#top 10 richest houses | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robertreich · 2 years

Video

youtube

The Biggest Economic Lies We’re Told

In America, it’s expensive just to be alive.

And with inflation being driven by price gouging corporations, it’s only getting more expensive for regular Americans who don’t have any more money to spend.

Just look at how Big Oil is raking it in while you pay through the nose at the pump.

That’s on top of the average price of a new non-luxury car — which is now over $44,000. Even accounting for inflation, this is way higher than the average cost when I bought my first car — it’s probably in a museum by now.

Even worse, the median price for a house is now over $440,000. Compare that to 1972, when it was under $200,000.

Work a full-time minimum wage job? You won’t be able to afford rent on a one-bedroom apartment just about anywhere in the U.S.

And when you get back after a long day of work, you’ll likely be met with bills up the wazoo for doctor visits, student loans, and utilities.

So what’s left of a paycheck after basic living expenses? Not much.

You can only reduce spending on food, housing, and other basic necessities so much. Want to try covering the rest of your monthly costs with a credit card? Well now that’s more expensive too, with the Fed continuing to hike interest rates.

All of this comes back to how we measure a successful economy.

What good are more jobs if those jobs barely pay enough to live on?

Over one-third of full time jobs don’t pay enough to cover a basic family budget.

And what good are lots of jobs if they cause so much stress and take up so much time that our lives are miserable?

And don’t tell me a good economy is measured by a roaring stock market if the richest 10 percent of Americans own more than 80 percent of it.

And what good is a large Gross Domestic Product if more and more of the total economy is going to the richest one-tenth of one percent?

What good is economic growth if the way we grow depends on fossil fuels that cause a climate crisis?

These standard measures – jobs, the stock market, the GDP – don’t show how our economy is really doing, who is doing well, or the quality of our lives.

People who sit at their kitchen tables at night wondering how they’re going to pay the bills don’t say to themselves

“Well, at least corporate profits are at record levels.”

In fact, corporations have record profits and CEOs are paid so much because they’re squeezing more output from workers but paying lower wages. Over the past 40 years, productivity has grown 3.5x as fast as hourly pay.

At the same time, corporations are driving up the costs of everyday items people need.

Because corporations are monopolizing their markets, they don’t have to worry about competitors. A few giant corporations can easily coordinate price hikes and enjoy bigger profits.

Just four firms control 85% of all beef, 66% of all pork, and 54% of all poultry production.

Firms like Tyson have seen their profit margins skyrocket as they jack up prices higher than their costs — forcing consumers who are already stretched thin to pay even more.

It’s not just meat. Weak antitrust enforcement has allowed companies to become powerful enough to raise their prices across the entire food industry.

It’s the same story with household goods. Giant companies like Procter & Gamble blame their price hikes on increased costs – but their profit margins have soared to 25%. Hello? They care more about their bottom line than your bottom, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, parents – and even grandparents like me – are STILL struggling to feed their babies because of a national formula shortage. Why? Largely because the three companies who control the entire formula industry would rather pump money into stock buybacks than quality control at their factories.

Traditionally, our economy’s health is measured by the unemployment rate. Job growth. The stock market. Overall economic growth. But these don’t reflect the everyday, “kitchen table economics” that affect our lives the most.

These measures don’t show the real economy.

Instead of looking just at the number of jobs, we need to look at the income earned from those jobs. And not the average income.

People at the top always bring up the average.

If Jeff Bezos walked into a bar with 140 other people, the average wealth of each person would be over a billion dollars.

No, look at the median income – half above, half below.

And make sure it accounts for inflation – real purchasing power.

Over the last few decades, the real median income has barely budged. This isn’t economic success.

It's economic failure, with a capital F.

And instead of looking at the stock market or the GDP we need to look at who owns what – where the wealth really is.

Over the last forty years, wealth has concentrated more and more at the very top. Look at this;

This is a problem, folks. Because with wealth comes political power.

Forget trickle-down economics. It’s trickle on.

And instead of looking just at economic growth, we also need to look at what that growth is costing us – subtract the costs of the climate crisis, the costs of bad health, the costs of no paid leave, and all the stresses on our lives that economic growth is demanding.

We need to look at the quality of our lives – all our lives. How many of us are adequately housed and clothed and fed. How many of our kids are getting a good education. How many of us live in safety – or in fear.

You want to measure economic success? Go to the kitchen tables of America.

#youtube #videos #economics #inequality #video #politics #money #cars #housing

405 notes · View notes

hetalia-club · 3 months

Text

GOT AU- Lore House Lannister

Other Houses: Targaryen Stark Greyjoy Lannister Tyrell

GOT vocab for non-watchers- Castamere- an extinct house/family, cousin to the Lannister family. Tried to rebel against the Lannister's. Their sigil was also a lion and their colors were Gold and Red instead of Red and Gold. The house was an off shoot of the Lannister's. Warden- the head of one of these areas; North, South, East and West. They are the law makers here, they answer to the King and carry out the Kings justice for him. They are in control of all the lesser and major houses here, those houses are their bannermen that they can call to war with just one message from a raven. Westeros- The name of the continent they all live on Master of Coin- the kings treasure and book keeper. Is in charge of finding money for parties, war and anything else the King wants to do. This could be cashing in favors, taking loans or taxing it.

House Lannister for non GOT watchers- The Lannister's the Wardens of the West and are an extremely powerful house. Both with man power and mostly MONEY. They are the richest house in the lands. They have more money than the King does. This is because their castle, Casterly Rock, sits on top a literal gold mine. They are known for their beautiful Golden hair. Not all Lannisters have it but it is their trademark. They are known to be a scheming people. They only join wars if there is something it it for them. Oh what's that? They promised 3 years ago that if your was house attacked that they would lend you money and man power? Well that was 3 years ago buddy new year new me, sounds like a you problem. We can't mention the lore of the Lannister's without mentioning the Castameres. A house that rebelled against the rule of the Lannister's as wardens of the West. They were the cousin house to the Lannister's, their sigils was also a lion and their colors were Gold and Red instead of Red and Gold. But to answer for their rebellion The Lannister's killed every single Castamere and burned their castle to the ground. They explain it all in the diss track they wrote about it in this bard song here. If you hear a bard strumming this song in the corner of a tavern you're already dead. Their house words are "hear me roar" but they don't really care for them and their unofficial words are "A Lannister always pay their debts." Which means they always get even. Either in the positive way or negative. Say you gave a Lannister 10 gold pieces once like 5 years ago. He won't forget it. Maybe you're about to be stabbed in a tavern and then the killer is suddenly shot with a bow by some street urchin child who tells you "The Lannister's always pay their debts" and then he books it from the bar never to be seen again. On the other hand if you wronged a Lannister the last words you may ever hear will be "The Lannister's send their regards" They pay their debts and they do it tenfold. So as you can see the last words of the song "And now the reins weep o'er his hall, with not a soul to hear" They got even. You do not cross the Lannister's and get away with it. maybe not today, not tomorrow, but they will pay their debts and when they do you and your whole family must suffer. They are not my favorite house but I do find their inner-workings and mindset very interesting.

^^ Concept Art for Casterly Rock

Lannister Family Tree

Alfred Lannister- The young Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West. His father had him very late in life and died of old age leaving Alfred as the Lord of Casterly rock since he was only 8. He's 15 now, and is old hat at being a Lord. It's all he's ever known really. And he's pretty good at it to.

Ludwig Lannister- The uncle of Alfred & Matthew. He was their Lord father's little brother and he ruled as Lord in Alfred's place until he came of age, making all the big decisions. He also taught Alfred how to be a good Lord but more importantly what it means to be a lion. He raised both Alfred and Matthew as his own sons. He trained them himself to be Knights and ready for anything.

Mathias Lannister- Ludwig's actual son and Alfred's cousin. He's their older cousin, and he is a knight. He's a battle master he knows everything about warfare and has even led the vanguard in battles before. He is very capable. He competes in a lot of tourneys and has won his fair share of jousts. He is said to be the greatest sword in all of Westeros. Granted he is said to be the best. That does not necessarily mean he is.

