedom and human rights so often diverges from its actions.

He delves deep into the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel-Palestine, providing unexpected and nuanced insights into the workings of imperial power on our increasingly chaotic planet. And, in a new afterword, he addresses the election of Donald Trump and what it shows about American society. Fierce, unsparing, and meticulously documented, Who Rules the World? delivers the indispensable understanding of the central issues of our time that we have come to expect from Chomsky.

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News, Politics

America’s Top 15 Earners and What They Reveal About the U.S. Tax System

by ProPublica

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.Series: The Secret IRS Files Inside the Tax Records of the .001%

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

Periodically, we get a glimpse into the financial lives of the ultrarich. A pro athlete signs a huge contract, a tech CEO sells a boatload of shares in their company, or a billionaire heir unloads a Manhattan penthouse. Based on these nuggets of information, the media speculates as to how much income the rich might bring in every year. But nobody actually knows.

Thanks to an analysis of its unprecedented trove of IRS data, ProPublica is revealing the 15 people who reported the most U.S. income on their taxes from 2013 to 2018, along with data for the rest of the top 400.

The analysis also shows how much they paid in federal income taxes — and it demonstrates how the American tax system, which theoretically makes the highest earners pay the highest income tax rates, fails to do so for the people at the very top of the income pyramid.

The top 400 earners pay noticeably lower tax rates than the merely rich; and, if you include payroll taxes, a married couple making $200,000 a year could end up paying higher tax rates than a person making $200 million a year. (The full analysis is here; it includes selected names beyond the top 15.)

Names That Won’t Surprise You

Scan the names on the list of the top 15 income earners and you’re certain to recognize several names — or at least the names of the companies they founded. Bill Gates hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day operations of Microsoft for over a decade, yet he still earned the most during the years we studied, reporting an average yearly income of $2.85 billion — and an effective federal income tax rate of 18.4%. Steve Ballmer, his former colleague, is also a well-known public figure, both for his time as Microsoft CEO and his current ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers NBA team.

Ballmer’s average annual reported income of $1.05 billion landed him in the 10th spot on the list, and his effective federal income tax rate was 14.1%. The other side of the PC/Mac wars is represented here by Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Her average reported income of $1.57 billion ranked fifth-highest; she paid an effective tax rate of 14.8%. (ProPublica sought comment from everyone mentioned in this article. Nobody disputed the numbers cited here. Unless otherwise noted, representatives for people named in this article either declined to comment, declined to comment on the record or did not respond to requests for comment.)

Another well-known billionaire sits just below Gates on the list: Media and tech mogul and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, with an average reported income of just over $2 billion, paid an effective income tax rate of 4.1%, by far the lowest rate among the top 15. (A spokesperson told ProPublica for an earlier article that Bloomberg “pays the maximum tax rate on all federal, state, local and international taxable income as prescribed by law,” and cited Bloomberg’s philanthropic giving.)

The presence of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — either the first- or second-wealthiest person in America, depending on the day — won’t shock most people, but Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2%; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods.

Who Are These Others and Why Are They Paying Higher Tax Rates?

Tech billionaires dominate the top 15, but hedge fund managers account for a full third of the names on this list, and some of their incomes were just as huge. Most of them paid relatively high effective tax rates, especially compared to most of the tech sector representatives. Hedge fund managers often make their money through short-term trades, which are taxed at a much higher rate than when tech titans cash in on long-term investments.

The highest-earning hedge funder is Ken Griffin, founder of the Chicago-based firm Citadel. From 2013 to 2018, he reported an average income of nearly $1.7 billion, putting him fourth on the list. Griffin paid a tax rate of 29.2% during these years. (A spokesperson for Griffin said the tax rates in the IRS data “significantly understate” what Griffin pays, because they were lowered by charitable contributions and do not reflect local and state taxes. He also said Griffin pays foreign taxes, which aren’t included in IRS calculations of effective tax rate.)

Israel Englander, co-founder of Millennium Management, paid at a 30.8% rate, while the co-founders of Two Sigma Investments, David Siegel and John Overdeck, paid tax rates of 31.6% and 34.2%, respectively.

