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stars-for-circe · 5 months

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Firsts

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Tags / cw: weed, alcohol, implied making out, college party au, dealer!Ellie, tiny bit suggestive

The smell of weed was what first drew you outside to her. Well, it was a college party - there was going to be weed. But this was different. It was different. Somewhere, through that euphoric dizziness made from a punch that was more moonshine than mango juice, you smelled roses.

Like some fucked up cartoon, your feet carried your body out of the house, the air inside now warm from the oversupply of body heat and drunken dancing. God you were hot. A palm against your flushed red face once hidden from the colourful ambiance of the living room cooled you, as you weakly shoved your way around until you reached the door. Thank fuck.

“No, fuck-!”

You tripped. Either from your untied laces or the small ledge between tile kitchen and wooden porch, you couldn’t remember, but either way, you now found yourself face fucking first on the damp porch. Shit, you were drunk.

…And it felt nice. Really nice. So nice, in fact, that you couldn’t help but nestle your face against the cold floor, too focused on your slowing heart rate, your lowering temperature - the music from inside only detectable now in faint vibrations through the floor. You could stay here for a while, you thought. It was so quiet, and so cold and comfy,

“N’ it smells like roses…” you giggled to yourself.

“Yea? Think it’s just the weed, baby.” Ellie snickered to herself. And you jumped.

“Gah- holy shit!” You whisper-yelled and snapped your head up at her voice, body still splayed frozen like a starfish on the floor as your eyes adjusted to the dark. A couple metres in front of you sat Ellie Williams on the stairs, barely visible, and only by the small dot of light at the end of her joint and the soft glow of the street lamp.

She stared at you, while blinking slowly, a grin lazily painting itself across her face. You glared at her back, for destroying your peace, as she took another drag from that stupid joint. Your relaxed mind pinpointed the source of the roses - now stronger than ever - but it was too relaxed to understand what it really was. And Ellie noticed your staring.

“It’s uh, rose infused. My own special blend.” She waved it around as she spoke, looking proud of her creation. And the overstuffed baggie of cash by her side proved why.

“You wanna try some, cutie?”

You sat up at a leisurely pace, struggling a little in the dark. Then, you huffed out a laugh at this whole situation as you looked down at the floor in shame. Of all people you ran into, it was the fucking drug dealer. The only person you would have nothing in common with. You were 20 years old, for fucks sake, and you had never smoked weed.

“I um…can’t.”

“Why, already high? You look it.” She snickered again. Strong fucking strain, you thought.

“No, I just….can’t.”

“Oh.” Ellie furrowed her brows, leaning against the railing as she tried to find the words. God, this was so embarrassing, you just wanted to go back inside. And you almost did - twisting yourself around and leaning back on your feet to stand.

“…..want me to teach you?” She called out, waiting for your answer, and when you didn’t give one, she laughed, this time. Seriously, was it the fucking rose shit or what?

“Just-” Ellie tried saying, broken up with giggles.

“-come here. ‘M gonna try something.” Hesitantly, you tiptoed over to sit opposite her on the stairs, curious - and a little nervous - at what Ellie was planning. She took another deep drag, before sitting up straight and crossing her legs, focusing on you. And by now, you were blaming the butterflies in your stomach entirely on the alcohol.

“So, y’ever heard of shotgunning?”

Oh, fuck.

“Uh- yeah. Somewhat.”

And maybe if you weren’t so drunk, and if it wasn’t so dark, you would have noticed Ellie’s eyes trailing down to your lips. And maybe how her smart choice of shoes that night, a platform pair of converse, tucked itself perfectly between her legs - the slightest of pressure to ease the ache forming. But her eyes snapped back, all bleary and red, as she focused her attention back on making eye contact once again.

“And you won’t get nervous if I just…..get close or anything?” She was whispering now, already closing the distance bit by bit, a small smile adorning her face.

“No.”

She took another drag.

“And you won’t get nervous if I do this?” Her voice even softer now, as her hand - warm from resting in the pocket of her hoodie - gently cupped your face. The smoke coming from her mouth making your eyes water at the proximity, and the smell of roses making you heavy headed.

“No.” By now you were whispering, too. And she paused, eyes flicking to your lips again, this time lasting longer.

“Then close your eyes, baby.”

Through the rosy haze of weed smoke and alcohol, you could barely register her command, closing your eyes ever so slowly. You heard a small a small hitch of breath, and then a long deep puff of the joint in front of you. The hand cupping your face shifted slightly as Ellie rubbed her thumb gently along your skin, asking you to open your mouth. And when you did, you could have sworn you felt her thumb brush against your bottom lip, the both of you almost in a trance with each other, before the warm smoke blew into your mouth.

Fuck, was this really happening? You almost forgot to inhale it. But you did, in the end - the smell and taste of pungent weed lined with pink, airy roses sinking deep in your lungs. You let it sit there, resisting the strong urge to cough, before opening your eyes and exhaling slowly in tandem. And what a sight you were met with.

Ellie, with red, droopy eyes, mouth still open slightly as she watched your lips move and smoke billow out. Ellie, with the tiniest of curious smiles on her face as she watched your eyes slow to widen at the closeness of her face to yours. Ellie, coming even closer to your lips the longer you sat there.

“So, how’d you rate it?”

“Eh, a six….” You thought out loud.

“…I smell like roses now, though.” And you started giggling, as you stared at Ellie’s playfully unamused glare at your rating.

“First of all, fuck you - a six? Second of all, you smell like weed with roses.” She retorted, pinching your cheek softly. Fuck, her hand was still there, too. You tried to play your nervousness off, poking her in the centre of her chest as you tried to play back.

“And you smell good.” You whispered teasingly, leaning close once again. But Ellie, thank god for her higher tolerance, predicted exactly where you were going. Moving her hand from your cheek to the arm outstretched to her chest, pushing it to splay widely against her, trapping it there at the wrist, she met you in the middle. And your lips, between the thick smoke of it all, just breath touched. It went quiet again. But the heartbeat you felt between your fingers broke the silence each time it beat.

And you couldn’t see her expression so late at night - or so early in the morning, you should say - but the way her breath hitched, the way the soft beat of the music from inside of the house went quiet in your head, and the way the butterflies in your stomach became so very present-

“Do I smell good enough to kiss?”

You hesitated once again, hand once outstretched again her chest now closed in a loose fist.

“C’mon, baby…..you can’t do this, too?”

Oh, fuck you, you thought, stealing the joint and taking a hard drag, much to Ellie’s surprise - and amusement.

“Yeah, you gonna teach me or what, Williams?”

The joint now smoked the the butt, and crumbling to bits as Ellie scoffed, snatching it out of your grasp and flicked it onto the driveway. Both her hands free now as they grabbed your face and pulled you in.

“Better be more than a six…”

Taglist: @happysparklingshadows @irelandzo @r3starttt @iamaboringrattat @genderfluidlesbain999 @slut4mascss @rxreaqia @kylorey25 @massivepeacefemme @elliewilliamsfavborderhopper @elliewilliamsisactuallymygf @ratdungeon @elxarw @mariasabanahabanabana @vvynia @abbyshands @littlegingerperson5 @flowersforvi

#tlou2 #the last of us #the last of us 2 #tlou #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams #ellie williams x you #ellie williams smut

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bluebirdcurse · 30 days

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Patty loves blaming Allison for ruining her life with her incompetent criminal shenanigans like she didn't spend the last four years selling pills out of her salon and didn't even notice she was oversupplying so much she became the Worcester oxy connection

#kevin can fuck himself

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dresshistorynerd · 7 months

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The Real Cost of the Fashion Industry

Atacama Desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile. (source)

The textile industry is destroying the world. The industry is wasting massive amounts of energy and materials, and polluting the air, the ground and the water supplies. It overwhelmingly exploits it's labour and extracts wealth from colonized countries, especially in Asia. I assume we all broadly understand this, but I think it's useful to have it all laid out in front of you to see the big picture, the core issues causing this destruction and find ways how to effectively move forward.

The concerning trend behind this ever-increasing devastation are shortening of trend cycles, lowering clothing prices and massive amount of wasted products. Still in year 2000 it was common for fashion brands to have two collections per year, while now e.g. Zara produces 24 collections and H&M produces 12-16 collections per year. Clothing prices have fallen (at leas in EU) 30% from 1996 to 2018 when adjusted to inflation, which has contributed to the 40% increase in clothing consumption per person between 1996 and 2012 (in EU). (source) As the revenue made by the clothing industry keep rising - from 2017 to 2021 they doubled (source) - falling prices can only be achieved with increasing worker exploitation and decreasing quality. I think the 36% degrees times clothing are used in average during the last 15 years (source) is a clear indication on the continuing drop in quality of clothing. Clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015, while 30% of the clothes produced per year are never sold and are often burned instead (source), presumably to prevent the returns from falling due to oversupply.

These all factors are driving people to overconsume. While people in EU keep buying more clothes, they haven't used up to 50% of the clothes in their wardrobe for over a year (source). This overconsumption is only made much worse by the new type of hyper fast fashion companies like SHEIN and Temu, which are using addictive psychological tactics developed by social media companies (source 1, source 2). They are cranking up all those concerning trends I mentioned above.

