#Small businesses

[bisquitt]

i feel like i’m going insane, sustainability does not equal minimalism. neither does buying a bunch of overpriced shit that claims it’s “ethically sourced”. you know what’s sustainable? fixing shit around your house. thrifting. patching clothes and handing them down. a community garden. potluck dinner parties. farmer’s markets. a barter system among friends and neighbors. kindness. love among community members. capitalism is not sustainable, both in the environmental sense and the longevity sense.

like. buying from small businesses is a good place to start. as is larger businesses being as close to carbon neutral as possible. but materialism is what’s driving us as a planet into an early grave

[sylverra]

Shop Update!

Here's what's new this week:

Smoky quartz crescent moon necklaces

Venus of Willendorf figurines

Moon goddess statue

Morrigan plaque

Golden healer spirit quartz clusters

Infinite serpentine palm stones

Rhodonite pencil points

Malachite slices

Rose quartz rough chunks

Rough larimar

8oz clear quartz rough points

> See all our newest additions here <

Happy shopping! 💚💜

Browse the full catalog →

[cripple-punk-dad]

fuck small businesses and thrift stores that cram their locations so full of shit that they are fire hazard and are completely inaccessible. If you cannot fucking afford to make your store accessible, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE THE FUCKING STORE. I don't actually care any more. I don't fucking care. Call me bitter but I'm so fucking sick of small businesses hiding behind the "owo we're just scraping by :( we don't have enough money to add a teeny little ramp to our store because wood is too expensive and our store is too small and cramped for a wheelchair user anyways :( or we have two floors and more space than God but elevators are so spency :( and they really don't match the vintage/modern/art deco/whatever fucking aesthetic vibe we're going for. Also our store is listed as accessible because we have dim lights, but the lip of our door is almost 6 inches high and you won't know whether or not you can come in until you get here." Fuck off. You pay your employees minimum wage and blame it on bad business because you're just so small :( well guess what. If you can't afford to pay your employees properly, you don't deserve employees. "I'll shoplift at a department store but NEVER at a small business!" Cool. I will probably. Depending on the specific store and the circumstances. Literally the most inaccessible stores I have ever been in are small businesses in houses and/or strip malls. It's literally so easy to not have an inaccessible building. It's so easy.

[everlinet]

in my fairy realm // my shop // @everlinet

[xenoscribbles]

Just a little update: I now offer EVEN MORE COLORS of my fluffy stim toy buttons, available on my store: https://xenoscribbles.carrd.co/#stores

New colors include lavender, coral, cyan, light blue, two greens, two yellows, orange, peach, and cherry red!

[kingsketchdoodle]

I am excited to announce the addition of a wax seal pin badge to my shops collection!!!

I had a blast designing this and thought the fandom deserved to receive a letter from our main man himself (even if it’s just a pin and backing card)

This is available in my Etsy! 🎩🧩

https://kingd00dle.etsy.com

[charliespringsleftconverse]

This is your friendly reminder to seek out local bookstores for the sake of your own pocket AND in support of local small businesses!

I just went to the small independent bookstore in my town, and my favorite thing about them is that they buy used books AND you can get either cash or store credit for that!

I have sold SO many books that I don’t plan on rereading. I’ll typically keep my all time favs and then sell whatever I’m done with or what ever I didn’t like. BUT THE POINT IS that this has allowed me to accrue store credit to buy MORE books. Like just the other day I bought Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. WHICH WAS LISTED AT 30 DOLLARS HOLY SHIT. And I did not spend a dime.

So, rather than buying books at large bookstores like B&N, consider supporting your local small businesses. It keeps them open! And it may also save you money!

[sexualferriswheel]

hey, you queer, you want some patches made by a queercrip couple?

(NOT QUEER? that's okay. There's stuff for you, too)

You can buy them from Cwtch House Creations!

click me - I go to the Instagram

everything handmade, hand stitched, in a scent-free/low-allergy/covid-conscious household.

Prices are sliding scale, barter friendly, sometimes PWYC, and commissions are always available.

All sales go towards our basic needs as two home bound crips.