Some of this variation in rates reflects how people structure their businesses under tax law. Income earned by publicly traded corporations is taxed at the company level. When it’s passed on to big shareholders, such as tech billionaires, it can come in the form of dividends, which are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income. By contrast, the income from some manufacturing companies and hedge funds flows directly to company owners, who pay taxes on it, resulting in higher effective tax rates on average.

Where Are the Heirs?

Lists of the world’s wealthiest individuals are always heavily populated by heirs, ranging from descendents of old money to scions of more recently minted fortunes. Dozens of heirs made ProPublica’s list of 400 biggest income earners. Descendents and relatives of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, claim 11 spots.

The DeVos family, heirs to the Amway fortune, also have multiple members in the top 400. Perhaps the best known is Betsy DeVos, who served as U.S. secretary of education during the Donald Trump administration. With a reported annual income of $112 million, she was the 389th-highest earner in this period.

Much like the tech titans who top the list, most of these heirs get their income from dividends or long-term investments, which are taxed at a lower rate. Their effective tax rates ranged from as low as 10.6% for Betsy DeVos to a high of 23% paid by Walmart heirTom Walton.

Don’t Forget the Deductions

Another key way that some top earners reduced their tax liability was to claim significant deductions, often in the form of large charitable contributions. This is particularly true for wealthy investors who are able to make their donations with shares of stock. Thanks to a generous provision of the tax code, they can then deduct the full value of the stock at its current price — without having to first sell it and pay capital gains tax.

Michael Bloomberg achieved a tax rate of 4.1% from 2013 to 2018 by taking annual deductions of more than $1 billion, mostly through charitable contributions. From 2013 to 2017, he also wrote off an average of $400 million each year from what he’d paid in state and local taxes. The 2018 tax overhaul limited that deduction to $10,000 — but also introduced a huge new deduction for pass-through companies that Bloomberg benefited from.

Wait — What About the Celebrities?

The earnings of actors, musicians and sports stars are a subject of nonstop scrutiny in the media, yet few celebrities cracked the list of the top 400 earners, which would have required them to report annual incomes of at least $110 million.

ProPublica’s trove has data on many celebrities. One who came close to the top 400 is basketball superstar LeBron James, who averaged $96 million a year in reported income. Grammy-winning singer Taylor Swift also came within reach of the top 400, averaging $82 million in reported income during these years. Actor George Clooney would have had to double his average income of $55 million to crack the top 400.

THE TOP 15

Here are the details on the top 15 income earners. Read the full analysis of the top 400 here.

For the full list of America’s top 400 income earners and their tax rates, along with our methodology, click here.

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Apple, Elon Musk, Tesla

Steve Jobs & Elon Musk: Apple is the Tesla of Communication

Video

Elon Musk believes he is saving the world: are others worthy to claim the same?

Tesla is a luxury car company with an impeccable green pedigree. Even with attempts at a car with mainstream entry level pricing, owning a Tesla is still beyond the reach of many.

Yet the belief in it’s sustainable energy mission, and the far reaching master plan to back it up, make this fact, for many, “forgivable” at least, and in many ways even a boon.

After all, surviving in the face of an extinction level threat of our own making, has to be for a reason. The reason is the beauty and luxurious success of being alive. These are the twin messages that Elon Musk created that led to a business triumph that is about more than money and power.

Apple makes expensive luxury gadgets that facilitate communication, education and entertainment. It could be argued that these, no less than a pleasurable acceleration of a Tesla in “Ludicrous Mode”, are essential to our continued survival and are desperately needed to help us meet the ever growing challenges of our world and its future.

Apple, since the premature demise of Steve Jobs, has not had the same kind of heroic branding of Tesla’s sustainable energy mission. But the iPhone company should be seen in the same light. The many tools for communication and education make Apple just as important as Tesla in creating a more positive future.