Matthew Lannister- Matthew is 15 same as his twin brother obviously. He gets annoyed because since his brother is the Lord he gets over shadowed a lot. But because of that he has dreams of making his own path. He wants to join the Kings Guard after he gets knighted.

Yao Lannister- Yao is Alfred's uncle and is Older than Ludwig but Younger than Alfred's father. Yao lives in Kings Landing where he has a seat on teh small council and acts as the Kings Master of Coin.

Raivis Lannister- The son of Yao Lannister. Lives in the Red Keep in Kings Landing with his parents. He is good friends with the Princess since they are around the same age. He wants to be a smith some day even if it's not a job for a high born he's fascinated with weapons and how they are made.

#Hetalia #hws america #hws germany #hws denmark #hws canada #hws china #hws latvia

9 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 6 months

Text

Corporations pay their CEOs extravagantly while trying to cheat on taxes.

It would be one thing if, alongside the exorbitant executive pay, the quality of American CEO-ing was going up. But these executives are making off with bigger bags of boodle despite their persistent incompetence: Media executives keep running their businesses into the ground, tech firms are laying people off because of vibes, the planes keep nearly crashing, and examples of insane eye-popping greed—like Rite-Aid’s decision to claw back severance paid out to laid-off workers on the same day they handed their CEO a $20 million bonus—keep on coming. So it may come as no surprise that there’s a robust connection between the overindulged CEOs and the firms that are most flagrantly dodging their fair share of taxes. For a report released Wednesday, the Institute for Policy Studies teamed up with Americans for Tax Fairness to spelunk into the balance sheets at some of America’s best-known tax scofflaws between 2018 and 2022. What they found was pretty consistent: The firms took home high profits and lavished their top executives with exorbitant pay, all while stiffing Uncle Sam. The excess is stunning. “For over half (35) of these corporations,” the study reports, “their payouts to top corporate brass over that entire span exceeded their net tax payments.” An additional 29 firms managed this feat for “at least two of the five years in the study period.” Eighteen firms paid a grand total of zero dollars during that five-year span, 17 of which were given tax refunds. All in all, the 64 companies in the report “posted cumulative pre-tax domestic profits of $657 billion” during the study period, but “paid an average effective federal tax rate of just 2.8 percent (the statutory rate is 21 percent) while paying their executives over $15 billion.” Which firms are the worst of the worst? You can probably guess the company that tops the list because it’s the one run by The New Republic’s 2023 Scoundrel of the Year. During the five years of the study, Tesla took home $4.4 billion in profits as CEO Elon Musk carted off $2.28 billion in stock options, which, since his 2018 payday, have ballooned to nearly $56 billion—a compensation plan so outlandish that the Delaware Court of Chancery canceled it. Tesla has, during that same period of time, paid an effective tax rate of zero percent through a combination of carrying forward losses from unprofitable years and good old-fashioned offshore tax dodging.

Elon Musk is either the world's richest or second richest person. But he still wants more. Give him credit for pathological greed.

In all fairness, Musk is not alone when it comes to enriching himself while screwing workers.

What sort of innovations have these CEOs wrought from this well-remunerated period? T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert presided over the Sprint merger that led to $23.6 million in stock buybacks and 5,000 layoffs. Netflix’s Reed Hastings poured $15 billion in profit into jacking up subscription rates. Nextera Energy has devoted $10 million in dark money in a “ghost candidate scheme” to thwart climate change candidates. Darden Restaurants has been fighting efforts to raise the minimum wage. Metlife has been diverting government money meant to fund low-cost housing into other, unrelated buckraking ventures. And some First Energy executives from the study period are embroiled in a corruption scandal that’s so massive that even Musk might find it to be beyond the pale.

These oligarchs are going to spend lavishly to elect Republicans who would give them even bigger tax breaks.

Fortunately, they can't literally buy votes. If we return to old school grassroots precinct work then we can thwart the MAGA Republican puppets of billionaire oligarchs.

One to one contact is a more important factor than TV or online ads in convincing people to vote your way. It takes more effort, but democracy was not built by slacktivism in the first place.

#corporate tax cheats #extravagant salaries for ceos #tax dodging #greed #oligarchs #tesla #elon musk #t-mobile #netflix #nextera energy #first energy #metlife #darden #maga #republicans #grassroots political work #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who

13 notes · View notes

maribatz-2k · 2 years

Text

Day 10: Adoption of The Rich

Note:

So I walked away and my son pushed publish. XD

READ ON! :)

---------------------

"That's it! Today's the day! I'm adopting Chloe!" Marinette says drawing up adoption papers.

"So I get a new sister?" Adrian asks sitting next to her in class. "Wait, she's already technically my sister."

"Welp, she needs to know proper love, Chaton." Mari says finishing up and smiles as she leaves two blank spots for signatures. After months of convincing Chloe that she needed the right environment and people, she had become close to Mari and Adrian more. They met up in the library at one of the small tables and talked over the document with Max monitoring. Yes it's not a legal thing, but hey, not the point here! Chloe agreed and signed her name first then Mari making it now "official."

A year later, now seniors, Mari has succeeded in adopting Adrian, Chloé, Kagami, and Zoé. She'd have adopted Luka, but he was always a part of her family so no adoption paperwork needed. They decided to do a graduation trip kagami agreed to join while Luka said he would be joining his father on tour across the United States. Lots of debate on locations and where they would stay for the month. Yes, you heard right, a month. Finally settling down to closing eyes and pull strings to pick the location, luck had decided on Gotham.

The four walked across the stage in their first sets of cap and gowns, accepting their diplomas they earned with sweat and blood and meet up with Marinette's parents, Kagami, and Luka. The group huddled together in a giant group hug filled with congratulations. The night before their flight, everyone crashes at the Dupain-Cheng's house, well everyone but Luka. He had to leave after graduation day. Despite having to get up early for a flight, Mari stayed up later than everyone else, too excited to sleep. And boy did she regret that decision on the flight there.

Arrival at in Gotham, Adrien was carrying Mari on his back as Chloé led everyone to a paid limo. Marinette had fallen asleep and refused to wake up long enough to even get off the plane. Snugged into the limo, they rode toward the richest hotel Chloé and Kagami picked out against Mari's desire.

Marinette woke up in a strange bed and it was dark outside. With an annoyed stretch, she slides out of the bed and looks around finding a balcony outside her window and three other doors. She went to the first door finding it connected to a big open living room. Quietly closing it she tries the second door opening up to a beautiful grand bathroom. Blinking, she sees her hair is a jumbled mess she quickly rips her hair out if the pig tails and brush her fingers through the knitted strands. She didn't bother with the third door figuring it was the closet then goes out onto the balcony and look around.

Gotham strangely looked beautiful at night. Sure you got the big lights scanning the sky, and the loud noises lights everywhere that you can't see the stars. But watching the people and the buildings just glitter was starry enough for Mari. She leans against the rail catching sight of shadows jumping and swinging from roof top to roof top. Something tells her that its the vigilantes of Gotham probably on patrol. She notices two of them stopping at the building across from her what seems to be arguing? Marinette just couldn't hear what was being said, but there was lots of movement and someone just went over the edge falling.

"Oh my god!" Marinette yells covering her mouth not catching her scream in time. The fallen person shot his grappling gun, up at the building across from her and slam against the wall. He looks over at her then zips up to the roof and disappear after the second person. Mari quickly ran back into her room, closing the double doors, and flop on her bed until later that morning.

Three blondes and two blunettes enter Gotham Mall. There's a joke here right? Well try this one. Chloe insists on going shopping for their first official day in Gotham. Kagami linked her arm around Mari's as they walked behind the triplets going from store to store. They finally took a break in the food court circling one of the center tables with each blunette between them. Chloe was complaining about how tired she is but still wants to shop. Zoe was leaned over her drink, stirring the ice around watching Mari draw. Adrien conversed with Kagami over who knows what.

"Let's play again." Adrien clears his throat. Mari looks up and Chloe gleams.

