#2018 at 01:15PM

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The long, bloody lineage of private equity's looting

Tomorrow (June 3) at 1:30PM, I’m in Edinburgh for the Cymera Festival on a panel with Nina Allen and Ian McDonald.

Monday (June 5) at 7:15PM, I’m in London at the British Library with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Baroness Martha Lane Fox.

Fans of the Sopranos will remember the “bust out” as a mob tactic in which a business is taken over, loaded up with debt, and driven into the ground, wrecking the lives of the business’s workers, customers and suppliers. When the mafia does this, we call it a bust out; when Wall Street does it, we call it “private equity.”

It used to be that we rarely heard about private equity, but then, as national chains and iconic companies started to vanish, this mysterious financial arrangement popped up with increasing frequency. When a finance bro’s presentation on why Olive Garden needed to be re-orged when viral, there was a lot off snickering about the decline of a tacky business whose value prop was unlimited carbs. But the bro was working for Starboard Value, a hedge fund that specialized in buhying out and killing off companies, pocketing billions while destroying profitable businesses.

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

Starboard Value’s game was straightforward: buy a business, load it with debt, sell off its physical plant — the buildings it did business out of — pay itself, and then have the business lease back the buildings, bleeding out money until it collapsed. They pulled it with Red Lobster,and the point of the viral Olive Garden dis track was to soften up the company for its own bust out.

The bust out tactic wasn’t limited to mocking middlebrow family restaurants. For years, the crooks who ran these ops did a brisk trade in blaming the internet. Why did Sears tank? Everyone knows that the 19th century business was an antique, incapable of mounting a challenge in the age of e-commerce. That was a great smokescreen for an old-fashioned bust out that saw corporate looters make off with hundreds of millions, leaving behind empty storefronts and emptier pension accounts for the workers who built the wealth the looters stole:

https://prospect.org/economy/vulture-capitalism-killed-sears/

Same goes for Toys R Us: it wasn’t Amazon that killed the iconic toy retailer — it was the PE bosses who extracted $200m from the chain, then walked away, hands in pockets and whistling, while the businesses collapsed and the workers got zero severance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/01/how-can-they-walk-away-with-millions-and-leave-workers-with-zero-toys-r-us-workers-say-they-deserve-severance/

It’s a good racket — for the racketeers. Private equity has grown from a finance sideshow to Wall Street’s apex predator, and it’s devouring the real economy through a string of audactious bust outs, each more consequential and depraved than the last.

As PE shows that it can turn profitable businesses gigantic windfalls, sticking the rest of us with the job of sorting out the smoking craters they leave behind, more and more investors are piling in. Today, the PE sector loves a rollup, which is when they buy several related businesses and merge them into one firm. The nominal business-case for a rollup is that the new, bigger firm is more “efficient.” In reality, a rollup’s strength is in eliminating competition. When all the pet groomers, or funeral homes, or urgent care clinics for ten miles share the same owner, they can raise prices, lower wages, and fuck over suppliers.

They can also borrow. A quirk of the credit markets is that a standalone small business is valued at about 3–5x its annual revenues. But if that business is part of a large firm, it is valued at 10–20x annual turnover. That means that when a private equity company rolls up a comedy club, ad agency or water bottler (all businesses presently experiencing PE rollup), with $1m in annual revenues, it shows up on the PE company’s balance sheet as an asset worth $10–20m. That’s $10–20m worth of collateral the PE fund can stake for loans that let it buy and roll up more small businesses.

