#2007-2008 financial crisis

[filosofablogger]

Snarky grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Snippets

Last night I had a bouncy brain and couldn’t focus well enough to finish what I had started here.  The snarky was willing, but the snippets wouldn’t come.  Today, however, after a night filled with bad dreams and angst, the brain has settled and I managed to put fingers to the keyboard to share some small bits snark. Threats seem to work just fine in bending members of Congress just like a…

[chemicalarospec]

who knew that librarian!AU RPF would be my most research-intensive fic ever

[icanseethefuture333]

The Astrological Observation of Gen Z, (a series)

Part II 👶🏽🩷:

The birth of Gen Z children👩‍🍼:

Now what is described as a Gen Z baby is different depending on what method you use, but since we are using astrology, we determine that by looking at Pluto. Pluto is one of the slower moving planets and typically lasts in the same sign for over 12 years. In tropical astrology, what all Gen Z babies share is a Sagittarius Pluto (and it is in Scorpio if you fancy Vedic astrology 😎), Which begins in mid to late 1995 and ends in early to mid 2008. Some other placements that are shared for early 2000s babies is a Aquarius Uranus & Aquarius Neptune, While mid to late 2000s babies share a Pisces Uranus & Aquarius Neptune.

The most populated birth years of the 2000s in order were 1. 2000, 2. 2009, 3. 2008, 4. 2007, & 5. 2006. The least populated birth year being 2001. While the amount of births stayed consistent in 2002-2003 with only a slight increase by a million in 2004-2005.

00: 143.01 million

01: 133.88

02: 134.02

03: 134.40

04: 135.23

05: 135.80

06: 136.91

07: 138.56

08: 140.16

09: 141.20

The year 2000 was the start of the 21st century, so parents being excited for the new millennium and having lots of babies in the celebration of the new year makes a lot of sense. If we use January 1st 2000 as an example for a baby's birthday. That would mean that the parents would had to conceive / the mother to get pregnant around in April (9 months). In 1999, Jupiter was in Aries and Taurus was in Saturn. Prince wasn't lying when he said "we gonna party like it's 1999 (all night long)" - because y'all parents were doing the *Raven Symone voice* NASTY 😭. Aries is action oriented and hasty. So I believe the collective during this time actually made new year's resolutions that they could accomplish. I always associate Taurus with fertility, abundance, & pleasure. So when the sign rules over saturn, it creates the need to be focused on security, comfort, & protecting personal possessions. Add a Scorpio Lillith to the mix and yeah... 🥴 The song sums it up pretty well (fun fact it was also released in the year 2000 LMFAO)

Now let's see why there was such a decrease of babies being born in 2001.

Jupiter moves from Aries into Taurus/Gemini, Taurus still remained in Saturn, & then there was a Capricorn Lillith. So things got less hot and heavy 😅 (they got tired out from all that fucking huh LOL 💀). I believe that parents were too nervous to have any more children in this year. Also there was so many earth placements, so I believe there was more of a focus on finances, creating structure, and coming up with ideas/plans for a better future. Parents could of seen how crazy things got (The Y2K crisis, people acting out of fear thinking the world was ending, 9/11, etc) and just decided not to have as much children. The libido or sex drive could of died down for some couples as well. There was a lot of resistance from couples in this year for getting pregnant. Parents were more worried about business. The babies that were born in 2001 were most likely by accident or needed to be under the supervision of a doctor in order to help the parents conceive (also there could of been possible complications during the pregnancy 🤔?). The women were just over it during this year 😭

Now let's talk about the rise of babies being born in 2007-2009 when there was LITERALLY a god damn financial crisis going on 💀! It was so bad it got compared to the great depression and parents were just like "huh... yeah, I think this is a great time to have a baby" 😂. Guess what sign Lilith was during this time...? ("BITCH YOU GUESSED IT! HO! You was right"😈) FUCKING SCORPIO LILITH 💀 with a Virgo Saturn, Sagittarius Jupiter, and then Uranus finally transitioned from Aquarius to Pisces. Soooo it was giving anxious attachment, it's giving "I'm scared but aroused", the parents' idea of a coping method during this time was "let's use a baby as a way to have hope during such troubling times" 😭??? Couples during those years were not thinking clearly at all and with Pisces being the dreamer that she is 🙄... ("you're a dreamer, you dream a lot") as well as Sagittarius tryna act like they're mr. philosophical over here but instead is really just thinking with their dicks. It just made the parents overall act really delusional and they thought having a kid would give them hope for the future (like why would you do that to late Gen Z's and set them up like that omg 😭???). The financial crisis during 2007-2009 was described as: "The collapse of the housing market — fueled by low interest rates, easy credit, insufficient regulation, and toxic subprime mortgages — led to the economic crisis." So overall it was a period of parents only being intimate to try to find comfort in each other while also dealing with anxiety and not being able to see past their own illusions.

[moleshow]

I am a stupid person. Where should I begin reading about economics.

where you should begin depends on what you want to know. my response is long so i'm putting it under a readmore

if you want to know about economic theory, that's one thing; if you want to know about economics in practice (i.e. the way economies operate), that's another. these things are related, but they're often in separate books.

if there's something you want to know about specifically feel free to ask--i may or may not be able to provide a suggestion on what you should read. my wheelhouse is mainly international economics and political economy so my recommendations are not the end-all-be-all of the field.

i've uploaded all of these here: https://gofile.io/d/gbocnf

(i wasn't able to find a pdf of the 2020 edition of the Frieden but i was able to find the 2017 edition.)

the first recommendation i have is unfortunately a textbook. theoretical foundations are important 😔

1. An Introduction to International Economics: New Perspectives on the World Economy by Kenneth Reinert

this book's focus is primarily on neoclassical economic theory (which is often what people mean when they say "economics"), but it provides a strong foundation for thinking about markets, trade, and currencies.

i also want to note here that economic theories are best thought of as lenses through which to look at phenomena. all of these lenses illuminate some things and obfuscate others. so the utility of a given theory is dependent upon what you're trying to examine.

2. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli

this book is a lot of fun, and falls pretty squarely into the "political economy" camp. Rivoli takes as her subject a t-shirt from a walgreens in florida (if memory serves), and follows the chain of production, to find out how it got there--as well as where shirts like it might go after being purchased. along the way she looks at the dynamics of production in practice, so she looks at the role of labor, firms, governments, brokers, etc.

i would recommend starting with this one or reading it alongside the Reinert so you aren't raw-dogging a textbook.

3. Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century and Its Stumbles in the Twenty-First by Jeffry Frieden

for this one, you'll want to read the 2020 edition because the 2007 edition doesn't talk about the global financial crisis of 2008. this is a book that really is what it says on the tin--a history of global capitalism. it's particularly useful for understanding the origins and consequences of the postwar economic order. it contains some good discussions of keynesian economics and the neoliberal school of thought that followed.

4. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction by Immanuel Wallerstein

this one's not a crucial read, but it covers a different way of thinking about basic economic units in international economics (i.e. not limiting one's economic analysis to nation-state units but instead thinking about the global economy as a system).

5. Running Steel, Running America by Judith Stein

i've put this book here because the latter half of the book essentially goes through how and why american production changed in the latter half of the 20th century, focusing chiefly on the production of steel. (this is another political economy book.) Stein illustrates the consequences of US foreign policy for the domestic economy, particularly during the 1970s--a crucial period. the whole book is worth reading, but the first half deals more with labor and politics so it's not directly related to your question.

bonus: Politics and Economics in the 1970s - lecture by Judith Stein

feel free to reach out if you have more questions or need clarification on something here👍

[batboyblog]

hindsight I'd place the beginning of the 21st cen rise in antisemitism (and the rightwing swing of a LOT of countries) with the 2008 financial crisis and jews once again being scapegoats. I remember the how europe suddenly starting swinging right, jewish people leaving paris in droves, a massive increase in hate crimes. A lot of this was like, background news in reports on NPR and other places, too, obvious if you knew how to listen. And then the US congress swung right and we got trump.

yeah, I think there are a lot of factors, I think as we moved into the 21st century a lot of the Holocaust generation started to fade away, Simon Wiesenthal the great Nazi hunter passed away in 2005, Elie Wiesel the great author of the Shoah was a child when he was liberated and passed away in 2016.

Today all that's left is people who were very small children at the time and a few very old very frail people

past which the non-Jews who fought fascism, or lived under it are fading away as well, the 80th anniversary of D-Day was a few days ago, to have been an 18 year old on those beaches you'd have to be 98 years old today, most of the small number of Vets who were brought over on a specialized flight were over 100 years old.

I think in the 1990s and early 2000s there was a lot of button pushing, boundary pushing humor? things like South Park or Family Guy that really went in on racial humor, and people ironically or for "shock" value did stuff with Nazi imagery (Jeffery Starr comes to mind) and thing that brought into being people being "ironically racist" in unregulated spaces on-line.

I think the War in Iraq, and the lies about WMD and then the 2007-08 crisis and crash being driven in many ways by government policies, together with the internet allowing conspiracy minded people to better connect lead to a great distrust of government, and conspiracy thinking which together with economic hardship, and the old racist rival and freak out about the black President mixed with those "ironic" racist spaces online to become a meeting and mixing space for a lot of young conservatives and then...

Trump and he was everything they wanted, they busted out of their on-line caves like a Doctor Pimple Popper video and now good luck finding anyone under 35 who works in Republican politics professionally who isn't a Neo-Nazi, as see by that add with Trump "uniting the Reich" in the background, some video guy put that in to impress his pals in some racist chatroom I'd bet most of my fingers.

I think of course this hasn't been a right wing only thing. And I say this all the time, antisemitism doesn't stay in one place, if right wingers are saying it or left wingers the other side hears it, and picks it up and boosts it and its all one thing. And I think there were and are lots of young people on the left frustrated by authority, primed up to believe in a rigged system, and all that means it's easy to blame the Jews. "Why don't we have health care?" "the Jews took all the money" you're hearing that rn and not just in the US, the leader of the French far-left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has said some bonkers things about Jews, in 2020 he said "I don't know if Jesus was on a cross, but he was apparently put there by his own people" in 2020, a French socialist was calling Jews Christ Killers....

[theculturedmarxist]

Warning signs of the instability of the global financial system abounded in the months leading up to the 2008 Lehman Brothers crash. Among these early signs were the astounding revelations about UBS, the world’s largest private bank, by Stephanie Gibaud, who was employee at the bank’s French division. Gibaud refused instructions given to her and other employees to delete all their company files. In doing so, she helped reveal a vast web of corruption and fraud linking UBS to a shadowy tax evasion scheme. More than 15 years later, Gibaud has endured harassment, professional ostracization, lawsuits, and threats. She joins The Chris Hedges Report to speak on her ordeal and the extent of corruption in the international banking system.

Chris Hedges:  Stephanie Gibaud in June, 2008, was ordered by one of her managers at the UBS Bank in Paris, to destroy all her computer files that related to customers with offshore accounts in Switzerland. The order came in the wake of the 2007 American banker, Bradley Birkenfeld’s disclosure of client information to the US Department of Justice, which suggested that UBS was facilitating massive tax evasion schemes for its American clients, which ultimately led to a penalty of $780 million. Swiss banks have long been havens for those seeking to avoid taxes. In 2014, for example, Credit Suisse, which would also plead guilty to sheltering money for its clients so they could avoid paying taxes, had to pay $2.6 billion in penalties.

