#factoring for owner operators

[mischiefstirred]

an independent, private, and 18+ blog for an original character named resgalis kvaikas. they're also known as the three-headed fox god of trickery. this account was made in 2025 and will explore themes such as the role of the trickster, gender identity and expression, chaos and order, self-discovery, the best family is the one you choose, unhealed trauma, what ends people will go to to ensure their own survival, hope and suffering, crime, and the world as well as the people who live in it aren't black and white.

a brief overview of my rules: no godmodding, please, and/or trying to force ships with my character. i will be semi-selective concerning ships that are of a romantic nature with resgalis; but i'm always open, and i promise my selectivity isn't personal. there will be potentially triggering themes featured throughout this account, however, just to let you all know. i will always tag these posts with tw: [insert concept here] so you all can avoid them if you wish to proceed at your own discretion.

some of the mature themes in question will include body horror, captivity and confinement, organized crime, murder, cheating, depictions of blood and gore (though done in such a way that it isn't too extreme), heavy violence, mental illness, disfigurmisia, child abuse, and mentions of ritual sacrifice (yet, just like with the depictions of blood and gore, this will done in a non-romanticized way and won't be described too in-depth). the mun is 23 and named autumn! it's nice to see you all here and/or meet you if we haven't spoken before. also, welcome! my carrd for resgalis is included below, and more information about her will also be made available very soon.

(credit for the quote in my edit here goes to clarice lispector, by giovanni pontiero!)

| CARRD | PROMPTS. |

[artisticdivasworld]

What Is Factoring and Why It Matters

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com Factoring is a game-changer for many new truckers, especially when cash flow gets tight. Starting a trucking business is exciting, but the financial side can be daunting. Expenses like fuel, repairs, and insurance never wait, but payments from customers often do. Sometimes you’re stuck waiting 30, 60, or even 90 days to get paid for a load. That’s where…

[avaaltechnologysolutions]

Fuel Card Integration-AVAAL Freight Management Suite

Fuel Purchase Management: Allows you to download fuel purchases and cash advances from your fuel card provider.

Driver Settlements: These transactions show up as advances, to be deducted from driver pay or reimbursed to your owner-operator settlements.

Fuel Tax Reporting: Exports the fuel purchases into the TMS Digital Mileage and Fuel Tax program for fuel tax reporting.

Compatibility: Interfaces with most popular Fuel Cards

Cost Savings: Using fuel cards can reduce the cost of filling up your vehicles, as most of them are only valid at discounted or partnered fuel stations.

Simplified Administration: Simplifies the administration and accounting process for Driver and owner/operator settlements.

Digital Records: Provides digital fuel purchase details in case the driver loses the fuel receipts.

To Know more visit -https://avaal.com/avaal-freight-management.php

[prisonhannibal]

Help Ghada and his family survive the genocide

€5,656 raised out of €20,000

Ghada is a 32 year old man with a bachelors degree in information technology and a great job and many dreams, but this was taken from him when the genocide started and his workplace was destroyed and the company stopped operating. Since then, him and his family have experienced unimaginable pain and struggle, and were forced to flee their beautiful home when it was destroyed. They’ve now been displaced multiple times, to tents in Rafah, and now to Central Gaza. He still doesn’t know how long it’ll be safe to stay until it could happen again.

His father Nabil is 62, and used to be a business owner, but his business was destroyed. Ghada’s mother Fatima is 57. His brother Khaled is only 23 years old, but had already achieved a bachelor in accounting and a great job. The genocide has taken so much of their dreams and what they’ve worked hard for all their lives, they’ve lost their careers and home, please help make sure it doesn’t take their lives as well. Ghada helps support not only his immediate family but also other family members and their kids

Living with the constant risk of infectious illnesses, being displaced again, and bombs is exhausting and terrifying. Most of us are lucky enough that we will never fully understand how terrifying it is. On top of this, food prices are constantly rising and it’s difficult to get access to safe drinking water. They have suffered from health problems and malnutrition as a result of the conditions they live in, but do not have access to treatment or adequate food.

Please remember the risk of future displacements are also a factor, as transportation costs are high and they might have to leave their belongings, so donations can also help relieve the fear in that situation. Can you imagine having to flee from bombs and still having to worry about if you can even afford it?

Ghada and his family deserve a chance to get to safety so they can recover from what they’ve gone through and rebuild their dreams that they worked so hard for until the occupation cruelly took it from them. You may feel powerless to stop what is happening, but none of us are ever powerless to make a change. Today, that change could be helping Ghada. If you have anything to give today, please donate, the money will go to their survival in Gaza and eventually evacuation when the border opens.

You can follow Ghada on his account @ghadafamily11 to support him and keep sharing his story. Your help can save their lives and show him that the world still cares and will never abandon them

DONATE HERE + VETTING (#6 on the spreadsheet)

@90-ghost @tamamita @rhubarbspring @heritageposts @dirhwangdaseul @anneemay @neechees @butchniqabi @feluka @socalgal @finalgirlabigailhobbs @darthteeth @dlxxv-vetted-donations @newporters @mens-rights-activia @pikslasrce @vampiricvenus @cuntylouis @loumandivorce @nashvillethotchicken @femmefitz @frigidwife @pitbolshevik

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

There are few phrases in the modern lexicon more accursed than "software-based car," and yet, this is how the failed EV maker Fisker billed its products, which retailed for $40-70k in the few short years before the company collapsed, shut down its servers, and degraded all those "software-based cars":

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker billed itself as a "capital light" manufacturer, meaning that it didn't particularly make anything – rather, it "designed" cars that other companies built, allowing Fisker to focus on "experience," which is where the "software-based car" comes in. Virtually every subsystem in a Fisker car needs (or rather, needed) to periodically connect with its servers, either for regular operations or diagnostics and repair, creating frequent problems with brakes, airbags, shifting, battery management, locking and unlocking the doors:

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-worry-about-vehicles-working-bankruptcy-2024-4

Since Fisker's bankruptcy, people with even minor problems with their Fisker EVs have found themselves owning expensive, inert lumps of conflict minerals and auto-loan debt; as one Fisker owner described it, "It's literally a lawn ornament right now":

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-describe-chaos-to-keep-cars-running-after-bankruptcy-2024-7

This is, in many ways, typical Internet-of-Shit nonsense, but it's compounded by Fisker's capital light, all-outsource model, which led to extremely unreliable vehicles that have been plagued by recalls. The bankrupt company has proposed that vehicle owners should have to pay cash for these recalls, in order to reserve the company's capital for its creditors – a plan that is clearly illegal:

https://www.veritaglobal.net/fisker/document/2411390241007000000000005

This isn't even the first time Fisker has done this! Ten years ago, founder Henrik Fisker started another EV company called Fisker Automotive, which went bankrupt in 2014, leaving the company's "Karma" (no, really) long-range EVs (which were unreliable and prone to bursting into flames) in limbo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Karma

Which raises the question: why did investors reward Fisker's initial incompetence by piling in for a second attempt? I think the answer lies in the very factor that has made Fisker's failure so hard on its customers: the "software-based car." Investors love the sound of a "software-based car" because they understand that a gadget that is connected to the cloud is ripe for rent-extraction, because with software comes a bundle of "IP rights" that let the company control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