2.9 million Boomer-owned businesses, employing 32m people, are expected to sell in the next couple years as their owners retire. Most of these businesses will sell to PE firms, who can afford to pay more for them as a prelude to a bust out than anyone intending to operate them as a productive business could ever pay:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

PE’s most ghastly impact is felt in the health care sector. Whole towns’ worth of emergency rooms, family practices, labs and other health firms have been scooped up by PE, which has spent more than $1t since 2012 on health acquisitions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the-doctor-will-fleece-you-now/#pe-in-full-effect

Once a health care company is owned by PE, it is significantly more likely to commit medicare fraud. It also cuts wages and staffing for doctors and nurses. PE-owned facilities do more unnecessary and often dangerous procedures. Appointments get shorter. The companies get embroiled in kickback scandals. PE-backed dentists hack away at children’s mouths, filling them full of root-canals.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the-doctor-will-fleece-you-now/#pe-in-full-effect

The Healthcare Private Equity Association boasts that its members are poised to spend more than $3t to create “the future of healthcare.”

https://hcpea.org/#!event-list

As bad as PE is for healthcare, it’s worse for long-term care. PE-owned nursing homes are charnel houses, and there’s a particularly nasty PE scam where elderly patients are tricked into signing up for palliative care, which is never delivered (and isn’t needed, because the patients aren’t dying!). These fake “hospices” get huge payouts from medicare — and the patient is made permanently ineligible for future medicare, because they are recorded being in their final decline:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

Every part of the health care sector is being busted out by PE. Another ugly PE trick, the “club deal,” is devouring the medical supply business. Club deals were huge in the 2000s, destroying rent-controlled housing, energy companies, Mervyn’s department stores, Harrah’s, and Old Country Joe. Now it’s doing the same to medical supplies:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals

Private equity is behind the mass rollup of single-family homes across America. Wall Street landlords are the worst landlords in America, who load up your rent with junk fees, leave your home in a state of dangerous disrepair, and evict you at the drop of a hat:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

As these houses decay through neglect, private equity makes a bundle from tenants and even more borrowing against the houses. In a few short years, much of America’s desperately undersupplied housing stock will be beyond repair. It’s a bust out.

You know all those exploding trains filled with dangerous chemicals that poison entire towns? Private equity bust outs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/04/up-your-nose/#rail-barons

Where did PE come from? How can these people look themselves in the mirror? Why do we let them get away with it? How do we stop them?

Today in The American Prospect, Maureen Tkacik reviews two new books that try to answer all four of these questions, but really only manage to answer the first three:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

The first of these books is These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs — and Wrecks — America by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/These-Are-the-Plunderers/Gretchen-Morgenson/9781982191283

The second is Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America, by Brendan Ballou:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brendan-ballou/plunder/9781541702103/

Both books describe the bust out from the inside. For example, PetSmart — looted for $30 billion by RaymondSvider and his PE fund BC Partners — is a slaughterhouse for animals. The company systematically neglects animals — failing to pay workers to come in and feed them, say, or refusing to provide backup power to run during power outages, letting animals freeze or roast to death. Though PetSmart has its own vet clinics, the company doesn’t want to pay its vets to nurse the animals it damages, so it denies them care. But the company is also too cheap to euthanize those animals, so it lets them starve to death. PetSmart is also too cheap to cremate the animals, so its traumatized staff are ordered to smuggle the dead, rotting animals into random dumpsters.

All this happened while PetSmart’s sales increased by 60%, matched by growth in the company’s gross margins. All that money went to the bust out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/09/27/the-30-billion-kitty-meet-the-investor-who-made-a-fortune-on-pet-food/

Tkacik says these books show that we’re finally getting wise to PE. Back in the Clinton years, the PE critique painted the perps as sharp operators who reduced quality and jacked up prices. Today, books like these paint these “investors” as the monsters they are — crooks whose bust ups are crimes, not clever finance hacks.

