#CIT Bank

[fangirlingfromdownunder]

A Sweet Mishap - Chapter 28

Pairing - Jensen Ackles x Reader 

A/N: I just want to start by thanking everyone for all the love on this story so far. Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list. Please read the TW below and only read on if you feel comfortable doing so.

Potential Trigger Warnings: mentions of violence, rape, therapy, depression

A Sweet Mishap Masterlist | Main Masterlist

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My new-found insomnia has me up before dawn, so I pull out my phone and start researching affordable therapists in New York City. Unsurprisingly, their idea of “affordable” doesn’t meet mine. I very briefly consider asking Jensen to help, but I dismiss the thought just as fast. I refuse to rely on him for that, this is for me and I’ll find a way to fund it myself. So, instead, I start going over my bank account, considering my income and bills and calculating what’s left over. With the extra manager paycheck from the cafe and my measly salary from Broadway, it seems just about doable. While I’m now confident that I can do it, I also know it will eat into the tiny fund I had started to amass for Summer in Texas. I sigh and decide to put my mental health first; I choose one of the cheapest, yet still good-sounding therapists and book an appointment for later in the week. The only time available is during one of my acting classes, but I accept that this has to come first. So, feeling a slight sense of accomplishment for taking this massive step, I shut off my phone and try to go back to sleep, even for just a short nap. 

I shut my eyes and curl into the blanket, but when I open them again and check the clock, only 15 minutes have passed. I accept that I won’t be getting anymore sleep. I turn my phone back on and text Jensen.

Hey, hope this doesn’t wake you…I couldn’t sleep, but I just wanted to let you know that I booked an appointment with a therapist. You’re right, I need help to get through this, and if I ever want anything between us to be possible. And I also wanted to say thanks again for tonight.And I’d appreciate your support while I continue working through it all. Not financially, I can cover it, just you know…mentally.

I reread the texts a few times. I wait a few minutes, but when I don’t get a response I relax. As much as I’d love to talk to him, I’m glad I didn’t wake him up. I get up and tidy up the couch so it’s usable again and then go into the kitchen and try to earn my keep by making everyone breakfast. As quietly as possible, I pull out everything I need to make pancakes and bacon. I serve up four plates and make coffee to go with them, I just finish off everything as Stella and Nick come down stairs. Nick gives the set up a once over before giving me the nod of approval.

“Thanks, Y/N. I don’t often get breakfast cooked for me.”

“You’re welcome. It’s really the least I can do after everything you guys have done for me, all time but especially recently. I just want you to know that I appreciate it.”

Stella pulls me in for a big hug. “You didn’t need to do anything. You’re family ‘sides, you’ve been through a lot.”

The three of us dig in and then Anna comes down and joins us a little later. Over breakfast, I tell them about the therapy appointment I booked and create a plan for Nick to pick me up from the theatre every night and drive me either home or to their place at least until the new security guard starts at the apartment. Anna understandably gets a little upset and feels guilty and while we do our best to tell her we don’t blame her at all, I can tell she doesn’t quite accept it. 

Once Nick goes up to get in another nap and Stella goes to work, Anna and I clean up the kitchen. I use the opportunity to talk to her about it all. I tell her what I’ve been going through with the fear and the nightmares and she starts to open up a little more too. She tells me about how he was sweet in the beginning, how he used to take her out on dates around the city but then she said as they realised how expensive the city was he started to change. She tells me that he would control her spending. He talked her out of taking classes because they needed her money for the rent and groceries. And he stopped taking her out or letting her go out because it cost too much, but he would still go out every other night, only to stumble back late smelling like a liquor store had exploded on him. When she questioned him about it, that’s when the physical abuse began. Then when she struggled to find a job and her money started running out, it just got worse. He blamed her whenever their cards declined at the store and when he had to start paying rent. He then told her she’d have to earn her place in his apartment by other means, and if she tried to say no, well, it just wasn’t an option. 

Once she finishes talking we’re both in tears and the dishes have been long forgotten. I hold out my arms to offer a hug, but wait for her to come to me. When she doesn’t, I nod. We finish the dishes in heavy silence and then sit on the couch together. She flicks through the channels aimlessly, likely trying to distract herself, while I attempt to work on an assignment. After a while my phone buzzes on the couch beside us. She stiffens briefly then looks down and reads the name and relaxes.

“It’s your actor friend…” she says. 

I nod. “Yeah. I can call him back later though if you need me.”

“Thanks. I’m okay though.” Then after a beat she adds, “Is he nice, like Nick?”

I nod. “Yeah. He is,” I reply without a second thought. Then I answer the call without getting up. “Hey Jens.”

“Hey, Darlin’. I’m proud of you. And of course I’ll be your support! Whatever you need, I’m here. As long as it takes.”

“Thanks.” I look over at Anna briefly and then add, “Hey Jens, can you promise me that you’re one of the good ones?”

“I could but you shouldn’t believe me. I want to do my best but you’re the one who’s been through it before. All I can promise is that if I ever make you uncomfortable, I’ll do my best to make it better. As long as you tell me your boundaries, I’ll do my best not to cross them.”

Anna looks over and I can tell she heard him in the quiet of the room. I smile at her and nod. And she quietly asks, “does he have any single friends?”

He hears her and says, “Am I on speaker?”

“Not exactly, but it is quiet here.”

“That’s okay. Well, that was Anna, right? If you can hear me now…” I put the phone on speaker for her. “I do, but you’ll find the right guy on your own when you’re ready and when the time is right. You never know when the right one will come into your life and spill a coffee on you.” 

Anna looks at me, “He spilled coffee on you?”

I shake my head, “I spilled one on him.”

She laughs and it’s beautiful. And then Jensen joins in with a sarcastic scoff, “I’m glad you girls find my pain amusing…”

Looking back at Anna, I give her a small smile. “He’s right though. When the time is right and when you’re ready you will find Mr Right.”

Jensen adds, “And even if you’re not quite ready, the right guy will understand and wait for you and support you until you are.”

I almost blurt out three little words that would potentially change everything, but I stop myself because I know he wouldn’t hear them for how I mean them, plus when I do say them, I want them to mean the same to both of us. 

Anna moves to get up, “I’ll uh, let you guys talk.”

I gently place my hand on her arm. “It’s okay, you can stay.”

“Yeah, Anna, don’t go,” Jensen pipes up. “I can’t talk long anyway, they’re gonna call me for hair and makeup soon. I just wanted to check in.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. Have fun on set, Winchester.”

“You ladies have a wonderful afternoon too. I’ll call you tonight, Darlin’”

“Alright, talk later.”

Anna sheepishly says, “Bye, Jensen. Thanks.”

“Anytime.” He hangs up and she relaxes back into the couch. 

“He’s nice.” 

“Yeah, he is.”

Anna puts some afternoon TV talk shows on and I go back to my assignment until an hour before I have to go to the theatre. Nick comes downstairs and throws together an early dinner for the three of us. While he cooks, I quickly shower and borrow another outfit off Stella, knowing she won’t mind. After we eat, Nick drives me to the theatre on his way to work. He points out exactly where he’ll be waiting to pick me up. 

I go inside and straight into the dressing room to change into my costume and start doing my hair and makeup. Just as I’m almost done the stage manager comes up behind me.

“Get changed, you’re stepping in as Sandy for the first act tonight and possibly the second if Mary doesn’t show up.”

“What?” I say in shock.

“Did I stutter?” I shake my head. “I didn’t think so.” I look over at Alyssa and she shrugs. It takes me a few minutes to compute what’s happening. Aly grabs the other costume and then drags me out of the chair. 

“Come on, this is the dream! Get changed! I’ll help with your hair and makeup after.”

Finally coming to my senses a little with Aly’s help I quickly change costumes and let her redo my hair and makeup for Sandy. As more of the cast fills in, we find out that the Mary had a last minute family emergency and that no one has seen the other understudy since the live shows started. As Aly’s helping me get ready I run over the lines, trying to stay as calm as possible. Once I’m ready we have 15 minutes to curtains. I quickly call Jensen hoping he picks up. I give it four rings before he answers.

“Hey Darl, what’s up? You okay? I’m on set, I can’t really talk right n-”

“No! I’m going on stage in 15 as the lead! I can’t do it!”

“Okay, Okay. Yes you can! Take a breath for me. You’re gonna knock this out of the park. You’ve been working hard for this. You’re gonna be an amazing, Sandy! Just focus on your lines, play off your co-star who’s been doing this longer and show off those amazing skills of yours. You’re gonna do amazing, I just wish I could be there to see it.”

“Thanks, Jens.”

“I’m so sorry, but I really have to go, but you’re gonna be so good! You got this!” He hangs up and I run back into the dressing room. I dump my phone on the bench and run up the stairs just in time for the first call. 

Jake, the actor that plays Danny takes my hand. “I wish we had more time to rehearse together, but as long as you remember the lines and follow my lead we can get through tonight.”

I nod. We switch on our mics and take our place on stage just before the curtains rise. I get one look at the massive crowd looking at just us and freeze. But Jake goes smoothly into character, makes me look at him and I do as Jensen said, let him lead me. I play off each of his lines to remember my place and lines. I’m sure everyone can see my nerves still and I feel bad that they’re not getting the best possible rendition. But I also try to let myself enjoy the experience.

Much to our dismay, Mary is still a no-show by the end of the intermission, so I go back on as Sandy. My nerves are fried by the time the curtains fall after our final bow. I’m a hair away from bursting into tears, but I pull myself together just long enough to get changed and clean off the make-up. Aly gives me a reassuring hug and assures me that I was great, but it’s hard to believe it. The only thought going through my mind is that I’m glad it’s over and I hope Mary is back from whatever the emergency was in time for tomorrow night’s show. On shaky feet, I make my way out to the parking lot to meet Nick.

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Taglist: @stoneyggirl2 @hobby27, @n-o-p-e-never, @deansimpalababy,

@winchesterwild78, @kr804573, @chriszgirl92, @smoothdogsgirl

@speakinvain, @deans-baby-momma, @1967winchesterimpala

@lmg14, @superrey, @kamisobsessed

[dailyanarchistposts]

J.1.3 Why are anarchists against reformism?

Firstly, it must be pointed out that the struggle for reforms within capitalism is not the same as reformism. Reformism is the idea that reforms within capitalism are enough in themselves and attempts to change the system are impossible (and not desirable). As such all anarchists are against this form of reformism — we think that the system can be (and should be) changed and until that happens any reforms, no matter how essential, will not get to the root of social problems.

In addition, particularly in the old social democratic labour movement, reformism also meant the belief that social reforms could be used to transform capitalism into socialism. In this sense, only Individualist anarchists and Mutualists can be considered reformist as they think their system of mutual banking can reform capitalism into a free system. However, in contrast to Social Democracy, such anarchists think that such reforms cannot come about via government action, but only by people creating their own alternatives and solutions by their own actions:

“But experience testifies and philosophy demonstrates, contrary to that prejudice, that any revolution, to be effective, must be spontaneous and emanate, not from the heads of the authorities but from the bowels of the people: that government is reactionary rather than revolutionary: that it could not have any expertise in revolutions, given that society, to which that secret is alone revealed, does not show itself through legislative decree but rather through the spontaneity of its manifestations: that, ultimately, the only connection between government and labour is that labour, in organising itself, has the abrogation of government as its mission.” [Proudhon, No Gods, No Master, vol. 1, p. 52]

So, anarchists oppose reformism because it takes the steam out of revolutionary movements by providing easy, decidedly short-term “solutions” to deep social problems. In this way, reformists can present the public with they’ve done and say “look, all is better now. The system worked.” Trouble is that over time, the problems will only continue to grow because the reforms did not tackle them in the first place. To use Alexander Berkman’s excellent analogy:

“If you should carry out [the reformers’] ideas in your personal life, you would not have a rotten tooth that aches pulled out all at once. You would have it pulled out a little to-day, some more next week, for several months or years, and by then you would be ready to pull it out altogether, so it should not hurt so much. That is the logic of the reformer. Don’t be ‘too hasty,’ don’t pull a bad tooth out all at once.” [What is Anarchism?, p. 64]

Rather than seek to change the root cause of the problems (namely in a hierarchical, oppressive and exploitative system), reformists try to make the symptoms better. In the words of Berkman again:

“Suppose a pipe burst in your house. You can put a bucket under the break to catch the escaping water. You can keep on putting buckets there, but as long as you do not mend the broken pipe, the leakage will continue, no matter how much you may swear about it … until you repair the broken social pipe.” [Op. Cit., pp. 67–8]

What reformism fails to do is fix the underlying root causes of the real problems society faces. Therefore, reformists try to pass laws which reduce the level of pollution rather than work to end a system in which it makes economic sense to pollute. Or they pass laws to improve working conditions and safety while failing to get rid of the wage slavery which creates the bosses whose interests are served by them ignoring those laws and regulations. The list is endless. Ultimately, reformism fails because reformists “believe in good faith that it is possible to eliminate the existing social evils by recognising and respecting, in practice if not in theory, the basic political and economic institutions which are the cause of, as well as the prop that supports these evils.” [Malatesta, Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 82]

Revolutionaries, in contrast to reformists, fight both symptoms and the root causes. They recognise that as long as the cause of the evil remains, any attempts to fight the symptoms, however necessary, will never get to the root of the problem. There is no doubt that we have to fight the symptoms, however revolutionaries recognise that this struggle is not an end in itself and should be considered purely as a means of increasing working class strength and social power within society until such time as capitalism and the state (i.e. the root causes of most problems) can be abolished.

