#Development Policy

[fandfnews]

Violence Against Christians in Congo Reaches Unprecedented Levels: MEP György Hölvényi Demands Accountability

At Tuesday’s session of the European Parliament, MEPs raised serious concerns over the escalating violence against Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a powerful speech, KDNP MEP György Hölvényi condemned the ongoing attacks, pointing out that the problem is not new. He argued that the Kinshasa government has, for decades, failed to guarantee the safety of its citizens. “The…

[softerhaze]

i love!! getting my film back!! UGH!!!

[briony-tallis]

i changed my mind, disregard previous posts. girldad lawrence clears actually.

[forevergulag]

"steal shit. dont make moralist excuses to do so" This feels uncharacteristically anarchist to read. I may support media piracy, but even then I acknowledge it's just individual lumpenprole activity that doesn't accomplish anything of value as far as socialism is concerned. It's not revolutionary, but it isn't counter revolutionary in this current era either.

what is anarchist about that. genuinely.

where did i mention in any regard piracy as a revolutionary activity. how do you read "steal shit. dont make moralist excusees to do so" as anarchist. its just an anti-moralist statement.

people steal shit because it costs money to buy it, and for some reason or other, usually poverty caused by lack of employment or wages barely high enough to reproduce the laborer. fuck even if you are stealing shit because you dont want to pay for it i dont care. you dont need to make excuses for it

at no point was i treating it as any revolutionary action

[helenvaughans]

this probably isn't an original take but i do kind of feel like a lot of the continued resentment of bernie dead-enders towards mainstream dems as well as their seeming sympathy to MAGA is that in 2016, they attempted what essentially amounted to an outside takeover of the democratic party like MAGA did with the republican party, but with the main difference being that the MAGA takeover succeeded and they were able to remake the republican party in their own image whereas the bernie bros failed bc mainstream dems didn't bend the knee, so now the ~~DNC~~ or whatever is the target of most of their ire bc they feel like they were not bestowed what they see as their rightful mandate

[surpriserose]

Really love that fields of mistria kept a romance options appearance secret so everyone was drawing their own versions and theyre all like hunk beefcake straight womans dream so i kind of hated this option on principle but now theyre out and theyre literally green hair and pronouns and i kind of need them

[pynkhues]

I hope you don’t mind my adding an anon message to the no doubt prodigious amount in your inbox, but I think the reason you’ve gotten an influx of anons and readers since the Louis Byronic hero/masculine/vers kerfuffle is that many more people agree with you than they admit, but have become so afraid of harassment and backlash that they keep quiet on their blogs. I found your blog after that incident, I read your post and saw it wasn’t anything like what people said it was, and went on to read your other posts. It’s been a breath of fresh air honestly.

Oh, thank you, anon! This is such a bittersweet ask to get, because it's lovely to know that this blog feels like a breath of fresh air, and that my posts have resonated with people, but it really is sad to me that people have become so afraid of harassment and backlash in this fandom, and to know that my posts have been strawmanned like they have. I don't know, I said it recently, but in terms of the latter, all I can do is know what I mean, clarify where I can, and speak honestly, and ultimately know that the people who do that are saying more about themselves than they are about me, but at the same time, y'know - -

I don't think anyone loves being wilfully misinterpreted, and I obviously don't love being called some of the things I've been called, but at the end of the day, I try to approach things with patience and curiousity, which is all I think I can do, and I hope that comes through with people who follow along with all of this.

[madtomedgar]

I don't think I'm convinced that progressive leadership in cities has been uniquely bad and is to blame for things like rising homelessness, overflowing shelters, encampments, etc specifically because in MA it's a combination of out of control housing costs, which is a long term problem that local government has limited capacity to address, pandemic eviction protection expiring, and a sudden overwhelming influx of people courtesy of Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott sending people here. Like yeah our legislature is a whole situation and our leaders could do better, but that shit isn't a sign that progressive policies don't work. It's a sign that rising housing costs and the weaponization of immigrants can easily overwhelm a state's social safety net.

[racefortheironthrone]

Could the Iron Throne be able to issue bonds, to finance its expenses, instead of going to the Iron Bank for a loan?

A government issuing bonds is the same thing as the government taking out a loan. The main difference is that, in the case of issuing a bond, the government is spreading out its borrowing between many lenders by selling bonds on the open market to anyone who wants to buy them rather than having that loan owed to a single entity like the Iron Bank. This means that the government is less beholden to any one creditor and it's less likely that the government's creditors can use their economic leverage to affect government policy.