Take the Carlyle Group, which pioneered nursing home rollups. As Carlyle slashed wages, its workers suffered — but its elderly patients suffered more. Thousands of Carlyle “customers” died of “dehydration, gangrenous bedsores, and preventable falls” in the pre-covid years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/opioid-overdoses-bedsores-and-broken-bones-what-happened-when-a-private-equity-firm-sought-profits-in-caring-for-societys-most-vulnerable/2018/11/25/09089a4a-ed14-11e8-baac-2a674e91502b_story.html

KKR, another PE monster, bought a second-hand chain of homes for mentally disabled adults from another PE company, then squeezed it for the last drops of blood left in the corpse. KKR cut wages to $8/hour and increased shifts to 36 hours, then threatened to have workers who went home early arrested and charged with “patient abandonment.” Many of these homes were often left with no staff at all, with patients left to starve and stew in their own waste.

PE loves to pick on people who can’t fight back: kids, sick people, disabled people, old people. No surprise, then, that PE loves prisons — the ultimate captive audience. HIG Capital is a $55b fund that owns TKC Holdings, who got the contract to feed the prisoners at 400 institutions. They got the contract after the prisons fired Aramark, owned by PE giant Warburg Pincus, whose food was so inedible that it provoked riots. TKC got a million bucks extra to take over the food at Michigan’s Kinross Correctional Facility, then, incredibly, made the food worse. A chef who refused to serve 100 bags of rotten potatoes (“the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in my life”) was fired:

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/michigan/prison-food-worker-i-was-fired-for-refusing-to-serve-rotten-potatoes/69-467297770

TKC doesn’t just operate prison kitchens — it operates prison commissaries, where it gouges prisoners on junk food to replace the inedible slop it serves in the cafeteria. The prisoners buy this food with money they make working in the prison workshops, for $0.10–0.25/hour. Those workshops are also run by TKC.

Tkacic traces private equity back to the “corporate raiders” of the 1950s and 1960s, who “stealthily borrowed money to buy up enough shares in a small or midsized company to control its biggest bloc of votes, then force a stock swap and install himself as CEO.”

The most famous of these raiders was Eli Black, who took over United Fruit with this gambit — a company that had a long association with the CIA, who had obligingly toppled democratically elected governments and installed dictators friendly to United’s interests (this is where the term “banana republic” comes from).

Eli Black’s son is Leon Black, a notorious PE predator. Leon Black got his start working for the junk-bonds kingpin Michael Milken, optimizing Milken’s operation, which was the most terrifying bust out machine of its day, buying, debt-loading and wrecking a string of beloved American businesses. Milken bought 2,000 companies and put 200 of them through bankruptcy, leaving the survivors in a brittle, weakened state.

It got so bad that the Business Roundtable complained about the practice to Congress, calling Milken, Black, et al, “a small group is systematically extracting the equity from corporations and replacing it with debt, and incidentally accumulating major wealth.”

Black stabbed Milken in the back and tanked his business, then set out on his own. Among the businesses he destroyed was Samsonite, “a bankrupt-but-healthy company he subjected to 12 humiliating years of repeated fee extractions, debt-funded dividend payments, brutal plant closings, and hideous schemes to induce employees to buy its worthless stock.”

The money to buy Samsonite — and many other businesses — came through a shadowy deal between Black and John Garamendi, then a California insurance commissioner, now a California congressman. Garamendi helped Black buy a $6b portfolio of junk bonds from an insurance company in a wildly shady deal. Garamendi wrote down the bonds by $3.9b, stealing money “from innocent people who needed the money to pay for loved ones’ funerals, irreparable injuries, etc.”

Black ended up getting all kinds of favors from powerful politicians — including former Connecticut governor John Rowland and Donald Trump. He also wired $188m to Jeffrey Epstein for reasons that remain opaque.

Black’s shady deals are a marked contrast with the exalted political circles he travels in. Despite private equity’s obviously shady conduct, it is the preferred partner for cities and states, who buy everything from ambulance services to infrastructure from PE-owned companies, with disastrous results. Federal agencies turn a blind eye to their ripoffs, or even abet them. 38 state houses passed legislation immunizing nursing homes from liability during the start of the covid crisis.