Reformists also tend to objectify the people whom they are “helping”: they envision them as helpless, formless masses who need the wisdom and guidance of the “best and the brightest” to lead them to the Promised Land. Reformists mean well, but this is altruism borne of ignorance, which is destructive over the long run. Freedom cannot be given and so any attempt to impose reforms from above cannot help but ensure that people are treated as children, incapable of making their own decisions and, ultimately, dependent on bureaucrats to govern them. This can be seen from public housing. As Colin Ward argues, the “whole tragedy of publicly provided non-profit housing for rent and the evolution of this form of tenure in Britain is that the local authorities have simply taken over, though less flexibly, the role of the landlord, together with all the dependency and resentment that it engenders.” [Housing: An Anarchist Approach, p. 184] This feature of reformism was skilfully used by the right-wing to undermine publicly supported housing and other aspects of the welfare state. The reformist social-democrats reaped what they had sown.

Reformism often amounts to little more than an altruistic contempt for the masses, who are considered as little more than victims who need to be provided for by state. The idea that we may have our own visions of what we want is ignored and replaced by the vision of the reformists who enact legislation for us and make “reforms” from the top-down. Little wonder such reforms can be counter-productive — they cannot grasp the complexity of life and the needs of those subject to them. Reformists effectively say, “don’t do anything, we’ll do it for you.” You can see why anarchists would loathe this sentiment; anarchists are the consummate do-it-yourselfers, and there’s nothing reformists hate more than people who can take care of themselves, who will not let them “help” them.

Reformists may mean well, but they do not grasp the larger picture — by focusing exclusively on narrow aspects of a problem, they choose to believe that is the whole problem. In this wilfully narrow examination of pressing social ills, reformists are, more often than not, counter-productive. The disaster of the urban rebuilding projects in the United States (and similar projects in Britain which moved inter-city working class communities into edge of town developments during the 1950s and 1960s) are an example of reformism at work: upset at the growing slums, reformists supported projects that destroyed the ghettos and built brand-new housing for working class people to live in. They looked nice (initially), but they did nothing to address the problem of poverty and indeed created more problems by breaking up communities and neighbourhoods.

Logically, it makes no sense. Why dance around a problem when you can attack it directly? Reformists dilute social movements, softening and weakening them over time. The AFL-CIO labour unions in the USA, like the ones in Western Europe, killed the labour movement by narrowing and channelling labour activity and taking power from the workers themselves, where it belongs, and placing it the hands of a bureaucracy. The British Labour Party, after over 100 years of reformist practice, has done little more than manage capitalism, seen most of its reforms undermined by right-wing governments (and by the following Labour governments!) and the creation of a leadership of the party (in the shape of New Labour) which was in most ways as right-wing as the Conservative Party (if not more so, as shown once they were in power). Bakunin would not have been surprised.

Also, it is funny to hear left-wing “revolutionaries” and “radicals” put forward the reformist line that the capitalist state can help working people (indeed be used to abolish itself!). Despite the fact that leftists blame the state and capitalism for most of the problems we face, they usually turn to the capitalist state to remedy the situation, not by leaving people alone, but by becoming more involved in people’s lives. They support government housing, government jobs, welfare, government-funded and regulated child care, government-funded drug “treatment,” and other government-centred programmes and activities. If a capitalist (and racist/sexist/authoritarian) government is the problem, how can it be depended upon to change things to the benefit of working class people or other oppressed sections of the population? Surely any reforms passed by the state will not solve the problem? As Malatesta suggested:

“Governments and the privileged classes are naturally always guided by instincts of self-preservation, of consolidation and the development of their powers and privileges; and when they consent to reforms it is either because they consider that they will serve their ends or because they do not feel strong enough to resist, and give in, fearing what might otherwise be a worse alternative.” [Op. Cit., p. 81]

Therefore, reforms gained by direct action are of a different quality and nature than those passed by reformist politicians — these latter will only serve the interests of the ruling class as they do not threaten their privileges while the former have the potential for real change.

This is not to say that Anarchists oppose all state-based reforms nor that we join with the right in seeking to destroy them (or, for that matter, with “left” politicians in seeking to “reform” them, i.e., reduce them). Without a popular social movement creating alternatives to state welfare, so-called “reform” by the state almost always means attacks on the most vulnerable elements in society in the interests of capital. As anarchists are against both state and capitalism, we can oppose such reforms without contradiction while, at the same time, arguing that welfare for the rich should be abolished long before welfare for the many is even thought about. See section J.5.15 for more discussion on the welfare state and anarchist perspectives on it.

Instead of encouraging working class people to organise themselves and create their own alternatives and solutions to their problem (which can supplement, and ultimately replace, whatever welfare state activity which is actually useful), reformists and other radicals urge people to get the state to act for them. However, the state is not the community and so whatever the state does for people you can be sure it will be in its interests, not theirs. As Kropotkin put it:

“We maintain that the State organisation, having been the force to which the minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the masses, cannot be the force which will serve to destroy these privileges … the economic and political liberation of man will have to create new forms for its expression in life, instead of those established by the State. “Consequently, the chief aim of Anarchism is to awaken those constructive powers of the labouring masses of the people which at all great moments of history came forward to accomplish the necessary changes … “This is also why the Anarchists refuse to accept the functions of legislators or servants of the State. We know that the social revolution will not be accomplished by means of laws. Laws only follow the accomplished facts … a law remains a dead letter so long as there are not on the spot the living forces required for making of the tendencies expressed in the law an accomplished fact. “On the other hand … the Anarchists have always advised taking an active part in those workers’ organisations which carry on the direct struggle of Labour against Capital and its protector, — the State. “Such a struggle … better than any other indirect means, permits the worker to obtain some temporary improvements in the present conditions of work [and life in general], while it opens his [or her] eyes to the evil that is done by Capitalism and the State that supports it, and wakes up his [or her] thoughts concerning the possibility of organising consumption, production, and exchange without the intervention of the capitalist and the State.” [Environment and Evolution, pp. 82–3]

Therefore, while seeking reforms, anarchists are against reformism and reformists. Reforms are not seen as an end in themselves but rather a means of changing society from the bottom-up and a step in that direction:

“Each step towards economic freedom, each victory won over Capitalism will be at the same time a step towards political liberty — towards liberation from the yoke of the State … And each step towards taking from the State any one of its powers and attributes will be helping the masses to win a victory over Capitalism.” [Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 95]

However, no matter what, anarchists “will never recognise the institutions; we will take or win all possible reforms with the same spirit that one tears occupied territory from the enemy’s grasp in order to keep advancing, and we will always remain enemies of every government.” Therefore, it is “not true to say” that anarchists “are systematically opposed to improvements, to reforms. They oppose the reformists on the one hand because their methods are less effective for securing reforms from government and employers, who only give in through fear, and because very often the reforms they prefer are those which not only bring doubtful immediate benefits, but also serve to consolidate the existing regime and to give the workers a vested interest in its continued existence.” [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 81 and p. 83]

Only working class people, by our own actions and organisations, getting the state and capital out of the way can produce an improvement in our lives, indeed it is the only thing that will lead to real changes for the better. Encouraging people to rely on themselves instead of the state or capital can lead to self-sufficient, independent, and, hopefully, more rebellious people. Working class people, despite having fewer options in a number of areas in our lives, due both to hierarchy and restrictive laws, still are capable of making choices about our actions, organising our own lives and are responsible for the consequences of our decisions. We are also more than able to determine what is and is not a good reform to existing institutions and do not need politicians informing us what is in our best interests (particularly when it is the right seeking to abolish those parts of the state not geared purely to defending property). To think otherwise is to infantilise us, to consider us less fully human than other people and reproduce the classic capitalist vision of working class people as means of production, to be used, abused, and discarded as required. Such thinking lays the basis for paternalistic interventions in our lives by the state, ensuring our continued dependence and inequality — and the continued existence of capitalism and the state. Ultimately, there are two options:

“The oppressed either ask for and welcome improvements as a benefit graciously conceded, recognise the legitimacy of the power which is over them, and so do more harm than good by helping to slow down, or divert . .. the processes of emancipation. Or instead they demand and impose improvements by their action, and welcome them as partial victories over the class enemy, using them as a spur to greater achievements, and thus a valid help and a preparation to the total overthrow of privilege, that is, for the revolution.” [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 81]

Reformism encourages the first attitude within people and so ensures the impoverishment of the human spirit. Anarchism encourages the second attitude and so ensures the enrichment of humanity and the possibility of meaningful change. Why think that ordinary people cannot arrange their lives for themselves as well as Government people can arrange it not for themselves but for others?

[attorneythailand]

Representative Office in Thailand

A Representative Office (RO) serves as a non-revenue generating entity that allows foreign companies to establish a legal presence in Thailand without forming a full subsidiary. Governed by the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and Foreign Business Act (FBA), ROs are ideal for:

Market research and business development

Coordination between headquarters and Thai partners

Quality control for regional suppliers

However, ROs face strict operational limitations—understanding these restrictions is critical before registration.

2. Legal Framework & Key Restrictions

Permissible Activities (Under MOC Notification No. 275)

An RO may only engage in:

Sourcing goods/services for its parent company

Inspecting/controlling quality of products ordered by HQ

Providing advisory support to HQ about Thai market

Disseminating information about new products/services

Reporting business trends to the parent company

Prohibited Activities (That Would Require a Full Company):

Direct sales, invoicing, or revenue generation

Signing contracts on behalf of the parent company

Providing services to third parties

Penalties: Violations can result in fines up to THB 1 million, imprisonment, or forced closure.

3. Registration Process: Step-by-Step Requirements

Phase 1: Pre-Registration Documentation

Parent Company Documents (notarized/apostilled):

Certificate of Incorporation

Memorandum & Articles of Association

Board Resolution authorizing RO establishment

Audited financial statements (last 3 years)

Thai Office Requirements:

Lease agreement (registered at Land Department)

List of intended expatriate staff

Phase 2: Ministry of Commerce Approval

Submit Application (Form Kor Tor 1) to MOC’s Business Development Department

Review Period: 30–60 days

Post-Approval: Register at DBD, Revenue Dept., and Social Security Office

Phase 3: Ongoing Compliance

Annual Audit Submission (even with no revenue)

Work Permits: Limited to 5 foreign employees

4. Tax & Financial Considerations

A. Tax Obligations

Corporate Income Tax: 0% (if compliant with RO restrictions)

Withholding Tax: 15% on remittances to HQ classified as "service fees"

VAT: Not applicable (no sales activity)

B. Capital Requirements

Minimum THB 5 million remitted to Thailand within first 3 years

Must maintain THB 2 million in a Thai bank account

C. Audit Requirements

Annual financial statements must be filed by a licensed Thai auditor

Transfer pricing documentation recommended for HQ transactions

5. Representative Office vs. Other Business Structures

CriteriaRepresentative OfficeRegional OfficeLimited CompanyAllowed RevenueNoYes (from affiliates)Yes (full operations)Tax LiabilityNone10% CIT (regional)20% CITCapital RequiredTHB 5MTHB 10MTHB 2M+Work PermitsMax 5No limitNo limit

Key Takeaway: An RO is not a substitute for a trading company—it’s a non-commercial liaison office.

6. Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them

A. Accidental Revenue Generation

Risk: Providing consultancy to local firms may be deemed as service income

Solution: Draft activity scope carefully in MOC application

B. Underestimating Compliance Costs

Hidden Fees: Auditor fees (~THB 50k/year), visa renewals, legal retainer

Budget: Minimum THB 1M/year for a compliant RO

C. Visa & Work Permit Issues

Expat Headcount: 5 is the absolute max—plan staffing accordingly

Local Hiring: Must have at least 1 Thai employee per foreign hire

7. When to Upgrade to a Regional/Branch Office

Consider transitioning if you need to: ✔ Generate revenue from affiliate companies ✔ Sign contracts locally ✔ Employ more than 5 foreigners

Upgrade Process: Requires new MOC approval and capital increase.

8. Expert Recommendations

For Market Entry:

Use an RO for 2–3 years to test the market before committing to a full subsidiary

Pair with a Thai distributor for actual sales

For Compliance:

Retain a Thai law firm to audit activities annually

Maintain separate bank accounts for HQ remittances

For Long-Term Strategy:

If scaling, convert to a BOI-promoted company for better incentives

Conclusion: Is a Representative Office Right for You?

A Thai RO offers low-risk market access but demands strict adherence to non-commercial activities. It’s ideal for:

Manufacturers vetting Thai suppliers

Tech firms exploring ASEAN expansion

Service companies needing a local liaison

Final Warning: Misuse can trigger FBA violations—always align activities with MOC approval. For complex cases, consult a Thai corporate lawyer before registration.

[vaporeon2010317]

(Cit. Vaporeon)

Thank you, Sunny.

Completely unrelated to this thread, anyone wanna rob a bank? Specifically asking @boredgoon (if your still a cat I can carry you in my messenger bag)

[cazort]

I see a disturbing number of people, mostly millennials, these days, who have significant incomes and are starting to amass significant savings, who have terrible financial management skills. People who live at home with parents and get a full time job can accumulate money really fast. A lot of people are letting huge amounts of money, like sometimes as much as $20,000 or more, accumulate in checking accounts where it is earning either no interest or negligible interest.

Because inflation is high (over 3% these days), you are effectively losing money when it sits there. Also you're allowing the bank to profit off it; it's lending your money out to other people, often at interest rates as high as 6-7% or more, and it's not paying you for it.

If you have more than maybe around $3000 dollars in an account, you want that money earning interest. Here are things you can do to earn more from your money:

Open a savings account at a higher yield. Go to a different bank if necessary. CIT Bank has rates around 5% these days.

Pay off high interest rate debt but not low-interest rate debt. If the interest rate is above about 7-8% definitely make it a priority to pay it off ASAP. If it is above 5% it is still better to pay it off than to sit on your money. If it is much below 5%, pay it off as slowly as possible (minimum payment only) because there are risk-free ways to earn more interest on your money.

If you don't need the money in the short-term, consider a CD (Certificate of Deposit) which offers a fixed interest rate over a certain time. Often you can get a slightly higher rate by tying your money up for 3 months or 6 months or sometimes even longer. These are good options if you have a specific expenditure in your future, like perhaps moving or buying a home, but you know it won't happen until after a certain date.

Open a brokerage account. Brokerage accounts allow you to buy and sell investments such as stocks, mutual funds, or bonds, which include CD's from banks as well as treasury and municipal bonds and corporate bonds. You get more options for buying CD's (i.e. you can compare many different banks side-by-side, buy CD with the best rate, and manage multiple CD's within a single interface.) Most brokerage accounts have no fees and typically no or very low minimum investments. There is no reason not to have one if you have a few thousand dollars.

In a brokerage account, buy a money market mutual fund. Look for one with no load and no transaction fee, a high yield, and a low expense ratio, and a fixed share price of $1 per share. My two favorite are SWVXX and SNSXX. SWVXX has a higher yield (about 5.19%) whereas SNSXX has a lower yield (just over 5%) but is non-taxable on state income taxes, so SNSXX is a better choice if you have a high state tax rate, otherwise SWVXX is better.

Consider opening a Roth IRA if you haven't, and then, if able, contribute the maximum amount each year. You are allowed to make a contribution that counts towards the previous year, up until the tax filing deadline of the current year. So for example today it is Mar. 14th, 2024, so you can open a Roth IRA today and contribute the max ($6,500) for the 2023 year and also the max ($7,000) for 2024, for a total of $13,500. The main advantage of a Roth IRA is that the money in them can grow tax-free. Roth IRA's benefit anyone able to have one (the richest people are not allowed to contribute to them) and are especially important for people who are self-employed, change jobs a lot, or never work full-time, so they don't have a consistent employee-provided retirement plan.

Consider investing in stocks. Stocks are riskier (in that their price changes, and you can lose money when investing in them), but tend to have a higher yield than savings and money market accounts and funds. The simplest way to buy stocks is to buy an ETF (exchange-traded-fund). I recommend buying one that follows the S&P 500 and has a low expense ratio like SPY or VOO. Whatever you buy, reinvest the dividends and let it grow, contribute a little money every year so are putting in money even in years the market is down. On average you get about a 10% return in the market but it is unpredictable and you will lose in some years, but that's okay, you're not retiring for many decades and the money will have grown a lot by then.

There are options regardless of your risk profile. It is throwing your money away to let a lot of money sit in a checking account. At a bare minimum, go for a high-yield savings account, CD, or better yet get a brokerage account, put it in high-yield money market funds like SWVXX, shop around for CD's or other bonds with the highest rates, and if you are able to tolerate some risk and want a higher return, consider putting some money in more aggressive investments like stocks.

I am 100% for tax reform and other reform to curb the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, but it's also important to take your financial situation into your own hands. Get financially comfortable. Get a stake in the US economy. Empower yourself so you can live better and help your family, friends, and the causes you care about.

[10bmnews]

European stocks move higher as U.S. judges halt tariffs; Goldman outlines Trump's options

Trump likely to find a way around court ban on reciprocal tariffs, says Goldman Sachs The White House is likely to find a way around a U.S. court ruling that struck down steep reciprocal tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump in April, according to Goldman Sachs. Read more about the Court of International Trade’s (CIT) ruling here. The Wall Street bank said the Trump administration is likely…

[pensieri-liberi-nella-mente]

Vorrei soltanto offrirti una Bank IPA

Dirti una cosa banale tipo che non è finita

Cit. Chiamamifaro -bistrot

[cazort]

i have noticed that the price increases are really heterogeneous, and some things have increased.

over the past 5 years, the price of almond flour decreased, first from $6.50/pound to $6.00, then $5.50. because of how high-calorie, high-protein, and micronutrient-dense almond flour is, it is now quite cheap relative to its nutritional value, so I have made it a staple in baking: now all my muffin and cake recipes use 1/4 almond flour.

some things went up in price in one store but not others. feta cheese doubled in price at one store i shopped, so i stopped buying it, but i found a local Turkish-Lebanese grocery that was still selling it for the old prices, so now i just buy it there

some things went up in price absurdly and declined in quality. like some restaurants used to be cheap and good, and their prices nearly doubled and quality declined, so i just don't go there any more.

for a while, the price of eggs doubled, so i bought less eggs. then it went down again and now i eat more eggs again.

my wife's job is inflation-adjusted with automatic raises. if your job isn't, you need to ask your boss every 6 months why you have received a pay cut in real wages, and if you aren't satisfied with the answer, find a new job. it's much easier to get jobs now than it was between 2002 and 2020, trust me. employees have more power than they have ever before during my entire life, and a lot of them are passively sitting there accepting low wages just out of learned helplessness. most employers are at YOUR mercy. if you're not getting inflation-adjusted pay, find a job that gives it to you.

i'm self-employed and i can set my own prices and yes, my income does increase with inflation too.

if you save and/or invest, make sure your money is earning more interest than inflation. find a savings account like CIT Bank that pays 5% ish, or better yet, open a brokerage account and buy a money-market mutual fund like SWVXX that pays close to 5.17%. your money will grow faster than inflation and your income from interest and investments will grow faster than inflation.

don't just sit there and let the economy bully you, take charge.

if you just keep buying the same products when their prices suddenly double, you are rewarding greed (or just incompetence / inefficiency, which is sometimes a cause of soaring prices too) and this isn't good for anyone. if everyone adapted and shopped around, we'd keep prices a bit lower because we'd reward the businesses that managed to have efficient supply chains and refrained from greed. vote with your wallet and vote with your feet.

It is ridiculous how much grocery prices have increased

[rauthschild]

The fact of the matter that Trump and Musk are currently engaging in the biggest International Digital Currency Prime and Central Bank Bank Heist using below the radar KTT and Secure File Transfer Procedures sFTP • AWS • JSON, by and through, newly recognized DOD, CIA and MOSAAD Caucasian Native American Sovereign Banks, is beside point.

We don't know where these nutcases come from, but they exist, and they persist, and they threaten and they stomp, and they tell lies and make accusations that are always a reflection of the things they are doing themselves. It's monotonous. It's boring.

Now we've got goons attacking Facebook because someone was discussing a recent International Public Notice in which we told people the truth about the quote-unquote "Quantum Financial System" or "QFS".

Unlike our detractors, we were actually present and part of the discussions leading up to the so-called QFS and so, we have cause to know on a first-hand knowledge basis: (1) who developed the QFS (CIA/Military); (2) where it was developed (Wright Patterson AFB) ; (3) why it was developed (they realized the old monetary system was doomed); and (4) the actual status of all "quantum" technologies (in their infancy).

Let's begin with the actual known status of quantum technologies, and especially quantum computers.

"Quantum" has become a buzz-word, everything is suddenly quantum this and quantum that. Quantum financial systems. Quantum healing systems. Quantum nose-pickers and toilet paper, too.

We are already sick of everything "quantum", and any actual "quantum age" has yet to materialize.

As you can readily ascertain all by yourselves, the first quantum computers are in their infancy and the most recent tests of these actual quantum computers scared the physicists and engineers silly, so they shut them down.

Google, which actually has one of these prototype computers, ran crying to the bathroom like a little girl. All the Global Goon Physicists were seen dragging their butts around, moaning and shaking their heads. It was all over the internet for weeks afterward, and that was just a few months ago.

So quantum computers --- actual quantum computers --- are still in their infancy, still waiting to perform first-step operations, and yes, d'Ears, that means that any representation telling you that a "Quantum Financial System" already exists and is the most unimaginable hottest thing ever ---- is a Big, Fat, Overstated Lie.

The label "organic" can be applied to anything that's made out of carbon, and the label "quantum" can be applied to anything using photonic energy --- which is nearly everything you can sense with all fifteen of your native senses:

We suggest that you use all your senses, especially your Shinola Sensor.

"Quantum Financial System" is a verbal misrepresentation, a constructive fraud, encouraging you to assume that this new financial system runs off special new quantum computers that are millions of times faster than our old clunkers, when in fact Stanford and MIT and CIT and all the big data munchers like Google and the Fab Fringe at Berkeley haven't gotten to first base with actual quantum computing systems. And when we don't need faster computers to log transactions.

You probably also assume that Scott Bessant, the Secretary of the Treasury, works for The United States -- based on the same kind of wordplay, but he doesn't.

So, in reply to them and their "registry" -----QFS, stick it in your combined ears. We are not "authorized" to "represent or interpret" QFS protocols, operations, or spiritual-intelligence mandates". We never said we were. We never wanted to be. In fact, we want your entire program shut down yesterday.

You, calling yourself "the One", have no authority and no permission to dabble in our spiritual affairs and even less authority or permission to meddle with our intelligence or our DNA.