"I know just the one." Chloe says and Mari groans.

"No..."

"Yes."

"What game?" Zoe asks. Mari puts away her sketch book and lays her face into the table.

"Rich man, poor man." Chloe says. Kagami chuckles.

"The card game?" Zoe asks again reach over and pets Mari's hair.

"No. Chloe is talking about us people judging on who's rich and poor. Winner is the one with more points or if you can identify the big name." Mari mumbles then sits up pressing her head into Zoe relaxing. Zoe gives an "oh" expression. So the game begins. They started in the food court and across the whole mall. Adrien kept score on his phone as they walked; Chloe scored ten for poor one rich, Zoe got five poor zero rich, and Mari didn't participate at least not yet. She was waiting for the big game. Now Chloe knows all the big names, so Mari has to be smart about her choices. They have gone through almost all the clothes stores only to come up toward the bookstore. As the game commence, Mari moves into the bookstore with Zoe and Adrien while Kagami and Chloe sat on the bench talking.

Mari slips into the classic romance section until she found one of interests. Of course it's on the freaking top shelf, so she tried to reach on her toes but then decided to climb. A chuckle was heard beside her taking her attention from the climb to falling off the shelf with a yelp, landing in someone else's muscled arms.

"Whoa there princess." The man said.

"Mari!" Adrien and Zoe run over. Soon Chloe and Kagami walk behind them and face palms.

"Of course. Leave it to Mari to not only fall but fall into a big rich." Chloe says as Kagami laughs behind her hand. Marinette blushes covering her face forgetting she was in someone's arms.

"Then Mari wins. Again." Adrien says with a chuckle. The man and his companions look confused. He sets her down finding her smaller in height than he thought.

Mari, meet the Wayne kids. Kids, meet your new mom in a few days." Chloe says then drags Marinette and her crew out to their shopping bags then leave.

Sure enough, a week later adoption papers were tapped on her balcony doors for all the ROBINS to sign.

@maribatserver

#maribat #mlb x dc #ml x dc #maribatmarch2023

63 notes · View notes

dailyanarchistposts · 29 days

Text

B.7.1 But do classes actually exist?

So do classes actually exist, or are anarchists making them up? The fact that we even need to consider this question points to the pervasive propaganda efforts by the ruling class to suppress class consciousness, which will be discussed further on. First, however, let’s examine some statistics, taking the USA as an example. We have done so because the state has the reputation of being a land of opportunity and capitalism. Moreover, class is seldom talked about there (although its business class is very class conscious). Moreover, when countries have followed the US model of freer capitalism (for example, the UK), a similar explosion of inequality develops along side increased poverty rates and concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands.

There are two ways of looking into class, by income and by wealth. Of the two, the distribution of wealth is the most important to understanding the class structure as this represents your assets, what you own rather than what you earn in a year. Given that wealth is the source of income, this represents the impact and power of private property and the class system it represents. After all, while all employed workers have an income (i.e. a wage), their actual wealth usually amounts to their personal items and their house (if they are lucky). As such, their wealth generates little or no income, unlike the owners of resources like companies, land and patents. Unsurprisingly, wealth insulates its holders from personal economic crises, like unemployment and sickness, as well as gives its holders social and political power. It, and its perks, can also be passed down the generations. Equally unsurprisingly, the distribution of wealth is much more unequal than the distribution of income.

At the start of the 1990s, the share of total US income was as follows: one third went to the top 10% of the population, the next 30% gets another third and the bottom 60% gets the last third. Dividing the wealth into thirds, we find that the top 1% owns a third, the next 9% owns a third, and bottom 90% owns the rest. [David Schweickart, After Capitalism, p. 92] Over the 1990s, the inequalities in US society have continued to increase. In 1980, the richest fifth of Americans had incomes about ten times those of the poorest fifth. A decade later, they has twelve times. By 2001, they had incomes over fourteen times greater. [Doug Henwood, After the New Economy, p. 79] Looking at the figures for private family wealth, we find that in 1976 the wealthiest one percent of Americans owned 19% of it, the next 9% owned 30% and the bottom 90% of the population owned 51%. By 1995 the top 1% owned 40%, more than owned by the bottom 92% of the US population combined — the next 9% had 31% while the bottom 90% had only 29% of total (see Edward N. Wolff, Top Heavy: A Study of Increasing Inequality in America for details).

So in terms of wealth ownership, we see a system in which a very small minority own the means of life. In 1992 the richest 1% of households — about 2 million adults — owned 39% of the stock owned by individuals. The top 10%, owned over 81%. In other words, the bottom 90% of the population had a smaller share (23%) of investable capital of all kinds than the richest 1/2% (29%). Stock ownership was even more densely concentrated, with the richest 5% holding 95% of all shares. [Doug Henwood, Wall Street: Class racket] Three years later, “the richest 1% of households … owned 42% of the stock owned by individuals, and 56% of the bonds … the top 10% together owned nearly 90% of both.” Given that around 50% of all corporate stock is owned by households, this means that 1% of the population “owns a quarter of the productive capital and future profits of corporate America; the top 10% nearly half.” [Doug Henwood, Wall Street, pp. 66–7] Unsurprisingly, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that more than half of corporate profits ultimately accrue to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers, while only about 8 percent go to the bottom 60 percent.

Henwood summarises the situation by noting that “the richest tenth of the population has a bit over three-quarters of all the wealth in this society, and the bottom half has almost none — but it has lots of debt.” Most middle-income people have most of their (limited) wealth in their homes and if we look at non-residential wealth we find a “very, very concentrated” situation. The “bottom half of the population claimed about 20% of all income in 2001 — but only 2% of non-residential wealth. The richest 5% of the population claimed about 23% of income, a bit more than the entire bottom half. But it owned almost two-thirds — 65% — of the wealth.” [After the New Economy, p. 122]

In terms of income, the period since 1970 has also been marked by increasing inequalities and concentration:

“According to estimates by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez — confirmed by data from the Congressional Budget Office — between 1973 and 2000 the average real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers actually fell by 7 percent. Meanwhile, the income of the top 1 percent rose by 148 percent, the income of the top 0.1 percent rose by 343 percent and the income of the top 0.01 percent rose 599 percent.” [Paul Krugman, “The Death of Horatio Alger”, The Nation, January 5, 2004]

Doug Henwood provides some more details on income [Op. Cit., p. 90]:

Changes in income, 1977–1999 real income growth 1977–99

Share of total income

1977

1999

Change

poorest 20%

-9%

5.7%

4.2%

-1.5%

second 20%

11.5

9.7

-1.8

middle 20%

16.4

14.7

-1.7

fourth 20%

+14

22.8

21.3

-1.5

top 20%

+43

44.2

50.4

+6.2

top 1%

+115

7.3

12.9

+5.6

By far the biggest gainers from the wealth concentration since the 1980s have been the super-rich. The closer you get to the top, the bigger the gains. In other words, it is not simply that the top 20 percent of families have had bigger percentage gains than the rest. Rather, the top 5 percent have done better than the next 15, the top 1 percent better than the next 4 per cent, and so on.

As such, if someone argues that while the share of national income going to the top 10 percent of earners has increased that it does not matter because anyone with an income over $81,000 is in that top 10 percent they are missing the point. The lower end of the top ten per cent were not the big winners over the last 30 years. Most of the gains in the share in that top ten percent went to the top 1 percent (who earn at least $230,000). Of these gains, 60 percent went to the top 0.1 percent (who earn more than $790,000). And of these gains, almost half went to the top 0.01 percent (a mere 13,000 people who had an income of at least $3.6 million and an average income of $17 million). [Paul Krugman, “For Richer”, New York Times, 20/10/02]

All this proves that classes do in fact exist, with wealth and power concentrating at the top of society, in the hands of the few.

To put this inequality of income into some perspective, the average full-time Wal-Mart employee was paid only about $17,000 a year in 2004. Benefits are few, with less than half the company’s workers covered by its health care plan. In the same year Wal-Mart’s chief executive, Scott Lee Jr., was paid $17.5 million. In other words, every two weeks he was paid about as much as his average employee would earn after a lifetime working for him.