Under the cut I will go through the statistics of the most significant effects of the industry on environment and people. I will warn you it will be bleak. This is not just a fast fashion problem, basically the whole industry is engaging in destructive practices leading to this damage. Clothing is one of those things that would be actually relatively easy to make without massive environmental and human cost, so while that makes the current state of the industry even more heinous, it also means there's hope and it's possible to fix things. In the end, I will be giving some suggestions for actions we could be doing right now to unfuck this mess.

Carbon emissions

The textile industry is responsible for roughly 10% of the global CO2 emissions, more than aviation and shipping industry combined. This is due to the massive supply chains and energy intensive production methods of fabrics. Most of it can be contributed to the fashion sector since around 60% of all the textile production is clothing. Polyester, a synthetic fiber made from oil which accounts for more than half of the fibers used in the textile industry, produces double the amount of carbon emissions than cotton, accounting for very large proportions of all the emissions by the industry. (source 1, source 2)

Worker exploitation

Majority of the textiles are produced in Asia. Some of the worst working conditions are in Bangladesh, one of the most important garment producers, and Pakistan. Here's an excerpt from EU Parliament's briefing document from 2014 after the catastrophic Rana Plaza disaster:

The customers of garment producers are most often global brands looking for low prices and tight production timeframes. They also make changes to product design, product volume, and production timeframes, and place last-minute orders without accepting increased costs or adjustments to delivery dates. The stresses of such policies usually fall on factory workers.

The wage exploitation is bleak. According to the 2015 documentary The True Cost less than 2% of all garment factory workers earned a living wage (source). Hourly wages are so low and the daily quotas so high, garment workers are often forced through conditions or threats and demand to work extra hours, which regularly leads to 10-12 hour work days (source) and at worst 16 hour workdays (source), often without days off. Sometimes factories won't compensate for extra hours, breaching regulations (source).

Long working hours, repetitive work, lack of breaks and high pressure leads to increased risks of injuries and accidents. Small and even major injuries are extremely common in the industry. A study in three factories in India found that 70% of the workers suffered from musculosceletal symptoms (source). Another qualitative study of female garment workers and factory doctors in Dhaka found that long hours led to eye strain, headaches, fatigue and weight loss in addition to muscular and back pains. According to the doctors interviewed, weight loss was common because the workers work such long hours without breaks, they didn't have enough time to eat properly. (source) Another study in 8 factories in India found that minor injuries were extremely common and caused by unergonomic work stations, poor organization in the work place and lack of safety gear, guidelines and training (source). Safety precautions too are often overlooked to cut corners, which periodically leads to factory accidents, like in 2023 lack of fire exists and fire extinguishers, and goods stacked beyond capacity led to a factory fire in Pakistan which injured dozens of workers (source) or like in 2022 dangerous factory site led to one dead worker and 9 injured workers (source).

Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 is the worst industrial accident in recent history. The factory building did not have proper permits and the factory owner blatantly ignored signs of danger (other businesses abandoned the building a day before the collapse), which led to deaths of 1 134 workers and injuries to 2 500 workers. The factory had or were at the time working for orders of at least Prada, Versace, Primark, Walmart, Zara, H&M, C&A, Mango, Benetton, the Children's Place, El Corte Inglés, Joe Fresh, Carrefour, Auchan, KiK, Loblaw, Bonmarche and Matalan. None of the brands were held legally accountable for the unsafe working conditions which they profited off of. Only 9 of the brands attended a meeting to agree on compensation for the victim's families. Walmart, Carrefour, Auchan, Mango and KiK refused to sight the agreement, it was only signed by Primark, Loblaw, Bonmarche and El Corte Ingles. The compension these companies provided was laughable though. Primemark demanded DNA evidence that they are relatives of one of the victims from these struggling families who had lost their often sole breadwinner for a meager sum of 200 USD (which doesn't even count for two months of living wage in Bangladesh (source)). This obviously proved to be extremely difficult for most families even though US government agreed to donate DNA kits. This is often said to be a turning point in working conditions in the industry, at least in Bangladesh, but while there's more oversight now, as we have seen, there's clearly still massive issues. (source 1, source 2)

One last major concern of working conditions in the industry I will mention is the Xinjiang raw cotton production, which is likely produced mainly with forced labour from Uighur concentration camps, aka slave labour of a suspected genocide. 90% of China's raw cotton production comes from Xinjiang (source). China is the second largest cotton producer in the world, after India, accounting 20% of the yearly global cotton production (source).

Pollution

Synthetic dyes, which synthetic fibers require, are the main cause of water pollution caused by the textile industry, which is estimated to account for 20% of global clean water pollution (source). This water pollution by the textile industry is suspected of causing a lot of health issues like digestive issues in the short term, and allergies, dermatitis, skin inflammation, tumors and human mutations in the long term. Toxins also effect fish and aquatic bacteria. Azo dyes, one of the major pollutants, can cause detrimental effects to aquatic ecosystems by decreasing photosynthetic activity of algae. Synthetic dyes and heavy metals also cause large amounts of soil pollution. Large amounts of heavy metals in soil, which occurs around factories that don't take proper environmental procautions, can cause anaemia, kidney failure, and cortical edoem in humans. That also causes changes in soil texture, decrease in soil microbial diversity and plant health, and changes in genetic structure of organisms growing in the soil. Textile factory waste water has been used for irrigation in Turkey, where other sources of water have been lacking, causing significant damage to the soil. (source)

Rayon produced through viscose process causes significant carbon disulphide and hydrogen sulphide pollution to the environment. CS2 causes cardiovascular, psychiatric, neuropsychological, endocrinal and reproductive disorders. Abortion rates among workers and their partners exposed to CS2 are reported to be significantly higher than in control groups. Many times higher amounts of sick days are reported for workers in spinning rooms of viscose fiber factories. China and India are largest producers of CS2 pollution, accounting respectively 65.74% and 11,11% of the global pollution, since they are also the major viscose producers. Emission of CS2 has increased significantly in India from 26.8 Gg in 2001 to 78.32 Gg in 2020. (source)

Waste

The textile industry is estimated to produce around 92 million tons of textile waste per year. As said before around 30% of the production is never sold and with shortening lifespans used the amount of used clothing that goes to waster is only increasing. This waste is large burned or thrown into landfills in poor countries. (source) H&M was accused in 2017 by investigative journalists of burning up to 12 tonnes of clothes per year themselves, including usable clothing, which they denied claiming they donated clothing they couldn't sell to charity instead (source). Most of the clothing donated to charity though is burned or dumbed to landfills (source).

Most of the waste clothing from rich countries like European countries, US, Australia and Canada are shipped to Chile (source) or African countries, mostly Ghana, but also Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire (source). There's major second-hand fashion industries in these places, but most of the charity clothing is dumbed to landfills, because they are in such bad condition or the quality is too poor. Burning and filling landfills with synthetic fabrics with synthetic dyes causes major air, water and soil pollution. The second-hand clothing industry also suppresses any local clothing production as donated clothing is inherently more competitive than anything else, making these places economically reliant on dumbed clothing, which is destroying their environment and health, and prevents them from creating a more sustainable economy that would befit them more locally. This is not an accident, but required part of the clothing industry. Overproduction let's these companies tap on every new trend quickly, while not letting clothing the prices in rich countries drop so low it would hurt their profits. Production is cheaper than missing a trend.

Micro- and nanoplastics

There is massive amounts of micro- and nanoplastics in all of our environment. It's in our food, drinking water, even sea salt (source). Washing synthetic textiles accounts for roughly 35% of all microplastics released to the environment. It's estimated that it has caused 14 million tonnes of microplastics to accumulate into the bottom of the ocean. (source)

Microplastics build up into the intestines of animals (including humans), and have shown to probably cause cause DNA damage and altered organism behavior in aquatic fauna. Microplastics also contain a lot of the usual pollutants from textile industry like synthetic dyes and heavy metals, which absorb in higher quantities to tissues of animals through microplastics in the intestines. Studies have shown that the adverse effect are higher the longer the microplastics stay in the organism. The effects cause major risks to aquatic biodiversity. (source) The health effects of microplastics to humans are not well known, but studies have shown that they could have adverse effects on digestive, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive and immune systems. (source)

Microplastics degrade in the environment even further to nanoplastics. Nanoplastic being even smaller are found to enter blood circulation, get inside cells and cross the blood-brain barrier. In fishes they have been found to cause neurological damage. Nanoplastics are also in the air, and humans frequently breath them in. Study in office buildings found higher concentration of nanoplastics in indoor air than outdoor air. Inside the nanoplastics are likely caused mostly by synthetic household textiles, and outdoors mostly by car tires. (source) An association between nanoplastics and mitochondrial damage in human respiratory cells was found in a recent study. (source)

Micro and nano plastics are also extremely hard to remove from the environment, making it even more important that we reduce the amount of microplastics we produce as fast as possible.

What can we do?