A "software-based car" gets to mobilize the state to enforce its "IP," which allows it to force its customers to use authorized mechanics (who can, in turn, be price-gouged for licensing and diagnostic tools). "IP" can be used to shut down manufacturers of third party parts. "IP" allows manufacturers to revoke features that came with your car and charge you a monthly subscription fee for them. All sorts of features can be sold as downloadable content, and clawed back when title to the car changes hands, so that the new owners have to buy them again. "Software based cars" are easier to repo, making them perfect for the subprime auto-lending industry. And of course, "software-based cars" can gather much more surveillance data on drivers, which can be sold to sleazy, unregulated data-brokers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Unsurprisingly, there's a large number of Fisker cars that never sold, which the bankruptcy estate is seeking a buyer for. For a minute there, it looked like they'd found one: American Lease, which was looking to acquire the deadstock Fiskers for use as leased fleet cars. But now that deal seems dead, because no one can figure out how to restart Fisker's servers, and these vehicles are bricks without server access:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/08/fisker-bankruptcy-hits-major-speed-bump-as-fleet-sale-is-now-in-question/

It's hard to say why the company's servers are so intransigent, but there's a clue in the chaotic way that the company wound down its affairs. The company's final days sound like a scene from the last days of the German Democratic Republic, with apparats from the failing state charging about in chaos, without any plans for keeping things running:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/east-germany-stasi-surveillance-documents/

As it imploded, Fisker cycled through a string of Chief Financial officers, losing track of millions of dollars at a time:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/31/fisker-collapse-investigation-ev-ocean-suv-henrik-geeta/

When Fisker's landlord regained possession of its HQ, they found "complete disarray," including improperly stored drums of toxic waste:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/05/fiskers-hq-abandoned-in-complete-disarray-with-apparent-hazardous-waste-clay-models-left-behind/

And while Fisker's implosion is particularly messy, the fact that it landed in bankruptcy is entirely unexceptional. Most businesses fail (eventually) and most startups fail (quickly). Despite this, businesses – even those in heavily regulated sectors like automotive regulation – are allowed to design products and undertake operations that are not designed to outlast the (likely short-lived) company.

After the 2008 crisis and the collapse of financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, finance regulators acquired a renewed interest in succession planning. Lehman consisted of over 6,000 separate corporate entities, each one representing a bid to evade regulation and/or taxation. Unwinding that complex hairball took years, during which the entities that entrusted Lehman with their funds – pensions, charitable institutions, etc – were unable to access their money.

To avoid repeats of this catastrophe, regulators began to insist that banks produce "living wills" – plans for unwinding their affairs in the event of catastrophe. They had to undertake "stress tests" that simulated a wind-down as planned, both to make sure the plan worked and to estimate how long it would take to execute. Then banks were required to set aside sufficient capital to keep the lights on while the plan ran on.

This regulation has been indifferently enforced. Banks spent the intervening years insisting that they are capable of prudently self-regulating without all this interference, something they continue to insist upon even after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

The fact that the rules haven't been enforced tells us nothing about whether the rules would work if they were enforced. A string of high-profile bankruptcies of companies who had no succession plans and whose collapse stands to materially harm large numbers of people tells us that something has to be done about this.

Take 23andme, the creepy genomics company that enticed millions of people into sending them their genetic material (even if you aren't a 23andme customer, they probably have most of your genome, thanks to relatives who sent in cheek-swabs). 23andme is now bankrupt, and its bankruptcy estate is shopping for a buyer who'd like to commercially exploit all that juicy genetic data, even if that is to the detriment of the people it came from. What's more, the bankruptcy estate is refusing to destroy samples from people who want to opt out of this future sale:

https://bourniquelaw.com/2024/10/09/data-23-and-me/

On a smaller scale, there's Juicebox, a company that makes EV chargers, who are exiting the North American market and shutting down their servers, killing the advanced functionality that customers paid extra for when they chose a Juicebox product:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/2/24260316/juicebox-ev-chargers-enel-x-way-closing-discontinued-app

I actually owned a Juicebox, which ultimately caught fire and melted down, either due to a manufacturing defect or to the criminal ineptitude of Treeium, the worst solar installers in Southern California (or both):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

Projects like Juice Rescue are trying to reverse-engineer the Juicebox server infrastructure and build an alternative:

https://juice-rescue.org/

This would be much simpler if Juicebox's manufacturer, Enel X Way, had been required to file a living will that explained how its customers would go on enjoying their property when and if the company discontinued support, exited the market, or went bankrupt.

That might be a big lift for every little tech startup (though it would be superior than trying to get justice after the company fails). But in regulated sectors like automotive manufacture or genomic analysis, a regulation that says, "Either design your products and services to fail safely, or escrow enough cash to keep the lights on for the duration of an orderly wind-down in the event that you shut down" would be perfectly reasonable. Companies could make "software based cars" but the more "software based" the car was, the more funds they'd have to escrow to transition their servers when they shut down (and the lest capital they'd have to build the car).

Such a rule should be in addition to more muscular rules simply banning the most abusive practices, like the Oregon state Right to Repair bill, which bans the "parts pairing" that makes repairing a Fisker car so onerous:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

Or the Illinois state biometric privacy law, which strictly limits the use of the kind of genomic data that 23andme collected:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004

Failing to take action on these abusive practices is dangerous – and not just to the people who get burned by them. Every time a genomics research project turns into a privacy nightmare, that salts the earth for future medical research, making it much harder to conduct population-scale research, which can be carried out in privacy-preserving ways, and which pays huge scientific dividends that we all benefit from:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

Just as Fisker's outrageous ripoff will make life harder for good cleantech companies:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

If people are convinced that new, climate-friendly tech is a cesspool of grift and extraction, it will punish those firms that are making routine, breathtaking, exciting (and extremely vital) breakthroughs:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/10/08/norways-national-football-stadium-has-the-worlds-largest-vertical-solar-roof-how-does-it-w

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/10/software-based-car/#based

[leonstoenailunderhisbed]

I don’t think people understand how smart Leon actually is. That man had high marks from the police academy, hence why Chief Irons (in the orientation letter Leon has in RE2R) says that his grades are commendable and that R.P.D. are proud to have him on the force.

This got me thinking a lot because at first I thought being a police officer didn’t take much given that anyone today can be in the force.

But that wasn’t the case in 1998.

I did a little research because I thought it would be interesting to see just what Leon had to go through to become a police officer.

Back in the 90s, cellphones and modern technology didn’t exist such as DNA identification and body cams/car cams. This definitely made the job a bit harder than it is today because there was a need for more evidence to be collected and the overuse of your brain. Nowadays, technology is an important factor in the police force and almost everything is done by the computer now.

So let’s picture this: It’s the late 90s right before he got sent to Raccoon City. He’s in the academy and he has to go through training. Especially with weapons since most academies switched from revolvers to semi-auto guns (already something a bit modern for that time).

For those who’ve played the game, when you go into the Shooting Range room, you can clearly see just how old the room is compared to modern shooting ranges. Not only is the design of the target paper old, it’s also very simplistic compared to today’s (in 2024, most markings have numbers and more lines for accuracy than back in the day).

This meant that Leon had to train a good amount of time to perfect his aim. It also meant that he had to go through driving training—which was mostly Emergency Vehicle Operations Courses (EVOC: safe and defensive driving for cops in other words)

I’d like to think that his determination (when he told Ada that the reason he joined the force was for people like Emma and Gunshop owner) really helped him advance through his academic route of the training and I’d like to believe that he go high scores because of that.

The 90s were a pivotal time for new policies to be introduced in police academies. When Leon was a kid, presumably during the 80s, he probably saw just how different it was back then than it is now (in 1998) lots of “new” technology were introduced to him when he first started the training. And he probably had to adapt quickly to the technologies and new techniques.