Since the 1970s, most Americans have had only modest salary increases (if that). The average annual salary in America, expressed in 1998 dollars (i.e., adjusted for inflation) went from $32,522 in 1970 to $35,864 in 1999. That is a mere 10 percent increase over nearly 30 years. Over the same period, however, according to Fortune magazine, the average real annual compensation of the top 100 C.E.O.‘s went from $1.3 million — 39 times the pay of an average worker — to $37.5 million, more than 1,000 times the pay of ordinary workers.

Yet even here, we are likely to miss the real picture. The average salary is misleading as this does not reflect the distribution of wealth. For example, in the UK in the early 1990s, two-thirds of workers earned the average wage or below and only a third above. To talk about the “average” income, therefore, is to disguise remarkable variation. In the US, adjusting for inflation, average family income — total income divided by the number of families — grew 28% between 1979 and 1997. The median family income — the income of a family in the middle (i.e. the income where half of families earn more and half less) grew by only 10%. The median is a better indicator of how typical American families are doing as the distribution of income is so top heavy in the USA (i.e. the average income is considerably higher than the median). It should also be noted that the incomes of the bottom fifth of families actually fell slightly. In other words, the benefits of economic growth over nearly two decades have not trickled down to ordinary families. Median family income has risen only about 0.5% per year. Even worse, “just about all of that increase was due to wives working longer hours, with little or no gain in real wages.” [Paul Krugman, “For Richer”, Op. Cit.]

So if America does have higher average or per capita income than other advanced countries, it is simply because the rich are richer. This means that a high average income level can be misleading if a large amount of national income is concentrated in relatively few hands. This means that large numbers of Americans are worse off economically than their counterparts in other advanced countries. Thus Europeans have, in general, shorter working weeks and longer holidays than Americans. They may have a lower average income than the United States but they do not have the same inequalities. This means that the median European family has a standard of living roughly comparable with that of the median U.S. family — wages may even be higher.

As Doug Henwood notes, ”[i]nternational measures put the United States in a disgraceful light… The soundbite version of the LIS [Luxembourg Income Study] data is this: for a country th[at] rich, [it] ha[s] a lot of poor people.” Henwood looked at both relative and absolute measures of income and poverty using the cross-border comparisons of income distribution provided by the LIS and discovered that ”[f]or a country that thinks itself universally middle class [i.e. middle income], the United States has the second-smallest middle class of the nineteen countries for which good LIS data exists.” Only Russia, a country in near-total collapse was worse (40.9% of the population were middle income compared to 46.2% in the USA. Households were classed as poor if their incomes were under 50 percent of the national medium; near-poor, between 50 and 62.5 percent; middle, between 62.5 and 150 percent; and well-to-do, over 150 percent. The USA rates for poor (19.1%), near-poor (8.1%) and middle (46.2%) were worse than European countries like Germany (11.1%, 6.5% and 64%), France (13%, 7.2% and 60.4%) and Belgium (5.5%, 8.0% and 72.4%) as well as Canada (11.6%, 8.2% and 60%) and Australia (14.8%, 10% and 52.5%).

The reasons for this? Henwood states that the “reasons are clear — weak unions and a weak welfare state. The social-democratic states — the ones that interfere most with market incomes — have the largest [middles classes]. The US poverty rate is nearly twice the average of the other eighteen.” Needless to say, “middle class” as defined by income is a very blunt term (as Henwood states). It says nothing about property ownership or social power, for example, but income is often taken in the capitalist press as the defining aspect of “class” and so is useful to analyse in order to refute the claims that the free-market promotes general well-being (i.e. a larger “middle class”). That the most free-market nation has the worse poverty rates and the smallest “middle class” indicates well the anarchist claim that capitalism, left to its own devices, will benefit the strong (the ruling class) over the weak (the working class) via “free exchanges” on the “free” market (as we argue in section C.7, only during periods of full employment — and/or wide scale working class solidarity and militancy — does the balance of forces change in favour of working class people. Little wonder, then, that periods of full employment also see falling inequality — see James K. Galbraith’s Created Unequal for more details on the correlation of unemployment and inequality).

Of course, it could be objected that this relative measure of poverty and income ignores the fact that US incomes are among the highest in the world, meaning that the US poor may be pretty well off by foreign standards. Henwood refutes this claim, noting that “even on absolute measures, the US performance is embarrassing. LIS researcher Lane Kenworthy estimated poverty rates for fifteen countries using the US poverty line as the benchmark… Though the United States has the highest average income, it’s far from having the lowest poverty rate.” Only Italy, Britain and Australia had higher levels of absolute poverty (and Australia exceeded the US value by 0.2%, 11.9% compared to 11.7%). Thus, in both absolute and relative terms, the USA compares badly with European countries. [Doug Henwood, “Booming, Borrowing, and Consuming: The US Economy in 1999”, pp.120–33, Monthly Review, vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 129–31]

In summary, therefore, taking the USA as being the most capitalist nation in the developed world, we discover a class system in which a very small minority own the bulk of the means of life and get most of the income. Compared to other Western countries, the class inequalities are greater and the society is more polarised. Moreover, over the last 20–30 years those inequalities have increased spectacularly. The ruling elite have become richer and wealth has flooded upwards rather than trickled down.

The cause of the increase in wealth and income polarisation is not hard to find. It is due to the increased economic and political power of the capitalist class and the weakened position of working class people. As anarchists have long argued, any “free contract” between the powerful and the powerless will benefit the former far more than the latter. This means that if the working class’s economic and social power is weakened then we will be in a bad position to retain a given share of the wealth we produce but is owned by our bosses and accumulates in the hands of the few.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, there has been an increase in the share of total income going to capital (i.e., interest, dividends, and rent) and a decrease in the amount going to labour (wages, salaries, and benefits). Moreover, an increasing part of the share to labour is accruing to high-level management (in electronics, for example, top executives used to paid themselves 42 times the average worker in 1991, a mere 5 years later it was 220 times as much).

Since the start of the 1980s, unemployment and globalisation has weakened the economic and social power of the working class. Due to the decline in the unions and general labour militancy, wages at the bottom have stagnated (real pay for most US workers is lower in 2005 than it was in 1973!). This, combined with “trickle-down” economic policies of tax cuts for the wealthy, tax raises for the working classes, the maintaining of a “natural” law of unemployment (which weakens unions and workers power) and cutbacks in social programs, has seriously eroded living standards for all but the upper strata — a process that is clearly leading toward social breakdown, with effects that will be discussed later (see section D.9).

Little wonder Proudhon argued that the law of supply and demand was a “deceitful law … suitable only for assuring the victory of the strong over the weak, of those who own property over those who own nothing.” [quoted by Alan Ritter, The Political Thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 121]

4 notes · View notes

aurianneor · 3 months

Text

2024 UK general election: choosing the Right or the Left.

The Left and the Right are two ideologies that recognise the importance of having elites. For the Right, some people are considered to have fewer rights than others: women, black people, workers, etc. The elite is composed of Oxbridge. The people have to sacrifice on their housing, health and education to give to the elites. The Right take advice from the richest. For the Left, elites are appreciated but the people are not asked to sacrifice for the elites. The elites are there to inform the people and help them to do better.

For the Right, everyone has to support their leader and repeat their ideas. That’s Rishi Sunak’s or Nigel Farage’s programme. For the Left, a plurality of opinions and strong debate are expressed.

Poverty in the UK has escalated since 2011 to reach 19% of the population. The cost of leaving has increased exponentially up to 12% per year. Energy has increased by 19% since 2022, rent 69% and food 40%.

Cost of living statistics UK: 2024 – Finder: https://www.finder.com/uk/banking/cost-of-living-statistics

Meanwhile, since 2017, tax havens have increased (to avoid paying tax). The UK rich people are getting richer. The top 10 billionaires in the UK are three times richer than 15 years ago. With the Tories in power during Brexit, work standards have been lowered (security, social and environmental measures) to the profit of the owners who became even richer. The Tories signed free trade agreements with developing countries with low security social an environmental standards creating an unfair competition with the UK workers. The British producers can hardly sell in those countries. Those free trades only benefit the owners of the factory there.