PE barons are shameless about presenting themselves as upstanding cits, unfairly maligned. When Obama made an empty promise to tax billionaires in 2010, Blackstone founder SteveS chwarzman declared, “It’s a war. It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Since we’re on the subject of Hitler, this is a good spot to bring up Monowitz, a private-sector satellite of Auschwitz operated by IG Farben as a slave labor camp to make rubber and other materiel it supplied at a substantial markup to the wermacht. I’d never heard of Monowitz, but Tkacik’s description of the camp is chilling, even in comparison to Auschwitz itself.

Farben used slave laborers from Auschwitz to work at its rubber plant, but was frustrated by the logistics of moving those slaves down the 4.5m stretch of road to the facility. So the company bought 25,000 slaves — preferring children, who were cheaper — and installed them in a co-located death-camp called Monowitz:

https://www.commentary.org/articles/r-tannenbaum/the-devils-chemists-by-josiah-e-dubois-jr/

Monowitz was — incredibly — worse than Auschwitz. It was so bad, the SS guards who worked at it complained to Berlin about the conditions. The SS demanded more hospitals for the workers who dropped from beatings and overwork — Farben refused, citing the cost. The factory never produced a steady supply of rubber, but thanks to its gouging and the brutal treatment of its slaves, the camp was still profitable and returned large dividends to Farben’s investors.

Apologists for slavery sometimes claim that slavers are at least incentivized to maintain the health of their captive workforce. This was definitely not true of Farben. Monowitz slaves died on average after three months in the camp. And Farben’s subsidiary, Degesch, made the special Zyklon B formulation used in Auschwitz’s gas chambers.

Tkacik’s point is that the Nazis killed for ideology and were unimaginably cruel. Farben killed for money — and they were even worse. The banality of evil gets even more banal when it’s done in service to maximizing shareholder value.

As Farben historian Joseph Borkin wrote, the company “reduced slave labor to a consumable raw material, a human ore from which the mineral of life was systematically extracted”:

https://www.scribd.com/document/517797736/The-Crime-and-Punishment-of-I-G-Farben

Farben’s connection to the Nazis was a the subject of Germany’s Master Plan: The Story of Industrial Offensive, a 1943 bestseller by Borkin, who was also an antitrust lawyer. It described how Farben had manipulated global commodities markets in order to create shortages that “guaranteed Hitler’s early victories.”

Master Plan became a rallying point in the movement to shatter corporate power. But large US firms like Dow Chemical and Standard Oil waged war on the book, demanding that it be retracted. Borkin was forced into resignation and obscurity in 1945.

Meanwhile, in Nuremberg, 24 Farben executives were tried for their war crimes, and they cited their obligations to their shareholders in their defense. All but five were acquitted on this basis.

Seen in that light, the plunderers of today’s PE firms are part of a long and dishonorable tradition, one that puts profit ahead of every other priority or consideration. It’s a defense that wowed the judges at Nuremberg, so should we be surprised that it still plays in 2023?

Tkacik is frustrated that neither of these books have much to offer by way of solutions, but she understands why that would be. After all, if we can’t even close the carried interest tax loophole, how can we hope to do anything meaningful?

“Carried interest” comes up in every election cycle. Most of us assume it has something to do with “interest payments,” but that’s not true. The carried interest loophole relates to the “interest” that 16th-century sea captains had in their cargo. It’s a 600-year-old tax loophole that private equity bosses use to pay little or no tax on their billions. The fact that it’s still on the books tells you everything you need to know about whether our political class wants to do anything about PE’s plundering.

Notwithstanding Tkacik’s (entirely justified) skepticism of the weaksauce remedies proposed in these books, there is some hope of meaningful action. Private equity’s rollups are only possible because they skate under the $101m threshold for merger scrutiny. However, there is good — but unenforced — law that allows antitrust enforcers to block these mergers. This is the “incipiency standard” — Sec 7 of the Clayton Act — the idea that a relatively small merger might not be big enough to trigger enforcement action on its own, but regulators can still act to block it if it creates an incipient monopoly.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

The US has a new crop of aggressive — fearless — top antitrust enforcers and they’ve been systematically reviving these old laws to go after monopolies.