Leon is quick on his feet, he grasps a lot of things and I’m tired of people making him out to be as some dumb blonde with muscles. He’s very smart and we see that throughout the games and films.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was GT when he grew up.

EDIT: MB YALL😭 GT is a program for students K-12 where they’re put in advanced classes like AP or IB. It stands for Gifted and Talented (something like the Magnet Program in some schools in the US)

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

““The girls are unable to say anything because they are always being policed. You can’t ask questions, you won’t get the evidence on a silver platter. But when you are going around, you hear things and see things,” Singh explains, sitting in a nondescript office, piles of cardboard files all over the floor, documenting the thousands of girls they have rescued over the years, approximately 4,000 at last count. 

“Most of the time the girls are locked up and they are only allowed out when a customer comes in. To ensure they are not interacting with the customers, the brothel keepers are always banging on the door and take away the mobiles of the customers.”

As a result of an 11-month long operation, conducted before the pandemic, Guria India were able to rescue 136 underage victims of traffickers, resulting in 61 brothels being shut down.”

In the narrow alleyways of Meerganj, the notorious red light district in the city of Allahbad, a man dressed in a brown kurta with a rucksack walks past the dilapidated brothels shouting ‘lipsticks for sale, good prices.’ 

He barely warrants a glance, one of dozens of street sellers who stroll down the alley daily, hawking their wares, a common sight in the hustle and bustle of cities in India.

Word has got around that he’s selling good quality products like Max Factor and other brands the brothel girls recognise from billboards featuring their favourite Bollywood actresses. He’s cheaper than the other sellers and lets them pay in instalments. 

A group of young girls flock to him, picking up bright lipsticks and face powders, to make them look older than they are, or perhaps not, depending on the client’s preferences.

But this is no ordinary seller. He is from Guria India, an organisation which rescues and rehabilitates women and underage girls trapped in the sex trade. 

He has been working undercover, disguised as a cosmetics seller, gathering evidence of victims of traffickers who have been forced into sex work, many of whom are underage and often thousands of miles away from home.

“You are working on a razor’s edge. There are no second chances. One wrong move and you could be killed. It’s not like a movie where you get a retake,” says Ajeet Singh, Director of Guria India.  

The nature of trafficking is changing and so activists are having to find new and innovative  means to take them on. 

Singh said he came up with the idea of posing as a make-up seller after he found that the brothel owners were always one step ahead of him. 

“It was always very difficult to rescue the girls because someone would leak the information and the brothel keepers would move the girls. The girls were not a priority for the system, so the police were not helpful. We had to be proactive in getting the evidence.”

Using rudimentary equipment he bought from Delhi, including spy cams concealed in a pen and button, he began scouring the streets of the red light district for almost a year. 

“Make-up is something very enticing for girls. If you go to India, you’ll see street sellers in every city so I knew I would blend in,” he said.

“The girls are unable to say anything because they are always being policed. You can’t ask questions, you won’t get the evidence on a silver platter. But when you are going around, you hear things and see things,” Singh explains, sitting in a nondescript office, piles of cardboard files all over the floor, documenting the thousands of girls they have rescued over the years, approximately 4,000 at last count. 

“Most of the time the girls are locked up and they are only allowed out when a customer comes in. To ensure they are not interacting with the customers, the brothel keepers are always banging on the door and take away the mobiles of the customers.”

As a result of an 11-month long operation, conducted before the pandemic, Guria India were able to rescue 136 underage victims of traffickers, resulting in 61 brothels being shut down. 

Social media ‘weapon of choice’ for traffickers

The sting, which was signed off by local people, used undercover filming to collect evidence against offenders. When enough had been gathered, ten members of the Guria India team joined police as they carried out dawn raids, using iron cutters to access properties where the victims were being held.

There are an estimated 1.2 million children under 18 working in brothels in India, many of whom have been victims of sex traffickers. Approximately 75 per cent of the cases Guria India dealt with involved under age victims ranging from just six months to 17.

The majority of these trafficked children are from lower castes and more than half of them are from families living below the poverty line.  

While many of the girls sold to brothels are trafficked by relatives or family friends, in recent years, social media, with its low-risk and high rewards, has become the weapon of choice of traffickers, luring victims in with lucrative job offers or promises of marriage. 

“The internet and exploitative romantic relationships are key factors for trafficking in recent times,” said children’s rights activist Bharti Ali.

“Often, the police don’t start their search in cases of adolescent girls immediately as they believe it to be a case of elopement. Many cases end up in girls being sold further by the boy/person they trusted or who promised them false marriage.

“When girls go missing, parents often try to search within their own community, her friends and relatives. This is when they lose critical time. When they suspect that she may have eloped, they may tend to not report at all to protect family honour … The girls too are unable to report as the traffickers keep a close watch on them.”

For victims of traffickers, their introduction into the world of prostitution is a brutal and violent one, in which they face beatings, gang rape and starvation. Some victims also reported having chilli powder placed on their genitalia and being subjected to electric shocks. 

Among the girls they have rescued is Sarita, who was just 12-years-old when she was sold to a sex trafficker by her older brother and was transported 700 km away to work in a brothel. 

“My mum was working in Mumbai and I lived with my sister. My brother was a drug addict. He told me he was taking me to see my mum but instead he sold me to a trafficker. I was locked in a room and beaten and raped by several men. I managed to find a phone and called my mum,” she said.

Sarita’s mother, along with the police and Guria India activists, were able to rescue her and relocate the family. However, the majority of victims are not so lucky. India remains a socially conservative society and victims of trafficking will often be ostracised by their families and community. 

Rescuing victims of trafficking is only half the battle, while keeping them out of the hands of traffickers presents another challenge. 

Rehabilitating victims back into a society which was already hostile to them in the first place is difficult and often the girls will end up falling back into the hands of traffickers. 

In one case, 57 girls who were rescued by Guria were sent to a shelter home in Agra for rehabilitation, but were re-trafficked by the superintendent of the centre. Just this week, the superintendent was acquitted by the Supreme Court and Guria India is currently fighting the decision. 

Despite the setbacks, Singh remains hopeful. “Although I don’t think we can eradicate child prostitution in my lifetime, I’m hopeful we can set the foundations to make the change,” he said.

And sometimes all it takes is a rucksack and a Max Factor lipstick. 

[some-small-mercy]

Shadows in the Cave - Threat Analysis - Victims of the Art

THREAT SANGUINE OCHRE is the most dangerous confirmed FOREIGN agent of the 21st century encountered to date. Despite seeming to be a one-man operation with no real funding or material support, his creations spread dangerous FOREIGN influence across several states before he was hunted down and destroyed - and have only continued to do so since. The entire file is proof positive of what B-CELL has been saying for years: SANGUINE OCHRE was not the results of mindless or bestial incursions, or of an American exploiting dangerous power for his own gain. He was a knowing enemy agent, facilitating an organized conspiracy from ABROAD in spreading its influence across the United States for unknown, nefarious purposes. 

Given the events of OPERATION AVIAN TRILL, more than a decade after his execution, this clearly remains a more urgent strategic threat than A-CELL has been led to believe by conventional reports. To remedy this, B-CELL has prepared the following overview on SANGUINE OCHRE, his creations, PATRIOT efforts to contain or destroy them, and the damage he is still causing to this day. While this is technically outside the Cell’s area of focus, it is hoped that this will help inform decision-making and resource-allocation going forward. 

As well as a traitor, SANGUINE OCHRE was (unsurprisingly) an artist. An apparent life-long failure, he left few traces; either personal or digital. Despite the complete lack of fame or influence, six of his paintings have been discovered across the United States, often with no clear explanation as to how their current owners came into possession of them. This is not necessarily surprising, as each of these paintings is a dangerous weapon in its own right. Everything he touched is saturated with FOREIGN energies, and carefully designed to be antithetical to human life and sanity. 