The second advantage of structuring government debt through bonds is that it allows the government to break its total borrowing needs into smaller, more affordable units. Very few financial institutions would have had the capital to finance the £1,200,000 that made up the government's inaugural loan at the Bank of England in 1690 - but a lot more people could afford to lend the government £10, £25, £50, or £100 pounds.

Between this and later innovations in marketing bonds to the general public, the market for government debt was massively expanded. Not only did this create a class of rentiers who were now personally invested in the government's success, but it also immediately deepened the capital markets by creating a large supply of stable assets that could be bought and sold and borrowed against. While some of the shortcomings of the Hamilton musical and Chernow's biography have become more obvious in hindsight, they're not wrong about the impact of Hamilton's policies as Treasury Secretary on the development of the American economy.

The difficulty facing the Iron Throne in adapting an early modern system of government finance is that it doesn't have the state capacity to run this kind of an operation: it doesn't have a central bank to act as the government's marketer, issuer of banknotes, and lender of last resort; it doesn't have a sinking fund to manage the level and price of debt; it hasn't issued charters to merchant's guilds or joint-stock companies that could combine the small capital of individuals and thus more easily afford to buy bonds; and it doesn't have enough literate people who've studied accounting to staff a royal bureaucracy large enough to coordinate and keep records of all of this economic activity.

[ivygorgon]

📨 An open letter to State Governors & Legislatures

🚜 End Homelessness, Grow Local! A Bold Plan for America

✍️ 2 so far! Help us get to 5 signers!

I am reaching out with a proposal that could significantly reduce our reliance on imported produce while also addressing our growing homelessness crisis. With the current economic downturn, rising tariffs, and a rising crime rate, action is critical.

Between 2023 and 2024, 102 homeless individuals died on Anchorage Alaska’s streets, despite their $190 million budget for mutual aid. The current approach is not yielding results. I propose a new initiative: developing seasonal farm housing for homeless individuals willing to participate in agricultural work.

Under this program, individuals would receive stable housing with the contractual obligation to maintain and work a state-owned farm. Failure to meet these obligations beyond a reasonable extent would result in termination of the contract. To ensure accountability and a path to stability, participants could be subject to mandatory drug testing.

This initiative offers multiple benefits: • Addressing homelessness by providing stable, purpose-driven housing. • Boosting local food production and reducing reliance on costly imports. • Restoring hope and reducing substance abuse, as meaningful work and stability are proven deterrents to addiction and crime.

Financially, this proposal is feasible. An acre of undeveloped land in Alaska costs approximately $10,000. In contrast, the state spent nearly $50,000 per homeless person last year, with no significant improvement. Redirecting these funds could secure multiple acres per person, including space for small housing units, with even greater efficiency for homeless families sharing lots.

This is an opportunity to invest in self-sufficiency, economic stability, and human dignity. I urge you to consider this initiative and explore how we can implement a sustainable solution for our future.

📱 Text SIGN POJWPQ to 50409 🤯 Text FOLLOW IVYGORGON to 50409 for more!

[morningmask27]

While I'm in a complaining mood right now, remember when The Whole Thing online was to NEVER share your irl name or address or any other very personal information and how now everyone just has their full name plus location plastered all over their social medias in which they log their entire life and share all their thoughts without filter and that workplaces can now stalk to judge if they want to take them as workers or not?

I still fucking hate this change. I was stupidity young when it began happening (hello facebook), but I never fucking accepted it. You will have to pry my last name from my cold dead hands. I am not just freely sharing it online.

Part of this is probably also because I grew up on Tumblr where anonymity did stay a thing whereas everyone else used Facebook and stuff (there are also pictures of me on Facebook. On my sister's account, but thought luck finding those, I changed names) and got acclimated to seeing their irls online and not bothering to hide their private information. Now even children get their images posted online long before they can consent to it, only for those to be forever on the internet.

Don't think we'll ever get back to a world where privacy is valued online. All the major platforms really like being able to track a person and people are just making it very easy by putting their first (and sometimes also second) name everywhere for everyone to see.

[dowdicus]

Ten Dollars

It's one banana, Michael, how much could it cost?

Sixty-three thousand gallons of bunker fuel burned? A couple rainforests? One point seven million dollars for paramilitary terrorists? A few democratically elected governments? Thirty-six years of civil war? A superfluity, raped, tortured, and murdered?

It's one banana, Michael, how much could it cost?

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dead-generations]

i did make a post about how embarrassing the historical illiteracy of the median australian is, particularly wrt the history of his region of the world (SEA and the southern pacific).

Well, dear followers, I threw a stone in a glass house because I know next to nothing about the malayan emergency nor the degree of australia's involvement in the indonesian anti communist genocide of the mid 60s

[racefortheironthrone]

I'm a big fan of building commie blocks to ameliorate the US housing crisis -- and putting them in the public parks that were stolen from other communities to give colonisers some trees to look at -- but what policies should be enacted to get suburbanites into beautiful and efficient bedspace apartments with kitchens and washrooms shared by a floor?