That’s long overdue. Markets are machines for eroding our moral values: “In comparison to non-market decisions, moral standards are significantly lower if people participate in markets.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20130607154129/https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/markets-erode-moral-values

The crimes that monsters commit in the name of ideology pale in comparison to the crimes the wealthy commit for money.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farbenizers

[Image ID: An overgrown graveyard, rendered in silver nitrate monochrome. A green-tinted businessman  with a moneybag in place of a head looms up from behind a gravestone. The right side of the image is spattered in blood.]

[joekellyotcglobalholdings]

A Self-Described Real Estate Visionary Was Charged with Running an Airbnb Scam that Made Millions By Tricking Guests Into Booking Non-Existent Properties

A Self-Described Real Estate Visionary Was Charged with Running an Airbnb Scam that Made Millions By Tricking Guests Into Booking Non-Existent Properties https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/airbnb-scammer-who-made-millions-on-bogus-listings-arrested/468291 The "double-booking-bait-and-switch scheme" occurred between January 2018 and November 2019, according to the indictment. via Entrepreneur: Latest Articles https://www.entrepreneur.com/latest January 12, 2024 at 01:15PM

[gesau-it]

✉ ●̮̑۰۰̮̑ URGENTE! Nuovo RICHIAMO per i gruppi “Gesù all'umanità” e per i soldati di questa Missione Per saperne di più https://messaggidivinamisericordia.wordpress.com/2018/10/11/%db%b0%db%b0-urgente-nuovo-richiamo-per-i-gruppi-gesu/ ºººº — █ █ March 23, 2023 at 01:15PM

[xolovejessie4181]

[INSTAGRAM COMMENT] jessica.syj: @/soulmelee 그냥 날이 좋아서 꽃 사준 언니🌸💓💗🍭thanksss https://t.co/Q61UsCI2ER

[sandramiksaauthor]

Writing Update: Calendar (First Draft) #67

date: 26/01/2021

time: 8:50-9:15pm

words out of: 438 of 63 010

status: Continued Chapter 26!

feelings: So around 20 to 30 minutes; I can write 400-500 words. If I had two writing sessions a day before the end of the month; I could potentially finally finish the first draft of this book...

music: "Habibi” album by Tamino

excerpt:

The words pierced my thinking sphere. “What are you thinking about?”

That was another thing I learned; to be honest. To speak of my mind. “I was thinking if I would start aging again.”

google search: Thyroid cancer

research: -

deadline: 01/08/2018 01/11/2018 01/03/2019 01/06/2019 01/09/2020 01/12/2020 01/02/2020

[gnrsly]

THE DIARY OF MY MOON AND HIS STARRY NIGHT EYES

NOV 1st, 2017 at 2:32 am

i think i’m falling for you. you make me feel better. like i’ve healed over. i know i shouldn’t feel like this but i do. god emotions are confusing.

NOV 12, 2017 at 7:34 am

you are officially mine. i’m so happy and in love. i hope this won’t end up bad. i trust us not to fuck this up.

DEC 23rd, 2017 at 4:23 am

i believe this is going well. i’m happy. you seem happy. i’m in love and i hope you are too. we’ve been fighting a bit but i think it’s going to be okay.

JAN 3rd, 2018 at 12:34 am

i hate you. i hate you. i hate you. i hate you.

you broke my heart. i hate you. but i hate her. she said i was bad. i’m not. she said i cheated. i never did. she said i was using you. i wasn’t. she said break up with me. you did. why? i love you. i trusted you...