We don't authorize you to snoop in our minds, mess with our emotions, or tinker with our electrical systems --- not at the atomic level and not at the quantum level. We are private, individual, unique beings who have the unalienable right to privacy and freewill.

We have exercised that freewill and told you to jump.

You can stick your computers up your rumps so far as we are concerned and we will be happy to pull the plugs. You can also have your predictive programming, your international propaganda machines, and your quasi-military agencies, plop, right back in your laps, unfunded by us.

Your meddling with life on this planet is unwelcome and against Universal Law. Your attempt to treat living people as biological computers subject to your meddling is repugnant and reprehensible in the extreme, and shows the depth of your profound ignorance and lack of any moral compass.

That is why we have sent for the actual "cosmic" authorities to put an end to DARPA, QFS, Geo-engineered Climate Change, ChemTrails, genetically engineered mRNA insertions disguised as "vaccines", the poisoning of our food and water, and the rest of the gross activities that domestic terrorists embedded in both the Municipal and Territorial governments (and their unauthorized Agencies) have pulled off while we were asleep.

There is no such thing in our realm as a "self-executing commercial judgment" and we are not Federal entities subject to Commercial Codes or Federal Codes generally, including and especially Title 18 USC § 1341, § 1512, § 1038, etc.

The so-called QFS was developed as a joint special project between CIA and quasi-military and agency operatives working at Wright-Patterson AFB. We became aware of their project through these same operatives and a support unit working out of North Carolina.

They wanted us to support what they were doing, and they made it clear that in their view, their action was necessary and of the utmost importance, because they wanted to capture the monopoly powers of the failing fiat-based financial system --- and expand upon them "for the greater good".

Whose greater good? The old financial system was a crock of rotten beans and a new financial system that proposes to capitalize on that egregious fraud and expand its monopoly interests is not for anyone's "greater good".

The entire QFS effort is an offshoot of the Great Fraud. Suffice it to say, we've seen enough of that. It must disappear. It must dissolve like mist before our eyes.

What the QFS promoters wanted, quite baldly, was to enrich themselves and gain even greater coercive power over the world's financial and trade and banking services. They wanted more power to tax. More power to control. More power for themselves to judge and meddle and micro-manage other people's lives.

They don't grasp why being named as "the One" by Marduk isn't a selling point on this planet. They don't know why we wouldn't just welcome the prospect of being part of their group and bamboozling the whole world for our own greater good --- and to hell with everyone else's.

That's the kind of people who are running the QFS. Meet the new Boss, same as the old Boss and so, we lift up ourselves and pray that we don't get fooled again.

Those who remember the past are not condemned to relive it. We remember December, Christmas Eve, 1913. So we were not condemned to relive it (or caught sleeping) on Easter, 2025. We remember the transfer monopoly of the SWIFT System, so we are not condemned to relive it via any QFS digital version.

Not being Federal Citizens of any stripe, we don't give a rat's rump for any merely assumed "powers". We don't credit the Agents responsible for the QFS with any contract or power they have failed to fulfill and we and our Assigns hold them accountable upon the first default.

From our standpoint, these people are our employees and they have no granted right or authority to meddle with us or our lives using technologies that have been created using our assets. They get a great big fat Red "F" Minus on their Report Cards for their actions and inactions.

These people have acted as domestic terrorists since 1868 and the dumb clucks in charge of our military have mindlessly repeated their pledge to protect us against all enemies both foreign and domestic, while letting their own domestic criminals run utterly and completely rampant ever since World War II.

Buckle up and perform on your contracts or we will assume that you have none and no delegated powers, either. Act in good faith and deliver services in good faith, or quit the field and go home to Europe where you belong. That is our best advice to the QFS and the people running it.

The Great Fraud is at an end. It won't serve as a platform for any new gambits.

As the fiat system they created and imposed without any authority comes to its natural and well-deserved end, they seek to pull off an even bigger boondoggle than the Federal Reserve -- and they actually think that we are all so weak-minded that we will welcome it.

Think again.

We don't recognize any "Quantum Trust" and we don't recognize or authorize any "Quantum Trust Protocols". We don't bow to "the One" or "the Many". What we have to say to you is that you are all criminals for even trying to defraud, control, mislead, and denigrate other people like this.

Shame on you now and in eternity.

We say nothing about "QFS" but the truth, what we know for sure, and what we have said before. It's another fraud brought to us by the same people who have been responsible for all the criminality of the present system. We stand by what we've said and we mean every word of it.

Your ability to "remand" anyone is limited to your authority and jurisdiction, and in this quadrant, you have none. You are all a bunch of pirates, trying to pull a fast one, employees trying to steal the property of your employers.

Shame on you again, and in eternity.

We want nothing whatsoever to do with the QFS system and don't approve it for the use of our employees, either. It's tainted by fraud and intrigue from conception. The blatant and illegal intention of QFS is to rule by establishing a digital monopoly and dictating what people can buy or sell, for how much, when and where.

Shame on you again, and in eternity forever and forevermore.

We require the phony "United States Treasury" and all assets and trusts naturally belonging to us to be turned over to us and to our control, without further obfuscation or delay. We demand the return of our assets without harm, and sue for settlement of the debts that are owed to us as prepaid credit, also without harm or further argument.

We did not give our employees any authority, right, or sanction to seize upon, collect, or distribute our assets "for" us. We do not permit our employees to form any trusts "for" us or maintain any trusts in any public capacity related to us. The limitations of their contracts are obvious and public and free to read.

The word "health", for example, does not occur in any of their contracts. There is no authority for any probate court to exist in this country. There is no provision for any income tax to apply to Autochthonous Black and Brown Americans Native to the States of the Union. The only public trust ever formed with respect to our public is stated in the Preamble to the Federal Constitution.

All "personal" trusts that have been created in our names must be dissolved and the assets released to us without harm. All "state" trusts, all "legacy" trusts, all "historical" trusts, must be dissolved in favor of the presumed donors and beneficiaries with no further Executors de Son Tort acting as meddling middlemen.

We, the presumed donors, do not agree to the inclusion of our assets in any foreign trust.

We knew the Autochthonous man who was designated to settle these matters and we will show you his heirs and assigns, none of whom are involved in the QFS.

As for trying to attack us commercially, territorially, or in any way whatsoever, be advised, we do not dwell in those environs and are not subject to the "laws" that govern those who do; also be advised that the Almighty has charge of us and our planet and any further trespasses will be recognized and dealt with by Higher Powers.

We won't have to lift a hand.

We have not engaged in any fraud, nor misrepresented ourselves, but those who seek to launch the QFS have done plenty of both. This is why the QFS in its current form and under its present leadership is not recommended by the Autochthonous Sovereign Posterity Preamble General American Government.

We are providing our people with an alternative system that is pure, simple, and unsullied by the Great Fraud and immune from the mounting phony debt crisis, a system that is based on the positive side of the ledger that we, the living people, are owed.

[cyberbenb]

Russian job market cools as hiring plunges 15% in early 2025, Russian media reports

Russian businesses have significantly scaled back their recruitment efforts in early 2025, with job openings falling 15% compared to the same period last year, Russian newspaper Izvestia reported on March 24, citing data from employment service hh.ru. The total number of vacancies in Russia stood at 2.3 million at the beginning of 2025.

The outlet connected the development to financial challenges Russian companies face as the central bank imposed record interest rates to curb the soaring inflation brought about by Russia’s massive wartime spending.

Despite unemployment remaining low at 2.4%, the Russian Central Bank reports a decrease in new job openings, saying that “an increasing number of companies are reporting optimization of hiring plans and salary increases."

Research from the Russian Central Institute of Labour (CIT) shows sector-specific declines in the January-February period compared to last year: accountant positions fell by 13.3%, HR specialists declined by 9.6%, and cashiers dropped by 9.1%.

According to data from hh.ru cited by Izvestia, business-related sectors have experienced the most pronounced slowdown. Vacancies in human resource management plummeted 31% year-on-year, while consulting and investment positions fell 26%, and logistics jobs decreased 25%. Science, education, manufacturing, and service industries continue to show growth.

Certain industries, particularly those related to high technology and government defense contracts, still face personnel shortages.

Companies are cutting back hiring due to difficult financial conditions related to high interest rates, Lyudmila Ivanova-Shvets, an associate professor at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, told Izvestia. With the central bank maintaining its key rate at 21% annually for the third consecutive time on March 21, corporate credit costs have consistently exceeded 25%.

Instead of bringing on new talent, businesses are intensifying workloads for existing employees through internal job-sharing, increasing productivity requirements, and offering additional pay for expanded responsibilities, reported Izvestia.

Many organizations are also focusing on internal mobility and upskilling current staff.

Meanwhile, the median offered salary in Russia rose nearly 20% from 65,400 rubles ($778) in January-March 2024 to 77,200 rubles ($919)  in the same period this year.

Trump says efforts to end Ukraine war ‘somewhat under control’ just hours before deadly Russian drone strike on Kyiv

“I don’t think there’s anybody in the world that’s going to stop (Putin) except me,” Trump said shortly before three people were killed in Kyiv by Russian drones.

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk

[shoshanews]