Including bystanders and collateral damage, SANGUINE OCHRE is responsible for over two hundred deaths across America. A number that is still rising.

* * *

The Townsend Collection is maintained by Velos Antiquities’ Managing Partner for purposes of scholarship and experimentation. Rather than acting as a middleman for a client commission or assembling a collection for speculative purposes, the Company thus has a direct, first-party interest in acquiring and preserving pieces of the collection - something that factors and agents should keep in mind when determining their own priorities. 

Edward Townsend (1987-2013) hailed from a middle-class Boston family, but was troubled by mental instability and misfortune from his adolescence until his own tragic ending. Leaving university in the nadir of the 2008 Financial Crisis, his last years were dominated by a spiral into crippling agoraphobia and poverty - yet it was precisely during this period that his artistic production reached his zenith. Never working through any established dealers or galleries, he sold his works at local flea markets, or else gifted them to improbable friends made online. He is believed to have completed at least a dozen works in this period before perishing in an electrical fire which consumed the building he was then living in. 

The collection is of interest not because of any biographical detail of their creator but due to the works themselves. While the danger and intensity varies, each Townsend is a Hypergeometrically active object. Which would make each of them an intriguing potential acquisition in its own right, but what makes the collection unique is that each Townsend is active in distinct (often contradictory or mutually exclusive) ways - quite extraordinary, for the work of one man without education or support. 

The Managing Partner thus has a standing order out for any discovered Townsends - including a significant fee payable to the agent who acquires and transports them. What follows is a summary of the Company’s file on traits shared by known Townsends and endorsed best practices for their safe acquisition and handling. Consider them high-level targets of opportunity, should you encounter the trail of one.

* * *

We theorize that the three pieces in question are, despite the dramatic differences in style and effect, actually the work of a single artist; one possessed of truly uncommon vision and insight. An outsider artist par excellence, their work illustrates ways of reaching across cultural and epistemological paradigms, allowing true connection and understanding in precisely the ways that the Anderson Heritage Trust is dedicated to encouraging. We hope you will find that the funding proposal that follows is, despite the expense, wholly in line with the Trust’s strategic plan for the next five years; we also hope you will agree that it represents a rare opportunity to advance the dream of a more open and connected world, and one that should not be allowed to pass untaken. 

The three works of art in question were discovered by various friends of the Arts across the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest over the last year, though their true provenance remains sadly unknown. Each is a masterpiece in empathy and forced perspective, inviting (if not insisting) the audience view the world through alien eyes and consider their lives, indeed the sum total of human civilization, from perspectives drastically divergent from their own. 

The effect is dramatic; for the properly prepared it can even said to be transformative, whereas for some sensitive and unprepared viewer have found it to be disturbing and even traumatic; something which had undoubtedly led to the tragic destruction or neglect of similar works at the hands of caretakers without the proper background and education. It is for exactly this reason that we propose the construction of a carefully curated exhibition of these and similarly affecting outsider art, where they can be properly appreciated in an environment that encourages the most significant and least traumatic audience experience. 

* * *

PATRIOT Agents first encountered SANGUINE OCHRE in 20XX, when M-CELL became involved in what became OPERATION ASPHALT ARCADIA. That said, the connection between hypnotic graffiti brainwashing (and spreading across) members of a Mid-Atlantic street gang and OCHRE was only discovered well after the fact. It was only in 20XX when K-CELL located and destroyed two more traditional paintings in the same Boston neighborhood that their common source was traced back. OPERATION AUSTERE FRIAR was the result. 

Elements of K-CELL acted decisively to terminate SANGUINE OCHRE and any accomplices. OCHRE was destroyed, but in every other way the operation should have been a sign that this was not the work of one more insane or self-interested FOREIGN agent. The confrontation ended in an inferno that destroyed the entire building, killing all present PATRIOT Agents and eliminating any evidence of OCHRE’s enablers or distribution methods. K-CELL nonetheless considered the mission a success, and the file was closed without review for several years. 

That was how long it took for L-CELL to encounter one of his paintings. On the other end of the country, with no possible way a failed artist’s worthless painting could have ended up as the mural on a nightclub’s bathroom wall. Destroying it thoroughly enough to prevent any reconstruction took a ‘gas main explosion’ that destroyed the entire building, with significant collateral damage. It was only after the fact, and after L-CELL had expended weeks and precious resources tearing through potential cultists who might have been responsible, that the artist’s signature was analyzed and a connection to SANGUINE OCHRE was drawn. This can’t be allowed to happen again. 

There have been two further encounters with SANGUINE OCHRE since then, each one of his works appearing with no possible explanation except FOREIGN action at some point in the past. Each is a dangerous terror weapon, damaging the sanity or physically warping (if not consuming entirely) anyone vulnerable in its vicinity. The pattern behind the paintings’ appearances is unclear, but we can only assume it is the result of an enemy plan to prepare softened landing zones for an eventual full invasion. 

* * *

The ultimate case of the Townsends - how one particularly disturbed young man became the vector for so many distinct Infections - is unknown but of significant interest to the Managing Partner. While any information that is happened upon is valuable and should be secured, it is also hardly something that Velos employees are trained or equipped to hunt down. Suffice to say that Mr. Townsend was likely possessed, for one reason or another, of a very unique sensitivity - and that it seems several different strains of parasite and infection took advantage of the fertile ground. The dramatic nature of his death is very likely related. 

Velos Antiquities expects a great deal of independence and initiative from its factors, but verifying the location and authenticity of - much less acquiring - a Townsend is more often than not a task that will require the assistance of experts in alternative skill sets. If any are simply forgotten in a warehouse or storage locker, Velos has not found any hint of them in more than five years of searching. Rather, in every case one has been encountered, it has been in the very determined possession of an individual with at least some vague idea of its significance (if not its origin). The assistance of the usual contractors tapped to deal with recalcitrant sellars was in every case necessary (though very far from sufficient). If you have good reason to believe you have a line on a Townsend and require their support, a request to Senior Leadership for support from our friends in the security services or else more specialized contractors will likely be approved. That said, Townsends are both obviously valuable and incredibly fragile (no more resilient to entropy or violence than any other painting), and so care must be taken to ensure that Velos Antiquities does, in fact, secure custody of the piece. 

The case of the late Mrs. Cruz is instructive. Having tracked a lead on Devilish Revels across several countries, she found herself at a decided disadvantage actually acquiring it from the current owner - a man with little or no idea what he had, but quite convinced it was the key to ultimate cosmic power. The Managing Partner was able to prevail upon several local business partners to provide support convincing him to part with it, but we have been unable to track down any survivors of the resulting gunfight in a state to provide a full explanation of what followed. Neither Ms. Cruz nor the previous owner (nor, in fact, the Townsend) has been seen since. Very nearly literally, as in the eight months since every portrait and analogue photograph of either has either gone missing or become damaged in very distinctive and improbable ways (should any of you have worked closely with her, you are encouraged to examine your own archives for any odd visual artifacts involving greasepaint and motley).

Mrs. Cruz is the closest any Velos agent has come to acquiring a Townsend in the last three years - though not, it must be said, the only lead that ended in lively exchanges with other interested parties. Please keep her example in mind when deciding what level of investment should be made in risk mitigation. 