This is a question that deserves it's own essays and articles written about it, but I will leave you with some action points. Reading about these very bleak realities can easily lead to overwhelming apathy, but we need to channel these horrors into actions. Whatever you do, do not fall into apathy. We don't have the luxury for that, we need to act. These are industry wide problems, that simply cannot be fixed by consumerism. Do not trust any clothing companies, even those who market themselves as ethical and responsible, always assume they are lying. Most of them are, even the so called "good ones". We need legislation. We cannot allow the industry to regulate itself, they will always take the easy way out and lie to their graves. I will for sure write more in dept about what we can do, but for now here's some actions to take, both political and individual ones.

Political actions

Let's start with political actions, since they will be the much more important ones. While we are trying to dismantle capitalism and neocolonialism (the roots of these issues), here's some things that we could do right now. These will be policies that we should be doing everywhere in the world, but especially rich countries, where most of the clothing consumption is taking place. Vote, speak to others, write to your representative, write opinion pieces to your local papers, engage with democracy.

Higher requirements of transparency. Right now product transparency in clothing is laughably low. In EU only the material make up and the origin country of the final product are required to be disclosed. Everything else is up to the company. Mandatory transparency is the only way we can force any positive changes in the production. The minimum of transparency should be: origin countries of the fibers and textiles in the product itself; mandatory reports of the lifecycle emissions; mandatory reports of whole chain of production. Right now the clothing companies make their chain of production intentionally complex, so they have plausible deniability when inevitably they are caught violating environmental or worker protection laws (source). They intentionally don't want to be able to track down their production chain. Forcing them to do so anyway would make it very expensive for them to keep up this unnecessarily complex production chain. These laws are most effective when put in place in large economies like EU or US.

Restrictions on the use of synthetic fibers. Honestly I think they should be banned entirely, since the amount of microplastics in our environment is already extremely distressing and the other environmental effects of synthetic fibers are also massive, but I know there are functions for which they are not easily replaced (though I think they can be replaces in those too, but that's a subject of another post), so we should start with restrictions. I'm not sure how they should be specifically made, I'm not a law expert, but they shouldn't be used in everyday textiles, where there are very easy and obvious other options.

Banning viscose. There are much better options for viscose method that don't cause massive health issues and environmental destruction where ever it's made, like Lyocell. There is absolutely no reason why viscose should be allowed to be sold anywhere.

Governmental support for local production by local businesses. Most of the issues could be much more easily solved and monitored if most clothing were not produced by massive global conglomerations, but rather by local businesses that produce locally. All clothing are made by hand, so centralizing production doesn't even give it advantage in effectiveness (only more profits for the few). Producing locally would make it much more easier to enforce regulations and it would reduce production chains, making production more effective, leaving more profits into the hands of the workers and reducing emissions from transportation. When the production is done by local businesses, the profits would stay in the producing country and they could be taxed and utilized to help the local communities. This would be helpful to do in both exploited and exploiter countries. When done in rich countries who exploit poorer ones, it would reduce the demand for exploitation. In poor countries this is not as easily done, since poor means they don't have money to give around, but maybe this could be a good cause to put some reparations from colonizers and global corporations, which they should pay.

Preventing strategic accounting between subsidiaries and parent companies. Corporate law is obviously not my area of expertise, but I know that allowing corporations to move around the accounting of profits and losses between subsidiaries and parent companies in roughly 1980s, was a major factor in creating this modern global capitalist system, where corporations can very easily manipulate their accounting to utilize tax heavens and avoid taxes where they actually operate, which is how they are upholding this terrible system and extracting the profits from the production countries. How specifically this would be done I can't tell because again I know shit about corporate law, so experts of that field should plan the specifics. Overall this would help deal with a lot of other problems than just the fashion industry. Again for it to be effective a large economic area like EU or US should do this.

Holding companies accountable for their whole chain of production. These companies should be dragged to court and made to answer for the crimes they are profiting of off. We should put fear back into them. This is possible. Victims of child slavery are already doing this for chocolate companies. If it's already not how law works everywhere, the laws should be changed so that the companies are responsible even if they didn't know, because it's their responsibility to find out and make sure they know. They should have been held accountable for the Rana Plaza disaster. Maybe they still could be. Sue the mother fuckers. They should be afraid of us.

Individual actions

I will stress that the previous section is much more important and that there's no need to feel guilty for individual actions. This is not the fault of the average consumer. Still we do need to change our relationship to fashion and consumption. While it's not our fault, one of the ways this system is perpetuated, is by the consumerist propaganda by fashion industry. And it is easier to change our own habits than to change the industry, even if our own habits have little impact. So these are quite easy things we all could do as we are trying to do bigger change to gain some sense of control and keep us from falling to apathy.

Consume less. Better consumption will not save us, since consumption itself is the problem. We consume too much clothing. Don't make impulse purchases. Consider carefully weather you actually need something or if you really really want it. Even only buying second-hand still fuels the industry, so while it's better than buying new, it's still better to not buy.

Take proper care of your clothing. Learn how to properly wash your clothing. There's a lot of internet resources for that. Never wash your wool textiles in washing machine, even if the textile's official instructions allow it. Instead air them regularly, rinse them in cool water if they still smell after airing and wash stains with water or small amount of (wool) detergent. Never use fabric softener! It damages the fabrics, prevents them from properly getting clean and is environmentally damaging. Instead use laundry vinegar for making textiles softer or removing bad smells. (You can easily make laundry vinegar yourself too from white vinegar and water (and essential oils, if you want to add a scent to it) which is much cheaper.) Learn how to take care of your leather products. Most leather can be kept in very good condition for a very long time by occasional waxing with beeswax.

Use the services of dressmakers and shoemakers. Take your broken clothing or clothing which doesn't fit anymore to your local dressmaker and ask them if they can do something about it. Take your broken and worn leather products to your local shoemaker too. Usually it doesn't cost much to get something fixed or refitted and these expert usually have ways to fix things you couldn't even think of. So even if the situation with your clothing or accessory seems desperate, still show it to the dressmaker or shoemaker.

If it's extremely cheap, don't buy it. Remember that every clothing is handmade. Only a small fraction of the cost of the clothing will be paying the wages of the person who made it with their hands. If a shirt costs 5 euros (c. 5,39 USD), it's sewer was only payed mere cents for sewing it. I'm not a quick sewer and it takes me roughly 1-2 hours to cut, prepare and sew a simple shirt, so I'm guessing it would take around half an hour to do all that for a factory worker on a crunch, at the very least 15 minutes. So the hourly pay would still be ridiculously low. However, as I said before, the fact that the workers in clothing factories get criminally low pay is not the fault of the consumer, so if you need a clothing item, and you don't have money to buy anything else than something very cheep, don't feel guilty. And anyway expensive clothing in no way necessarily means reasonable pay or ethical working conditions, cheep clothing just guarantee them.

Learn to recognize higher quality. In addition to exploitation, low price also means low quality, but again high price doesn't guarantee high quality. High quality allows you to buy less, so even if it's not as cheep as low quality, if you can afford it, when you need it, it will be cheaper in long run, and allows you to consume less. Check the materials. Natural fibers are your friends. Do not buy plastic, if it's possible to avoid. Avoid household textiles from synthetic fibers. Avoid textiles with small amounts of spandex to give it stretch, it will shorten the lifespan of the clothing significantly as the spandex quickly wears down and the clothing looses it's shape. Also avoid clothing with rubber bands. They also loose their elasticity very quickly. In some types of clothing (sport wear, underwear) these are basically impossible to avoid, but in many other cases it's entirely possible.

Buy from artisans and local producers, if you can. As said better consumption won't fix this, but supporting artisans and your local producers could help keep them afloat, which in small ways helps create an alternative to the exploitative global corporations. With artisans especially you know the money goes to the one who did the labour and buying locally means less middlemen to take their cut. More generally buy rather from businesses that are located to the same country where the production is, even if it's not local to you. A local business doesn't necessarily produce locally.

Develop your own taste. If you care about fashion and style, it's easy to fall victim to the fashion industry's marketing and trend cycles. That's why I think it's important to develop your personal sense of style and preferences. Pay attention at what type of clothes are comfortable to you. Go through your wardrobe and track for a while which clothing you use most and which least. Understanding your own preferences helps you avoid impulse buying.

Consider learning basics of sewing. Not everyone has the time or interest for this, but if you in anyway might have a bit of both, I suggest learning some very simple and basic mending and reattaching a button.