*DISCOUNTED*

BODY PORTRAITS

There is still one spot left for the discounted body portraits, where I am looking for diverse body types. These examples are all of myself, but I really want to embroider fat/trans/queer/cripple bodies.

Our instagram, in the link above, has more info, or dm me on tumblr here if that's easier for you.

[neptunes-sol-angel]

COSMIC CUPID'S ARROWS (Incense)

$7.77

 scented incense sticks to attract love, a positive boost in your mood, and creativity. The fragrance emits a lovely, smooth, and erotic smell of strawberries and cream. Why choose a fragrance for incense that smells so sweet? Think of how easier it is to catch more flies with honey than vinegar. The aroma symbolizes the attraction while the incense were also coated in Egyptian Geranium oil as a catalyst for the effect of attracting romance, happiness, and vibrant ingenuity with a cherry on top. Each pack comes with 20 sticks. Each individual stick burns for approximately

35 minutes.

AVAILABLE HERE

[frnkiebby]

PINS PINS PINS AND STICKER!!!!!!!~🎃

[lmkd]

Small Businesses of LMKD

Now is your time to Shine!

Are you a small business owner who sells Monkie Kid merch? Do you feel like your reach isn't getting far? LMKD is interested in creating a Small Business of the Month program where YOUR business has the chance to be featured and promoted to the members of LMKD, an active community of over 1,000 LMK fans.

Fill out this form to apply.

*Small businesses must have an online shop/page for customers to browse/order.

[devilswithinart]

Check out these cute One Piece charms! You can grab these now over at ko-fi.com/devilswithinart/shop

More Charms are coming soon!

[lunasapphire]

Okay could use some pointers🙋🏼‍♀️

Does anyone have any recommendations on online crystal stores? I found an amazon crystal store but not sure if I entirely trust it nor do I want to really buy from amazon because of how big it has gotten, but if anyone knows that I could trust them that would be also helpful☺️

Any online trustable company’s on here I could check out for witchcraft or spiritual healing stuff?

[everlinet]

new update on my Etsy! 🥀 handmade jewelry, hair accessories and journals. thank you for your support.// here’s a link! // @everlinet

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Smith :: Las Vegas Sun

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 29, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 30, 2024

In December 2020, when the pandemic illustrated the extraordinary disadvantage created by the inability of those in low-income households to communicate online with schools and medical professionals, then-president Trump signed into law an emergency program to provide funding to make internet access affordable. In 2021, Congress turned that idea into the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and made it part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law). 

The program has enabled 23 million American households to afford high-speed internet. Those benefiting from it are primarily military families, older Americans, and Black, Latino, and Indigenous households. In February, the Brookings Institution cited economics studies that said each dollar invested in the ACP increases the nation’s gross domestic product by $3.89 and that the program has led to increased employment and higher wages. It also cuts the costs of healthcare by replacing some in-person emergency room visits with telehealth.  

Slightly more of the money in the program goes to districts represented by Republicans than to those represented by Democrats, which might explain why 79% of voters want to continue the program: 96% of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 62% of Republicans.

But the ACP is running out of money. Back in October 2023, President Joe Biden asked Congress to fund it until the end of 2024, and a bipartisan bill that would extend the program has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. Each remains in an appropriation committee. As of today, the House bill has 228 co-sponsors, the Senate bill has 5. 

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said he supports the measure, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has not commented. Judd Legum pointed out in Popular Information today that the 2025 budget of the far-right Republican Study Committee (RSC) calls for allowing the ACP to expire, saying the RSC “stands against corporate welfare and government handouts that disincentivize prosperity.” More than four fifths of House Republicans belong to the RSC. 

The differences between the parties’ apparent positions on the ACP illustrates the difference in their political ideology. Republicans object to government investment in society and believe market forces should be left to operate without interference in order to promote prosperity. Democrats believe that economic prosperity comes from the hard work of ordinary people and that government investment in society clears the way for those people to succeed. 

Wealth growth for young Americans was stagnant for decades before the pandemic, but it has suddenly experienced a historic rise. In Axios, Emily Peck reported that household wealth for Americans under 40 has risen an astonishing 49% from where it was before the pandemic. Wealth doubled for those born between 1981 and 1996. This increase in household wealth comes in part from rising home prices and more financial assets, as well as less debt, which fell by $5,000 per household. Households of those under 35 have shown a 140% increase in median wealth in the same time period.