ATM Custodian - (Boksburg) G4S Cash Solutions South Africa Location: Boksburg | Salary: Market Related | Posted: 25 Feb 2025 | Closes: 27 Mar 2025 | Job Type: Full Time and Permanent | Business Unit: South Africa - Cash Solutions | Region / Division: Africa | Reference: G4S/TP/7891978/226605 Remuneration and benefits will be commensurate with the seniority of the role and in compliance with company remuneration policy and practice.  Job Introduction: ATM Custodian G4S Cash Solutions (SA), a leading provider of integrated cash management solutions, has a vacancy for a ATM Custodian based at our operations in Boksburg. Reporting to the Planner, this role is responsible for ensuring that ATM's are replenished on time so that customers' machines can operate. The successful incumbent is a self-starter with a proven track record in maintaining company policy, adopting best practices, and is able to exercise sound judgement in the pursuit of the achievement of the goals of the organisation, and understanding the role which operations plays within a successful business unit. The incumbent will be expected to be results driven and to live the values of the organisation. In consideration of the position applied for, which entails the use and handling of firearms, and in compliance with legal regulations, prospective candidates will be required to submit a valid medical certificate confirming their fitness to carry and utilize a firearm before their employment can commence. It is important to note that the medical certificate is not mandatory for the initial interview stage. However, it will become a requirement when a candidate is being seriously considered for the position and subsequently subject to vetting and screening processes.   The submitted medical certificate should not be older than 3 months prior to the date of engagement. Role Responsibility: ATM up time - Ensure that the ATM terminals are correctly stocked with cash and stationary (as per order instruction) - Maintain close liaison with the control centre to ensure that equipment problems are dealt with promptly. - Ensure that potential faults that could cause equipment to malfunction are identified and resolved timeously. - Ensure that all ATM terminals cubicles are kept clean and maintained in good condition. ATM cash / replenishment - Control ATM cash according to laid-down instructions (ATM, bags or canisters must be sealed) - Balance cash at the required intervals (add or top-up). - Ensure correct process has been followed and correct details entered on the ATM (system) - Obtain slip for every replenishment - Report no service or change in service - Report and action differences in ATM cash promptly (daily or as and when required / instructed). - Ensure that ATM cash is safeguarded against unnecessary and preventable loss (at all time) Deposits / Purge Bin - Clear cash deposits accurately promptly if applicable - Hand irregular deposits or those requiring scrutiny to the BSO or any other designated officer for scrutiny promptly. - Ensure Delivery to Bank or G4S Cash Centre Reports / Reconciliation - Action ATM reports as listed on the duty list promptly in terms of laid-down instructions. - Ensure ATM slips are controlled and delivered to the cash centre - Reconcile ATM cash daily (same day) as per laid down procedure - Not allow to leave premises if not in balance  The Ideal Candidate: Minimum requirements: - Grade 12 - PSIRA Grade C - CIT certificate - SAPS Firearm Competency with Business Purposes - 2 Years Experience Skills, Knowledge and Attributes: - G4S Standard Operating Procedures - Firearm Competency - Delivering performance - Customer Thinking We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates, but SA citizens will have a distinct advantage. About the Company: G4S is the world’s leading international security solutions group, which specialises in outsourced business processes in sectors where security and safety risks are considered a strategic threat. G4S is the largest employer quoted on the London Stock Exchange and has a secondary stock exchange listing in Copenhagen. G4S has operations in more than 125 countries and 657,000 employees.  G4S operates in over 25 countries in Africa and employs over 105 000 people on the continent. At G4S South Africa, our vision is to be recognised as the leader in providing security solutions. We therefore endeavour to build and maintain a motivated, capable workforce who are proud to work for our region and able to deliver our commercial strategy. We continue to build on the excellent people management practices which are in place across the Group in order to fully engage our workforce.  G4S is an organisation which is defined by its values, which are: - We act with Integrity and Respect - Our business activities and relationships are built on trust, honesty and openness. We do what we promise and always strive to do the right thing. We listen. We treat our colleagues, customers and those in our care with the utmost respect. - We are passionate about Safety, Security and Service Excellence - We are passionate about working safely and take great care to protect our colleagues and customers from harm. We are experts in security and use that knowledge to protect our customer’s assets. We keep our promises and are passionate about delivering high levels of customer service. - We achieve this through Innovation and Teamwork - We invest in technology and best practice to continuously improve the products and services we offer. We challenge ourselves to find new ways of helping our customers achieve their goals. We work together as a team, valuing everyone’s contribution, to ensure we achieve the best results for our customers and our business.. For more information on G4S, please visit: www.g4s.com  Apply here ATM Custodian - (Mthatha) G4S Cash Solutions South Africa-Expression of Interest Location: Mthatha | Salary: Market Related | Posted: 25 Feb 2025 | Closes: 27 Mar 2025 | Job Type: Full Time and Permanent | Business Unit: South Africa - Cash Solutions | Region / Division: Africa | Reference: G4S/TP/2746313/226603 Remuneration and benefits will be commensurate with the seniority of the role and in compliance with company remuneration policy and practice.  Job Introduction: ATM Custodian G4S Cash Solutions (SA), a leading provider of integrated cash management solutions, has a vacancy for a ATM Custodian based at our operations in ((Mthatha) Reporting to the Planner, this role is responsible for ensuring that ATM's are replenished on time so that customers' machines can operate. The successful incumbent is a self-starter with a proven track record in maintaining company policy, adopting best practices, and is able to exercise sound judgement in the pursuit of the achievement of the goals of the organisation, and understanding the role which operations plays within a successful business unit. The incumbent will be expected to be results driven and to live the values of the organisation. In consideration of the position applied for, which entails the use and handling of firearms, and in compliance with legal regulations, prospective candidates will be required to submit a valid medical certificate confirming their fitness to carry and utilize a firearm before their employment can commence. It is important to note that the medical certificate is not mandatory for the initial interview stage. However, it will become a requirement when a candidate is being seriously considered for the position and subsequently subject to vetting and screening processes.   The submitted medical certificate should not be older than 3 months prior to the date of engagement. Role Responsibility: ATM up time - Ensure that the ATM terminals are correctly stocked with cash and stationary (as per order instruction) - Maintain close liaison with the control centre to ensure that equipment problems are dealt with promptly. - Ensure that potential faults that could cause equipment to malfunction are identified and resolved timeously. - Ensure that all ATM terminals cubicles are kept clean and maintained in good condition. ATM cash / replenishment - Control ATM cash according to laid-down instructions (ATM, bags or canisters must be sealed) - Balance cash at the required intervals (add or top-up). - Ensure correct process has been followed and correct details entered on the ATM (system) - Obtain slip for every replenishment - Report no service or change in service - Report and action differences in ATM cash promptly (daily or as and when required / instructed). - Ensure that ATM cash is safeguarded against unnecessary and preventable loss (at all time) Deposits / Purge Bin - Clear cash deposits accurately promptly if applicable - Hand irregular deposits or those requiring scrutiny to the BSO or any other designated officer for scrutiny promptly. - Ensure Delivery to Bank or G4S Cash Centre Reports / Reconciliation - Action ATM reports as listed on the duty list promptly in terms of laid-down instructions. - Ensure ATM slips are controlled and delivered to the cash centre - Reconcile ATM cash daily (same day) as per laid down procedure - Not allow to leave premises if not in balance  The Ideal Candidate: Minimum requirements: - Grade 12 - PSIRA Grade C - CIT certificate - SAPS Firearm Competency with Business Purposes - 2 Years Experience Skills, Knowledge and Attributes: - G4S Standard Operating Procedures - Firearm Competency - Delivering performance - Customer Thinking We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates, but SA citizens will have a distinct advantage. About the Company: G4S is the world’s leading international security solutions group, which specialises in outsourced business processes in sectors where security and safety risks are considered a strategic threat. G4S is the largest employer quoted on the London Stock Exchange and has a secondary stock exchange listing in Copenhagen. G4S has operations in more than 125 countries and 657,000 employees.  G4S operates in over 25 countries in Africa and employs over 105 000 people on the continent. At G4S South Africa, our vision is to be recognised as the leader in providing security solutions. We therefore endeavour to build and maintain a motivated, capable workforce who are proud to work for our region and able to deliver our commercial strategy. We continue to build on the excellent people management practices which are in place across the Group in order to fully engage our workforce.  G4S is an organisation which is defined by its values, which are: - We act with Integrity and Respect - Our business activities and relationships are built on trust, honesty and openness. We do what we promise and always strive to do the right thing. We listen. We treat our colleagues, customers and those in our care with the utmost respect. - We are passionate about Safety, Security and Service Excellence - We are passionate about working safely and take great care to protect our colleagues and customers from harm. We are experts in security and use that knowledge to protect our customer’s assets. We keep our promises and are passionate about delivering high levels of customer service. - We achieve this through Innovation and Teamwork - We invest in technology and best practice to continuously improve the products and services we offer. We challenge ourselves to find new ways of helping our customers achieve their goals. We work together as a team, valuing everyone’s contribution, to ensure we achieve the best results for our customers and our business., For more information on G4S, please visit: www.g4s.com  Apply here Human Resources Clerk - G4S Secure Solutions South Africa Location: Centurion - Gauteng | Salary: Market Related | Posted: 4 Mar 2025 | Closes: 11 Mar 2025 | Job Type: Full Time and Permanent | Business Unit: South Africa - Secure Solutions | Region / Division: Africa | Reference: Human Resources Clerk l Centurion Remuneration and benefits will be commensurate with the seniority of the role and in compliance with company remuneration policy and practice. Job Introduction: G4S Secure Solutions (SA), a leading provider of integrated security management solutions, has a vacancy for a Human Resources Clerk based at our operations in Centurion,reporting to the Regional Human Resources Manager.  The successful incumbent is a self-starter with a proven track record in maintaining company policy, adopting best practices, and is able to exercise sound judgement in the pursuit of the achievement of the goals of the organisation, and understanding the role which a Human Resources Clerk plays within a successful business unit. The incumbent will be expected to be results driven and to live the values of the organisation. The position requires at least 1-2 years’ experience within a similar  environment. Relevant industry related experience would be advantageous.We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates, but SA citizens will have a distinct advantage. Role Responsibility: Human Resources Clerk  Reporting to the Head of Compensation, Benefits and Administration, the Human Resources Clerk provides Human Resources administrative support services within the region, in compliance with legislation and Company policies and procedures. Effective Performance of Employee Benefit Administrative Functions - Provident Fund Claim administration and submission - UIF forms administration and submission - Long service awards administration - Funeral claim administration and submission - Assist with employee queries on benefits Administration of AWOL Termination Process - Administer awol telegram procedure in line with guidelines and standardized forms - Liaise with operations on progress and feedback on AWOL - Liaise with ER on AWOL report - Issue termination list to central HR Effective and Accurate Maintenance of Employee Personal Files  - Maintain employee files in line with HR policy - Attend to filing on a regular basis and ensure all documentation is accurately files - Prepare for audits as required Health and Safety - Participate in the design/ development/ review/ implementation and monitoring of the branch/region/national safety plans for each year. - Participate in safety forums created by company for example safety meetings and safety talks - Report all safety incidents to the relevant people - Discuss all safety incidents on all levels - Follow-up on any activities assigned through safety meeting/committee/representative/management - Attend safety education and refresher programmes - Comply with safety policies and procedures at workplace - Distribute safety information as and when required - Wear protective clothing all the time. The Ideal Candidate: Qualification  - Grade 12 - Relevant Human Resources  diploma or equivalent Experience  - Relevant experience in an HR Admin role  - Experience in the security industry would be an advantage - South African Labour legislation - G4S HR Policy and procedures - HR systems and practices Skills and Attributes  - Communication (written and verbal) - Supporting and working with others - Computer literacy - Sharing and Co-operating  Attention to detail - Ability to work under pressure - Delivering objectives. Apply here Sales Executive: Access & Beyond | G4S Secure Solutions | Durban Location: Durban | Salary: Market related | Posted: 25 Nov 2024 | Closes: 10 Mar 2025 | Job Type: Full Time and Permanent | Business Unit: South Africa - Secure Solutions | Region / Division: Africa | Reference: Sales Executive A& Remuneration and benefits will be commensurate with the seniority of the role and in compliance with company remuneration policy and practice. Job Introduction: G4S Secure Solutions (SA), a leading provider of integrated security management solutions, has a vacancy for a Sales Executive A&B based at our operations in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, reporting to the General Manager: Access and Beyond. The successful incumbent is a self-starter with a proven track record in maintaining company policy, adopting best practices, and is able to exercise sound judgement in the pursuit of the achievement of the goals of the organisation, and understanding the role which the Sales Executive plays within a successful business unit. The incumbent will be expected to be results driven and to live the values of the organisation. G4S has been made aware of phishing scams where someone has used the G4S brand to try and extort money from others in exchange for fictitious valuable assets/ employment opportunities. If you receive an email offering to transfer money or valuable assets to you from a person who claims to work for G4S please be aware this could be a scam. If you receive an email from someone claiming to work for G4S and you think it could be a scam, please let us know by contacting us at dataprotectionreport@g4s.com Role Responsibility: Effective compilation of sales quotations and tender documentation in compliance with business strategy - Effective application and control of company selling price list as per mark-up margins in line with sales strategy. - Finalize and accept customer quotations by written signed notification or as per purchase order number. - Effective adherence to company policies and procedures - Prepare and submit sales proposals and tenders to prospective customers, where necessary, prepare and conduct sales presentations and complete marketing packs. Effective development of new business in line with sales targets - Ensure effective development of sales of new and existing product lines - Identification of potential new business opportunities for security solutions through consultation - Arrange and conduct meetings with new and existing business prospects - Conduct / arrange site surveys to identify risks and develop appropriate solutions enabling system design - Conduct competitor evaluations to identify risks and develop appropriate solutions through understanding of the competitive environment. - Liaise with operations on competitor analysis to share knowledge and focus on viable business opportunities. - Reach and achieve sales targets, focusing on high margin business. Effective performance and reporting of sales and administrative activities and functions - Preparation and submission of weekly sales reports and contract documentation. - Ensure that the ERP systems are constantly updated and maintained with all required information on new and existing customers. Customer Retention and corporate account management - Monitor relationships with designated top customers, scheduling regular visits - Achieve and maintain customer retention Health and Safety - Participate in the design/ development/ review/ implementation and monitoring of the departmental safety plans for each year - Participate in safety forums created by the company for example safety meetings and safety talks - Report all safety incidents to the relevant people - Discuss all safety incidents - Follow-up on any activities assigned through safety meeting/committee/representative/management - Attend safety education and refresher programs - Comply with safety policies and procedures at the workplace - Distribute safety information as and when required. Read the full article

[dailyanarchistposts]

I.1.1 Is socialism impossible?