Further reading on this blog: How to see through the greenwashing propaganda of the fashion industry - Case study 1: Shein

Bibliography

Academic sources

An overview of the contribution of the textiles sector to climate change, 2022, L. F. Walter et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science

How common are aches and pains among garment factory workers? A work-related musculoskeletal disorder assessment study in three factories of south 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, 2021, Arkaprovo Pal et al., J Family Med Prim Care

Sewing shirts with injured fingers and tears: exploring the experience of female garment workers health problems in Bangladesh, 2019, Akhter, S., Rutherford, S. & Chu, C., BMC Int Health Hum Rights

Occupation Related Accidents in Selected Garment Industries in Bangalore City, 2006, Calvin, Sam & Joseph, Bobby, Indian Journal of Community Medicine

A Review on Textile and Clothing Industry Impacts on The Environment, 2022, Nur Farzanah Binti Norarmi et al., International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Carbon disulphide and hydrogen sulphide emissions from viscose fibre manufacturing industry: A case study in India, 2022, Deepanjan Majumdar et al., Atmospheric Environment: X

Microplastics Pollution: A Brief Review of Its Source and Abundance in Different Aquatic Ecosystems, 2023, Asifa Ashrafy et al., Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances

Health Effects of Microplastic Exposures: Current Issues and Perspectives in South Korea, 2023, Yongjin Lee et al., Yonsei Medical Journal

Nanoplastics and Human Health: Hazard Identification and Biointerface, 2022, Hanpeng Lai, Xing Liu, and Man Qu, Nanomaterials

Other sources

The impact of textile production and waste on the environment (infographics), 2020, EU

Chile’s desert dumping ground for fast fashion leftovers, 2021, AlJazeera

Fashion - Worldwide, 2022 (updated 2024), Statista

Fashion Industry Waste Statistics & Facts 2023, James Evans, Sustainable Ninja (magazine)

Everything You Need to Know About Waste in the Fashion Industry, 2024, Solene Rauturier, Good on You (magazine)

Textiles and the environment, 2022, Nikolina Šajn, European Parliamentary Research Service

Help! I'm addicted to secondhand shopping apps, 2023, Alice Crossley, Cosmopolitan

Addictive, absurdly cheap and controversial: the rise of China’s Temu app, 2023, Helen Davidson, Guardian

Workers' conditions in the textile and clothing sector: just an Asian affair? - Issues at stake after the Rana Plaza tragedy, 2014, Enrico D'Ambrogio, European Parliamentary Research Service

State of The Industry: Lowest Wages to Living Wages, The Lowest Wage Challenge (Industry affiliated campaign)

Fast Fashion Getting Faster: A Look at the Unethical Labor Practices Sustaining a Growing Industry, 2021, Emma Ross, International Law and Policy Brief (George Washington University Law School)

Dozens injured in Pakistan garment factory collapse and fire, 2023, Hannah Abdulla, Just Style (news media)

India: Multiple factory accidents raise concerns over health & safety in the garment industry, campaigners call for freedom of association in factories to ‘stave off’ accidents, 2022, Jasmin Malik Chua, Business & Human Rights Resource Center

Minimum Wage Level for Garment Workers in the World, 2020, Sheng Lu, FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing (University of Delaware)

Rana Plaza collapse, Wikipedia

Buyers’ compensation for Rana Plaza victims far from reality, 2013, Ibrahim Hossain Ovi, Dhaka Tribune (news media)

World cotton production statistics, updated 2024, The World Counts

Dead white man’s clothes, 2021, Linton Besser, ABC News

#fashion #fashion industry #sustainability #sustainable fashion #sustainable clothing #environment #climate change #i will be continuing the series of how to see through fashion industry propaganda at some point #i just felt compelled to write this because i feel like people so often miss the forest for the trees in this conversation

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usnewsper-business · 6 months

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Oil Prices Drop as OPEC's Cuts Face Doubt: Can They Fix Oversupply? #Brentcrude #oilprices #OPEC #oversupply #productioncuts

#Business #Brentcrude #oilprices #OPEC #oversupply #productioncuts

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mrsstarkey1 · 2 years

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reunited - rafe cameron

SUMMARY: you get locked in a room with rafe after being kidnapped by singh

WORD COUNT: 2.8k

WARNINGS : sad rafe :( slight obx season 3 spoilers

A/N: check out my most recent rafe fic

It was when you were getting pushed, very harshly might you add, into a bedroom with the door getting locked behind you when you really regretted helping the pilot out of the plane. God damn empathetic instincts got you every time.

"Dinner in an hour. Better clean up," the guards voice sounded from the other side of the closed door.

"Fuck," you mumbled under your breath, leaning your head back against the wall. After taking a moment to compose yourself, you opened your eyes and scanned them around the room.

Your eyes locked onto the wardrobe in the corner of the room, 4 identical silk dresses hanging up on a bar. You walked over to it, grabbing the note on the first dress.

‘pick your size’

“Well, don’t mind if I do I guess,” you mumbled, shaking your head slightly. Your mind was all sorts of boggled right now. Why in the hell would someone kidnap you then give you a $500 dress to wear to a dinner? Nothing made sense. You knew this couldn’t be Ward, if it were him you wouldn’t even get a bed to sleep on.

You changed into your dress and made yourself look halfway decent for whatever sort of dinner you were about to be met with.

About an hour later, just as promised, the guard barged in the room. “Follow me,” he said sternly.

You walked down the stairs, through a hallway and the guard grabbed your arm and practically shoved you into a room. “Alright, what the fuck?” you let out, turning back toward the guard. “You can stop shoving me. I’ve been perfectly compliant, I mean where the fuck do you think i’m gonna go?” you lifted your arms up halfway, gesturing to the oversupply of guards in the house, “I mean at this point it’s just plain rude.”

The guard was dead silent, just glaring down at you. “Just proving my point there buddy,” you said quietly, turning back to face the inside of the room.

“Y/n?” a familiar voice said as soon as you turned around.

Your mouth parted slightly in pure shock, “Rafe.” You could not fucking believe it. Rafe Cameron in the flesh, after a month of zero contact. He could have been dead for all you knew.

The guard closed the door behind you, the click of the lock causing the both of you to become silent. You could only hear the sound of your heart pounding in your chest, and you were pretty sure you could here Rafe’s even from across the room.

“What are you doing here?” you breathed out, your voice coming out less strong than you intended. Your chest clenched, thinking of the possible reasons Rafe was standing in front of you, in the house you’d been taken to against your will.

Rafe met your eyes again, and this time you took the time to look at him. He looked different. His hair was buzzed, something that you never imagined can actually look good on a man, but Rafe Cameron shot that theory to hell.

“Me? What are you doing here?” Rafe said loudly, taking a step toward you.

“I wondered if you’re little reunion would cause sparks, you know,” a new voice said from the other side of the room. Yours and Rafe’s heads both turned toward the voice.

The man turned and walked toward the two of you, scratching his beard. “Who are you?” Rafe spoke up first, taking a couple steps to place himself beside you.

“Me? My name is Carlos Singh.” The man, Carlos, pointed at Rafe, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Cameron. And you,” he pointed toward you, “Miss y/l/n, I apologize for the rough tactics used in bringing you here.” Rafe’s jaw clenched at Singhs words, and he took a slight sidestep so he was now standing in front of you. “But please, come. Sit down,” Singh gestured for you both to follow into the other room. “Come now, I don’t bite.”

You shared a short look with Rafe, before giving in and following the mysterious man. “Rough tactics. What about me?” Rafe asked, and it was clear to you now that he was here willingly, but it still seemed like he was in the dark.

Singh poured himself a drink as he responded to Rafe, "yes, Mr. Cameron false pretenses. But the ends justify the means, I'm afraid. Sit down," he suggested, or more like demanded.

You sat down on the cushioned chair, and Rafe sat on the couch, a scoff escaping his lips.

"Why are we here?" you asked, getting quite impatient.

"Well, Mr. Cameron, Miss y/l/n, we share certain interests, you know. Objectives-"

"Is this not about the cross?" Rafe cut him off, likely just as frustrated as you. You glanced at him. The cross? Did Singh offer to buy it?

“It is. Tangentially, it is about the cross, but it's also about something much, much bigger than the cross," he strode over a painting on the wall. "By orders of magnitude, the completion of a grand quest." You glanced at Rafe to see if he was as confused as you were. He clearly was. "You see, the story goes that 450 years ago, a Spanish soldier came out of the Orinoco Basin with a few gold beads. And when they asked the Spanish soldier where the beads came from, the soldier replied he got them from a peaceful Indigenous tribe who lived in a city of gold. El Dorado. And for the next 450 years, people tried to find that gold, you know. They tried. Conquistadors, Knights, tribes, entire nations. All fighting each other in a race for the end of the rainbow. Thousands of lives laid on the pyre of gold fever. And it falls to me, you know. It falls to me to complete the task. To bring full circle the quest that has gone on for almost 500 years. Perhaps the greatest quest in the history of the western hemisphere, you know. And you two.. you two are going to play a part in that." It was silent for a moment, you and Rafe challenging each other to speak first. "What about you, Ms. y/l/n. Are you interested in history?"

"Nope," you said simply, offering a fake smile.

"I didn't listen to a word you said, okay? How much you gonna keep philosophizing?" Rafe chimed in.

Singh chuckled dryly, "you are direct, aren't you, Mr. Cameron?" Rafe stared back at Singh, not saying a word.

You leaned back in your chair, bored, quite frankly of this whole interaction. You just wanted to get back with the rest of your friends, well, not before getting some answers from Rafe about what the hell he's been up to. "Now what exactly do you need from me?"

"I've come to believe that you and your friends are in possession of something that will help me get what I want."

"Which is?"

"An old manuscript. A diary, actually."

You kept your facial expression the same, if not a little falsely confused as Rafe and Singh both stared at you, waiting for an response.

Rafe was the first to speak, no doubt sensing that you knew something, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

You shook your head along with him, "I don't know anything about a diary," you said in your most believable tone.