* * *

What do we mean, when we call these pieces “outsider art"? The label applies in the vernacular sense - the artist was clearly alienated and marginalized from society, and died without public memory or legible legacy, but the three pieces we have are deserving of the appellation in a much more profound way. Put simply, they are art from outside and, like all great art, to truly appreciate them is a paradigm-breaking exercise in empathy. Bound so tightly in our web of socialized expectations, it is a truly bracing, if not revelatory, event to experience the true xenos, to feel the vibrations of someone knocking against the frosted glass which comprises the hard border of your universe. To, perhaps, realize the glass was neither so solid nor so opaque as you had always taken it to be. 

These are art in the highest sense, fine centerpieces of an exhibition, attempts to communicate concepts and emotions so subtle and so vast that the idea of conveying them through words is absurd on its face. It is quite astounding that they seem to have been painted by the same hand and with the same materials, so distinct are the styles and effects; it is only through analyzing them in relation to each other that the true message being conveyed by the artist’s oeuvre can be understood. Even working with an entirely inadequate budget and lodgings, simply framing the three works in our possession in the correct relation to each other in an area with a small amount of work done to encourage the connections have had  truly dramatic effects on the viewing experience, and on the subjectivities inherent in the works themselves. 

We believe the unknown artist has a true message they were trying to convey, one that could change the world. With the support of the Anderson Heritage Trust, we believe we could create a gallery that would give that message a chance to be truly heard, and even responded to; a place where a true exchange of views entirely beyond our own might begin. We have contracted architects and designers who can realize our vision, but funding remains an issue; as, for our greatest dreams, does the lack of whatever other works the artist must surely have sketched or inked while creating these three masterpieces. This is why our second major funding request is for a long-term effort to search for and safely bring home similar pieces of outsider work from across the globe…

* * *

SANGUINE OCHRE was a valuable FOREIGN agent, that much can’t be argued. When he became a dangerous loose end, his handler terminated him and took out half a cell of PATRIOTS for its trouble. But that doesn’t mean ABROAD and its agents aren’t still trying to use him. PATRIOT Agents have encountered three OCHRE THREATS in the last X years, and two of those cases involved a dangerous FOREIGN conspiracy that actively fought to secure the threats for their own ends before the PATRIOTs on the ground could apply sufficient quantities of incendiaries or explosives to reliably destroy the THREAT.  

The nature of the FOREIGN-directed conspiracy is unknown, but it seems to be an organized criminal syndicate. Other street gangs and criminal elements have been involved as hired guns, but at its core it seems to have grown out of the Russian mafia. This sort of organized, internationally active group of traitors to humanity has been exactly what B-CELL has warned about for years. Their short-term goals are unknown, but their long-term dedication to the betrayal of all life on Earth in favor of their FOREIGN masters is obvious. 

We are at war, even if we don’t know it yet. SANGUINE OCHRE is just the beginning, but we hope it is all the warning that A-CELL requires to finally take our warnings with the gravity that addressing them will require. 

[brittle-doughie]

So from what we understand as of currently, the Fungali (What i'm calling the infected, i know it's not perfect im still workshopping it 😭), might either operate in a structure akin to that of a hivemind, or either simply take orders from Patient #0 (Y/N), due to them being the most developed and original host of the plague. Then you need to factor in intelligence, as the only "infected" we've seen been able to actually communicate to some basic degree, is!-

Did you guess it?

Y/N!

My personal theory on this is that likely due to the infection rooting itself in the given Cookie infects the jam circulation to travel upwards to the sugary brain, rewiring overtime as they pass through the stages, once making it to stage 4, allowing them to speak (and therefore bait gullible cookies all the better), or perhaps it has something to do with faint residues of energy of the Soul Jam Y/N used to have? who knows.

However there HAS been something else bothering me, despite Y/N's infected status, that Soul Jam of theirs hasn't dimmed or faded in the slightest, and is in fact still operational..

Now this implies two things

Either one, the far less likely one, despite the infection suppressing Y/N, it still harbors some fragment of their personality and perhaps even beyond that, their soul. Maybe this could imply that they aren't as doomed as we once had reason to believe.

Or the far more likely one, in which due to Y/N's still technically stable existence the Soul Jam still shines with that same light of compassion, allowing it to be used by whoever is deemed worthy enough.

But then you have to take into consideration, whatever happens to the original owner of that soul jam, indirectly affects the soul jam as a result.

For an example, take Dark Cacao Cookie, during the events of his ordeal with Mystic Flour, his soul jam had turned a ghastly white due to Mystic Flour regaining dominance due to Dark Cacao's personal demons, albeit only for a short period of time.

While one could argue that the situation between Beasts and Ancients regarding the soul jams is RADICALLY different then our given scenario, it could result in a possibly infected soul jam over time.

But then again, those are just my thoughts.

The Republic closed off the air and sea ports in anticipation of the infection.

So it makes you wonder just how infected got in….

[askagamedev]

What are some signs that a layoff is coming? I recently joined and the game that I'm working on is being developed for years and has been delayed several times. We have a important release date coming up and on our recently tests we found a lot of bugs and some things just break the game, making it unplayable. People around here are already talking about delaying it again, but then we would miss the date which IMO would be the death of the game. Should I be already looking for a new job?

This is a very good question. Unfortunately, there isn't really a good answer for this because those of us on the ground aren't privy to the meetings or decision-making process where such things are decided. I have no super accurate formula for you, because we're almost always operating on incomplete data. The best I can offer is a general approach that I've internalized over time that has served me well.

First and foremost, it costs you very little to update your resume if you're feeling a little nervous. You don't have to go so far as to apply to new jobs, but having an updated resume while you're still fresh on what you've been doing is a good thing - especially when you don't have any additional or external pressure on you. It only takes a little time and it's a healthy reassurance that you're ready to start looking if the need arises.

Now... the main reason layoffs come generally depends on one major factor - whether you're at a company that's privately or publicly owned. Privately-owned companies operate at the whim of their controlling stakeholder - e.g. Tim Sweeney has a controlling stake of Epic Games, Mark Zuckerberg controls 60% of the voting shares at Meta, etc. The owners are the ones who decide whether to cut staff. In these situations, as long as the overall company is still doing well enough financially, a favored project that stumbles (again) still gets a lot more leeway - they'll often let it slide even if there are setbacks. Even project cancellations may not result in layoffs so much as workers getting moved around to other projects instead. The key is the "doing well enough financially" part - if the company financials become unhealthy, the knives come out. At such employers, watch out for funding deals with other companies or investors falling through - that's a really bad sign and you should consider updating your resume and starting a job search if you see or hear about that happening.

If you're at a publicly traded company, you're really at the whim of the quarterly investor report. Investors buy into a given company in order to get a return on investment, so they need to see why they shouldn't take their money and invest it elsewhere, especially if those other places can offer a better return. The general case for a better financial future is the company "cutting costs", which is to say our jobs. In this situation, the cuts typically come from cancelling underperforming or troubled projects, cutting the lower performing products, and cancelling longer-term projects. The safest projects to be on at these companies are the workhorses - the long term sustaining franchises that pay the bills. The most dangerous projects at these companies are the experimental/new things - the untested cool new ideas. At such an employer, I would pay close attention to the quarterly investor reports at your company and see whether the company is hitting its targets, especially if I am on a project that is new and/or struggling. Whenever I see one bad quarterly report, I update my resume. If I see two bad quarterly reports in a row, I start checking my recruiter emails.

This isn't to say that this is all there is - there's a lot we aren't privy to. But these general rules have served me well over the years. Having gone through as many layoffs as I have, I developed a more subconscious sense of these things - bad team morale is often also a major indicator of layoffs in the near future. It's hard to explain, sometimes things just don't feel right. Pay attention to what the leadership says during the all hands meetings and try to read between the lines. The words they share will always be portrayed positively, but the proof is almost always in the pudding - the financials are what matter.