The UK’S Rich Are Getting Richer – Statista: https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/27505/uks-richest-are-getting-richer/

Deregulation and standards after Brexit – what Naomi Klein’s ‘disaster capitalism’ can tell us – City University of London: https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2019/10/deregulation-and-standards-after-brexit-what-naomi-kleins-disaster-capitalism-can-tell-us

Trade deals: What has the UK done since Brexit? – BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47213842

In the past, when the left has rallied, it has benefited the country: the population has increased its standard of living without sacrificing public spending or the performance of its economy. Let’s remember the spirit of 1945 and the New Labour in 1997. In 1945 was created public service of steal, health (NHS), rail and energy. In 1997 the left multiplied by four the budget for public health, reduced youth unemployment by 75%, they doubled the budget of public education, they introduced the minimum wage, 2 million people have been helped out of poverty. From 1997 to 2007, there were ten years of consecutive growth. The Labour of 2024 has the same ambition as the one in 1945 when they want to restore public services of energy and rail.

The Spirit of ’45 – Ken Loach – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_%2745

Labour governments’ achievements – Shrewsbury Labour Party: https://www.shrewsburylabour.org.uk/labours-top-50-achievements/

What’s more, the stock market did better when the Left was in power. The ones who suffered were the ultra-rich who had ill-gotten gains (tax breaks, tax reductions, etc). The ultra-rich don’t need the poor to struggle to benefit from their wealth. The Left isn’t milking them for all they’re worth, it’s just asking them to contribute their fair share. The economic crises have occurred when the Right was in charge : 1982 (Margaret Thatcher), 2019 (Boris Johnson). The Right didn’t deal with Covid very well: they didn’t stop economy soon enough and had many death. They gave the money borrowed to support the economy to the ultra-rich.

Early 1980s recession – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession

UK swiftly exits its third recession in 16 years – Resolution Foundation: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/uk-swiftly-exits-its-third-recession-in-16-years/

Labour is right: billions were lost to Covid fraud, and the public deserve a reckoning – The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/labour-billions-covid-fraud-pandemic

COVID, CONTRACTS, AND CONFLICT: THE YEAR CORRUPTION TOOK CENTRE STAGE – Transparency International UK: https://transparency.org.uk/COVID-contracts-conflict-2020-2021-year-corruption-took-centre-stage

The neo-liberals and the identitarians point to the bad guys; they target the foreigners, the “lazy” or the misfits. They give priority to the ultra-rich, who have more rights than others.

A very strong and very democratic state is needed to protect the workers against unfair competition from badly-treated foreigners and against the social and environmental dumping of foreign products. The people need to be richer so that they can buy quality goods and have quality public services (health, pensions, education, etc.). This wealth has been captured by the ultra-rich, not by immigrants or ‘idlers’. Britain is rich but inequalities are high.

Believing that the solution to the problem is to attack the poor, the disabled, the people of colour, etc. by treating them badly (inadequate pay, fewer rights) hurts the whole system: old diseases like cholera re-emerge, poorer working conditions are accepted, and so on.

Many people are angry and worried about their livelihoods, their health, their children’s education and so on. Providing public services for everyone everywhere will be very expensive. Neoliberals are asking the poor to have less (by cutting pensions and public services) because they think they don’t deserve enough. The identitarian right-wing is calling for the poor to be made to pay. The right is diverting people’s anger away from the bourgeoisie. The Left is calling for the ultra-rich to pay the price of these reforms, but they will still be very rich. To restore prosperity to the people, taxing capital and controlling prices is the way to go.

Even then, the laws passed by the House of Commons must not be blocked by the House of Lords, which is not elected by the people and is not a power check serving the people.

It’s a shame that the Brits don’t have the right to a referendum on popular initiative and that the only way to express themselves is by electing representatives!

10 Labour policies to change Britain Under the Tories, the NHS waiting list has tripled, and drastic action needs to be taken to get patients seen and receiving the care they need. 10 Labour policies to change Britain: https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/10-labour-policies-to-change-britain/

WATCH LIVE: Keir Starmer launches Labour’s manifesto. – Labour Party: https://youtu.be/gyna0dYUUSI?t=2061

Labour’s fiscal plan – Labour Party: https://labour.org.uk/change/labours-fiscal-plan/

Kickstart economic growth – Labour Party: https://labour.org.uk/change/kickstart-economic-growth/

Expert economists back Labour’s plan to end economic stagnation in UK – The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/19/labour-plan-end-economic-stagnation-uk-economists

Woman who pulled out 12 teeth with pliers says government failing on NHS dentistry – ITV News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdWonwyrNiY

Genesis – Selling England By The Pound (Full Album Remastered) With Lyrics: https://youtu.be/GEE3T35C7Y8?si=fCicsBgsqtLVm850

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Législatives 2024: choisir la gauche ou la droite.: https://www.aurianneor.org/legislatives-2024-choisir-la-gauche-ou-la-droite/

Restricting personal wealth: https://www.aurianneor.org/restricting-personal-wealth/

A slice of the cake: https://www.aurianneor.org/a-slice-of-the-cake/

Oui au Référendum d’initiative populaire: https://www.aurianneor.org/oui-au-referendum-dinitiative-populaire-petition/

Immigration: https://www.aurianneor.org/immigration-2/

Living with dignity: https://www.aurianneor.org/living-with-dignity/

Rob the poor to feed the rich: https://www.aurianneor.org/rob-the-poor-to-feed-the-rich/

Le RIC – Référendum d’initiative citoyenne: https://www.aurianneor.org/via-httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv-e2lnzwuy4ks/

Price ceilings and price floors: https://www.aurianneor.org/price-ceilings-and-price-floors/

The Senate, the power to piss people off: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-senate-the-power-to-piss-people-off/

Humiliated by the Republic: https://www.aurianneor.org/humiliated-by-the-republic/

Nos ancêtres les marrons: https://www.aurianneor.org/nos-ancetres-les-marrons-il-nexiste-quune-seule/

3 notes · View notes

unreadpoppy · 9 months

Text

here are some things in the dnd campaign i played Gwen with that she did

On the first session, the party was given a free meal in a restaurant. The paladin, as he left the place, placed two gold coins on the table to pay for the food. Gwen took the two coins and he never discovered.

Once the party saved some nobles on the road. The noble gave the party two rubies as a reward. Gwen took the rubies and never told anyone about it.

Cut to a few weeks later, Gwen sells one of the rubies that NO ONE in the party knew about for 3,000 gold pieces and becomes the richest member of the party.

Portal leading to an ice castle opens in the middle of a mission. Gwen jumps in without a second thought.

Had to set up a trap to kill a wolf for her patron-dad, a deer got injured, and then she proceeded to cry a bit about the deer after killing the wolf.

Didn't want to sleep on the dirty ass woods, so she would frquently sleep on top of the goliath barbarian's chest.

Kept drinking things that she didn't know what were.

Said that her "mom made my breats with lots of care" (she was also very drunk)

Used her money to buy 6 bottles of various alcoholic drinks that she brought along EVERYWHERE. One of those drinks had a scorpion inside of it.

The party was going to a city that was build on top of a tree. They began a bet of how big they thought was the tree. Gwen said 10 meters tall

told the mailman that the instructions to her house were "get a boat, go to an island, walk into the forest, at some point you'll find a cabin in the woods, that's where you deliver the letter."

said to the goliath barbarian, whose village had been burned down and was taken by some bad people that "my dad's a devil, he could kill those guys." (was ALSO drunk in this one)

#there's more btw but these are the classics

4 notes · View notes

battleangel · 1 year

Text

Amerikkka, the beautiful, the land of the free & the home of the...