"Then how did you know that the cross was on the Royal Merchant, hm?" Singh pressed, showing he clearly knew you weren't being truthful. But you weren't gonna give up your information to this random guy.

"Look, I wish I knew how to help you, really. But I don't," you said with a shrug of your shoulders.

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that, you know. Because unfortunately, I don't believe you."

You leaned forward slightly, "well, I don't know what to tell you. I don't have a diary, you know?" You mocked him, with a small grin playing at your lips. You heard Rafe stifle a laugh beside you.

Singh chuckled and shook his head, "listen, Ms. y/l/n, you and your friend here couldn't have found the cross without the diary."

"Well, I wouldn't say we're friends," you said with a sigh, leaning back in the chair again and crossing your legs, "I'm not really sure what we are exactly. It's actually quite a long sto-"

Rafe stood up, "this is ridiculous, I'm out. Come on y/n," he said, walking toward the door, not making it far when a guard stepped out in front of him.

"Do I look like a fool to you Mr. Cameron?" he stood up, walking toward him. Rafe simply shrugged. "You have the cross, she and her friends had the cross at one point. So one of you has the diary. And if you really don't know, then I suggest you convince your friend to tell me," he said, and Rafe made eye contact with you. You couldn't quite read the look in his eye. "Once I have the diary, you'll be free to leave."

Everyone stayed in the same position in silence for a couple moments, before Singh sighed, "alright then, follow me." He led the two of you to a bedroom upstairs, "enjoy the grounds during your stay. I must warn you, I'm not a man of infinite patience. You have one day," he moved back toward the door, "go to the window for a little demonstration, I think you'll like it, you know," he patted Rafe on the shoulder and left the room and a guard shut and locked the door.

Rafe banged on the door, "hey! you're just done talking?"

"Door's locked, Rafe," you said with a sigh, walking over to the window for this 'demonstration.'

You watched as Jimmy Portis was pulled from a truck by 3 guards. "Who the hell is that guy?" Rafe asked.

"Jimmy Portis. He was working for Singh, he brought me and everyone else here. But he was trying to help me," you said softly, watching the scene play out in front of you.

Singh turned to both of you and pulled out a gun, walking to where the guards were holding Jimmy. "Woah, woah, woah," Rafe muttered.

Within seconds, the gunshot had gone off. Your breath hitched in your throat, and you lost your balance a little, your shoulder bumping into Rafe's. He placed his hand on your waist out of instinct, steadying you. He took a breath before he turned to you, "this diary. Don't bullshit me, y/n, do you have it?" He asked you, looking into your eyes intently. He knew you couldn't lie to those eyes.

“No,” you said simply. “I don’t have it.

Rafe clenched his jaw and rolled his eyes, “okay, do you know where it is.”

You mentally debated whether to tell Rafe the truth or not for a few moments, before finally sighing, “yes, alright. I know where it is,” you admitted, breaking eye contact and walking over to sit on the bed.

Rafe pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly stressed by this whole situation. “You’ve gotta tell him where it’s at.”

You scoffed, “no chance. We don’t know this guy’s intentions, Rafe. Whats he gonna do when he gets whatever it is that he’s going through all this to get to?”

“This guy will kill us y/n. I mean you saw what he just did,” Rafe said, walking over to you, towering over your body as he stood near the bed.

“You’re telling me that you care if I live or die, Rafe? Really? Because it sure as hell didn’t seem like you cared about me when you left and said nothing. All you care about is yourself, that’s become clear to me,” you said with a scoff, moving to stand up.

Rafe shook his head quickly, putting his hands on your knees lightly to keep you from getting up. He knelt down in front of you, “wait, wait,” he took a deep breath, locking eyes with you. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. You were almost positive that was the first time you’d heard Rafe Cameron say those words, and mean them. He had your attention, that was for sure. “I care about you, y/n. You have to know that, okay? I shouldn’t have left without talking to you, hell, I shouldn’t have left at all. This god damn cross, the gold, it’s all cost me so much. But the worst thing it’s cost me is you, y/n,” his voice cracked saying your name, and your heart clenched. “I don’t care that you’re running around with the pogues, and I don’t care that you know where this diary is, I just- I care about you. And now that you’re here in front of me, I never want to lose you.”

It was the the tears that were dwelling in his blue eyes that made you put your hands on his shoulders and slide down off of the bed and onto your knees with him. Rafes arms tightened around your waist and you rested your head on his shoulder. Rafe let out a shaky breath into the side of your head, and you tightened your arms around him, sinking into the hug.

You’d admit it, you were beyond pissed at Rafe for months. You couldn’t imagine a time where you wouldn’t be pissed at him. But now with him in your arms again, you couldn’t imagine not loving Rafe Cameron.

“I’m so sorry,” Rafe mumbled into your neck, "you shouldn't even forgive me," he said so quietly that you almost didn't hear him. Your eyebrows furrowed together when he stood up abruptly, nearly making you fall over. He ran his hands over his face as he paced back and forth by the window.

"Rafe, hey," you stood up, moving toward him.

"No, stay away. Back up Y/N!" Rafe said loudly and you jumped unwillingly at his raised voice, and you immediately regretted it. Rafe's face fell impossibly more distraught, and his eyes filled to the brim with tears, "no, no, no," he muttered to himself, turning away from you. He now had both of his hands on the sides of his head, fingertips pressing into his skin. "I'm so sorry, I- I scared you. I can't believe, oh my god," he mumbled to himself. "I'm dangerous y/n. I have these- these thoughts and impulses and I don't know how to control it. I'm trying though, I really am- I'm trying," his voice broke, worse than last time, and the tears finally trailed down his face.

You finally moved over to him, scared he was about to collapse to the ground. Rafe let you wrap your arms around him tightly, "I know you're trying, baby," you said into his shirt, your own eyes becoming watery. Rafe's sobs muffled against your shoulder and you could feel the hot tears on your skin through the shirt. "You're okay, Rafe. It's all okay," you spoke softly as you rubbed his back in attempt to comfort him.

You stayed in the embrace for a couple minutes, until Rafe's breathing steadied and he pulled away from you, keeping his hands on your sides. Your heart nearly broke at the sight of his face, inches from yours. His eyes were already bloodshot, and his face showed the clearest vision of broken you'd ever seen. You didn't realize how serious this had gotten until he was breaking down in front of you.

You brought your hands up to the sides of his face, training your eyes on his, "Rafe, I need you to listen to me, okay?" he nodded weakly, "I love you with everything in me. I'd lost sight of that for awhile, but seeing you today, I know that I love you. And I could never, ever be scared of you. I know what you've done, and I know what you've been through. I know you're scared of those thoughts in your head, and I get it. We're going to get through it together, Rafe. I'm with you, always," you said wholeheartedly, attempting to keep your voice steady.

Rafe's eyes scanned yours, searching for tells that you were speaking the truth. His lips twitched into a relieved small smile after a moment, "I love you," Rafe breathed out, leaning forward to rest his forehead on yours.

You closed the gap between the two of you, pressing your lips to his for the first time in months. You sunk into the kiss, only now realizing how much you'd missed the feeling. It felt like your first kiss all over again, only now mixed with love and a few stray tears from Rafe's cheeks.

You were the first to pull away, resting your forehead back on his, "now let's get the hell out of here."

---

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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FTC vs surveillance pricing

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

In the mystical cosmology of economics, "prices" are of transcendental significance, the means by which the living market knows and adapts itself, giving rise to "efficient" production and consumption.

At its most basic level, the metaphysics of pricing goes like this: if there is less of something for sale than people want to buy, the seller will raise the price until enough buyers drop out and demand equals supply. If the disappointed would-be buyers are sufficiently vocal about their plight, other sellers will enter the market (bankrolled by investors who sense an opportunity), causing supplies to increase and prices to fall until the system is in "equilibrium" – producing things as cheaply as possible in precisely the right quantities to meet demand. In the parlance of neoclassical economists, prices aren't "set": they are discovered.

In antitrust law, there are many sins, but they often boil down to "price setting." That is, if a company has enough "market power" that they can dictate prices to their customers, they are committing a crime and should be punished. This is such a bedrock of neoclassical economics that it's a tautology "market power" exists where companies can "set prices"; and to "set prices," you need "market power."

Prices are the blood cells of the market, shuttling nutrients (in the form of "information") around the sprawling colony organism composed of all the buyers, sellers, producers, consumers, intermediaries and other actors. Together, the components of this colony organism all act on the information contained in the "price signals" to pursue their own self-interest. Each self-interested action puts more information into the system, triggering more action. Together, price signals and the actions they evince eventually "discover" the price, an abstraction that is yanked out of the immaterial plane of pure ideas and into our grubby, physical world, causing mines to re-open, shipping containers and pipelines to spark to life, factories to retool, trucks to fan out across the nation, retailers to place ads and hoist SALE banners over their premises, and consumers to race to those displays and open their wallets.

When prices are "distorted," all of this comes to naught. During the notorious "socialist calculation debate" of 1920s Austria, right-wing archdukes of religious market fundamentalism, like Von Hayek and Von Mises, trounced their leftist opponents, arguing that the market was the only computational system capable of calculating how much of each thing should be made, where it should be sent, and how much it should be sold for.