With the ongoing success of Apple’s brand, and the rapid and accelerating expansion of its hardware, software and services, the company will undoubtedly have a central role to play in our success or failure as a species going forward. Apart from the mundane marketplace triumphs, there is a deeper story of a mission that should not be overlooked.

Bad guys make good guys look even better

Look at Zuckerberg and Bezos. Would anyone ever mistake either for a savior? Does anyone believe that Zuckerberg wants to build the metaverse to save the world?

Or that Bezos has ambitions toward space travel for anything other than self-aggrandizement and commercial exploitation?

No one does, of course not. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk can (could) emanate natural sincerity and engender the belief that they are on a “holy” mission. And perhaps that ring of truth succeeds because of it’s honestly and authenticity.

Bill Gates just wants to sell you overpriced, inferior software. And lock you into a never ending billing cycle.

America has had a sad history, for the last century, of celebrating charlatans and hucksters like Zuckerberg, Bezos and Gates, and misunderstanding Steve Jobs until he was gone. But it was his vision, finally, that brought Apple to the pinnacle of business success where it stands today.

Elon Musk’s ‘saving the world ethos’ is important to recognize, acknowledge and adopt. We need more visionaries with an explicit aim to improving and uplifting not just winning a battle between equality corrupt adversaries.

Apple is the Tesla of communication and it’s innovative DNA inspired and created by Steve Jobs is just as essential to building a sustainable, and better, world as Tesla & Musk.

The days of celebrating empty, temporary monetary “success” achieved by scurrilous business models must end, now.

The future heroes of sustainable tech, blockchain innovation, Web3 and, yes, even the metaverse must be lauded, supported and acknowledged as they emerge, while the truth of the shortcomings of evil men must be taught to every child.

Because the choice is not between Coke vs. Pepsi, Tesla vs. Ford or Apple vs. Microsoft. The choice is between Utopia or Oblivion. And there is no third way forward.

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Hot-Lynx

Peter Thiel’s Origin Story

Photo Collage / Lynxotic

Thiel is getting a lot of likely unwanted press this week, looks like he deserves it…

A new feature book profile published in NYMag details the origins of Peter Thiel. His spectacular story, leading to what to some is a toxic, libertarian right-wing, stance that included support of Donald Trump and various other infamous acts, and more recently, such as a huge bankroll pushing his agenda in Washington political lobbying. Not to mention his Roth IRA story of non-taxed treasures worth billions.

The fascinating piece details the biographical details, culled from the book, beginning around 1988 when Thiel was a boy of twenty and first arriving in Northern California.

The article, showing how his eventual political perspectives were already emerging at that young age, it goes on to detail the entire story to nearly the present day as is chronicled in the new book:

The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power

Above: “The Contrarian” – Release date on September 21,2021. Available to order on Bookshop and Amazon.

His ideology dominates Silicon Valley. It began to form when he was an angry young man.

In many ways the book’s release seems to dovetail perfectly with the building thread of details regarding how he rose from obscurity to becoming an obscenely wealthy silicon valley “god”, and one that seems to seek inordinate influence over the direction of our common futures. Not only in the tech arena. Not only in his association with Facebook’s beginnings and origins of PayPal.

This character portrait is a must read. It goes along with why it feels like we also all need to follow the Trump saga to its conclusion, no matter how ignoble or tragic. Or the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, for that matter, to get a sense of how the runaway powers that are sometimes obtained, wether through force of will or just serendipity, and how they can, later, potentially grow so dangerous that the influences can infect and affect us all.

Release date on September 21,2021. Available to order on Bookshop and Amazon.

Read more on:

NY Mag

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Books, Elon Musk, Tech

Tales of Tesla and Musk in ‘Power Play’

Above: Photo Collage / Doubleday Books

The recently released book “Power Play” begins with some detailed accounts of Tesla’s rocky beginnings. The book is said to showcase behind-the-scenes anecdotes and allow readers to get an exact account of just how unusual Elon Musk is.

Musk also appeared to respond to various media activity related to the book, and accounts of his alleged behavior, via Twitter, confirming that Walter Isaacson will be penning his biography.