👁Highest obesity rates

👁Highest gun mortality

👁Highest opioid use, addiction & fatalities

👁Most overprescribed nation on earth

👁One of the highest prescription rates for antidepressants & benzodiazepines

👁One of the highest rates of domestic violence

👁One of the richest countries yet highest incidence of poverty among "advanced democracies" - millions are houseless, food insecure, without medical insurance & lack of a living wage

👁Work hundreds of more hours vs employees in other "developed" countries

👁Excessive environmental abuse (biggest carbon emitter - 3 times worse than China, 2nd in air pollution only to China, water pollution, landfills, food waste, deforestation, natural resource depletion, industrial destruction, destruction of ecosystems, species conservation, deforestation, nuclear accidents, overpopulation, etc.)

👁National obsession with status, consumerism, materialism, overconsumption, fast fashion & addiction to shopping

👁One of the top economies but has a record high of $17.1 trillion in individual debt (student loans, mortgage, auto & credit card)

👁One of the highest costs of living in the world (housing, healthcare, and education)

👁60% of food consumed in US contains additives, preservatives & artificial sweeteners, considerably higher than the rest of the world

👁Tens of thousands of toxic chemicals & synthetics in household, cleaning, body care, makeup products with very little testing, regulations or studies on health and environmental effects

👁Hypersexualized, "pornified" culture that glamorizes sexual objectification, sexual violence & dehumanization while also being sexually repressed, uneducated, unable to establish, determine or decide on boundaries or verbalize when they have been violated, toxic masculinity, rape culture, inability to verbalize desires, inability to discuss sexuality openly and honestly, unhealthy, forced & contrived repression that leads to fetishization, dehumanization, objectification, sex addiction, etc

👁70% of teens & young adults are addicted to social media

👁Over 90% of time in America is spent indoors -- complete & total disconnect with nature

👁Only 7% of Americans practice mindful meditation -- total mind/body disconnect

👁Americans are obessed with "exercise", "the gym", "being fit", "bikini bodies" & "fad diets" yet only 20% work out regularly and the US has the highest obesity rates in the world

👁Dystopian obsession with beauty with the worlds highest plastic surgery rates

👁One of the 10 worst countries for racial equity

👁One of the most paternalistic & patriarchal countries on earth

👁Religious fundamentalism & paternalism is embedded in all aspects of society & culture & wielded as a tool of control

👁Concepts and societal ideals of femininity, motherhood, paternalism, fundamentalism, conservatism, religious dogma, chastity, modesty, purity, the cult of woman as a sacrificial lamb and the mother as a dehumanized symbol of selflessness and sublimation are all used to control and deny women's bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom while poverty is feminized and more women than men in the US live in poverty, work minimum and low wage jobs, are overrepresented in service jobs, make less per dollar than men for the same work and have no access to paid maternity leave or universal childcare yet they are the ones in many states forced to have children they dont want, many as single mothers, with little or no social safety net with no exception depending on the state for rape, abusive partner, coercive partner, mental & physical health of the woman, the woman's childfree or antinatalist beliefs, the woman's employment status, whether she has health care, whether she has a phobia of pregnancy and/or childbirth, whether she would be traumatized being forced to give birth if she doesn't want to be a mother, when it is her livelihood, career, finances, living situation, body, mental and physical health, physical appearance, sexual health affected moving forward if she does give birth yet the choice in many states is taken away from her yet only the woman has to live with the consequences, never the lawmakers taking her choice away

👁Prison industrial, military industrial, psychiatric industrial, pharamaceutical industrial, medical industrial & educational industrial complexes

👁Obsession with graphically violent media (movies, TV shows, videogames) & combat sports (NFL, UFC, etc.) yet boobs, penises & vulvas cant be shown on TV and dropping the F word can get you fined by the FTC

11 notes · View notes

meandmybigmouth · 5 months

Text

Robert Reich4h

Former Secretary of Labor

What to say to a Republican who complains about the federal debt.

Friends,

Republicans are attacking Biden for expanding the federal debt, and the House “Freedom Caucus” is livid that speaker Mike Johnson has agreed to more funds for Ukraine, claiming it will expand the debt even further.

Can we just have some sanity here?

The federal debt is a problem. This year, the United States will spend about $870 billion, or 3.1 percent of gross domestic product on interest payments on the debt. That’s more than the entire defense budget.

But take a closer look.

The major reason for the huge federal debt is Trump’s and George W. Bush’s tax cuts, which together added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment. They’re responsible for 57 percent of the increase in the ratio of the national debt to the economy since 2001.

Excluding the one-time costs of responding to Covid-19 and the Great Recession, the Bush and Trump tax cuts account for more than 90% of the increase in the debt ratio.

Most of the benefits of those tax cuts, not incidentally, have gone to the rich. 65 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax cuts have gone to the richest fifth of Americans, 22 percent to the top 1 percent.

And as the federal debt has risen, most of the interest payments on it have gone to the rich, too. Wealthy investors park their savings in treasury bonds directly or indirectly in treasury bonds held by mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, banks, insurance companies, personal trusts, and estates.

Decades ago, wealthy Americans financed the federal government mainly by paying taxes. In the 1950s, the top marginal tax rate on the wealthy was above 90 percent. Even including all tax credits and deductions, it was higher than 50 percent.

Since the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts, though, wealthy Americans have financed the federal government mainly by lending it money and collecting interest payments on those loans -- profiting when the rest of us pay them back.

Which means a growing portion of everyone else’s taxes are now paying the rich interest on those loans instead of paying for government services everyone needs.

So the next time you hear Republicans complain about the federal debt and our swelling interest payments on it, remember that: (1) the debt has grown mainly because of Republican tax cuts, (2) those cuts have mostly benefited the rich, (3) the rich are now the major recipients of interest payments on that debt, (4) and those interest payments are crowding out spending on childcare, elder care, affordable housing, better schools, paid family leave, and everything Americans need.

2 notes · View notes

transboysokka · 6 months

Text

Anyway what else about the earthquake uhhhh

There’ve been over 700 aftershocks over 3.0 so far but most can’t be felt where I live and I was out of the country most of the time since then

I have a student whose house flooded, lots of burst pipes up around here. Another student’s mom is an interior designer and JUST two days before the quake installed an insanely expensive custom chandelier in one of the top 10 richest people in the country’s house and that thing shattered into a million pieces lmao

A couple buildings collapsed near my house but everyone was okay and those were the only ones outside Hualien to collapse I think?? Also a bridge for the MRT got real messed up and broken so that’ll probably be out of service for a while??

WILD videos from up here though, like girders just falling off of buildings under construction and smashing into buildings below, or a rooftop pool just spilling down the sides of a building

Anyway yeah it didn’t feel that big to me here but I notoriously don’t give a shit about earthquakes even when I should. Stuff did fall down in my house though, but no broken glass for me unlike several friends. It really scared my dog though and he doesn’t usually care either

Only 13 people died in the quake and that’s because of how since the terrible Jiji quake in 1999 there’s been super strict laws about building codes and stuff (for example you can’t build anything over 12 stories without special permissions and permits) and everyone is so prepared about what to do in this situation, nobody really panicked when it happened. Even students were chill about it and my third graders said they were only a little scared (this was the biggest earthquake felt where I live ever)

The biggest problems are mountain roads and highways, since it’s always really hard to keep routes open but the response and cleanup and aid has been amazing.

I actually wasn’t a fan of headlines saying Taiwan was “devastated” or “reeling” from this because as bad as Hualien got hit, there’s always been a steady plan and response, and the rest of the country was back to normal within like an hour. I can’t imagine the damage if this had happened in, like, LA…

6 notes · View notes

pumpumdemsugah · 1 year

Text

If I had a super power, I'd want the power to build things with my mind almost immediately so I can crash the housing market in the UK by immediately building 10 million council homes and putting a massive tower block in every conservative area

After that I'm building asbestos teeth fillings in the mouths of the top 15000 richest people on earth but if they give away 99% of their wealth, I'll only break their legs. They get 12 months to comply.