Gibaud, however, was the only bank employee at UBS who refused to delete her files. She protested to UBS management and French regulators. Her documents would eventually help to identify 38,000 offshore bank accounts amounting to $12 billion. UBS responded by trying to fire her as part of a mass redundancy of 100 employees during the 2008 financial crisis. The French Ministry of Work intervened, but her life at UBS became excruciating. She suffered harassment and discrimination along with social and professional isolation. She endured constant anxiety and depression. UBS fired her finally in 2012. She was sued for defamation by the bank after writing her book, The Woman Who Knew Too Much, part of a series of lawsuits that plague her to this day.

She requested compensation totaling 3.5 million euros and the judge gave her 4,500 euros, which barely covered her legal fees. UBS was eventually forced to pay a record fine in 2019 of $4.9 billion, but Gibaud found herself financially ruined and blacklisted from the financial sector where she had spent her career. The French legal system does not compensate whistleblowers, unlike the US. The Commodities Future Trading Commission, for example, recently awarded an anonymous whistleblower around $200 million for providing information about Deutsche Bank’s manipulation of the LIBOR benchmark. Birkenfeld, who exposed UBS’s offshore accounts for American clients, was handed a check from the US Treasury for $104 million, minus taxes. Gibaud is currently battling in the French courts to become the first legally recognized whistleblower, which could pave the way for greater protection and compensation.

[beardedmrbean]

It’s no big secret that the cost of attending a four-year college or university in the United States is out of control. It’s almost gravity defying how the cost of college has increased relative to regular inflation over the past twenty years. In fact, more than 500 nonprofit private colleges have shut down in the last decade according to the Wall Street Journal, which was "three times what it was in the decade prior."

The news is about to get worse, and there is a stern warning announcement coming from the pilot in the cockpit. 2025 is going to have a lot of turbulence followed by potentially weekly plane crashes of colleges and universities who can no longer afford to open their doors. This new reality is the ultimate law of supply and demand and families in America are voting with their feet.

WHY ARE COLLEGES CLOSING AT SUCH A RAPID RATE?

 Enrollment

Trend experts have new terminology they call the "enrollment cliff." The number of students enrolled in degree-granting colleges and universities fell by 15% from 2010 to 2021 and only 62% of high school seniors in the U.S. immediately go on to college right now.

That’s a stark contrast to almost fifteen years ago when the number was 68% in 2010, according to government data. Many of the students who opt out of a postsecondary education are low-income students, but even those with means are beginning to choose alternatives. We’ve also seen a spike in the competition for state colleges and universities where parents can enjoy in-state tuition and other possible grant programs offered for only in-state students.

Beyond the fact that some students are taking certification courses versus going to college, some are entering the workplace and some are considering alternative career paths, we are experiencing a record low number of new babies in the United States which will have a long-term impact on the shrinking enrollment for colleges and universities.

This trend of low birth rates began roughly 17 years ago. After hitting an all-time high in 2007, the Great Recession hit in 2008 causing fertility rates to plummet.  The national birth rate fell 23% between 2007 and 2022, and fast-forward to the present day, it isn’t apparent that generation Z twenty-somethings are itching to get a family going. This decline in the overall birth rate is why beginning next year in 2025, and lasting until 2037, we are going to see a major decline in enrollment as 2008 babies begin to reach college age.

It’s not the money… It’s the money

Thirty plus years of providing financial advice for families across America and the number one complaint in the planning process isn’t about how much money someone is going to need to retire. The dialogue quickly shifts to how it’s going to be possible to put two, three, or even four kids through a four-year college education.

Colleges and universities are starting to feel the financial pain.

Even though these higher institutions don’t pay federal income tax or pay real estate taxes, the higher overall operating costs of having a five-star operation and state-imposed restrictions on tuition increases for public colleges have limited colleges and universities' ability to increase tuition revenue. Couple that with the overall market where families are voting with their feet to attend lower-cost colleges and universities, it has put a heavy strain on the ability of these institutions to remain fiscally solvent.

While there are more than 150 colleges and universities boasting more than $1 billion dollars in endowment money, there’s a slew of others that are battling for enrollment, fighting for keeping academic talent and pondering how to keep facilities at a level that new college students have grown to expect from a school.

This not only can affect the school itself, but the surrounding towns or cities where local business is built around the school. On average, each college or university that shuts down affects 265 jobs and $14 million dollars of labor income. To keep their head above water, some colleges have cut faculty and slashed areas of academic study, but it won’t be enough to face the Titanic-like cold water that many universities and colleges are about to face.

Alternative Career Paths

Under DOGE we may eventually see the Department of Education eliminated.  And with the possibility of Pete Hegseth becoming the new Secretary of Defense, we may see a new pitch to young people about joining the United States military.

We don’t yet what the future of education will look like in the United States, but it’s quite possible that teenagers in high school will have four potential career paths in the future.

1. College or university

2. Vocational school

3. Entrepreneurship

4. Military

It’s now harder to find blue-collar workers than white-collar workers, reversing a decades-long trend in the U.S. job market. Take plumbers as an example. It’s expected by 2027 that the United States will be short some 550,000 plumbers, which is bad news for the cost to get plumbing fixed and the time it will take to find someone to fix it. These kinds of statistics are universal across all lines of home services blue collar workers.

There are great careers in the military as well and military enlistment has been steadily down over the past 40 years. At the end of the 2023 fiscal year (September 2023), three branches reported falling short of their recruitment goals: the Navy was at 80% of its target number, the Army was at 77% and the Air Force was at 89%. The Marine Corps and Space Force were the only branches to meet their recruitment goals.

The total number of active-duty service members in the US armed forces declined roughly 6% from 2012 to 2022, from 1.4 million to 1.3 million. We are going to need more young people to join the military over the next 10 years.