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[power-chords]

One of the menswear brands we factor, Corridor, makes some of the most fantastic and beautiful and well-made garments I've owned or laid my hands upon, and my only frustration with them is that they haven't branched out into womenswear yet, or even just slightly modified patterns in smaller sizes with shorter lengths/narrower shoulders to accommodate for more typical women's measurements. The designs themselves are already quite gender-neutral. And my gut is that they could kill two birds with one stone and make bank marketing to transmasc men in this way, because not everybody undergoes dramatic physical build/muscle distribution changes on testosterone — and not all trans men undergo HRT, for that matter! — and doing so wouldn't require too much operational maneuvering, I.E., $$$. Less fabric is less money, and greater customer diversity is more money. I brought this up to one of my friends/colleagues at work last week and she even suggested I email the owner directly. I may actually do that!

[beth-purcell]

I'm getting sick over the hate everyone is giving Meatly and Mike. Yes, they have made a lot of mistakes, but who hasn't? It's been five years now since the Kindly Beast controversy, and honestly, I think people need to let it go at this point. That doesn't mean I don't feel bad for the former KB employees, they did deserve better than what they ended up getting, I just want people to leave Meatly and Mike alone because it's starting to get under my skin.

That's completely fair, and very understandable. The fandom has its moments of forgetting that yes, Mike and Meatly are human/human operating a puppet, and people are allowed to grow and mature from mistakes and be forgiven and what not.

Unfortunately, Mike and Meatly have not shown that they've grown or matured from the Kindly Beast controversies, and as far as I've seen it, which feel free to take with a grain of salt, they have either doubled down on them being in the right, or taken the lesson that they need to get better at hiding their tracks, which you know is not a great plan when you're on the internet.

Mike has flat out admitted on his YouTube Page, prior to deleting everything again, that "there's nothing to change" in regard to the handling of the Kindly Beast Drama.

And if it was just the Kindly Beast situation and nothing else, I'd definitely just give an eyebrow raise but move on, but the major problem is that it's not. 5 years later and we've still seen them doing things that make it difficult for a lot of people to justify supporting them.

The treatment of the books is its own documentary in itself, especially with rumors of a new original graphic novel coming out, and rumors of how the authors found out their books were no longer canon (spoiler alert, it's when everyone else did because the decision was a spur of the moment [allegedly]), despite being marketed as such, and the situation involving Thomas Conner and Norman Polks that led to Mike deleting his twitter and to move to YouTube posts, until he got cornered with someone asking about some other mascot horror game called "Cakey's Twisted Bakery", in which there's a lot of evidence that points to the project being allegedly something from Mike and Meatly, in which he deleted most to all of his posts and turned off comments.

Mike's handling of anything has been the major issue for me, as it seems that doesn't seem to grasp the idea that a) Bendy has many factors that led to it's success and not just 1 or 2 people

and b) Actions have Consequences and you can't expect people to not react poorly when you state one thing and then do the complete opposite and try and cover up the past.

That isn't to say that the Meatly is clean for me; the fact he still hasn't acknowledged the Kindly Beast situation, let alone Mike's little piggyback with regard to the books and their canonicity, or other statements that Meatly could've easily nipped in the bud or clarified so people weren't stuck assuming, angers me in such a way because despite what anyone may think; not saying or doing anything, it is still doing something, and it's making things very loud and clear.

Do I still have love for Bendy, even with the owners and creators being the way they are?

Yes and no; I still love this silly little series that takes concepts of animation history with horror, and I love the friends I've made because of it, but I also am not going to actively cheer on or give money to the developers who don't understand the idea of 'burning bridges' or not understanding that their fan base, their voice actors, their former employees, and their collaborators have been doing most of the heavy lifting for their games.

It's not my priority to police or judge the fandom, nor is it something I really want to do. My goal is to just have the information out there, so people can make informed decisions to do what is imperative for them.

Do what you gotta do to make your piece of the internet good for you. If that means blocking folks or muting tags, then so be it.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Hotel Chelsea (also known as the Chelsea Hotel and the Chelsea) is a hotel at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1883 and 1884, the hotel was designed by Philip Hubert in a style described variously as Queen Anne Revival and Victorian Gothic. The 12-story Chelsea, originally a housing cooperative, has been the home of numerous writers, musicians, artists, and entertainers, some of whom still lived there in the 21st century. As of 2022, most of the Chelsea is a luxury hotel. The building is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.

The front facade of the Hotel Chelsea is 11 stories high, while the rear of the hotel rises 12 stories. The facade is divided vertically into five sections and is made of brick, with some flower-ornamented iron balconies; the hotel is capped by a high mansard roof. The Hotel Chelsea has thick load-bearing walls made of masonry, as well as wrought iron floor beams and large, column-free spaces. When the hotel opened, the ground floor was divided into an entrance hall, four storefronts, and a restaurant; this has been rearranged over the years, with a bar and the El Quijote restaurant occupying part of the ground floor. The Chelsea was among the first buildings in the city with duplex and penthouse apartments, and there is also a rooftop terrace. The hotel originally had no more than 100 apartments; it was subdivided into 400 units during the 20th century and has 155 units as of 2022. The idea for the Chelsea arose after Hubert & Pirsson had developed several housing cooperatives in New York City. Developed by the Chelsea Association, the structure quickly attracted authors and artists after opening. Several factors, including financial hardships and tenant relocations, prompted the Chelsea's conversion into an apartment hotel in 1905. Knott Hotels took over the hotel in 1921 and managed it until about 1942, when David Bard bought it out of bankruptcy. Julius Krauss and Joseph Gross joined Bard as owners in 1947. After David Bard died in 1964, his son Stanley operated it for 43 years, forming close relationships with many tenants. The hotel underwent numerous minor changes in the late 20th century after falling into a state of disrepair. The Krauss and Gross families took over the hotel in 2007 and were involved in numerous tenant disputes before the Chelsea closed for a major renovation in 2011. The hotel changed ownership twice in the 2010s before BD Hotels took over in 2016, and the Chelsea reopened in 2022.

Over the years, the Chelsea has housed many notables such as Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Virgil Thomson. The Chelsea received much commentary for the creative culture that Bard helped create within the hotel. Critics also appraised the hotel's interior—which was reputed for its uncleanliness in the mid- and late 20th century—and the quality of the hotel rooms themselves. The Chelsea has been the setting or inspiration for many works of popular media, and it has been used as an event venue and filming location.

Over the years, the Chelsea has become particularly well-known for its residents, who have come from all social classes. The New York Times described the hotel in 2001 as a "roof for creative heads", given the large number of such personalities who have stayed at the Chelsea; the previous year, the same newspaper had characterized the list of tenants as "living history". The journalist Pete Hamill characterized the hotel's clientele as "radicals in the 1930s, British sailors in the 40s, Beats in the 50s, hippies in the 60s, decadent poseurs in the 70s". Although early tenants were wealthy, the Chelsea attracted less well-off tenants by the mid-20th century, and many writers, musicians, and artists lived at the Hotel Chelsea when they were short on money. Accordingly, the Chelsea's guest list had almost zero overlap with that of the more fashionable Plaza Hotel crosstown. New York magazine wrote that "people who lived in the hotel slept together as often as they celebrated holidays together", particularly under Stanley Bard's tenure. Despite the high number of notable people associated with the Chelsea, its residents typically desired privacy and frowned upon those who used their relationships with their neighbors to further their own careers.