As a good social democrat, I'm contractually obligated to prefer Red Vienna to your proper commie block. Short of a complete class revolution that completely upends the social hierarchy, a significant part of ensuring that social housing pulls off being "a living tapestry of a mixed community" is building it to middle-class standards (including aesthetic standards) so that people with the money to find alternatives don't all leave. Art Deco is a hell of a lot chic-er than the boring minimalist crap that luxury developers are getting away with these days.

Also, don't build them in parks: green space is not only important for environmental sustainability but also the health and mental health of working-class and poor communities who can't afford houses in the suburbs, and we should be encouraging in-fill development instead. (Build them on golf courses instead, because they are classist, invasive, artificial monocultures that do nothing for the environment.)

In terms of how to make suburbia more in synch with dense, sustainable social housing, there are a number of necessary changes:

Commuter rail: suburbs predate the car by a fair few decades, and originally sprung up along the routes of commuter rail lines. Well, it turns out that transit-oriented development and dense transit corridors go hand-in-hand: if you can build higher-density units near transit lines, people will use mass transit to commute, and if there are well-planned areas of higher density around major urban areas, the increased number of commuters can support more regular transit services.

Planning/zoning/ligitation revolution: as I mentioned in my student housing post, one of the major reasons why it's so hard to build affordable housing projects is that local NIMBY groups use every legal tool in the book to bury them. So there needs to be pretty comprehensive reforms of zoning regulations (banning single-family zoning, reducing set-backs and eliminating mandatory parking, getting rid of "unrelated persons" limitations, getting rid of building heights limits, etc.), standardization of the permitting and development approval process, streamlining of the public comment/hearing process and environmental review process for model projects, and extreme limits on litigation for model projects.

Financing reform: as I sort of imply in my Red Vienna section above, a big part of making social housing/public housing successful and avoiding replicating or increasing class and racial segregation is adhering to middle-class minimum standards. This has important knock-on implications:

you need to eliminate requirements for absolute lowest possible land costs (which restrict social housing to economically and socially isolated areas).

you need to raise allowable construction costs, so that you can achieve those aesthetic standards and avoid corner-cutting like smaller rooms and lower ceilings, single-thickness walls/floors/ceilings, no doors on cabinets or closets, cheap cladding and wiring and pipes and other building materials, low-quality insulation and HVAC, etc. Not only do middle-class folks notice this stuff and go elsewhere, but it's all penny-wise and pound-foolish, because cheap construction runs down faster which increases maintenance costs, and sometimes it just straight-up kills people.

you need to adequately finance maintenance, services, and amenities. This is crucial to keeping tenants with deeper pockets, but it's also another one of those things where penny-pinching is counter-productive in the long-run. The more you save on maintenance costs, the faster the buildings run down and the more expensive repairs you have to make. The more you save on services like superintendants and doormen, the more your tenants end up having to spend on handymen and the more you have to spend on police and repair costs. And so forth.

And there is a real potential here for all kinds of positive feedback loops: spending money on achieving higher standards of construction and operation means that you can hang onto and attract higher-income tenants, which means you can have sliding scale rents that cross-subsidize tenants and pay for higher construction and operating costs, and the poor and working class tenants who couldn't have paid for those higher costs and amenities on their own enjoy a "positive externality" for once.

[ivygorgon]

📨 An open letter to State Governors & Legislatures

🚜 End Homelessness, Grow Local! A Bold Plan for America

✍️ 2 so far! Help us get to 5 signers!

Alaska spent $190M on homelessness last year, yet 102 lives were lost on the streets. It’s time for a continental solution that works.

✅ Develop seasonal farm housing for homeless individuals ✅ Provide stable housing with work opportunities in agriculture ✅ Boost local food production & reduce reliance on imports ✅ Invest in dignity, purpose, and self-sufficiency

Acreage costs a fraction of current spending—let’s build a future where no one is left behind. Support this initiative today!

📱 Text SIGN POJWPQ to 50409 🤯 Text FOLLOW IVYGORGON to 50409 for more!

[youthchronical]

Video: Can This Georgia Factory Survive DOGE?

“The U.S. government hasn’t actually paid us since the end of December. We have about $12 million that we’ve delivered. We wonder if that’s — is the U.S. government still good? Is their word still good?” Just weeks after he took office, President Trump took aim at U.S.A.I.D. “The whole thing is a fraud. Very little, very little being put to good use.” But his mission to cut foreign aid spending…