In 1920, the right-wing economist Ludwig von Mises declared socialism to be impossible. A leading member of the “Austrian” school of economics, he argued this on the grounds that without private ownership of the means of production, there cannot be a competitive market for production goods and without a market for production goods, it is impossible to determine their values. Without knowing their values, economic rationality is impossible and so a socialist economy would simply be chaos: “the absurd output of a senseless apparatus.” For Mises, socialism meant central planning with the economy “subject to the control of a supreme authority.” [“Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”, pp. 87–130, Collectivist Economic Planning, F.A von Hayek (ed.), p. 104 and p. 106] While applying his “economic calculation argument” to Marxist ideas of a future socialist society, his argument, it is claimed, is applicable to all schools of socialist thought, including libertarian ones. It is on the basis of his arguments that many right-wingers claim that libertarian (or any other kind of) socialism is impossible in principle.

Yet as David Schweickart observes ”[i]t has long been recognised that Mises’s argument is logically defective. Even without a market in production goods, their monetary values can be determined.” [Against Capitalism, p. 88] In other words, economic calculation based on prices is perfectly possible in a libertarian socialist system. After all, to build a workplace requires so many tonnes of steel, so many bricks, so many hours of work and so on. If we assume a mutualist society, then the prices of these goods can be easily found as the co-operatives in question would be offer their services on the market. These commodities would be the inputs for the construction of production goods and so the latter’s monetary values can be found.

Ironically enough, Mises did mention the idea of such a mutualist system in his initial essay. “Exchange relations between production-goods can only be established on the basis of private ownership of the means of production” he asserted. “When the ‘coal syndicate’ provides the ‘iron syndicate’ with coal, no price can be formed, except when both syndicates are the owners of the means of production employed in their business. This would not be socialisation but workers’ capitalism and syndicalism.” [Op. Cit., p. 112] However, his argument is flawed for numerous reasons.

First, and most obvious, socialisation (as we discuss in section I.3.3) simply means free access to the means of life. As long as those who join a workplace have the same rights and liberties as existing members then there is socialisation. A market system of co-operatives, in other words, is not capitalist as there is no wage labour involved as a new workers become full members of the syndicate, with the same rights and freedoms as existing members. Thus there are no hierarchical relationships between owners and wage slaves (even if these owners also happen to work there). As all workers’ control the means of production they use, it is not capitalism.

Second, nor is such a system usually called, as Mises suggests, “syndicalism” but rather mutualism and he obviously considered its most famous advocate, Proudhon and his “fantastic dreams” of a mutual bank, as a socialist. [Op. Cit., p. 88] Significantly, Mises subsequently admitted that it was “misleading” to call syndicalism workers’ capitalism, although “the workers are the owners of the means of production” it was “not genuine socialism, that is, centralised socialism”, as it “must withdraw productive goods from the market. Individual citizens must not dispose of the shares in the means of production which are allotted to them.” Syndicalism, i.e., having those who do the work control of it, was “the ideal of plundering hordes”! [Socialism, p. 274fn, p. 270, p. 273 and p. 275]

His followers, likewise, concluded that “syndicalism” was not capitalism with Hayek stating that there were “many types of socialism” including “communism, syndicalism, guild socialism”. Significantly, he indicated that Mises argument was aimed at systems based on the “central direction of all economic activity” and so “earlier systems of more decentralised socialism, like guild-socialism or syndicalism, need not concern us here since it seems now to be fairly generally admitted that they provide no mechanism whatever for a rational direction of economic activity.” [“The Nature and History of the Problem”, pp. 1–40, Collectivist Economic Planning, F.A von Hayek (ed.),p. 17, p. 36 and p. 19] Sadly he failed to indicate who “generally admitted” such a conclusion. More recently, Murray Rothbard urged the state to impose private shares onto the workers in the former Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe as ownership was “not to be granted to collectives or co-operatives or workers or peasants holistically, which would only bring back the ills of socialism in a decentralised and chaotic syndicalist form.” [The Logic of Action II, p. 210]

Third, syndicalism usually refers to a strategy (revolutionary unionism) used to achieve (libertarian) socialism rather than the goal itself (as Mises himself noted in a tirade against unions, “Syndicalism is nothing else but the French word for trade unionism” [Socialism, p. 480]). It could be argued that such a mutualist system could be an aim for some syndicalists, although most were and still are in favour of libertarian communism (a simple fact apparently unknown to Mises). Indeed, Mises ignorance of syndicalist thought is striking, asserting that the “market is a consumers’ democracy. The syndicalists want to transform it into a producers’ democracy.” [Human Action, p. 809] Most syndicalists, however, aim to abolish the market and all aim for workers’ control of production to complement (not replace) consumer choice. Syndicalists, like other anarchists, do not aim for workers’ control of consumption as Mises asserts. Given that Mises asserts that the market, in which one person can have a thousand votes and another one, is a “democracy” his ignorance of syndicalist ideas is perhaps only one aspect of a general ignorance of reality.

More importantly, the whole premise of his critique of mutualism is flawed. “Exchange relations in productive goods” he asserted, “can only be established on the basis of private property in the means of production. If the Coal Syndicate delivers coal to the Iron Syndicate a price can be fixed only if both syndicates own the means of production in industry.” [Socialism, p. 132] This may come as a surprise to the many companies whose different workplaces sell each other their products! In other words, capitalism itself shows that workplaces owned by the same body (in this case, a large company) can exchange goods via the market. That Mises makes such a statement indicates well the firm basis of his argument in reality. Thus a socialist society can have extensive autonomy for its co-operatives, just as a large capitalist firm can:

“the entrepreneur is in a position to separate the calculation of each part of his total enterprise in such a way that he can determine the role it plays within his whole enterprise. Thus he can look at each section as if it were a separate entity and can appraise it according to the share it contributes to the success of the total enterprise. Within this system of business calculation each section of a firm represents an integral entity, a hypothetical independent business, as it were. It is assumed that this section ‘owns’ a definite part of the whole capital employed in the enterprise, that it buys from other sections and sells to them, that it has its own expenses and its own revenues, that its dealings result either in a profit or in a loss which is imputed to its own conduct of affairs as distinguished from the result of the other sections. Thus the entrepreneur can assign to each section’s management a great deal of independence … Every manager and submanager is responsible for the working of his section or subsection. It is to his credit if the accounts show a profit, and it is to his disadvantage if they show a loss. His own interests impel him toward the utmost care and exertion in the conduct of his section’s affairs.” [Human Action, pp. 301–2]

So much, then, for the notion that common ownership makes it impossible for market socialism to work. After all, the libertarian community can just as easily separate the calculation of each part of its enterprise in such a way as to determine the role each co-operative plays in its economy. It can look at each section as if it were a separate entity and appraise it according to the share it contributes as it is assumed that each section “owns” (i.e., has use rights over) its definite part. It can then buy from, and sell to, other co-operatives and a profit or loss can be imputed to evaluate the independent action of each co-operative and so their own interests impel the co-operative workers toward the utmost care and exertion in the conduct of their co-operative’s affairs.

So to refute Mises, we need only repeat what he himself argued about large corporations! Thus there can be extensive autonomy for workplaces under socialism and this does not in any way contradict the fact that “all the means of production are the property of the community.” [“Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”, Op. Cit., p. 89] Socialisation, in other words, does not imply central planning but rather free access and free association. In summary, then, Mises confused property rights with use rights, possession with property, and failed to see now a mutualist system of socialised co-operatives exchanging products can be a viable alternative to the current exploitative and oppressive economic regime.

Such a mutualist economy also strikes at the heart of Mises’ claims that socialism was “impossible.” Given that he accepted that there may be markets, and hence market prices, for consumer goods in a socialist economy his claims of the impossibility of socialism seems unfounded. For Mises, the problem for socialism was that “because no production-good will ever become the object of exchange, it will be impossible to determine its monetary value.” [Op. Cit., p. 92] The flaw in his argument is clear. Taking, for example, coal, we find that it is both a means of production and of consumption. If a market in consumer goods is possible for a socialist system, then competitive prices for production goods is also possible as syndicates producing production-goods would also sell the product of their labour to other syndicates or communes. As Mises admitted when discussing one scheme of guild socialism, “associations and sub-associations maintain a mutual exchange-relationship; they receive and give as if they were owners. Thus a market and market-prices are formed.” Thus, when deciding upon a new workplace, railway or house, the designers in question do have access to competitive prices with which to make their decisions. Nor does Mises’ argument work against communal ownership in such a system as the commune would be buying products from syndicates in the same way as one part of a company can buy products from another part of the same company under capitalism. That goods produced by self-managed syndicates have market-prices does not imply capitalism for, as they abolish wage labour and are based on free-access (socialisation), it is a form of socialism (as socialists define it, Mises’ protestations that “this is incompatible with socialism” not-with-standing!). [Socialism, p. 518]

Murray Rothbard suggested that a self-managed system would fail, and a system “composed exclusively of self-managed enterprises is impossible, and would lead … to calculative chaos and complete breakdown.” When “each firm is owned jointly by all factor-owners” then “there is no separation at all between workers, landowners, capitalists, and entrepreneurs. There would be no way, then, of separating the wage incomes received from the interest or rent incomes or profits received. And now we finally arrive at the real reason why the economy cannot consist completely of such firms (called ‘producers’ co-operatives’). For, without an external market for wage rates, rents, and interest, there would be no rational way for entrepreneurs to allocate factors in accordance with the wishes of the consumers. No one would know where he could allocate his land or his labour to provide the maximum monetary gains. No entrepreneur would know how to arrange factors in their most value-productive combination to earn greatest profit. There could be no efficiency in production because the requisite knowledge would be lacking.” [quoted by David L. Prychitko, Markets, Planning and Democracy, p. 135 and p. 136]

It is hard to take this argument seriously. Consider, for example, a pre-capitalist society of farmers and artisans. Both groups of people own their own means of production (the land and the tools they use). The farmers grow crops for the artisans who, in turn, provide the farmers with the tools they use. According to Rothbard, the farmers would have no idea what to grow nor would the artisans know which tools to buy to meet the demand of the farmers nor which to use to reduce their working time. Presumably, both the farmers and artisans would stay awake at night worrying what to produce, wishing they had a landlord and boss to tell them how best to use their labour and resources.

Let us add the landlord class to this society. Now the landlord can tell the farmer what to grow as their rent income indicates how to allocate the land to its most productive use. Except, of course, it is still the farmers who decide what to produce. Knowing that they will need to pay rent (for access to the land) they will decide to devote their (rented) land to the most profitable use in order to both pay the rent and have enough to live on. Why they do not seek the most profitable use without the need for rent is not explored by Rothbard. Much the same can be said of artisans subject to a boss, for the worker can evaluate whether an investment in a specific new tool will result in more income or reduced time labouring or whether a new product will likely meet the needs of consumers. Moving from a pre-capitalist society to a post-capitalist one, it is clear that a system of self-managed co-operatives can make the same decisions without requiring economic masters. This is unsurprising, given that Mises’ asserted that the boss “of course exercises power over the workers” but that the “lord of production is the consumer.” [Socialism, p. 443] In which case, the boss need not be an intermediary between the real “lord” and those who do the production!

All in all, Rothbard confirms Kropotkin’s comments that economics (“that pseudo-science of the bourgeoisie”) “does not cease to give praise in every way to the benefits of individual property” yet “the economists do not conclude, ‘The land to him who cultivates it.’ On the contrary, they hasten to deduce from the situation, ‘The land to the lord who will get it cultivated by wage earners!’” [Words of a Rebel, pp. 209–10] In addition, Rothbard implicitly places “efficiency” above liberty, preferring dubious “efficiency” gains to the actual gains in freedom which the abolition of workplace autocracy would create. Given a choice between liberty and “efficiency”, the genuine anarchist would prefer liberty. Luckily, though, workplace liberty increases efficiency so Rothbard’s decision is a wrong one. It should also be noted that Rothbard’s position (as is usually the case) is directly opposite that of Proudhon, who considered it “inevitable” that in a free society “the two functions of wage-labourer on the one hand, and of proprietor-capitalist-contractor on the other, become equal and inseparable in the person of every workingman”. This was the “first principle of the new economy, a principle full of hope and of consolation for the labourer without capital, but a principle full of terror for the parasite and for the tools of parasitism, who see reduced to naught their celebrated formula: Capital, labour, talent!” [Proudhon’s Solution of the Social Problem, p. 165 and p. 85]

And it does seem a strange co-incidence that someone born into a capitalist economy, ideologically supporting it with a passion and seeking to justify its class system just happens to deduce from a given set of axioms that landlords and capitalists happen to play a vital role in the economy! It would not take too much time to determine if someone in a society without landlords or capitalists would also logically deduce from the same axioms the pressing economic necessity for such classes. Nor would it take long to ponder why Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, concluded that slavery was natural. And it does seem strange that centuries of coercion, authority, statism, classes and hierarchies all had absolutely no impact on how society evolved, as the end product of real history (the capitalist economy) just happens to be the same as Rothbard’s deductions from a few assumptions predict. Little wonder, then, that “Austrian” economics seems more like rationalisations for some ideologically desired result than a serious economic analysis.