The Hotel Chelsea has housed numerous literary figures, some of whom wrote their books there. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea, calling the hotel his "spiritual home" despite its condition. Thomas Wolfe lived in the hotel before his death in 1938, writing several books such as You Can't Go Home Again; he often walked around the halls to gain inspiration for his writing. William S. Burroughs also lived at the Chelsea. While living at the Chelsea, Edgar Lee Masters wrote 18 poetry books, often wandering the hotel for hours. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (who lived with his wife Caitlin Thomas) was staying in room 205 when he became ill and died in 1953, while American poet Delmore Schwartz spent the last few years of his life in seclusion at the Chelsea before he died in 1966. Irish poet Brendan Behan, a severe alcoholic who had been ejected from the Algonquin Hotel, lived at the hotel for several months before his death in 1964. Many poets of the Beat poetry movement also lived at the Chelsea before the Beat Hotel in Paris became popular.

Other authors, writers, and journalists who stayed or lived at the hotel have included: Henry Abbey, poet Nelson Algren, writer Léonie Adams, poet; lived with husband William Troy Sherwood Anderson, writer Ben Lucien Burman, writer Henri Chopin, poet and musician Ira Cohen, poet and filmmaker Gregory Corso, poet Hart Crane, poet Quentin Crisp, writer and actor Jane Cunningham Croly, journalist Katherine Dunn, novelist and journalist Edward Eggleston, writer James T. Farrell, novelist Allen Ginsberg, poet John Giorno, poet Maurice Girodias, publisher Pete Hamill, journalist Bernard Heidsieck, poet O. Henry, writer Herbert Huncke, poet Clifford Irving, novelist and reporter Charles R. Jackson, author Theodora Keogh, novelist Jack Kerouac, writer Suzanne La Follette, journalist John La Touche, lyricist Jakov Lind, novelist Mary McCarthy, novelist and political activist Arthur Miller, playwright Jessica Mitford, author Vladimir Nabokov, novelist Eugene O'Neill, playwright Joseph O'Neill, novelist Claude Pélieu, poet and artist Rene Ricard, poet James Schuyler, poet Sam Shepard, playwright and actor Valerie Solanas, writer Benjamin Stolberg, publicist and author Richard Suskind, children's writer William Troy, critic; lived with wife Léonie Adams Mark Twain, writer Gore Vidal, writer Arnold Weinstein, librettist Tennessee Williams, playwright Yevgeny Yevtushenko, poet

The Chelsea was particularly popular among rock musicians and rock and roll musicians in the 1970s. These included Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, who allegedly stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death at the hotel in 1978; after Vicious's death, their room was split into two units to prevent the room from being turned into a shrine. Numerous rock bands frequented the Chelsea as well, including the Allman Brothers, the Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Byrds, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Lovin' Spoonful, Moby Grape, the Mothers of Invention, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Stooges. The Kills wrote much of their album No Wow at the Chelsea prior to its release in 2005. The Grateful Dead once performed on the roof.

[Chris Stein]

[transmutationisms]

(If you're alrght with another poorly articulated question from an obnoxious high schooler) Do you have thoughts on academics and their position in a labor framework? I know some grad students and have never been quite sure where they fit because they don't always work with "capital" in a traditional sense. Professors are odd to me because they are under university contract, but rather than get paid by the university they often get their own funding from the government. Or graduate sudents, who are often unionized, but I know a paleontology student who studies shark fossils who says he doesnt really consider what he does "making surplus value."

ok well that last person is simply confused lol. graduate students exist because the university profits from having us; it is a capitalist institution. most directly we usually work as teaching assistants or research assistants (or else pay tuition) and more indirectly, graduate programs get funding and university support because their existence contributes to a university's rankings, prestige factor, &c, which is to say its (perceived) profitability. plenty of us study things that don't produce much directly lucrative research, but this does not mean the university keeps us around for shits and giggles or some kind of laudatory interest in knowledge for its own sake. it is a capitalist institution and acts in the financial interest of its owners / beneficiaries.

anyway wrt faculty members, they are also employed by the university because it profits from them (or hopes to, anyway). i think many people get confused by tenureship; tenure is indeed fairly cushy as far as employment contracts go, but it is is still an employment contract, and most faculty are not actually tenured anyway. academics are a classic example of the 'professional-managerial class', which is not a marxian term but is a useful one for identifying those 'upper-middle class' members differentiated by their professional qualifications and status; the prestige and perceived utility of academic knowledge production is partially what makes academics an attractive target for a lot of government and NGO funding. state funding of academic research ofc has numerous functions but, and not to put too fine a point on it, a capitalist state also invests money in things because it is hoping for some kind of return on investment, eg in the form of directly profitable inventions, soft power, &c.

there are distinctions here between different academic employment statuses. an adjunct or contingent hire is paid by the university solely to teach, making their labourer status fairly straightforward. with tenured or tenure-track positions, yes there may also be money coming from outside; however, this doesn't negate the fact that the university is trying to profit from its faculty (else it wouldn't hire them). the professional-managerial class has certain characteristics of both proletariat and bourgeoisie, and there is some variation between academics as a very select few do attain the kind of household name status that can turn them into basically a personal brand. again though: the university wants to extract value from the work (both teaching and research) of academics it hires, and so do outside sources of funding for research projects. knowledge production should not be mystified or abstracted in ways that obfuscate the financial interests of involved parties; though it attains a prestige that few other commodities do, this is still a process that is embedded within the overall operating logics of capitalism.

an additional consideration wrt internal academic class politics is that many faculty use graduate students, postdocs, and even undergrads to perform or assist with their research. these arrangements vary in structure (and between disciplines) but in general, this does mean that many academics produce papers, books, &c that depend upon the labour of many people and rarely compensate these people equally to themselves. this can take the form of a more overtly employer-employee relationship between a professor and their underlings (for example, some labs are run this way) or it can be the case that it's another party (a publisher, say) who is reaping most of the surplus value squeezed from grad / undergrad / postdoc labour. in any case it is important to keep in mind that professors can and often do take on employer (ie, small capitalist) roles in relation to other employees of the university, even though the professors themselves are there because the university and other institutions pay them and profit from their labour.

i hope this is a useful start; obviously there is lots else to be said about the economics of the university and knowledge production as a capitalist process. in general when you are trying to think through this my advice would be not to let the presentation of the university as some kind of cerebral place of enlightenment confuse a materialist analysis of the flows of capital. plenty of workers and capitalists deal with commodities that are immaterial in the sense that 'knowledge' is, or are imbued with similar social meaning and value; the university deals with knowledge production but this does not make it any less an employer (ie, a capitalist institution) than any other institution operating in a capitalist context.

[democratthatlovesguns]

How greed is the main factor driving inflation.

And why didn't the Biden administration rollback the tariffs that the Trump administration set in place, if it would have reduced inflation?

Okay so, unlike MAGA republicans, the Biden administration knows that it's important to listen to expert economists on topics in which they recognize they have a great deal of bias. And the Biden administration knows how to weigh the options available and determine what is best for everyone regardless of political party.

The truth is, removal of the Trump tariffs would only have improved inflation slightly and temporarily, but the cost of removal would possibly come at great risk to the American people. That is what the experts said, and their expertise was what Biden trusted in keeping the tariffs; it was not because they were the magic potion solution to a recovering economy that Trump would have you believe.

Biden's actions, of course, are in great contrast to Trump and let's state just one example, Obamacare. Trump was shown and told many times that repealing Obamacare would result in very negative outcomes for a lot of Americans. Did he give one fuck about that? NO. He tried multiple times to repeal the law completely, and replace it with "a concept of a plan."