JAN 8, 2018 at 3:24 am

i thought that if i threw it away it would leave me.

that the pain would maybe go away.

that the scars that where never really there would go away.

but i found your sweatshirt.

you probably want it back.

and i hate the fact that i don’t know how to.

because it’s the only thing to remind me of you. it’s the same cologne you’ve worn for the past 2 years.

ive been wearing for almost 5 minutes but each second is a different flashback and it hurts. because this once was a sweatshirt i considered home.

it felt loved and comforting

but now it’s empty.

i should probably give it back.

but i feel if i give it up i’m giving up you. and i can’t do that. not yet.

JAN 16, 2018 at 1:44am

fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck.

you posted the letter, me being the number 1 reason.

“you poisoned my heart with you toxic love”

how was i toxic? i was the gave everything up for you. my sanity. my friends. my family. my love.

but i’m toxic. because i called you out on your bullshit.

even if i was toxic, i actually tried to make something out of the relationship. sorry that i didn’t want to be a midnight fuck for you.

but hey. at least i didn’t talk shit about people behind their back.

no offense but next time you want to call me a cunt, say it to my face not my friends.

FEB 15th, 2018 at 12:34 am

we are trying again.

it won’t last

well the relationship at least.

i was wrong per usual.

it wasn’t me, or maybe it was and you lied to my face. either way i’m almost happy.

thank you i guess? you gave me back some sanity, but they still blame me. but at least i’m with you.

MARCH 12th, 2018 at 2:37 am

fuck you.

maybe. it’s my fault. i always cause things to go down hill. i couldn’t compare to the girl with the long pretty hair, i’m just a dumb boy who’s fallen and can’t get up. she’s toxic. she’s going to hurt you, but it’s okay. not really but you don’t believe me.

i still love you, but it must be one side.

but how many times when i kiss you, i’m kissing a memory of her.

MARCH 23rd, 2018 at 11:21 pm

i’m drunk. you’re drunk in love, but i’m just wasted and angry. maybe i could’ve done something. she hurt you. but you hurt me.

i asked you awhile back how long you’ve loved liv, and you said never. she was forceful and cruel. i hate it, that agin i could’ve done something but instead i sat around and became a poet. well fuck.

APRIL 13th, 2018 at 1:01 am

you said you never meant anything. you weren’t on meds. that’s okay though because i trust you. i really do. you make me happy. we are healing. no longer together but healing. i still like you. a lot. i don’t know whether to start over yet. i’m kind of confused. but i know that i trust you.

APRIL 28th, 2018 at 11:34 pm

everyone says you like me. i doubt it. we aren’t ready for a new relationship. i don’t think so at least. but life is confusing and it kind of a love sick puppy. you missed me earlier. no one knew. i’m in love i think.

MAY 2, 2018 at 4:45 pm

you asked me to be yours. i said yes. i know that you truly love me and trust me. you said so and i’m taking your word on this. don’t hurt me again. i’m to close to breaking.

MAY 31st, 2018 at 11:54 pm

we were doing good. we had our ups,

our downs,

and our stay stills.

but you say one thing. one single thing and suddenly the whole world is down on their luck. it’s everyone else’s fault but yours. because you feed off your egos. take someone i’m close to and you use them against me. you lie, and lie. cause that’s all you do. at this point i’m questioning if you love them both more than me. because i’m doubting you even loved me.

JUNE 2nd, 2018 at 9:35 pm

this is the first time. this is the first time i’ve ever felt you physically hurt me. it wasn’t a slap or a hit. you just shoved me away. i walked next to you. that’s it’s. and you ran to her. why her? you told me you don’t trust me. you don’t know if you truly love me. told me that you don’t know how to love me anymore. and i hate the fact that i feel the same way towards you.

JUNE 9th, 2018 at 12:32 am

i want to text you. tell you to end it. i want to end it. i’m giving you 10 days. if it’s not fixed. it’s over. because this is toxic.

and i know why.

i don’t think i love you anymore. i don’t think that i feel the same butterflies. now they don’t flutter but churn. i don’t love you. i despise you. you hurt others and you know it. i hate you. there is no longer love in me. only hurt, anger, and heartbreak.