In his tweet, he said “If you’re curious about Tesla, SpaceX & my general goings on, @WalterIsaacson is writing a biography”. Isaacson is responsible for writing biographies on Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, Henry Kissinger, as well as Steve Jobs.

Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century

Author and WSJ tech and author reporter Tim Higgins pens the inside story of Musk, which includes some already leaked controversial stories.

Back in the good ole days, aka as the 2000’s, fast, sexy (s3xy) electric vehicles were a new concept, a novelty, one that lead to the rise of Tesla and Elon Musk’s colossal fortunes. For more check out “Power Play“.

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Books, Celebrities, Coronavirus, Documentaries, Entertainment, Health and Diet, Lifestyle, Movies

Michael Lewis’ Newest Bestseller “Premonition” is his latest Triumph in Capturing the Zeitgeist

A unique talent for choosing and presenting exactly the theme and subject of the moment, and for posterity

Above:Photo from ‘The Big Short’ courtesy of Paramount

Very few authors have the intense feeling for the “zeitgeist” that Michael has shown throughout his long career. The ability to capture the spirit of the times so well is also possibly the reason why so many of his books have been snapped up and made into successful films. Examples are “The Big Short” (Christian Bale), “Moneyball” (Brad Pitt), “The Blind Side” (Sandra Bullock), all three of these also received Best Picture Oscar nominations.

While perhaps not an author to be remembered as a high literary genius such as James Joyce or William Shakespeare, the body of work, as a chronicle of modern times seen through the lens of his minds eye is, nevertheless, substantive and engaging. While “The Big Short”, both the book and subsequent film, capture with amazing clarity a confusing period that has been in many ways glossed over, even willfully, by those that were partially responsible but never held to account.

Though it remains to be seen how the future will look back on the 2020 novel coronavirus era, “Premonition” has, once more, the same potential to become one, potentially definitive portrait, of the crisis and it’s emergence into a full blown worldwide pandemic.

Now, soon, “The Premonition” is set to be produced by Amy Pascal for Pascal Pictures, with Rachel O’Connor. Directors are slated to be Phil Lord and Chris Miller who are mostly known for lighter fare.

To make it easier a great selection of Michael Lewis’ books are featured front and center, below, along with descriptions, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the various publishers), and with some links for a variety of options of where to purchase.

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

Buy at Bookshop

Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control.

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A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society.

A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.

Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Buy at Bookshop

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can’t pay their debts.

The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking.

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Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar’s Poker.

Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.

Liar’s Poker

Buy at Bookshop

Michael Lewis was fresh out of Princeton and the London School of Economics when he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms.

During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years–a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.

From the frat-boy camaraderie of the forty-first-floor trading room to the killer instinct that made ambitious young men gamble everything on a high-stakes game of bluffing and deception, here is Michael Lewis’s knowing and hilarious insider’s account of an unprecedented era of greed, gluttony, and outrageous fortune.

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Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Buy at Bookshop

Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball.

In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis follows the low-budget Oakland A’s, visionary general manager Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball theorists. They are all in search of new baseball knowledge–insights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money. Also made into a hit movie starring Brad Pitt, Moneyball is a book that exposes human nature, and how it can suddenly be overcome when unique perspectives lead to innovative choices.

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The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

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When we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write.

He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family’s love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost.

Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback’s greatest vulnerability, his blind side.

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Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

Buy at Bookshop

In Michael Lewis’s game-changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders.

They band together–some of them walking away from seven-figure salaries–to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits. If you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you. Billions have been spent by Wall Street firms and stock exchanges to gain the advantage of a millisecond. “Is it a scam?” 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft asks during his interview with the author, It’s bigger than a scam, Lewis says.

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Lewis further explains how ordinary investors are affected and argues that high-frequency traders have created instability in the stock market — for everyone. A reoccurring metaphor Lewis uses in his book “Flash Boys” is one of “prey and predators.” According to Lewis, the prey is “anybody who’s actually an investor in the stock market.”

The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

Buy at Bookshop

Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed.

The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.

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The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

Buy at Bookshop

Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original papers that invented the field of behavioral economics.