Attempts to "plan" the economy – say, by subsidizing industries or limiting prices – may be well-intentioned, but they broke the market's computations and produced haywire swings of both over- and underproduction. Later, the USSR's planned economy did encounter these swings. These were sometimes very grave (famines that killed millions) and sometimes silly (periods when the only goods available in regional shops were forks, say, creating local bubbles in folk art made from forks).

Unplanned markets do this too. Most notoriously, capitalism has produced a vast oversupply of carbon-intensive goods and processes, and a huge undersupply of low-carbon alternatives, bringing the human civilization to the brink of collapse. Not only have capitalism's price signals failed to address this existential crisis to humans, it has also sown the seeds of its own ruin – the market computer's not going to be getting any "price signals" from people as they drown in floods or roast to death on sidewalks that deliver second-degree burns to anyone who touches them:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91151209/extreme-heat-southwest-phoenix-surface-burns-scorching-pavement-sidewalks-pets

For market true believers, these failures are just evidence that regulation is distorting markets, and that the answer is more unregulated markets to infuse the computer with more price signals. When it comes to carbon, the problem is that producers are "producing negative externalities" (that is, polluting and sticking us with the bill). If we can just get them to "internalize" those costs, they will become "economically rational" and switch to low-carbon alternatives.

That's the theory behind the creation and sale of carbon credits. Rather than ordering companies to stop risking civilizational collapse and mass extinction, we can incentivize them to do so by creating markets that reward clean tech and punish dirty practices. The buying and selling of carbon credits is supposed to create price signals reflecting the existential risk to the human race and the only habitable planet known to our species, which the market will then "bring into equilibrium."

Unfortunately, reality has a distinct and unfair leftist bias. Carbon credits are a market for lemons. The carbon credits you buy to "offset" your car or flight are apt to come from a forest that has already burned down, or that had already been put in a perpetual trust as a wildlife preserve and could never be logged:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/18/greshams-carbon-law/#papal-indulgences

Carbon credits produce the most perverse outcomes imaginable. For example, much of Tesla's profitability has been derived from the sale of carbon credits to the manufacturers of the dirtiest, most polluting SUVs on Earth; without those Tesla credits, those SUVs would have been too expensive to sell, and would not have existed:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

What's more, carbon credits aren't part of an "all of the above" strategy that incorporates direct action to prevent our species downfall. These market solutions are incompatible with muscular direct action, and if we do credits, we can't do other stuff that would actually work:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff

Even though price signals have repeatedly proven themselves to be an insufficient mechanism for producing "efficient" or even "survivable," they remain the uppermost spiritual value in the capitalist pantheon. Even through the last 40 years of unrelenting assaults on antitrust and competition law, the one form of corporate power that has remained both formally and practically prohibited is "pricing power."

That's why the DoJ was able to block tech companies and major movie studios from secretly colluding to suppress their employees' wages, and why those employees were able to get huge sums out of their employers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

It's also why the Big Six (now Big Five) publishers and Apple got into so much trouble for colluding to set a floor on the price of ebooks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2012)

When it comes to monopoly, even the most Bork-pilled, Manne-poisoned federal judges and agencies have taken a hard line on price-fixing, because "distortions" of prices make the market computer crash.

But despite this horror of price distortions, America's monopolists have found so many ways to manipulate prices. Last month, The American Prospect devoted an entire issue to the many ways that monopolies and cartels have rigged the prices we pay, pushing them higher and higher, even as our wages stagnated and credit became more expensive:

https://prospect.org/pricing

For example, there's the plague of junk fees (AKA "drip pricing," or, if you're competing to be first up against the wall come the revolution, "ancillary revenue"), everything from baggage fees from airlines to resort fees at hotels to the fee your landlord charges if you pay your rent by check, or by card, or in cash:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/07/drip-drip-drip/#drip-off

There's the fake transparency gambit, so beloved of America's hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled

The "greedflation" that saw grocery prices skyrocketing, which billionaire grocery plutes blamed on covid stimulus checks, even as they boasted to their shareholders about their pricing power:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-12-war-in-the-aisles/

There's the the tens of billions the banks rake in with usurious interest rates, far in excess of the hikes to the central banks' prime rates (which are, in turn, justified in light of the supposed excesses of covid relief checks):

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-11-what-we-owe/

There are the scams that companies like Amazon pull with their user interfaces, tricking you into signing up for subscriptions or upsells, which they grandiosely term "dark patterns," but which are really just open fraud:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-10-one-click-economy/

There are "surge fees," which are supposed to tempt more producers (e.g. Uber drivers) into the market when demand is high, but which are really just an excuse to gouge you – like when Wendy's threatens to surge-price its hamburgers:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-07-urge-to-surge/

And then there's surveillance pricing, the most insidious and profitable way to jack up prices. At its core, surveillance pricing uses nonconsensually harvested private information to inform an algorithm that reprices the things you buy – from lattes to rent – in real-time:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Companies like Plexure – partially owned by McDonald's – boasts that it can use surveillance data to figure out what your payday is and then hike the price of the breakfast sandwich or after-work soda you buy every day.

Like every bad pricing practice, surveillance pricing has its origins in the aviation industry, which invested early on and heavily in spying on fliers to figure out how much they could each afford for their plane tickets and jacking up prices accordingly. Architects of these systems then went on to found companies like Realpage, a data-brokerage that helps landlords illegally collude to rig rent prices.

Algorithmic middlemen like Realpage and ATPCO – which coordinates price-fixing among the airlines – are what Dan Davies calls "accountability sinks." A cartel sends all its data to a separate third party, which then compares those prices and tells everyone how much to jack them up in order to screw us all:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

These price-fixing middlemen are everywhere, and they predate the boom in commercial surveillance. For example, Agri-Stats has been helping meatpackers rig the price of meat for 40 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

But when you add commercial surveillance to algorithmic pricing, you get a hybrid more terrifying than any cocaine-sharks (or, indeed, meth-gators):

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-police-warn-locals-not-flush-drugs-fear-meth-gators-n1030291

Apologists for these meth-gators insist that surveillance pricing's true purpose is to let companies offer discounts. A streaming service can't afford to offer $0.99 subscriptions to the poor because then all the rich people would stop paying $19.99. But with surveillance pricing, every customer gets a different price, titrated to their capacity to pay, and everyone wins.

But that's not how it cashes out in the real world. In the real world, rich people who get ripped off have the wherewithal to shop around, complain effectively to a state AG, or punish companies by taking their business elsewhere. Meanwhile, poor people aren't just cash-poor, they're also time-poor and political influence-poor.

When the dollar store duopoly forces all the mom-and-pop grocers in your town out of business with predatory pricing, and creating food deserts that only they serve, no one cares, because state AGs and politicians don't care about people who shop at dollar stores. Then, the dollar stores can collude with manufacturers to get shrunken "cheater sized" products that sell for a dollar, but cost double or triple the grocery store price by weight or quantity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Yes, fliers who seem to be flying on business (last-minute purchasers who don't have a Saturday stay) get charged more than people whose purchase makes them seem to be someone flying away for a vacation. But that's only because aviation prices haven't yet fully transitioned to surveillance pricing. If an airline can correctly calculate that you are taking a trip because you're a grad student who must attend a conference in order to secure a job, and if they know precisely how much room you have left on your credit card, they can charge you everything you can afford, to the cent.

Your ability to resist pricing power isn't merely a function of a company's market power – it's also a function of your political power. Poor people may have less to steal, but no one cares when they get robbed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/19/martha-wright-reed/#capitalists-hate-capitalism

So surveillance pricing, supercharged by algorithms, represent a serious threat to "prices," which is the one thing that the econo-religious fundamentalists of the capitalist class value above all else. That makes surveillance pricing low-hanging fruit for regulatory enforcement: a bipartisan crime that has few champions on either side of the aisle.

Cannily, the FTC has just declared war on surveillance pricing, ordering eight key players in the industry (including capitalism's arch-villains, McKinsey and Jpmorgan Chase) to turn over data that can be used to prosecute them for price-fixing within 45 days:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/07/ftc-issues-orders-eight-companies-seeking-information-surveillance-pricing

As American Prospect editor-in-chief David Dayen notes in his article on the order, the FTC is doing what he and his journalistic partners couldn't: forcing these companies to cough up internal data:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-07-24-ftc-opens-surveillance-pricing-inquiry/

This is important, and not just because of the wriggly critters the FTC will reveal as they use their powers to turn over this rock. Administrative agencies can't just do whatever they want. Long before the agencies were neutered by the Supreme Court, they had strict rules requiring them to gather evidence, solicit comment and counter-comment, and so on, before enacting any rules:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

Doubtless, the Supreme Court's Loper decision (which overturned "Chevron deference" and cut off the agencies' power to take actions that they don't have detailed, specific authorization to take) will embolden the surveillance pricing industry to take the FTC to court on this. It's hard to say whether the courts will find in the FTC's favor. Section 6(b) of the FTC Act clearly lets the FTC compel these disclosures as part of an enforcement action, but they can't start an enforcement action until they have evidence, and through the whole history of the FTC, these kinds of orders have been a common prelude to enforcement.