JULY 8, 2018 at 12:45 am

ha bitch. you thought. it’s over and i’m healing

(not really, because drinking vodka and going to jail isn’t healing)

SEP 10th 2018 at 10;56 pm

My best friends chose you. I’m now the outsider. Is this what you wanted? For me to be lonely? For you to be everyone’s favourite? Because now I’m alone in my room and I am crying. Begging for someone to listen, but you are standing with them. That stupid fucking smirk on your face. Is this what you wanted? Because you got your wish. You are truly a god. A fucked up, twisted god.

October 1st 2018 at 8:55pm

she is yours. she loves you and i loved you. i still do. i really do. but because of how shitty everything is in my life, i don’t want you to love me back. but hear me out. my best friend is in love with you. don’t break her heart because they already have been damaged enough. learn to love her for her flaws and her quirky attitude. i love her because she is my best friend and i love you as so much more. but i’d give anything in the world to see her smile at someone and be in love. don’t break her heart.

November 24th 2018 @ 17:42 (aka 5:42)

you are my soulmate. you’re my best friend

and i’m okay with that

january 18th, 2019 @ 11:15pm

rereading messages hurts. you broke my best friend. she thought she was in the wrong. you cheated on her. and now that she is talking to a new boy, you had the audacity to call her a whore? yet you’ve fucked everyone in the friend group. fuck you. i’m going to keep talking to you because my other friend is falling for you. stop doing this.

september 16 2019 @ 10:43 pm

it’s been years. i know im over u. at least my brain tells me i am but my heart hurts when i think of u. but u cant seem to stop hurting the people around me. we r older now. we are different people i’m not some insecure kid anymore, oh no. i’m an asshole who isn’t afraid to say u hurt me. and i hurt u. i played victim but so did u. but u r still my friend. one of my brothers. just listen to me okay? i love u. and it won’t ever change. and this may be the end to this letter bc i found a new love who i know will stay in my poems for years to come. i may never stop writing about you but i’m done giving it to you

[sywtwfs]

2018 Junior & Senior Grand Prix Final & CS Golden Spin of Zagreb: Info & Streaming

After weeks of hard-fought competition, the 2018 Junior Grand Prix Series and Grand Prix Series will come to a climax at the Grand Prix Final in Vancouver, Canada! Here's a guide on how to watch. Keep an eye on this post for updates as more info appears.

Live results | Senior entries | Junior entries | Detailed schedule | Website | ISU

SCHEDULE

Pacific Standard Time (UTC-8). Click on the links for time conversions or subscribe to our Google Calendar to get all competition times in your own time zone!

Dec. 6 14:05 Junior Rhythm Dance 15:20 Junior Men's SP 16:25 Junior Pairs' SP 17:40 Junior Ladies' SP 19:45 Senior Men's SP 21:00 Senior Ladies' SP

Dec. 7 15:45 Junior Free Dance 17:05 Junior Men's FS 19:05 Senior Rhythm Dance 20:20 Senior Pairs' SP 21:35 Senior Men's FS

Dec. 8 13:55 Senior Ladies' FS 15:15 Junior Ladies' FS 16:30 Junior Pairs' FS 19:00 Senior Free Dance 20:20 Senior Pairs' FS

Dec. 9 14:00 Gala

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Be careful of popups and ads on free streaming sites. We are not responsible for the quality of the streams; we only provide the links. This post focuses on live broadcasts. Other TV channels not mentioned here might show the competition in delayed broadcasts. Please check your local TV channels for more skating broadcasts.

Many streams for major figure skating events have geographical restrictions. In order to unblock streams, consider using a VPN (Virtual Private Network). Free VPN services are available online (eg. Setup VPN), but the most reliable ones usually require a fee.

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HOW TO WATCH: THE JUNIOR GRAND PRIX FINAL

ISU: The ISU Junior Grand Prix Youtube channel will livestream and upload the entire competition for free.