Even some dissident “Austrian” economists recognise the weakness of Rothbard’s position. Thus “Rothbard clearly misunderstands the general principle behind producer co-operatives and self-management in general.” In reality, ”[a]s a democratic method of enterprise organisation, workers’ self-management is, in principle, fully compatible with a market system” and so “a market economy comprised of self-managed enterprises is consistent with Austrian School theory … It is fundamentally a market-based system … that doesn’t seem to face the epistemological hurdles … that prohibit rational economic calculation” under state socialism. Sadly, socialism is still equated with central planning, for such a system “is certainly not socialism. Nor, however, is it capitalism in the conventional sense of the term.” In fact, it is not capitalism at all and if we assume that free access to resources such as workplaces and credit, then it most definitely is socialism (“Legal ownership is not the chief issue in defining workers’ self-management — management is. Worker-managers, though not necessarily the legal owners of all the factors of production collected within the firm, are free to experiment and establish enterprise policy as they see fit.”). [David L. Prychitko, Op. Cit., p. 136, p. 135, pp. 4–5, p. 4 and p. 135] This suggests that non-labour factors can be purchased from other co-operatives, credit provided by mutual banks (credit co-operatives) at cost and so forth. As such, a mutualist system is perfectly feasible.

Thus economic calculation based on competitive market prices is possible under a socialist system. Indeed, we see examples of this even under capitalism. For example, the Mondragon co-operative complex in the Basque Country indicate that a libertarian socialist economy can exist and flourish. Perhaps it will be suggested that an economy needs stock markets to price companies, as Mises did. Thus investment is “not a matter for the mangers of joint stock companies, it is essentially a matter of the capitalists” in the “stock exchanges”. Investment, he asserted, was “not a matter of wages” of managers but of “the capitalist who buys and sell stocks and shares, who make loans and recover them, who make deposits in the banks.” [Socialism, p. 139]

It would be churlish to note that the members of co-operatives under capitalism, like most working class people, are more than able to make deposits in banks and arrange loans. In a mutualist economy, workers will not loose this ability just because the banks are themselves co-operatives. Similarly, it would be equally churlish but essential to note that the stock market is hardly the means by which capital is actually raised within capitalism. As David Engler points out, ”[s]upporters of the system … claim that stock exchanges mobilise funds for business. Do they? When people buy and sell shares, ‘no investment goes into company treasuries … Shares simply change hands for cash in endless repetition.’ Company treasuries get funds only from new equity issues. These accounted for an average of a mere 0.5 per cent of shares trading in the US during the 1980s.” [Apostles of Greed, pp. 157–158] This is echoed by David Ellerman:

“In spite of the stock market’s large symbolic value, it is notorious that it has relatively little to do with the production of goods and services in the economy (the gambling industry aside). The overwhelming bulk of stock transactions are in second-hand shares so that the capital paid for shares usually goes to other stock traders, not to productive enterprises issuing new shares.” [The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 199]

This suggests that the “efficient allocation of capital in production does not require a stock market (witness the small business sector [under capitalism]).” “Socialist firms,” he notes, “are routinely attacked as being inherently inefficient because they have no equity shares exposed to market valuation. If this argument had any merit, it would imply that the whole sector of unquoted closely-held small and medium-sized firms in the West was ‘inherently inefficient’ — a conclusion that must be viewed with some scepticism. Indeed, in the comparison to large corporations with publicly-traded shares, the closely-held firms are probably more efficient users of capital.” [Op. Cit., p. 200 and p. 199]

In terms of the impact of the stock market on the economy there is good reason to think that this hinders economic efficiency by generating a perverse set of incentives and misleading information flows and so their abolition would actually aid production and productive efficiency).

Taking the first issue, the existence of a stock market has serious (negative) effects on investment. As Doug Henwood notes, there “are serious communication problems between managers and shareholders.” This is because ”[e]ven if participants are aware of an upward bias to earnings estimates [of companies], and even if they correct for it, managers would still have an incentive to try to fool the market. If you tell the truth, your accurate estimate will be marked down by a sceptical market. So, it’s entirely rational for managers to boost profits in the short term, either through accounting gimmickry or by making only investments with quick paybacks.” So, managers “facing a market [the stock market] that is famous for its preference for quick profits today rather than patient long-term growth have little choice but to do its bidding. Otherwise, their stock will be marked down, and the firm ripe for take-over.” While ”[f]irms and economies can’t get richer by starving themselves” stock market investors “can get richer when the companies they own go hungry — at least in the short term. As for the long term, well, that’s someone else’s problem the week after next.” [Wall Street, p. 171]

Ironically, this situation has a parallel with Stalinist central planning. Under that system the managers of State workplaces had an incentive to lie about their capacity to the planning bureaucracy. The planner would, in turn, assume higher capacity, so harming honest managers and encouraging them to lie. This, of course, had a seriously bad impact on the economy. Unsurprisingly, the similar effects caused by capital markets on economies subject to them are as bad as well as downplaying long term issues and investment. In addition, it should be noted that stock-markets regularly experiences bubbles and subsequent bursts. Stock markets may reflect the collective judgements of investors, but it says little about the quality of those judgements. What use are stock prices if they simply reflect herd mentality, the delusions of people ignorant of the real economy or who fail to see a bubble? Particularly when the real-world impact when such bubbles burst can be devastating to those uninvolved with the stock market?

In summary, then, firms are “over-whelmingly self-financing — that is, most of their investment expenditures are funded through profits (about 90%, on longer-term averages)” The stock markets provide “only a sliver of investment funds.” There are, of course, some “periods like the 1990s, during which the stock market serves as a conduit for shovelling huge amounts of cash into speculative venues, most of which have evaporated … Much, maybe most, of what was financed in the 1990s didn’t deserve the money.” Such booms do not last forever and are “no advertisement for the efficiency of our capital markets.” [Henwood, After the New Economy, p. 187 and p. 188]

Thus there is substantial reason to question the suggestion that a stock market is necessary for the efficient allocation of capital. There is no need for capital markets in a system based on mutual banks and networks of co-operatives. As Henwood concludes, “the signals emitted by the stock market are either irrelevant or harmful to real economic activity, and that the stock market itself counts little or nothing as a source of finance. Shareholders … have no useful role.” [Wall Street, p. 292]

Then there is also the ironic nature of Rothbard’s assertion that self-management would ensure there “could be no efficiency in production because the requisite knowledge would be lacking.” This is because capitalist firms are hierarchies, based on top-down central planning, and this hinders the free flow of knowledge and information. As with Stalinism, within the capitalist firm information passes up the organisational hierarchy and becomes increasingly simplified and important local knowledge and details lost (when not deliberately falsified to ensure continual employment by suppressing bad news). The top-management takes decisions based on highly aggregated data, the quality of which is hard to know. The management, then, suffers from information and knowledge deficiencies while the workers below lack sufficient autonomy to act to correct inefficiencies as well as incentive to communicate accurate information and act to improve the production process. As Cornelius Castoriadis correctly noted:

“Bureaucratic planning is nothing but the extension to the economy as a whole of the methods created and applied by capitalism in the ‘rational’ direction of large production units. If we consider the most profound feature of the economy, the concrete situation in which people are placed, we see that bureaucratic planning is the most highly perfected realisation of the spirit of capitalism; it pushes to the limit its most significant tendencies. Just as in the management of a large capitalist production unit, this type of planning is carried out by a separate stratum of managers … Its essence, like that of capitalist production, lies in an effort to reduce the direct producers to the role of pure and simple executants of received orders, orders formulated by a particular stratum that pursues its own interests. This stratum cannot run things well, just as the management apparatus … [in capitalist] factories cannot run things well. The myth of capitalism’s productive efficiency at the level of the individual factory, a myth shared by bourgeois and Stalinist ideologues alike, cannot stand up to the most elemental examination of the facts, and any industrial worker could draw up a devastating indictment against capitalist ‘rationalisation’ judged on its own terms. “First of all, the managerial bureaucracy does not know what it is supposed to be managing. The reality of production escapes it, for this reality is nothing but the activity of the producers, and the producers do not inform the managers … about what is really taking place. Quite often they organise themselves in such a way that the managers won’t be informed (in order to avoid increased exploitation, because they feel antagonistic, or quite simply because they have no interest: It isn’t their business). “In the second place, the way in which production is organised is set up entirely against the workers. They always are being asked, one way or another, to do more work without getting paid for it. Management’s orders, therefore, inevitably meet with fierce resistance on the part of those who have to carry them out.” [Political and Social Writings, vol. 2, pp. 62–3]

This is “the same objection as that Hayek raises against the possibility of a planned economy. Indeed, the epistemological problems that Hayek raised against centralised planned economies have been echoed within the socialist tradition as a problem within the capitalist firm.” There is “a real conflict within the firm that parallels that which Hayek makes about any centralised economy.” [John O’Neill, The Market, p. 142] This is because workers have knowledge about their work and workplace that their bosses lack and a self-managed co-operative workplace would motivate workers to use such information to improve the firm’s performance. In a capitalist workplace, as in a Stalinist economy, the workers have no incentive to communicate this information as “improvements in the organisation and methods of production initiated by workers essentially profit capital, which often then seizes hold of them and turns them against the workers. The workers know it and consequently they restrict their participation in production … They restrict their output; they keep their ideas to themselves . .. They organise among themselves to carry out their work, all the while keeping up a facade of respect for the official way they are supposed to organise their work.” [Castoriadis, Op. Cit., pp. 181–2] An obvious example would be concerns that management would seek to monopolise the workers’ knowledge in order to accumulate more profits, better control the workforce or replace them (using the higher productivity as an excuse). Thus self-management rather than hierarchy enhances the flow and use of information in complex organisations and so improves efficiency.

This conclusion, it should be stressed, is not idle speculation and that Mises was utterly wrong in his assertions related to self-management. People, he stated, “err” in thinking that profit-sharing “would spur the worker on to a more zealous fulfilment of his duties” (indeed, it “must lead straight to Syndicalism”) and it was “nonsensical to give ‘labour’ … a share in management. The realisation of such a postulate would result in syndicalism.” [Socialism, p. 268, p. 269 and p. 305] Yet, as we note in section I.3.2, the empirical evidence is overwhelmingly against Mises (which suggests why “Austrians” are so dismissive of empirical evidence, as it exposes flaws in the great chains of deductive reasoning they so love). In fact, workers’ participation in management and profit sharing enhance productivity. In one sense, though, Mises is right, in that capitalist firms will tend not to encourage participation or even profit sharing as it shows to workers the awkward fact that while the bosses may need them, they do not need the bosses. As discussed in section J.5.12, bosses are fearful that such schemes will lead to “syndicalism” and so quickly stop them in order to remain in power — in spite (or, more accurately, because) of the efficiency and productivity gains they result in.

“Both capitalism and state socialism,” summarises Ellerman, “suffer from the motivational inefficiency of the employment relation.” Op. Cit., pp. 210–1] Mutualism would be more efficient as well as freer for, once the stock market and workplace hierarchies are removed, serious blocks and distortions to information flow will be eliminated.