Back to inflation.

In the last three years, late 2021 to present, many people saw themselves rethinking their careers and their choices in life - without taking money too much into consideration. Great news for opportunist assholes like Kevin O'Leary.

What happens when a large portion of the population decides to "reinvent" themselves? Usually it means they're willing to take a pay cut to obtain an entry level position in a career they always wanted or wanted to at least try OR it means that they take a leap and try to run their own business.

That's great news to owners and shareholders of large corporations: A large wave of entry level applicants to non-union jobs. Greed dictates, as Kevin O'Leary does, that you should fire the guy working forty-hour weeks and earning his living wage after twenty years of consistent quality work; greed says "fire that guy and hire two new guys at minimum wage and if you can, no overtime pay."

And the greed does not end there.

Using "inflation" as a pretext large corporations were able to drive down the price of labor across the supply chain. Look at how many owner operators in the trucking business went out of business ... Look at why Yellow Logistics went bankrupt - they could not pay the living wage "rate" that the union needed for it's workers. A surplus of available labor in the industry resulted in starvation wages, literally. Read some of the stories out there, there were truckers literally paying to take loads instead of earning from taking loads.

And it wasn't just the truckers, people in the background like freight brokers also took big hits "because ... inflation."

So what did assholes like Kevin O'Leary do to help consumers and small businesses?

Owners and shareholders were enjoying substantial savings in manufacturing labor, transport, retail workers, all granted because "inflation" and people became scared of losing their jobs. Did they pass on the savings to consumers? Sure, in the MAGA world with alternative facts (fiction) that's presumably what they did. In the real world, they jacked up prices ... "because ... inflation."

Small retail business didn't stand a chance either. Large retailers could always negotiate massive discounts on wholesale purchases that mom and pop shops could never leverage to compete with. Anybody starting a small retail business soon found it was better to go out out business than continue to lose money.

So corporate leaders enjoyed substantial savings across the board and continued to raise prices for consumers ...

AND THEN THEY REPORTED RECORD PROFITS! IN SOME INSTANCES, MANY TIMES THEIR WILDEST PROJECTIONS.

Look at the collusion in the meat industry and companies like Pepsi and Coca Cola if you need more details.

Yet, Elon is able to convince half of the American people that "big cuts" are necessary to reduce America's debt. He's certainly not going to cut money that gets funneled to his pockets, for sure. He is going to cut social security and Medicare because we all know how frivolously old people spend their money. I mean, I understand.

It's like Senator Ron Johnson said, "Senior citizens have misused social security and that's why I want it to sunset."

TBH, many a time, I have had to drive to the club ... the strip club ... to drag grandma out of there. She's in there all like "make it rain bitches" while tossing fitties and hundeds in the air and buying everyone round after round of cognac. Grandma is all like, "fitties for them titties"! And I'm all like, "Grandma you incorrigible lesbo! What about your insulin and your rent?!" [I can use the word lesbo because I have zero lesbian friends ... That's not my preference, I just have a "military look" and people make assumptions (not unfounded).]

Anyway, so what do they do when Kamala Harris states that safeguards against price gouging should be rolled out to help the American people, and that corporations should be taxed more to pay for social benefits like health care and education (that will never be paid through bullshit trickle down economics)? They send a complete dumbass anti-Semitic asshole like Mel Gibson to call Kamala Harris low IQ and stupid when it comes to economics.

To clarify, Kamala Harris understands economics much better than Mel Gibson ever will. She also understands greed and what it can drive innocent sounding people to do.

Yes, ideally, corporations would pay zero tax ... But in such an ideal world, everyone employed by the corporation from the janitor to the CEO would earn enough from a forty hour work week (not a one hundred hour work week as proposed by Elon) to afford housing, food, health care, transportation, and everyone would still have a little left over for a Sunday steak dinner with the family and a little entertainment. This ideal world will never come to be, not because it's impossible, but because greedy assholes like Elon don't believe workers "deserve" such an existence as lowly employees.

WE DON'T TAX CORPORATIONS TO BE ASSHOLES, WE TAX THEM BECAUSE WE WANT THEM TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF THE SOCIAL SERVICES THEIR WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES HAVE EARNED.

The people that will suffer the most under Elon's rule on government spending will be the children, the elderly, the mentally or physically disabled. When you cast your vote, have them in mind, and ask yourself how much should they suffer so that Trump, Elon, and their billionaire friends can grow their "ego" wealth.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

Last week, billionaire and onetime unofficial co-president Elon Musk ended his tenure as a special government employee after four months of spreading chaos, misery, and death throughout the federal government and world. Much reporting has attributed his departure to philosophical differences with President Trump. Musk has criticized various Trump policies, most recently the House GOP spending bill for adding trillions to the federal deficit. But a crucial factor in Musk’s departure has been the grassroots protest that has damaged Musk’s businesses and helped destroy his popularity. Musk remains very powerful and may well continue to serve in an advisory role for Trump even if he’s more behind the scenes. But his retreat and obvious wish to distance himself from a government role he initially relished demonstrates that organized resistance can damage even the wealthiest man on earth.

Opposing Musk

Musk spent some $250 million on Trump’s campaign in 2024. As a quid pro quo, he was put in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with a remit to cut federal spending and line his pockets by hoovering up even more lucrative government contracts for his companies. Though DOGE has no real authority from Congress, its personnel — mostly Musk’s employees and loyalists who go by monikers like “Big Balls” — were given sweeping (and unconstitutional) permission by Trump to freeze congressionally appropriated funds. DOGE is believed to have fired more than 200,000 federal employees.

As one example of its overreach, DOGE recklessly cut resources at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gutting US forecasting abilities, with possibly devastating consequences for predicting future weather emergencies. More, last week one researcher discovered that DOGE’s cuts to USAID have probably already killed 300,000 people, most of them children. An estimate by Nature suggests that DOGE cuts to foreign aid could kill 21 million people over 15 years. Even if you set aside the horrific death toll and judge DOGE strictly on its own supposed goals, it seems likely that the whole lawless, cruel exercise will cost more than it saved. There have been numerous lawsuits to attempt to stop Musk’s reckless attack on the government and Constitution. A suit by several Democratic state attorneys to declare the whole enterprise illegal moved forward last week. The US Institute of Peace — an independent agency established by Congress — won a lawsuit regaining control over its own building which DOGE had illegally taken over. There are ongoing negotiations and lawsuits over DOGE’s (terrifying) access to sensitive financial data.

[...] Soon after Musk joined the Trump administration, a decentralized protest movement known as Tesla Takedown began staging nonviolent protests across the country. A major event at the end of March included protests in 253 cities, in the US and abroad. Individuals have also expressed their anger at Musk by targeting his company and those who buy its products. One recent study by Guardian Service found that 46 percent of Tesla owners said that their cars have been vandalized, and 43 percent said they’d seen “rude gestures or negative comments from strangers while behind the wheel.” These incidents aren’t necessarily violent or all that damaging — political columnist Chris Cillizza reported with some outrage that someone had “defaced” his Tesla by leaving a sticker on his car saying “Musk is a Nazi.” But the cumulative effect is to make Tesla ownership toxic. The Guardian Service study found that a third of Tesla owners were considering selling their cars within a year.

The Tesla Takedown operations helped take down Elon Musk, as he exits the Trump White House… for now.

See Also:

Brian Tyler Cohen: Elon leaves with reputation in tatters

The Status Kuo (Jay Kuo): Yes, We Did Defeat Elon Musk…For Now