Closures are coming

The cost of tuition and fees plus room and board for a four-year private college averaged $58,600 in the 2024-2025 school year. With inflation, that’s roughly $250,000 to get one child through a four-year college education. If parents and students continue to question the hefty price tag of a college education, we could see enrollment fall to record lows over the next decade and more colleges close their doors and shut down their operations. Class is not in session!

[signalwalker]

this game came out in 2007, right? i wonder how the 2008 financial crisis affected japan

[darkmaga-returns]

THE MOST DANGEROUS ENTITY EVER CREATED

Posted on January 6, 2025 by State of the Nation

https://stateofthenation.info/?p=11386

THIRTEEN CENTURIES OF KHAZARIAN TYRANNY EXPLAINED

Submitted by Revisionist Historians for World Peace SOTN Exclusive

Please, every reader, take some quality time right now to very slowly and very carefully read the preceding quote from President Woodrow Wilson.

Now, sit for moment, and deeply contemplate exactly who it was that the stealthily controlled (Federal Reserve Act & Income Tax Legislation of 1913) and terribly manipulated (World War I & League of Nations) Wilson was really talking about.  Because President Wilson knew in his bones who the barbarians inside the gate were since he was forced to learn the hard way—REAL HARD!

It ought to be intuitively obvious, at this very late date, that all of the genocidal cataclysms, which were meticulously engineered over the past 250 years, could only have been carried out with such stunning success by an extremely close-knit tribe of criminally insane murderers and pathologically ingrained thieves.  For only a profoundly perverted and exceedingly diabolical bloodline, with such an inveterate bloodlust and implacable savagery, could ever have accomplished the following:

The Second Boer War, Russo-Japanese War, Sixth Cholera Pandemic Mexican Revolution, First and Second Balkan Wars, Armenian Genocide, World War I, Bolshevik Revolution, Russian Civil War, 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, The Great Depression, Holodomor Genocide, Chinese Civil War, Spanish Civil War, World War II, The Holocaust, First Indochina War, Korean War, French-Algerian War, Israel’s War of Independence, First Sudanese Civil War, 1956 Suez Crisis, Asian Flu Pandemic, Cuban Revolution, 1967 Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War, Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1982 Lebanon War, Second Lebanon War, Soviet-Afghan War, Vietnam War, 1968 Hong Kong Flu Pandemic, 1973 Oil Crisis, HIV/AIDS Pandemic, Cambodian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide, First & Second Chechen Wars, Black Monday–October 19, 1987, Japanese Banking Crisis of 1990s, 1994 Mexican Peso Crisis, Yugoslav Wars, Iraq Wars, 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, 2000 Dotcom Bubble Burst, 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, Argentina Debt Default, War on Terror, Afghanistan War, Syrian War, Libyan War, 2007 Real Estate Market Collapse, 2008 Stock Market Crash, 2009 Global Financial Crisis, Ukraine War, COVID-19 Pandemic, Covid Super Vaccination Agenda, Gaza Genocide, and Syrian Collapse all have one thing in common—they were all naked corporate wars and other bankster-conducted calamities of every sort and kind.

What’s the critical point?

So many industrial-scale national genocides, cultural mass murders and global depopulation schemes could only have taken place within the context of a centrally controlled, highly coordinated and efficiently functioning CORPORATOCRACY.

[argumate]

But you can take a looser view of narrow-ish banking, and of risk-free-ish assets. There is a traditional method for manufacturing risk-free-ish assets. If you don’t have enough Treasury bills, you take some pool of risky cash flows, you slice them up, and the senior tranche of the pool is less risky than the overall pool. Not every mortgage will get paid back, but the AAA tranche of a pool of mortgage-backed securities usually will. Obviously sometimes this goes poorly!

love the understatement from Matt Levine there

[msclaritea]

John McGuinness (politician) - Wikiwand

John James McGuinness (born 15 March 1955) is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Carlow–Kilkenny constituency since the 1997 general election. He was appointed Chair of the Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach in April 2016. He served as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee from 2011 to 2016 and as a Minister of State from 2007 to 2009.

Personal life

McGuinness was born in Kilkenny and educated in Kilkenny Christian Brothers Secondary School. He holds a Diploma in Business Management. He is married to Margaret Redmond and they have three sons and one daughter. His eldest son Andrew is a Fianna Fáil County Councillor on Kilkenny County Council and served as Mayor from 2014 to 2015.

Political career

He first entered local politics in 1979 when he won a seat on Kilkenny Borough Council and was a subsequent mayor of the city from 1996 to 1997. He was the third generation of his family to serve on this council. From 1991 until the abolition of the dual mandate in 2003, he was also member of Kilkenny County Council, where his father, Michael McGuinness, was the longest-serving councillor (1959–99).

He was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Carlow–Kilkenny constituency at the 1997 general election. He was vice-chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee in the 29th Dáil and a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committees for European Affairs, Enterprise and Small Business, Justice, and Women's Rights in the 28th Dáil.

In July 2007, he was appointed by the government on the nomination of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with responsibility for Trade and Commerce. He was re-appointed by the government on the nomination of Taoiseach Brian Cowen to the same position on 13 May 2008. On 22 April 2009, as part of cost-cutting measures due to the Irish financial crisis, the Cowen reduced the number of Ministers of State from 20 to 15. McGuinness was among the seven junior ministers who were not reappointed.

McGuinness then revealed a testy relationship with his senior minister Mary Coughlan, and considerable disagreement with policy in the department. On 24 April 2009, he criticised Coughlan and Cowen for their lack of leadership being given to the country. He said: "She's not equipped to deal with the complex issues of dealing with enterprise and business within the department. And neither is the department". McGuinness later rejected suggestions he campaigned to undermine Coughlan, when it was revealed that he had hired external PR advice in an effort to enhance his own profile as a Minister of State within the department.

In 2010, a political memoir that he co-wrote with Naoise Nunn, called The House Always Wins, was published by Gill & Macmillan.