#blah

9 notes · View notes

businessapac · 11 months

Text

#indianactors #bollywood #actors #indianmovies #amirkhan #akshaykumar #salmankhan #sharukhkhan #indianfilmindustry #indianactor #castingindia #richestactors2023 #richestactorsinindia #richestactors

3 notes · View notes

orlissa · 2 years

Text

First Words Meme

I was tagged by the lovely @jomiddlemarch

Rules: post the first lines of your 10 most recent fanfics.

Okay, I’m gonna go with most recent chapters, so:

I am in shock. (The Unabridged and Annotated Diary of Mrs. Alina Morozova, ch 9)

It all started with a new invention from the Fabrikators’ workshop: a two feet long, one foot high mahogany box with an oversized, brass horn on top of it, that could play back sounds— somehow —recorded on a cylinder. (Modern Times)

The next day finds them in one of the receiving rooms, facing both the Healer and the midwife—the two women wearing near identical, stern, but cautiously hopeful expressions—, because now that the shock and the elation has faded a little, there are warnings to hear out. (A Longing Deep and Profound, ch 2)

"I love you like this." (Eclipsed Ones, ch 56: Serenity)

Aleksander knew Alina had a past. (Better Man)

The first of the month falls on a Monday, which is such an insignificant coincidence that he wouldn’t even take notice of it if not for the fact that it, without question, starts out as a MONDAY, like that, with all capitals, displaying such an array of mondays-are-bad-luck cliches that even Garfield would be bewildered. (Advent Romance)

“Where are you going?” (In a Mirror, Brightly)

Aleksander was positive that currently he had the best view in the whole world: Alina above him as he lay in bed, naked as the day she was born, dark hair tousled, her face locked in ecstasy, breasts bouncing as she moved, her legs opened wide so he could see perfectly as his cock disappeared into that sweet, sweet spot at the apex of her thighs. (Led by Desire, ch 3: Wrath)

Alina and Aleksander were having a gender reveal party—not because they felt like they needed this much fanfare to let the world know the sex of their baby, but because Genya wanted to have one, and they had come to realize a long time ago that when Genya Safin set her mind on something, she became an unstoppable force, a hurricane in human form, so the best thing you could do was to simply… give in. (Piece of Cake, ch 7: Schrödinger’s Baby)

Although Mistress Bilka had worked in stately houses on both sides of the Shu-Ravkan border, nurturing the children of nobles, diplomats, and the richest of merchants, and thus was no stranger to highest levels of society, being asked to teach the two eldest daughters of the Tsar and Tsaritsa of Ravka was an honor beyond belief. (Tales from the Palace, ch 3: Narangerel Bilka)

Oh, okay, so... Either very short - often dialogue - or very long sentences :D

Tagging @polikszena @stargazerdaisy @aloveforjaneausten @fiora-miriel

#meme #fanfic

7 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 2 years

Text

Qatar spared nothing in its preparation for the 2022 World Cup. Multiple stadiums and sprawling fan facilities were built from scratch—as was the national team, which includes players from Iraq, Sudan, Algeria, and Portugal, among others. Before building the World Cup facilities, Qatar invested in the massive Aspire Academy, a state-of-the-art soccer school and sports district staffed with top instructors from around the world who scout thousands of promising young players starting at age 12 from dozens of countries every year. These foreigners play and train for years knowing that, if they get selected to play for Qatar’s national team, they stand to gain both glory on the field and a rare, coveted Qatari passport.

But Qatar has not simply spent money to import and train a soccer team: It has also redefined the very idea of citizenship. Like most states in the Persian Gulf, Qatar is a majority-foreigner country. There are only about 300,000 actual Qatari passport holders out of a population of nearly 3 million. Pathways to citizenship are notoriously exclusive, and only 50 new citizenships can be granted per year to those personally approved by the emir of Qatar himself. Yet 10 of the 26 players on Qatar’s national soccer team are naturalized citizens.

To comply with FIFA regulations, the entire team consists of Qatari citizens. But these naturalized soccer players are not quite immigrant-origin national heroes, in the vein of Zinedine Zidane or Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

These immigrant players all carry “mission passports”—documents that confer citizenship for the purposes of sports competition but anthropologist John McManus reports in his book Inside Qatar: Hidden Stories from One of the Richest Nations on Earth that these passports give the holders none of the benefits Qatari citizens hold: no housing assistance, no interest-free loans, no cash assistance for newlyweds, no sinecure government jobs beyond the soccer stadium. Nor are they permanent. A recent report by the Middle East Research and Information Project states that this type of citizenship comes with a built-in expiration date, making these immigrant players’ citizenships temporary as well as second class.

The fact that Qatar has redefined the very nature of citizenship—without fanfare, controversy, and with the sole goal of appeasing FIFA nationality regulations—takes this story of temporary citizen soccer players beyond the realm of Gulf labor exploitation. The creation of an entirely new type of citizen, without the same rights as those who are fully naturalized, places Qatar at the vanguard of a slow-burning but alarming regional trend. The Middle East and North Africa are becoming a kind of citizenship frontier: a region where certainty, permanence, and protection of citizenship is being uniquely and dangerously corroded. And Western countries are enabling this dynamic.

There is very little information about Qatar’s mission passports. The topic is sensitive due to the exclusivity of Qatari citizenship and the scrutiny Qatar has faced from some international sports bodies for its heavy use of recently naturalized players. The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs only mentions mission passports in a press release saying that they can be renewed online. Qatar understands it is under the microscope—FIFA has scrutinized Qatari naturalization policy closely after a minor scandal about the Qatari handball team.

Nobody has been able to determine the exact duration of the passports’ validity, either. Neither the Qatari government nor any of its athletes have been willing to openly discuss the specific duration of this status. Two researchers writing in the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics determined that temporary citizens are allowed to retain their original nationalities (Qatar normally forbids dual citizenship), but they are never allowed to physically possess both their passports at the same time. Some temporary citizens only see the proof of their Qatari nationality when their coaches show their passports to immigration officials.

McManus reports from conversations with Qatari immigrant players that the mission passports are occasionally upgraded to full Qatari citizenship as a reward for good sports performance. However, some immigrant players who won the Asian Cup for Qatar complained that even a year after their championship, their promised passports were nowhere to be seen. This raises questions about what will happen to the players’ citizenship statuses now that the Qatari team has been knocked out of the World Cup.

It is tempting to see the Qatari mission passports as an outgrowth of the kafala system, the infamously exploitative labor-sponsorship system that has defined much of Gulf society and has been the subject of much of the criticism of Qatar’s 2022 World Cup.

But if one only focuses on this system, one can miss the forest for the trees. The creation of a new, opaquely defined but unambiguously lesser form of citizenship is not a symptom of exploitative labor conditions. It’s a symptom of a regional erosion of citizenship. The difference matters.

The 20th century has given the region its fair share of complicated, conditional citizenship statuses. The Ottoman royal family went into exile stateless, eventually being granted French passports that allowed travel but did not confer citizenship. Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain all emerged as states containing substantial populations of bedoon—stateless residents who were not recognized as citizens and were, in some cases, denied even birth certificates.

Most significant of all are the post-1948 populations of Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, millions of people who were eventually issued identity documents by several governments, such as subvariants of Syrian passports (Syrian travel documents for Palestinian refugees), which looked like and served as passports but faced adamant political insistence from all sides—save Jordan, which eventually largely naturalized Palestinians—that this documentation was not, in fact, citizenship.

Yet as complicated as these citizenship issues were, they were not regionally unique in the 20th century. Tibetans in exile have been granted pseudo-passports—but not citizenship—by India. Residents of American Samoa are “U.S. nationals” not possessing the full rights of citizenship. The disintegration of Yugoslavia left thousands of Roma people stateless. Issues of statelessness and ambiguous citizenship are universal in any part of the world which experiences crisis and conflict.