One thing this has going for it is that it is bipartisan: all five FTC commissioners, including both Republicans (including the Republican who votes against everything) voted in favor of it. Price gouging is the kind of easy-to-grasp corporate crime that everyone hates, irrespective of political tendency.

In the Prospect piece on Ticketmaster's pricing scam, Dayen and Groundwork's Lindsay Owens called this the "Age of Recoupment":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/03/aoi-aoi-oh/#concentrated-gains-vast-diffused-losses

For 40 years, neoclassical economics' focus on "consumer welfare" meant that companies could cheat and squeeze their workers and suppliers as hard as they wanted, so long as prices didn't go up. But after 40 years, there's nothing more to squeeze out of workers or suppliers, so it's time for the cartels to recoup by turning on us, their customers.

They believe – perhaps correctly – that they have amassed so much market power through mergers and lobbying that they can cross the single bright line in neoliberal economics' theory of antitrust: price-gouging. No matter how sincere the economics profession's worship of prices might be, it still might not trump companies that are too big to fail and thus too big to jail.

The FTC just took an important step in defense of all of our economic wellbeing, and it's a step that even the most right-wing economist should applaud. They're calling the question: "Do you really think that price-distortion is a cardinal sin? If so, you must back our play." Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

https://clarionwriteathon.com/members/profile.php?writerid=293388

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/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

#pluralistic #gouging #ftc #surveillance pricing #dynamic pricing #efficient market hypothesis brain worms #administrative procedures act #chevron deference #lina khan #price gouging

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workingclasshistory · 2 years

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On this day, 11 February 1916, Lithuanian-born Jewish anarchist Emma Goldman was arrested in New York City for distributing information on birth control. She was technically charged with breaching the Comstock Act, which banned "obscene" material from the mail or from being transported across state lines. Goldman's arrest came as she was due to deliver a public lecture on family planning, which was a key concern for working class people. Radicals argued that family planning was essential for working class people to be able to have an acceptable standard of living, and believed that authorities opposed birth control so that there would be an oversupply of labour to keep down wages and fill the army. Emma Goldman decided to defend herself in court, and used the trial to generate large amounts of publicity for her message. She was eventually convicted, and rather than pay a $100 fine she chose to serve 15 days in prison. We have a collection of Goldman's writings on sex and gender available here, as well as reproductions of this mugshot: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/emma-goldman To access this hyperlink, click our link in bio then click this photo https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2207518652766606/?type=3

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cmncisspnandmore · 11 months

Text

Dont Own Me

Dont Own Me: Simon 'Ghost" Riley X Medic!Reader

Pairing: Simon Riley X Medic! Reader

Warnings: NSFW; MDNI 18+

Summary: Trying to go out with someone doesnt go as planned. Not when Ghost has something to say about it.

Beta Reader: @cordeliawhohung

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey! Y/N, wait up! Do you have a moment?” A voice called after you as you walked down the hall towards the Clinic. You pause, turning around to see one of your fellow medics running after you. You watch as he jogs towards you, and comes to stop a few feet in front of you.

“What's up Michael?” You ask, shoving your hands deep into the pockets of your fatigues. Michael takes a moment to catch his breath, cheat heaving, cheeks slightly flushed.

“I.. I was wondering what you were up to tonight? I was thinking maybe we could grab a few drinks at the bar just off base?” He smiles slightly, running a hand across the back of his neck.

“Oh, yeah sure, I'd like that.”

Michaels face flushed more, “Great, Awesome, I'll meet you there at 21:00?”

You nod, a small smile on your face,”21:00 is perfect.”

You both stand there for a moment, neither one of you saying anything, an awkward silence settling over you. You clear your throat, and look over your shoulder towards the clinic.”Ah, well I should go and finish up inventory… I’ll see you later.” You shuffle backwards, and Michael nods. After another agonizingly awkward moment you turn fully, and start off towards the Clinic.

You shut the heavy metal door to the clinic, pressing your back to it, you take a deep breath. You had worked with Michael before, been friendly while in the Clinic together. He was the medic for another squad that would often be deployed with 141. You never would have guessed that he would ask you out for drinks. Most of the people around here didn't get involved with other personnel, everyone knew the risks, that not everyone would come home. That anytime you walked out that door could be your last.

Now that you were standing in the clinic, the momentary awkwardness of being put on the spot, you groaned. How could you possibly think it was a good idea to go out with him? Sure he was attractive in a generic sense. But there wasn't anything that made you want to crawl into bed with him. He was a nice guy, often taking time to help you clean up after patching up a particularly bad wound for someone. Or even helping you restock most of the supplies when you both happened to have a free moment.

Sighing you run a hand down your face, it was too late now. You stupidly said yes. No backing out of it.

Shaking off the feeling of regret, you busy yourself with the inventory. You head over to the small walk in closet that holds the oversupply. Flicking on the overhead bulb you scan the rows of brown and white boxes. Thick black sharpie labels are scrawled across most of the boxes, save for a few that were missed. Most likely having been thrown into the closet by someone who didn't work in the clinic. Occasionally whoever was free would take in the shipments instead of one of the medics, resulting in unmarked supplies.

It was one of the most infuriating things, in your field of work it was essential that any supplies be found as quickly as possible. Because those few minutes it can take to dig through an unmarked box for a supply that may not be in there can mean the difference between saving someone and losing them. You pull the unlabeled boxes down from the shelves and carry them over to the desk in the corner of the room. Cutting one open you make quick notes of what is inside, restock any missing supplies, and then label the box before sliding it back onto the shelf. The monotonous task takes you a few hours, the repetitive open, stock, label allowing time for your thoughts to drift.

The last mission you and Task Force 141 went on was brutal. Ghost had been shot in the side during the combat. He sustained a fair bit of internal damage from the bullet wound. As the others had spent hours holding back the enemies, you had been tasked with keeping the hulking 6 foot 4 man alive. His normal white skeleton gloves and balaclava splattered with blood, both his and the opponents. Your hands stained red from trying to stop the seemingly endless flow of blood that poured from him.

The 2 hours it took for them to be able to send medevac had been the longest of your life. You liked to think you could compartmentalize, keep work things work, home life home. But when one of your team mates, the people you trust your life with, are holding on by threads and one wrong move could mean going home with stitches versus a body bag.

It wasn't something you had been prepared for, not when it happened to someone as strong as Ghost. He had divulged some of his past to you while half delusional from blood loss that night. Whispering to you about the torture he went through, being buried alive, becoming Ghost.

You weren't sure if he had meant to tell you about it, but at that point as long as he was talking, it didn't matter what it was about. As long as Ghost was talking meant he wasn't dead, and he could still be okay after the whole thing was over.

Eventually, a medevac arrived, they airlifted Ghost to a military hospital where he got surgery to repair the internal damage. He spent 3 weeks in the hospital before he was released and cleared to begin doing light fieldwork. But he wasn't allowed to jump from planes and take down 5 people single handedly. Which thrust Simon right into your side of things, he was stuck back from the action helping you out in the field when needed. He was a decent medic when it came to it. He could stitch and wrap as well as any one with proper training and he was incredibly resourceful when it came to finding things to improvise with.

During your sharred time in the field, you were able to see a different side to Ghost. The side reserved for pretty much no one. He was kind, and surprisingly gentle underneath all of the muscle. He was fond of tea, no sugar or cream. He hated coffee, he frequently questioned how you would drink it. Let alone how you would drink it with as much sugar and cream as you do. He liked leather working when he was on break from 141, but he would never admit it to Soap and Gaz.

He got to know you too, you told him about growing up in small town America. Told him about how your parents didn't have fancy jobs, or flashy cars. You told him about the whole reason you wanted to join the military was to get out of the small town life. You didn't want a 9-5 job, you wanted something that always had you on your toes. Always looking for the next thing to jump into. You also told him about the last squad you had been stationed with.

You told him the tragedy that took place on your last mission with them. The entire unit except for you and one other soldier was KIA, a humvee ran over a landmine. You hadn’t been too badly injured, the humvee you were driving with the Lieutenant of your squad had been behind the one that got struck. Despite your best efforts you weren't able to save them, that day 4 people never got to go home. Two people went home, but they were never going to be the same.

When Captain Price had approached you and asked you if you wanted to be a part of Task Force 141 you were hesitant. It wasn’t until you met the rest of the team, that they cemented your place there. Soap had been the one to welcome you with open arms, literally. He gave you a bone crushing hug while mumbling something you wouldn't understand. It followed with Ghost telling Johnny that if he was going to talk then to at least do it in English. Gaz rolled his eyes as Soap and Ghost started bantering.

Since that day you had been part of the team, officially one of their teammates, and dare even say, one of their friends.

The clock on the wall chimes, pulling you from your thoughts. Glancing at the large clock you sigh, 20:00. One hour until you have to meet Michael at the bar. You put away the last box in the closet and turn off the lights to the clinic before making your way to your room.

One perk of being part of the SAS, was the private rooms, you had a small room on base that you kept some of your personal effects in when you didn't have time to go to your off base London flat. You quickly change out of your fatigues and into civilian clothes, pulling on a red low cut shirt, and a pair of black skinny jeans. You pull on a pair of black heeled boots and take one last look in the mirror.