In the 31st Dáil, McGuinness served as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. He was the Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Small Business and Regulatory Framework from April 2011 to March 2016.

He declared that he would vote No in the 2015 referendum to allow same-sex marriage.

In the 32nd Dáil, McGuinness served as Chair of the Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach Committee.

He chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association.

NO, THE FUCK HE ISN'T. Cillian Murphy, Public School boy, married into one of THE most powerful families in Ireland. Given all of the news coming from that country, plus all of the Irish projects being pushed, here in the U.S., it's not a coincidence Murphy is in the running for an Oscar. See, it's not FOR him. It's for the family legacy.

[hit-song-showdown]

My favorite poll write-ups

Hello. So for each poll, I included a little blurb/ramble going into some historical or musical context behind each year. Most of these were written the day I posted them and some years didn't give me a lot to work with. But there were years that really gave me an opportunity to expand on areas of music history/business I'm truly passionate about.

So I decided to compile all of my favorite write-ups into one post.

1956: The rise of Elvis Presley and rock & roll on the Billboard charts

1959: The Grammy Awards vs Black music

1966: The Vietnam War effect on the pop charts

1970: The traumatic dawn of the new decade

1972: Cultural shifts in the 1970's and the last stretch of the Vietnam War

1973: Watergate, Philly soul, and the birth of hip-hop

1979: Disco Demolition Night and the death (and by "death" I mean "gentrification") of disco

1980: Punk rock, new wave, and the sudden end of the 1970's

1983: MTV vs Black music

1987: Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center vs rock music and the creation of the parental advisory label

1991: Nielsen SoundScan's effect on the Billboard charts, and the controversy of 2 Live Crew and Miami bass

1993: The birth of West Coast hip-hop and the coast wars

1999: Y2K and the MP3 breaches containment

2002: Nu metal's place in music marketing

2004: The South got something to say

2007: The controversy of "ringtone rap" and Auto-Tune

2008: Partying and pirating during the financial crisis

2009: Electropop and Auto-Tune's change in perception

2012: Psy was robbed

2013: The death of club music and the Blurred Lines lawsuit

2016: Streaming killed the MP3 star

2017: The mainstream rise of reggaeton in white America and the "monogenre"

2019: Old Town Road, TikTok, and the question of genre and marketing continues

2021: Covid-19's shadow over the pop charts

2022: The current state of pop music in a splintered musical landscape

[365sylviaplath]

In Memoriam: Pluto in Capricorn

Y'all Mind if I Go Listicle on This One

setting the scene- pluto first entered capricorn on january 25th, 2008. retrograde sent it back to sagittarius for a few months over the summer (6/14/08 - 11/25/08) and 11/26/08 and beyond, it's been pluto in capricorn. pluto is currently in its final degree of capricorn. we had brief previews of pluto in aquarius (3/23/23 - 6/11/23 and 1/20/24 - 9/1/24), and from the afternoon of 11/19/24 forward, we will be in pluto in aquarius until 2043.

a sampler of news headlines from january/early february 2008:

"Stock markets around the world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis."

"U.S. President George W. Bush says Israel must return to its pre-1967 borders to enable the establishment of a Palestinian state."

"Israel blocks fuel to the Gaza City power plant, causing a citywide blackout."

"George W. Bush delivers his final State of the Union Address as President of the United States"

"President Vladimir Putin says Russia would target its missiles at Ukraine if it threatened Russia's national security."

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture stands down two employees as part of its investigation of the biggest meat recall in United States history."

"WHO declares global tobacco control efforts and an approach to avoid tens of millions of premature deaths by the middle of this century."

"Bird flu cases in poultry spread in India, as the H5N1 virus infects seven districts in the state of West Bengal."

"Writers Guild of America strike (2007–present): Hollywood writers reach tentative agreement with the major movie studios."

in summary- end of Bush presidency, 2008 election, bird flu, attempts at nicotine control, war against Palestinians, imminent economic collapse, Russia/Ukraine, hollywood on strike, recalled meat, also several countries trying to get YouTube outlawed. imagine!

Wow crazy! What's Pluto's deal?

what does it mean for pluto to be in capricorn? pluto is the planet of transformation, destruction, rebirth, hidden truths, generational/societal shifts, and it's currently in capricorn, the sign of practicality, hard work/professional ambition, and leadership. capricorn, the zodiac's father figure. the merger of the two means slow-moving and long-lasting change in life/career path, family/societal structures (i.e patriarchy), financial systems, so on. pretty telling that we started this transit with a global financial crisis and now we're......here! posts circulate periodically about empires lasting ~250 years, which is about as long as it takes for a pluto return. if we're taking the US to have been "born" on 7/4/1776, the US' natal pluto placement is capricorn! never in the history of the US has pluto been back into its birth sign of capricorn until 2008. this placement means the US's foundation is one of these qualities listed above- built on patriarchy, conservatism, so on. this pluto return was technically in 2022 (around 27 degrees capricorn) and the effects could be felt +/- a few years on each side, since pluto moves so slowly. i think most would say the US (as we've known it) has been forced to confront the ugly sides of its foundations since 2020!

anyway, on with the pop culture highlight reel for pluto in capricorn. remembering the themes i described above (conservative/family values, patriarchy, financial systems, etc), let us look back.....