Unfortunately, the state socialists who replied to Mises in the 1920s and 1930s did not have such a libertarian economy in mind. In response to Mises initial challenge, a number of economists pointed out that Pareto’s disciple, Enrico Barone, had already, 13 years earlier, demonstrated the theoretical possibility of a “market-simulated socialism.” However, the principal attack on Mises’s argument came from Fred Taylor and Oscar Lange (for a collection of their main papers, see On the Economic Theory of Socialism). In light of their work, Hayek shifted the question from theoretical impossibility to whether the theoretical solution could be approximated in practice. Which raises an interesting question, for if (state) socialism is “impossible” (as Mises assured us) then what did collapse in Eastern Europe? If the “Austrians” claim it was “socialism” then they are in the somewhat awkward position that something they assure us is “impossible” existed for decades. Moreover, it should be noted that both sides of the argument accepted the idea of central planning of some kind or another. This means that most of the arguments of Mises and Hayek did not apply to libertarian socialism, which rejects central planning along with every other form of centralisation.

Nor was the response by Taylor and Lange particularly convincing in the first place. This was because it was based far more on neo-classical capitalist economic theory than on an appreciation of reality. In place of the Walrasian “Auctioneer” (the “god in the machine” of general equilibrium theory which ensures that all markets clear) Taylor and Lange presented the “Central Planning Board” whose job it was to adjust prices so that all markets cleared. Neo-classical economists who are inclined to accept Walrasian theory as an adequate account of a working capitalist economy will be forced to accept the validity of their model of “socialism.” Little wonder Taylor and Lange were considered, at the time, the victors in the “socialist calculation” debate by most of the economics profession (with the collapse of the Soviet Union, this decision has been revised somewhat — although we must point out that Taylor and Lange’s model was not the same as the Soviet system, a fact conveniently ignored by commentators).

Unfortunately, given that Walrasian theory has little bearing to reality, we must also come to the conclusion that the Taylor-Lange “solution” has about the same relevance (even ignoring its non-libertarian aspects, such as its basis in state-ownership, its centralisation, its lack of workers’ self-management and so on). Many people consider Taylor and Lange as fore-runners of “market socialism.” This is incorrect — rather than being market socialists, they are in fact “neo-classical” socialists, building a “socialist” system which mimics capitalist economic theory rather than its reality. Replacing Walrus’s mythical creation of the “Auctioneer” with a planning board does not really get to the heart of the problem! Nor does their vision of “socialism” have much appeal — a re-production of capitalism with a planning board and a more equal distribution of money income. Anarchists reject such “socialism” as little more than a nicer version of capitalism, if that.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has been fashionable to assert that “Mises was right” and that socialism is impossible (of course, during the cold war such claims were ignored as the Soviet threat had to boosted and used as a means of social control and to justify state aid to capitalist industry). Nothing could be further from the truth as these countries were not socialist at all and did not even approximate the (libertarian) socialist idea (the only true form of socialism). The Stalinist countries had authoritarian “command economies” with bureaucratic central planning, and so their failure cannot be taken as proof that a decentralised, libertarian socialism cannot work. Nor can Mises’ and Hayek’s arguments against Taylor and Lange be used against a libertarian mutualist or collectivist system as such a system is decentralised and dynamic (unlike the “neo-classical” socialist model). Libertarian socialism of this kind did, in fact, work remarkably well during the Spanish Revolution in the face of amazing difficulties, with increased productivity and output in many workplaces as well as increased equality and liberty (see section I.8).

Thus the “calculation argument” does not prove that socialism is impossible. Mises was wrong in asserting that “a socialist system with a market and market prices is as self-contradictory as is the notion of a triangular square.” [Human Action, p. 706] This is because capitalism is not defined by markets as such but rather by wage labour, a situation where working class people do not have free access to the means of production and so have to sell their labour (and so liberty) to those who do. If quoting Engels is not too out of place, the “object of production — to produce commodities — does not import to the instrument the character of capital” as the “production of commodities is one of the preconditions for the existence of capital .. . as long as the producer sells only what he himself produces, he is not a capitalist; he becomes so only from the moment he makes use of his instrument to exploit the wage labour of others.” [Collected Works, Vol. 47, pp. 179–80] In this, as noted in section C.2.1, Engels was merely echoing Marx (who, in turn, was simply repeating Proudhon’s distinction between property and possession). As mutualism eliminates wage labour by self-management and free access to the means of production, its use of markets and prices (both of which pre-date capitalism) does not mean it is not socialist (and as we note in section G.1.1 Marx, Engels, Bakunin and Kropotkin, like Mises, acknowledged Proudhon as being a socialist). This focus on the market, as David Schweickart suggests, is no accident:

“The identification of capitalism with the market is a pernicious error of both conservative defenders of laissez-faire [capitalism] and most left opponents … If one looks at the works of the major apologists for capitalism … one finds the focus of the apology always on the virtues of the market and on the vices of central planning. Rhetorically this is an effective strategy, for it is much easier to defend the market than to defend the other two defining institutions of capitalism. Proponents of capitalism know well that it is better to keep attention toward the market and away from wage labour or private ownership of the means of production.” [“Market Socialism: A Defense”, pp. 7–22, Market Socialism: the debate among socialists, Bertell Ollman (ed.), p. 11]

The theoretical work of such socialists as David Schweickart (see his books Against Capitalism and After Capitalism) present an extensive discussion of a dynamic, decentralised market socialist system which has obvious similarities with mutualism — a link which some Leninists recognise and stress in order to discredit market socialism via guilt-by-association (Proudhon “the anarchist and inveterate foe of Karl Marx … put forward a conception of society, which is probably the first detailed exposition of a ‘socialist market.’” [Hillel Ticktin, “The Problem is Market Socialism”, pp. 55–80, Op. Cit., p. 56]). So far, most models of market socialism have not been fully libertarian, but instead involve the idea of workers’ control within a framework of state ownership of capital (Engler in Apostles of Greed is an exception to this, supporting community ownership). Ironically, while these Leninists reject the idea of market socialism as contradictory and, basically, not socialist they usually acknowledge that the transition to Marxist-communism under their workers’ state would utilise the market.

So, as anarchist Robert Graham points out, “Market socialism is but one of the ideas defended by Proudhon which is both timely and controversial … Proudhon’s market socialism is indissolubly linked with his notions of industrial democracy and workers’ self-management.” [“Introduction”, P-J Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution, p. xxxii] As we discuss in section I.3.5 Proudhon’s system of agro-industrial federations can be seen as a non-statist way of protecting self-management, liberty and equality in the face of market forces (Proudhon, unlike individualist anarchists, was well aware of the negative aspects of markets and the way market forces can disrupt society). Dissident economist Geoffrey M. Hodgson is right to suggest that Proudhon’s system, in which “each co-operative association would be able to enter into contractual relations with others”, could be “described as an early form of ‘market socialism’”. In fact, “instead of Lange-type models, the term ‘market socialism’ is more appropriately to such systems. Market socialism, in this more appropriate and meaningful sense, involves producer co-operatives that are owned by the workers within them. Such co-operatives sell their products on markets, with genuine exchanges of property rights” (somewhat annoyingly, Hodgson incorrectly asserts that “Proudhon described himself as an anarchist, not a socialist” when, in reality, the French anarchist repeatedly referred to himself and his mutualist system as socialist). [Economics and Utopia, p. 20, p. 37 and p. 20]

Thus it is possible for a socialist economy to allocate resources using markets. By suppressing capital markets and workplace hierarchies, a mutualist system will improve upon capitalism by removing an important source of perverse incentives which hinder efficient use of resources as well as long term investment and social responsibility in addition to reducing inequalities and increasing freedom. As David Ellerman once noted, many “still look at the world in bipolar terms: capitalism or (state) socialism.” Yet there “are two broad traditions of socialism: state socialism and self-management socialism. State socialism is based on government ownership of major industry, while self-management socialism envisions firms being worker self-managed and not owned or managed by the government.” [Op. Cit., p. 147] Mutualism is a version of the second vision and anarchists reject the cosy agreement between mainstream Marxists and their ideological opponents on the propertarian right that only state socialism is “real” socialism.

Finally, it should be noted that most anarchists are not mutualists but rather aim for (libertarian) communism, the abolition of money. Many do see a mutualist-like system as an inevitable stage in a social revolution, the transitional form imposed by the objective conditions facing a transformation of a society marked by thousands of years of oppression and exploitation (collectivist-anarchism contains elements of both mutualism and communism, with most of its supporters seeing it as a transitional system). This is discussed in section I.2.2, while section I.1.3 indicates why most anarchists reject even non-capitalist markets. So does Mises’s argument mean that a socialism that abolishes the market (such as libertarian communism) is impossible? Given that the vast majority of anarchists seek a libertarian communist society, this is an important question. We address it in the next section.

[mondosol]

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Carla Banks - The Forest of Souls

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Company Formation in Poland and Accounting Services in Poland

Introduction to Company Formation in Poland

Poland has become one of the top destinations in Europe for business expansion. Its strategic location, growing economy, and investment-friendly policies make it an attractive option for entrepreneurs. Setting up a Company Formation in Poland requires compliance with local regulations, which is why hiring experts like Gurcan Partners can be beneficial.

Why Choose Poland for Company Formation?

Poland offers numerous advantages for business owners, including:

Strategic Location – Situated in Central Europe, Poland provides easy access to EU markets.

Business-Friendly Environment – Government incentives and tax benefits encourage foreign investment.

Skilled Workforce – A well-educated and skilled labor pool supports business growth.

Legal Requirements for Company Formation in Poland

Understanding the legal framework is crucial for establishing a business in Poland.

Types of Business Entities in Poland

Sole Proprietorship – Ideal for freelancers and small businesses.

Limited Liability Company (Sp. z o.o.) – The most popular structure, offering liability protection.

Joint-Stock Company (S.A.) – Suitable for large corporations and public listings.

Branch Office – Allows foreign companies to operate in Poland without full incorporation.

Steps for Company Formation in Poland

Choose a company name – Ensure it is unique and available for registration.

Prepare incorporation documents – Draft and notarize the articles of association.

Register with the National Court Register (KRS) – Official company registration.

Obtain a tax identification number (NIP) – Essential for tax filings.

Open a business bank account – Required for financial transactions.

Register for VAT and social security – Ensure compliance with tax regulations.

Costs and Timeline for Setting Up a Business in Poland

Cost: The registration fee varies based on company type, typically ranging from €1,000 to €5,000.

Timeframe: Company formation can take 2-6 weeks depending on the complexity of the process.

Benefits of Hiring Gurcan Partners for Business Setup

Gurcan Partners provides legal expertise, tax advisory, and compliance support to streamline the process. Their team ensures smooth business registration and adherence to local laws.

Accounting Services in Poland

Importance of Accounting Services in Poland

Proper accounting is essential for financial stability and legal compliance. Businesses need expert accountants to handle tax filings, financial reporting, and payroll management.

Key Accounting Services in Poland

Bookkeeping and Financial Reporting

Monthly and annual financial statements.

Cash flow and expense tracking.

Tax Advisory and Compliance

VAT registration and filing – Mandatory for businesses exceeding the VAT threshold.

Corporate Income Tax (CIT) management – Ensuring compliance with Polish tax laws.

Payroll Services

Salary calculations and disbursements.

Social security and pension contributions.

Why Choose Gurcan Partners for Accounting and Legal Services?

Gurcan Partners provides a one-stop solution for company formation, accounting, and tax compliance. Their experts assist with:

Bookkeeping and financial reporting

Tax compliance and advisory

Payroll processing

Business consulting

Common Challenges in Company Formation and Accounting

Bureaucratic hurdles – Navigating complex paperwork.

Language barriers – Polish regulations require local expertise.

Tax complexities – Understanding Polish tax laws can be challenging.

Conclusion

Poland is a great destination for entrepreneurs, offering a stable economy and a strategic location. However, company formation in Poland and accounting services in Poland require professional guidance. Gurcan Partners provides expert support in company registration, legal compliance, and financial management.

FAQs

How long does it take to set up a company in Poland? It typically takes between 2 to 6 weeks, depending on the business structure and documentation.

Do I need to be a resident to start a business in Poland? No, foreigners can establish a company in Poland without residency.

What are the tax obligations for companies in Poland? Businesses must pay corporate income tax (CIT), VAT, and social security contributions.

Is VAT registration mandatory for all businesses? Companies exceeding the VAT threshold must register for VAT.

How can Gurcan Partners assist with company formation and accounting? Gurcan Partners offers end-to-end business setup, legal support, and accounting services for smooth operations.

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