What is unique to the Middle East region, and what Qatar’s temporary citizenship category is part of, is a more recent, subtle, and pernicious development. Since the 2010s, the Middle East is emerging as a kind of experimental zone where the erosion of citizenship rights can be trialed. While Qatari soccer players are temporary citizens naturalized with an expiration date—even if the details of when their passports expire is not public—Western countries are increasingly comfortable denaturalizing and revoking the citizenship of their own immigrant citizens of Middle Eastern origin when those citizens are accused of terrorist activity in the region.

The very real threats of transnational terrorism and domestic radicalization have emerged simultaneously with a far-right political moment in the United States and Western Europe when some right-populist movements are claiming that Middle Eastern and North African immigrants are somehow not really American, Dutch, or British. Western security intervention in the region has proceeded alongside increasing western entanglement with Gulf nations’ sovereign wealth funds and investment in new fields beyond old relationships based on oil and defense, like urban development and education.

Along with these contemporaneous processes come new loopholes and exemptions when it comes to state sovereignty. The West looks the other way as Gulf states chip away at citizenship norms for expediency, and local governments don’t protest too much when Western governments strand their denaturalized ex-citizens in the region. Especially after the emergence of the Islamic State, with its large contingent of Western, immigrant-origin fighters, the revocation of citizenship became an appealing alternative to long and complicated criminal prosecutions.

When I first worked as a consular officer in India, the conferment of U.S. citizenship was viewed as an almost sacred act. Procedure and regulation emphasized that each case needed to be almost triple-checked, because the decision was essentially permanent. The renunciation of that citizenship was only possible after a deliberately difficult and expensive process explicitly initiated by a U.S. citizen. As in most countries, there are some enumerated crimes—such as a criminal conviction of treason—which can result in loss of citizenship but these are subject to a very high evidentiary standard and occur as the result of a trial. That isn’t quite how it works for everyone everywhere anymore. European citizens who have traveled to the region to fight for the Islamic State have found themselves subject to a revocation process which is, sudden, one-sided, and arbitrary.

In 2018, I was at a working-level meeting of Western diplomats in Ankara, Turkey, called to discuss the difficulty of repatriating U.S. and European citizens stranded in Syria. When I complained about what a headache this process was, a French diplomat honestly asked me why we didn’t just strip them of their U.S. citizenship. My jaw dropped.

Citizenship has been the definitional core relationship between a government and its people ever since the Enlightenment. The French official who recommended denaturalizing inconvenient Americans in Syria must have studied the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” in high school, and he represented a government that holds this fundamental definition of citizenship as constitutional law.

Citizenship is legally and philosophically held to be as essential a marker of identity as parentage or a person’s name. It is not something that should be walked away from easily. And now it was being suggested by a peer over lunch that it would be more convenient to erase that bond out of expediency. He was right to point out that stripping those people of their citizenship would have solved all of my problems. If their actions could be held to make them somehow less American, they would cease to be my responsibility.

Western institutions in the Middle East have led the way in demonstrating that the definition of citizenship can be changed to solve an embarrassing problem, be that one of your citizens swearing allegiance to the Islamic State or the fact that half your national soccer team is foreign. The only similarity between these examples is the place in which they happen: a part of the world where it is felt that these things can be gotten away with. Qatar is not playing games with the meaning of citizenship in a vacuum. To mix sports analogies, Qatar is taking a pass and running it forward.

The erasure of citizenship rights in these cases can be tolerated by international legal regimes because they are considered exceptional. It’s just for some athletes. It’s just for terrorists.

But it doesn’t stay that way: The model, once implemented, is attractive for other uses. No one knows what those might be. Right now, a handful of soccer players for the Qatari national team have been given a temporary, degraded form of citizenship, and this is something FIFA is fine with. But now that Qatar has been eliminated from the World Cup, it’s unclear what will happen to its players. Like them, no one can be sure of what the future holds in regard to Qatar’s limited citizenship.

No one knows if Qatar’s citizenship policy will find other uses: say, if criticism of the kafala system will be mitigated by extending this limited citizenship to some foreign workers. What’s clear is that other forms of temporary or conditional citizenship are all being implemented under similar obscurity. I can imagine a future in which other countries, even Western ones, see the use in the Qatari model and opt to extend limited and contingent citizenship to populations they accept only begrudgingly.

What the world is witnessing in Qatar is an example of conditional citizenship, a term coined by the American author Laila Lalami to describe people who, through a web of big and small prejudices and bureaucratic procedures, have “rights the state finds expendable.” Her work is a critique of the implicit prejudices that can devalue the meaning of citizenship. The treatment of citizenship in the contemporary Middle East is not in any way implicit. In a region that has made it clear that some matter more than others, this kind of conditional citizenship has emerged in an explicit, if embryonic, form. Everyone should be watching closely.

5 notes · View notes

invincible-selfxmade-punk · 2 years

Text

I posted 23,755 times in 2022

That's 3,258 more posts than 2021!

1,033 posts created (4%)

22,722 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@polkadotmotmot

@mr-e-gallery

@soberscientistlife

@allhailthe70shousewife

@lghockey

I tagged 2,558 of my posts in 2022

#art - 167 posts

#aew - 116 posts

#youtube - 104 posts

#coffee - 94 posts

#texas - 69 posts

#teaching - 57 posts

#cm punk - 54 posts

#dreams - 49 posts

#good morning - 45 posts

#books - 39 posts

Longest Tag: 133 characters

#im not sure if chrono tags work on mobile... if it shows an empty search you can just go to (in your browser) tinyurl.com/readmourner

My Top Posts in 2022:

The mood for fur today

96 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

Sir Gray, first of his name unknown age about 15 years was taken home by the Lady Bast today.

He is survived by his little sister Stripe and his two humans who gave him the best home they knew how for the last 12 years.

Gray began his life as an abandoned cat in The Candlewood apartment complex in Corpus Christi Texas. He found his new humans there and they never let him go.

He was moved to Big Spring and then to Fort Stockton.

His favorite pastimes were begging for treats and roaming around outside. His only real shortcoming was his tendency to pee on his mama when she was sleeping. Other than that he was the best Kitty anyone could ever ask for.

His human parents loved him very much and are grateful every day for this time they were gifted with him.

See the full post

132 notes - Posted January 24, 2022

We are programmed and manipulated to believe that Thanksgiving is a holiday of utter abundance and gluttony. If you are barely getting by, and barely have enough, your holiday is still just as valid as anyone else's.

If you are displaced, homeless, disabled, disowned, alone, if you have no money for gifts, if you have no money for food, if you are barely getting by, you deserve the holiday season as much as anyone else does.

Don't let any post or picture on here shame you into thinking that your existence is not enough to be thankful for.

Just because your life does not match up to the images you see on this site, it doesn't mean you don't count.

You are a blessing to all those you encounter.

I am somewhere out here wishing you the best.

143 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

I saw this on Facebook last night.

The basic question asked when you were a little kid what did it mean to you to be rich? Like if you were to look at another person's family what would constitute being rich to you.

For me it was pretty easy to answer: in the late 70s and early '80s when I was a kid, rich people had cars with power locks and windows. They also had large garages with automatic garage door openers and the richest of the rich lived in two-story houses.

So I started to read through other people's replies and these were some of the things that I saw.

If you were a rich kid, your family had:

✅hot water

✅Could afford to eat meat

✅ a washer/dryer

✅Got to go out to eat. ..ever

✅ a bathtub

✅ a bike

✅ clothes that weren't homemade

✅ a microwave

✅ central air

✅ a car with AC

I came away feeling so humbled. I've always thought that I grew up poor. I always considered my upbringing to be very much lower class, at least compared to everyone else I do.

But growing up we had central air which we got when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, we had hot water and a bathtub, we ate meat every night, we always had a washer and dryer, and when I was about eight we got a microwave. I had a bike when I was 10, and I never once wore had me down or homemade clothes unless I was playing dress up.

@sophiaslittleblog

@bitter1stuff

@allhailthe70shousewife

@vaspider

@allnightsong2

I'm curious to know what your representation of being rich was when you were a little kid.

196 notes - Posted July 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

@allhailthe70shousewife

Look what just appeared on my Facebook feed

1,457 notes - Posted June 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

6 notes · View notes