Pluto in Capricorn - Pop Culture Notables

(a non-exhaustive list, prioritizing my Most Memorable. Forgetting stuff is inevitable but this is a hell of a list)

- a moodboard for visual accompaniment - please support me getting into Pinterest

MOVIES:

Avatar, the Twilight series, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Moonlight, Inception, Get Out, La La Land, Zero Dark Thirty, The Social Network, The Blind Side, Ex Machina, The Wolf of Wall Street, the Fifty Shades series, Black Swan, all of the Jennifer Lawrence x Bradley Cooper movies, The Help, High School Musical 3, the Minions franchise, John Krasinski war hero arc, Interstellar, every single Marvel movie (minus the first 3 Spiderman movies, those were pluto in Sag), Frozen, The Dark Knight, Zootopia, the last 3 Harry Potter movies, Hunger Games series, Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name, Parasite, Hereditary, the Hangover movies, 21 Jump Street series, Step Brothers, Project X, Bridesmaids, A Star is Born, Crazy Rich Asians, the Magic Mike series, Hidden Figures, the To All The Boys movies, Easy A, the Kick-Ass series (important to the Aaron Taylor Johnson fans)

TV:

indulge me as i go in depth on this....

Reality TV continues to expand after the early 2000s boom (a direct product of the writers strike)- Jersey Shore, RuPaul's Drag Race, every Real Housewives city after the original (Orange County), Are You The One, Love Island, Love is Blind/dating shows on streaming services, the rise of Nick Lachey -hosted competition/reality shows, the Love & Hip Hop franchise, Vanderpump Rules, Shark Tank, Basketball Wives, MasterChef, grandfathering in Keeping up with the Kardashians (first aired months before pluto into cap), Below Deck, Dance Moms, Impractical Jokers, Chopped MTV - Teen Wolf, Awkward, Girl Code/Guy Code, 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, Silent Library, Skins, Ridiculousness, Catfish Huge Cartoon Network moment- Adventure Time, Regular Show, The Amazing World of Gumball, Chowder, Steven Universe, the Total Drama series (grandfathered in from pluto in sag) Disney & Nickelodeon - Shake It Up, Sonny with a Chance, Phineas and Ferb, Wizards of Waverly Place, Good Luck Charlie, The Suite Life on Deck, Victorious, Big Time Rush, True Jackson VP, iCarly (grandfathered in from pluto in sag) Revivals - Cribs, Punk'd, Fear Factor, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Fuller House, Rush Hour tv series, Girl Meets World, iCarly, Queer Eye, Sex and the City: And Just Like That, That 90's Show, Arrested Development, Fraiser, Futurama, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, Rugrats More shows I want to mention but didn't want to categorize- Modern Family, Parenthood, The Vampire Diaries, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Community, Game of Thrones, American Ninja Warrior, Cake Boss, Lena Dunham's GIRLS, Broad City, The Walking Dead, Downton Abbey, Pretty Little Liars, The Great British Bake Off, Storage Wars, Glee, Sherlock, Tosh.0, South Park, Supernatural (grandfathered in from pluto in sag)

MUSIC:

i have spoken for so long about television that i will just direct the audience to this Spotify playlist of vetted pluto in capricorn hits (thank you to this playlist creator) - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5XALIurWS8TuF6kk8bj438?si=4cd575cfa9564201

MISC/EVENTS:

the transition from myspace to facebook, majorrrrr social media takeover- instagram, tiktok, twitter, tumblr, vine, snapchat, yikyak, reddit, BeReal, skype/oovoo, so on - all either founded or gained traction, social media becomes a career, Amazon buys Whole Foods, Occupy Wall Street, gay marriage legalized, the entire Obama presidency, rise of Donald Trump's political career and presidency, #MeToo movement, "incels", formation of BLM, Colin Kaepernick takes a knee during NFL national anthem and causes nationwide outrage, Nationwide 2020 BLM protests and marches, increased visibility on police brutality (w/ the rise of social media, body cam requirements, etc), more anti-racist organizations and coalitions created across racial groups following the creation of BLM and 2020 racial unrest, strengthening of the alt-right pipeline and supporting right-wing sycophants/"influencers", Joe Rogan podcast, Pokemon GO to the polls, both Prince William and Prince Harry's royal weddings, Tiger Woods cheating scandal, rise of bizarre celebrity sexting scandals (notably: many celebs with capricorn placements), Jonas Brothers purity rings, Gisele Bündchen & Tom Brady's first baby (NOTE: PLUTO IS CHANGING SIGNS AND GISELE IS CURRENTLY PREGNANT AGAIN W/ HER NEW MAN'S BABY), formation of Odd Future, Lady Gaga's meat dress, Beyoncé's children, Kim Kardashian's 72-day marriage, Bieber Fever, Bangerz era Miley Cyrus, Summer 2016, Hot Girl Summer, One Direction/boyband takeover, Charlie Sheen's hashtag winning moment, Caitlyn Jenner tell-all, Bobby Shmurda’s arrest, Free Britney, Ben Affleck x JLo notably first happened right before pluto in cap and they got back together right at the tail end of pluto in cap, the infamous white and gold or blue and black dress, the term Girlboss, the Ice Bucket Challenge, Hamilton, the rise of fanfiction, the rise of Buzzfeed and listicle journalism, Fyre Festival scam, Fenty Beauty launched, growing concerns about the electric grid, the rise of streaming services, the iPhone absolutely dominates the cell phone market and we all have supercomputers on us 24/7, e-cigs and vapes more commercially available in response to anti-cigarette campaigns, the iPad, Angry Birds/Candy Crush and the affiliates, COVID, rise of remote work, "Adele Dazeem", David Cook winning American Idol over David Archuleta (see: title photo for this post), self driving cars, new wave of the opioid overdose epidemic, AI takeover

See also: Fall Out Boy's version of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire - has a handful of pre-pluto in cap events but close enough

NOTABLE CELEBRITY DEATHS:

Michael Jackson, Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger, Prince, Christina Grimmie, Cameron Boyce, Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, Steve Jobs, George Michael, Whitney Houston, Chadwick Boseman, David Bowie, Toni Morrison, Carrie Fisher, Donna Summer, Nelson Mandela, Cory Monteith, Naya Rivera, Robin Williams, bell hooks, Anthony Bourdain, Pop Smoke, Mac Miller, Nipsey Hussle, James Gandolfini, Paul Walker, Alexander McQueen, Chester Bennington, Virgil Abloh, Lil Peep, Avicii, Joan Rivers, XXXTentacion, George HW and Barbara Bush, John McCain, Nancy Reagan, Hugh Hefner, Dick Clark, Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth II, Henry Kissinger

we exit this crazy transit having had:

a deep exploration of werewolf/vampire stories (often, allegories for capitalism)

the rise of reality tv through unfair conditions for tv workers

more copaganda in direct response to increased organizing around police brutality

a film industry dominated by military-funded superhero movies

popularization of Girlbossing alongside the destruction of labor rights

the rise of social media and its monetization

cigarettes reinventing themselves and then the OGs making a comeback

a considerable embrace of ""traditional"" values

a slow decay of the concept of celebrity

numerous financial crises and major changes to the workforce

everyone now has to have a smartphone and thus, the ability to work 24/7 from anywhere

the highest measured period of unemployment in several decades (spring 2020)

a very bootstrappy approach to global pandemic response

AI becoming increasingly popular- especially since the first dip of pluto into aquarius

and now, a fresh resurgence of 2024 Cougar movies (The Idea of You, A Family Affair, Lonely Planet and very soon, Babygirl).

What a ride. Onto the next era….

[jeffhirsch]

Presidential Election Day to Yearend Historically Bullish

With a clear winner decided the history of market gains from Presidential Election Day to Yearend is encouraging. As you can see from the tables above and below the market tends to rally from Election Day to Yearend with a few exceptions due to exogenous factors.

Profit taking at the end of 1984 kept stocks flat after the rally off the July bear market bottom in anticipation of Reagan’s landslide reelection victory. The infamous undecided election roiled stocks at the end of 2000 amid the 2000-2001 dotcom bear market. The Great Financial Crisis and 2007-2009 generational bear market plunged further in late 2008 on shrinking economic data and uncertainty over a change in party and the new incoming, unknown Obama administration. The mushrooming European Debt Crisis had the stock market on edge in late 2012.

But overall, from Election Day to Yearend DJIA is up 72.2% of the time with an average gain of 2.38%. S&P 500 is up 66.7% of the time with an average gain of 2.03%. NASDAQ is up 76.9% of the time with an average gain of 1.50% and Russell 2000 is up 61.5% of the time with an average gain of 4.93%.

[ninepentz]

Elizabeth francis dies at 115 years old

Forensic astrology reading

Crazy isn't it, to be able to live to be 115 years old! Elizabeth francis was born in St Parish, Louisiana, july 25th 1909. That's over 100 years ago.

What I know about ms francis is that she was a single mom, worked at a coffee shop in the 1970s, she never learned to drive but would take the bus and family to get from place to place, never smoke/drank but she says she ate everything lol. Her family recall her always cooking at home when they visited and think that the reason she lived so long is bc she took care of her body in that way. She also lived with her 96 year old daughter and granddaughter.

Elizabeth francis has lived through, 1909-2024.

Early Years (1909-1945) 1. World War I (1914-1918) 2. Spanish Flu pandemic (1918-1919) 3. Women's suffrage (1919) 4. The Roaring Twenties 5. The Great Depression (1929-1941) 6. World War II (1939-1945) Mid-Century (1946-1970) 1. Post-war economic boom 2. Cold War tensions 3. Civil Rights Movement (1950s-1960s) 4. Counterculture movement 5. Space exploration (1950s-1960s) 6. Moon landing (1969) Late 20th Century (1971-2000) 1. Vietnam War (1955-1975) 2. Watergate scandal (1972-1974) 3. Fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) 4. Soviet Union collapse (1991) 5. Internet and World Wide Web emergence (1990s) 6. Globalization and international relations 21st Century (2001-2024) 1. 9/11 attacks (2001) 2. War on Terror (2001-present) 3. Social media rise (2004+) 4. iPhone release (2007) 5. Global financial crisis (2007-2008) 6. COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) 7. Ongoing climate change and sustainability efforts Technological Advancements 1. Radio broadcasting (1920s) 2. Television (1940s-1950s) 3. Computers and internet (1970s-1980s) 4. Mobile phones (1980s) 5. Smartphones and social media (2007+) 6. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (2010s) Social and Cultural Shifts 1. Women's rights and feminism 2. LGBTQ+ rights emergence 3. Civil Rights Movement 4. Counterculture movement 5. Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts 6. Shifts in family structures and relationships (Info above sourced by meta AI)

So today I wanna look through her birth chart to see if I find anything to attribute to her long life. I don't have her birth time so unfortunately this won't be as detailed as I would like but what I can do is see what kind of person she was that can explain any of her habits and things.

I also want to take a break from gruesome/unfortunate cases and lighten the mood with something more positive such as this story, a more natural death. An ending we all wish to have, a long lived healthy life.

For some reason I don't want anything to do with cruel cases atm, there's so many deaths that have happened in the past few years and it can all be so depressing and scary to think about, one of those cases being us one day. But yeah, let's get into this reading and brightening things up a bit.

So what I'm getting from her chart right now is that she was always an easy going woman, didn't stress too much. Let's go more in depth tho.

Mercury conjunct neptune:

I love this aspect, this is similar to having a pisces mercury. She was a very intuitive person, this is not someone who would be overthinking too much, if anything she goes with the flow. She would be a good listener, be impressionable, sensitive, soft, spiritual, faith driven. She would be less logial and more emotion driven intellectually. This is good bc she would be emotionally intelligent and able to understand so many different things. She had an open mind, and was a flexible minded person.