Brendan Duke and Christian E. Weller, the authors of the Center for American Progress study from which Peck’s information came, say this wealth growth is not tied to a few super-high earners, but rather reflects broad based improvement. “A simple reason for the strong wealth growth is that younger Americans are experiencing an especially low unemployment rate and especially strong wage growth,” Duke and Weller note, “making it easier for them to accumulate wealth.” 

In honor of National Small Business Week, Vice President Kamala Harris today launched an “economic opportunity tour” in Atlanta, where she highlighted the federal government’s $158 million investment in “The Stitch,” a project to reconnect midtown to downtown Atlanta. This project is an initial attempt to reconnect the communities that were severed by the construction of highways, often cutting minority or poor neighborhoods off from jobs and driving away businesses while saddling the neighborhoods with pollution. 

While some advocates wanted to use the $3.3 billion available from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act to take down highways altogether, the administration has shied away from such a dramatic revision and has instead focused on creating new public green spaces, bike paths, access to public transportation, safety features, and so on, to link and improve neighborhoods. More than 40 states so far have received funding under this program. 

The administration says that projects like The Stitch will promote economic growth in neighborhoods that have borne the burden of past infrastructure projects. Today it touted the extraordinary growth of small businesses since Biden and Harris took office, noting that their economic agenda “has driven the first, second and third strongest years of new business application rates on record—and is on pace for the fourth—with Americans filing a record 17.2 million new business applications.” 

Small businesses owned by historically underserved populations “are growing at near-historic rates, with Black business ownership growing at the fastest pace in 30 years and Latino business ownership growing at the fastest pace in more than a decade,” the White House said. The administration has invested in small businesses, working to level the playing field between them and their larger counterparts by making capital and information available, while working to reform the tax code so that corporations pay as much in taxes as small businesses do.  

“Small businesses are the engines of the economy,” the White House said today. “As President Biden says, every time someone starts a new small business, it’s an act of hope and confidence in our economy.” 

In place of economic growth, Republicans have focused on whipping up supporters by insisting that Democrats are corrupt and are cheating to take over the government. Matt Gertz of Media Matters noted in February that “Fox News host Sean Hannity and his House Republican allies spent 2023 trying to manufacture an impeachable offense against President Joe Biden out of their fact-free obsession with the president’s son, Hunter.” At least 325 segments about Hunter Biden appeared on Hannity’s show in 2023; 220 had at least one false or misleading claim. The most frequent purveyor of that disinformation was Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, who went onto the show 43 times to talk about the president’s son. 

The House impeachment inquiry was really designed to salt right-wing media channels with lies about the president and, in the end, turned up nothing other than witnesses who said President Biden was not involved in his son’s businesses. Then the Republicans’ key witness, Alexander Smirnov, was indicted for lying about the Bidens, and then he turned out to be in contact with Russian spies. 

Comer has been quietly backing away from impeaching the president until today, when he popped back into the spotlight after news broke that Hunter Biden’s lawyer has threatened to sue the Fox News Channel (FNC) for “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.” His lawyer’s letter calls out FNC’s promotion of Smirnov’s false allegations. 

Last year, FNC paid almost $800 million to settle defamation claims made by Dominion Voting Systems after FNC hosts pushed the lie that Dominion machines had changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. 

Legal pressure on companies lying for profit has proved successful. Two weeks ago, the far-right media channel One America News Network (OAN) settled a defamation lawsuit with the voting technology company Smartmatic. Today, OAN retracted a false story about former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, apparently made to discredit the testimony of Stormy Daniels about her sexual encounters with Trump. OAN suggested that it was Cohen rather than Trump who had a relationship with Daniels, and that Cohen had extorted Trump over the story.  

“OAN apologizes to Mr. Cohen for any harm the publication may have caused him,” the network wrote in a statement. “To be clear, no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels were having an affair and no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen ‘cooked up’ the scheme to extort the Trump Organization before the 2016 election.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[bitchesgetriches]

Small Business Investing: A Kinder, Gentler Alternative to the Stock Market

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