Letting out a breath, you grab your bag and make your way to your car. Tapping the unlock button of your car, a noise catches your attention. Across the parking lot, Soap and Gaz are laughing, as they walk towards their own cars. You lift your hand in a small wave as they see you.

“Aye Lass! Hou ar ye?” Soap calls, as he walks towards you.

“I’m alright. Where are you two off to?” You raise your eyebrow at the pair.

“We’re going to hit a few pubs, what about you?” Gaz asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m actually meeting someone at a bar, pub, whatever you call it here.” You laugh, and a smile breaks out across Soap's face.

“Maybe we’ll run into each other at some point, Ghost said he might join us later. Said we need a babysitter,” Soap rolls his eyes.

“You two definitely need a babysitter if you’re going out together. We don’t need a repeat of last time, Price wasn’t too happy about having to come get you two out of the river.”

Gaz gives you a weary smile remembering the last time him and Soap went out drinking. They had been 3 sheets to the wind after the 3rd bar. Then one of them; they hadn't figured out which one suggested it first, decided it was a good idea to go swimming in the river. It took Price coming down and ordering them to get out for them to listen.

“Well, I’ll see you later?” You smile, and they turn, heading to their cars. Climbing into the car, you start towards the bar. Leaving the base in your rearview mirror, the rainy streets of London pass by. By the time you pull up to the pub, it’s 21:00, right on time. Taking one last look in the mirror you push open the car door. The pub was bustling with activity, patrons talking amongst themselves, beer mugs clinking on the countertops. A few rowdy men off in the corner being eyed by the bouncer.

Your eyes scan the crowded pub, looking for Michael. The low lighting and smoke wafting in from the patrons outside of the bar makes your quest harder. After a few moments you manage to find him, sitting alone in a booth towards the back. He’s wearing a nice button up shirt and a pair of black jeans. You squeeze through the crowd by the front door. You press forward, stopping at the bar to order yourself a beer. The bartender hands you your drink, taking a sip of the cool liquid you cross the rest of the bar to where Michael is sitting.

“Hey,” you smile, sliding into the other side of the booth.

Michael looks up at you, his beer hanging lazily from his fingertips, “Hey, you look great.”

A small smile forms on your lips, “thank you.”

Michael looks around the bar, his eyes flickering to the people behind you. “It’s nice to see you outside of the base.”

You shift uncomfortably in your seat, the stuffy atmosphere of the bar surrounding you. “Yeah, I don't go out much…” you laugh slightly, picking up your beer and taking another sip. You stare down at the ring of condensation on the table, unsure what to say.

“Why is that by the way?” Michael asks, resting his elbow on the table.

You look up, “Oh, you know how it is, always busy. If we’re not actively on missions we’re training. Plus I don't really know many people outside of 141. I've only been on this side of the pond for a year, and most of that has been spent saving the world.”

Michael nods, “Ah, right, yes. What was your life like in America? Before you came over here?”

“It was alright, not super exciting. I joined the military at 18, right out of highschool. I went on two tours before…” You trail off, the memories of your squad dying in front of your eyes threatening to make you emotional. Taking a shaky breath you try to steady your voice.

“Did something happen on those tours?” Michael asks softly, his hand coming to rest over yours.

“My squad was taken out by a landmine, they died… right in front of my eyes.” You whisper, clearing your throat.

“I'm so sorry,” Michael says softly, giving your hand a squeeze. You force a small smile, and pull your hand out from under his.

“Thank you,” taking a sip of your drink as you glance around, a mohawk catching your attention. Soap, Gaz and Ghost are sitting at a booth on the other side of the bar. Soap has his arm around Gaz as they do shots of an amber colored liquid. Ghost sits in the booth, his skull balaclava on, resting his forearms on the table. His dark eyes scan the crowd as Soap and Gaz laugh. Your breath catches in your throat as his eyes land on you. His chocolate colored eyes burning into you, as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“So, what are your parents like?” Michaels voice draws you back to him. As you turn your attention back to him, you can feel Ghost’s eyes on you taking in your every move.

“They’re nice, typical hard working middle class people from small town america, not really much to talk about. I haven't seen them since I was with 141…”

“Oh, that must suck.. I couldn't imagine not being able to see my parents. I see them often actually.” Michael finishes his beer, setting the empty glass bottle down on the table. You let out an awkward chuckle, a loud roar of laughter comes from the other side of the bar.

Looking over you see Gaz and Soap have taken the stage for Karaoke, as the music starts to swell they start to belt out a horribly off tune version of ‘sweet caroline’. Letting out a groan you watch Gaz and Soap sway and laugh as they stumble over the words to the song. The entire crowd gets louder along with them. Ghost has changed his position, he is no longer sitting in the booth but standing by the side door. His eyes flickering between you and the two drunken task force members on stage.

“Hey, uh, Y/n, wanna get out of here?” Michael asks, standing from the booth, his hand outstretched for you to take. For a moment you hesitate, almost accepting his hand, but his face changes. The presence at your back can only belong to one person, and one person only.

“Ghost? Can I help you?” You glance over your shoulder to find the 6’4 masked man standing behind you.

“Can I talk to you?” He asks, his eyes unreadable as he stares at Michael. Anger prickles along your spine as you stand out of the booth and face him.

“Sure,” you glance back at Michael. “I’ll be right back”

Ghost grabs your forearm and drags you from the crowded bar, he pulls you into the alley between them. The alley is dimly lit as a light misting rain starts to fall. Ghost stands in front of you, “what do you think you’re doing?” He asks, voice low and gravelly.

“I was out getting drinks with someone? What does it look like I was doing?” You cross your arms across your chest. Your eyes locked on Simon’s with a glare. The wind picks up, blowing your hair across your face, you brush it back with a huff as Simon studies you.

“You shouldn’t go with him, he’s not good enough for you,” Simon grunts, eyes narrowing under his mask. You can hear the frown in his voice, even though his mouth is covered by his mask.

“Oh? And you know what's best for me?” You scoff, raising an eyebrow at him. Who the hell did he think he was, telling you what was best for you.

“Yeah I do,” Simon takes a step forward, pushing you further into the alley.

“You barely know me, Ghost!” You seethe, taking a step forward, almost toe to toe with the man. You were so close you could smell his cologne, the warm spicy scent is something you would recognize anywhere. After spending days pressed up together in tight spaces while taking cover from enemy fire.

“I know you better than you think, and you don't belong with some arsehole. Some guy who tries to hook up with every new medic that comes through the base. So yes, I do know what's best for you.” Ghost’s voice is calm, as he looks down at you, his hand reaching out and he brushes a strand of your hair behind your ear. You pull back, taking a step backwards from him.

“Just because you fucked me once, doesnt mean I’m yours!” You turn and walk a few paces down the alley, away from him. Trying to put some distance between you two, so you could think clearly. Whenever he was around he consumed your thoughts, made all logic go right out the window. A hand wraps around your upper arm and spins you around.

Ghost towers over you, his large body pressing you back into the cool wall of the pub. He trails his fingers across your jaw and down the side of your neck, leaning in so his mouth is by your ear. The fabric of his mask brushing against your hair. “And if i fuck you again do i get to?” He whispers, sending shockwaves of pleasure down your spine.

“Get to what?” You whisper, knowing full well what he meant, but you wanted to hear it from him. You wanted to hear him call you his.

“Call you mine? Don't play dumb, Love. I know you find Michael boring, and I saw the way your eyes tracked me.” His breath tickles your ear, and you close your eyes. A shiver running through you.

“We should've never done it the first time. You know this Simon, you’re my superior,” you breathe, as he presses closer. Trapping you against the wall with his arms on either side of you, caging you in.

“And as your superior I'm telling you that it's okay to break the rules every once in a while.” Simon whispers, running his hands down your body to rest on your waist.

“Don't you have two other members of 141 to bother? Like the two drunken idiots on stage in that bar?” You whisper.

“I already called Price, he's probably already in there watching them.”

“Simon…” you trail off as you slowly lift the front of his balaclava to reveal his jaw, pushing it up just under his nose. He leans in closer, his mouth inches from yours.

“Stop thinking sergeant,” he whispers his lips brushing yours with each word.

Your eyes fall shut as he slants his mouth over yours, his hands digging into your waist as he hauls you against him. Your body is molding to him like a missing puzzle piece, Simon grunts as you wrap our arms around his neck.

“Let's go,” Simon whispers, as he pulls away slightly. He leans down slightly, and hooks his arm under your knees and throws you over his shoulder. The world is suddenly upside down as he starts walking, you slung over his shoulder like a bag.

“Ghost!” you screech, laughing slightly as his hand comes up to smack you on the ass. You let out a startled yelp as he walks towards his car.

“Quiet, Love. Don't want the others to hear you,” Simon chuckles.

#Simon riley #Simon Riley X reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #simon ghost x reader #ghost #Ghost x reader #ghost x you #cod #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare 2 #cod mw2 #Simon x reader #fluff #Soap #Gaz #Price #x reader #x you

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