Mercury opposite uranus:

This tells me maybe she was prone to being unpredictable at times, talking at random, traveling at random, random spurts of energy, not even she was in control of the wheel intellectually at times. She was someone who made a mark on others, maybe she had a unique way of communicating/thinking/traveling. Maybe at times she would be completely logical, versatile, adaptable to unpredictable, standoffish, independent, avoidant.

I have mercury square my uranus and this plays out as me being inappropriate at the worst times, like laughing in serious situations, saying things I shouldn't say, reacting/thinking/speaking in awkward/unpredictable ways. Imo people may view me as weird, annoying, rude at times, bc that's what you get when you have mercury in hard aspect to uranus, the planet of eccentricity, shock, unpredictability. Something about uranus also is that they don't usually do what everyone else is doing, so they are sometimes out of the loop. So this tells me maybe Elizabeth francis stayed out of the loop of some things compared to her peers and generation. She wasnt following trends or the "most traveled routes".

Mercury square saturn:

This tells me maybe she struggled with communication, activity, traveling, thinking. Maybe she had rigid thinking at times, had a tough time expressing herself in any way, vocally, creatively etc. Maybe she was sort of slow to think, or take action, but she was always determined to see things through. Maybe she could of been pessimistic and isolated herself. She may have also had a very rigid routine or way of doing things, she could of been a little controlling. Bc saturn restricts whatever planet it aspects, especially in harsh aspect but with the square here it tells me she wasnt one to sit and stay down, she would fight. So maybe she was aware of her limitations and potential, struggled to balance them out.

Sun trine mars:

This tells me she was healthy, active, assertive, confident, always youthful. She had good energy levels, she may have also enjoyed having new experiences, she was known for her martian traits. She has an aries mars so, she wasnt afraid of anything lol if anything she was the force to be reckoned with. She was direct, honest, open, childlike in a way, played no games. Passive aggression was not in her nature, so imo nothing really ate her up inside. She was the type of person to apologize when needed, say exactly how she felt, expressing herself honestly and fearlessly. I guess you can say that's very healthy for us to do bc if she had depression or introversion, maybe shed be internalizing things too much and that would cause illness like depression, chronic pain, mental health issues, digestive issues etc. So for her she was always vibrating high, no holding onto pain, trauma, bad vibes. She always had that youthful thing about her like I mentioned earlier. This is important bc if you always maintain that child like excitement, wonder, lust for life, than you are pushing yourself higher up into the world and not weighing yourself down to anything. Children don't have enemies, they don't sulk on their problems, they don't bother with stresses of life and all that, they just exist, play, adventure, they're pure and unafraid (before they become experienced adults).

Venus trine saturn:

This tells me maybe she was always respectful, kind, pleasant, took care of her body/appearance, she always wanted to look presentable and be respectable. She was charming in some way and authority figures liked her. So long story short, she made many friends and good business connections too. Maybe her father raised her well, with manners, discipline, somewhat people pleasing.

Venus sextile pluto:

This one is interesting to see in a chart bc I often see this in famous/rich peoples birth charts. This tells me she knew how to work hard, invest into things, make friends not enemies, she was very socially developed and knew how to attract wealth, power, loyalty, desires. She was a very magnetizing person, she was friendly, sweet, socially aware/intelligent, deep, loving, loyal. To me I feel like she was always working towards something, she wanted to be strong, powerful, impactful.. maybe it was just something she was naturally blessed with. I feel like she may have had a lot of support from others, family, friends, associates, etc.

Saturn sextile pluto:

I think this is the aspect ill attribute to her long life, if only I knew her house placements ugh. But what this tells me is that she was always a steadfast, consistent, dedicated, loyal person, but she was also strong, powerful, influential, self controlled. Maybe a lot of people trusted her and left a good impression on them, so she was able to weave herself into the lives of many people making her well known and thought highly of. Maybe people often came to her for help, wisdom, guidance, she was one of those people that others relied on heavily. This is giving me boss vibes also, like someone who is not just a servant to others (helping everyone else) but people also helped her too and respected her. Once you intertwine yourself in peoples lives like this, you become someone they can't live with out.. this is why I say this aspect could what's attributed to long life.

I hope that makes sense, saturn is responsibility, structure, steadiness, consistency, discipline, maturity, and pluto is debt, death, assets, transformation, power, control, sexuality, subconscious.

Venus biquintile mars:

This tells me she wasn't a cautious spender, but also wasn't reckless, she always trusted herself enough to be able to provide for herself and loved ones with whatever they needed. So she didn't have a poverty mindset imo, this is important bc it shows she may liked to indulge into things, go shopping, splurge, eat sweets, you know the pleasures of life, but she never shamed herself or struggled to keep up with her lifestyle. She always felt secure and confident.

What I got from all this, is that Elizabeth francis was a woman who lived authentically, freely, thoughtfully, fearlessly, kindly, friendly, passionately. She didn't hold onto to negative feelings for too long, she was active, adventurous, confident, pure intentioned. Maybe that's the key to a long life, don't hold back, don't be afraid to do what you feel, get in touch with your inner child/curiousity, work on your confidence by doing what you say you will do, be honest, make more friends than enemies. This allows you to always have people to rely on in your life, connection is not taken serious enough imo. Having family and friends around you keeps you fullfilled in all the areas you can't on your own. She was also disciplined, modest, never did too much of a bad thing. When you slow down and are mindful of yourself, that def helps to keep you balanced/steady in life. Every problem you have is way more manageable when you aren't inconsistent and reckless 24/7, you have to have some structure to always rely on. It's your structure that keeps you strong through the rain, wind, storm. Protect yourself, care about yourself, that's all. Thank you for reading <3

May you Rest In Peace Ms Elizabeth Francis

I'm glad you got to live my dream of a long life, maintaining your health for all those years, even being able to live to the end of your days with your daughter who's also elderly, that's such a blessing.

✨️Nine of Pentacles✨️

[jellogram]

"What??? Why haven't you traveled to X popular place???"