One of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, Kahneman and Tversky’s extraordinary friendship incited a revolution in Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible. In The Undoing Project, Lewis shows how their Nobel Prize-winning theory of the mind altered our perception of reality.

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Celebrities, Entertainment, Lifestyle

YouTube Highest Paid List for 2020 out, and yes #1 is 9yrs old

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Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

Top 10 YouTube stars and their earning power for the year

Most of the 2019 top earners spots have carried forward into 2020 and continue to rake in millions of dollars and subscribers for their video clips. With Ryan Kaji at #1 and Mr. Beast at #2 it appears that the absolute top of the YouTube pyramid, both have a formula that just keeps on going. Both the numbers based on earning and, even more so, views, are absolutely astronomical – implying a kind of snowball effect for the top accounts.

Surprising because of his age, yet at the same time not so surprising, is how 9-year-old Ryan Kaji of “Ryan’s World” has once again placed at the very top of the list for the highest paid YouTuber for 2020.  Starting up in 2015, his videos have since totaled a whopping 43,907,425,279 views (43 billion!).

Last year he earned $26 million and this year he earned a considerable amount more at $29.5 million.  That is a whole lot of money for making videos that show the young boy unboxing toys, creating DIY arts and crafts and science experiments. 

According to Forbes:

“The nine-year-old star is flying high—literally. This November he became the first YouTuber featured in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with a float based on his superhero alter ego. It was a marketing ploy as much as it was a thrilling moment for the kids who tune into Kaji’s videos of DIY science experiments, family storytime and reviews of new toys. That’s just the start: The bulk of his business comes from licensing deals for more than 5,000 Ryan’s World products—everything from bedroom decor and action figures to masks and walkie talkies.”

#1 Ryan Kaji

  • Earnings: $29.5 million
  • Views: 12.2 billion
  • Subscribers: 41.7 million

#2 Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson)

  • Earnings: $24 million
  • Views: 3 billion
  • Subscribers: 47.8 million

#3 Dude Perfect

  • Earnings: $23 million
  • Views: 2.77 billion
  • Subscribers: 57.5 million 

#4 Rhett and Link

  • Earnings: $20 million 
  • Views: 1.9 billion
  • Subscribers: 41.8 million

#5 Markiplier (Mark Fischbach)

  • Earnings: $19.5 million
  • Views: 3.1 billion
  • Subscribers: 27.8 million

#6 Preston Arsement

  • Earnings: $19 million 
  • Views: 3.3 billion
  • Subscribers: 33.4 million

#7 Nastya (Anastasia Radzinskaya)

  • Earnings: $18.5 million
  • Views: 39 billion
  • Subscribers: 190.6 million

#8 Blippi (Stevin John)

  • Earnings: $17 million 
  • Views: 8.2 billion
  • Subscribers: 27.4 million

#9 David Dobrik

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Apple, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Movies

New Apple TV+ Series: Jared Leto in talks to play the ex-CEO of WeWork

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

Series of Silicon Valley cautionary tale in development 

Jared Leto could be returning to a TV screen near you. It has been well over 20 years since the show “My So-Called Life” that the actor has starred in any small screen episodic.  This news come with reports that writer and producer Lee Eisenberg and studio exec Drew Crevello are developing a series for Apple TV+ based on the infamous workspace rental startup company ‘WeWork’.  

The series concept is inspired by the 6 part podcast called “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork”.  If Oscar winner Leto signs on to the TV show, he would be cast as the former boss of WeWork, Adam Neumann. 

Neumann, who served as CEO for the company from 2010 to 2019 and later resigned. According to reports at the time, his “eccentric behavior” was one of the main reasons he was pressured to step down.

Leto, who is known for choosing equally eccentric and challenging characters, including his work  in “Suicide Squad”, “American Psycho” and “Dallas Buyers  Club”, could likely more than fit the bill to play Neumann. 

Prior to WeWork’s collapse, it had an estimated value of $47 billion.  The series has been in development since February with Leto currently in negotiations, with additional information to come in the future. 

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