CBC Sports: Canada’s CBC Sports will stream the entire competition and gala live. Streaming schedule in EST:

12/6: Rhythm Dance 5:05PM (live); Men’s SP 6:20PM (live); Pairs’ SP 7:25PM (live); Ladies’ SP 8:40PM (live)

12/7: Free Dance 6:45PM (live); Men’s FS 8:05PM (live)

12/8: Ladies’ FS 6:15PM (live); Pairs’ FS 7:30PM (live)

12/9: Gala 5:00PM (live)

Official streams (blocked outside of Canada)

Match Arena: Russia’s Match Arena will air the entire competition and gala live. Broadcast schedule in Moscow Time:

12/7: Rhythm Dance 01:05 (live); Men’s SP 02:20 (live); Pairs’ SP 03:25 (live); Ladies’ SP 04:40 (live)

12/8: Free Dance 02:45 (live); Men’s FS 04:05 (live)

12/9: Ladies’ FS 02:15 (live); Pairs’ FS 03:30 (live)

12/10: Gala 01:00 (live)

Unblocked streams: Stream 1, Stream 2, Stream 3, Stream 4, Stream 5, Stream 6

Match TV: Russia’s Match TV will air parts of the competition live. Broadcast schedule in Moscow Time:

12/7: Men’s SP 02:40 (live); Pairs’ SP 03:20 (live); Ladies’ SP 04:35 (live)

12/8: Free Dance 02:55 (live); Men’s FS 04:00 (live)

12/9: Pairs’ FS 03:25 (live)

12/10: Gala 00:55 (live)

Unblocked streams: Stream 1, Stream 2, Stream 3, Stream 4, Stream 5

Sportbox: Russia’s Sportbox.ru will stream the entire competition and gala live. The streams are blocked outside of Russia. Broadcast schedule in Moscow Time:

12/7: Rhythm Dance 01:05 (live); Men’s SP 02:20 (live); Pairs’ SP 03:20 (live); Ladies’ SP 04:35 (live)

12/8: Free Dance 02:45 (live); Men’s FS 04:00 (live)

12/9: Ladies’ FS 02:15 (live); Pairs’ FS 03:25 (live)

12/10: Gala 00:55 (live)

SBS Sports: South Korea’s SBS Sports will air the junior ladies’ competition live. Broadcast schedule in KST:

12/7: Ladies’ SP 10:30 (live)

12/9: Ladies’ FS 08:05 (live)

Unblocked stream

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HOW TO WATCH: THE SENIOR GRAND PRIX FINAL

Fan streams: These fan-run streams may livestream part or all of the event: QQ Live, FS Live. Check the streams when the events are on. The streams should be available worldwide.

ISU: The ISU will stream the entire competition and gala live in countries that have not purchased broadcasting rights for the event.

NBC Gold: Subscribers in the USA can watch the entire competition live on NBC Gold. NBC Gold subscriptions include most major competitions in the skating season.

CBC Sports: Canada’s CBC Sports will stream the entire competition and gala live. CBC will also air the competition on TV in delayed broadcasts; see their website for more info. Streaming schedule in EST:

12/6: Men’s SP 10:45PM (live)

12/7: Ladies’ SP 12:00AM (live); Rhythm Dance 10:00PM (live); Pairs’ SP 11:20PM (live)

12/8: Men’s FS 12:30AM (live); Ladies’ FS 4:00PM (CBC TV live); Free Dance 10:00PM (live); Pairs’ FS 11:20PM (live)

12/9: Gala 5:00PM (live)

Official streams (blocked outside of Canada)

Match Arena: Russia’s Match Arena will air the entire competition and gala live. Broadcast schedule in Moscow Time:

12/7: Men’s SP 06:45 (live); Ladies’ SP 08:00 (live)

12/8: Rhythm Dance 06:05 (live); Pairs’ SP 07:20 (live); Men’s FS 08:35 (live)

12/9: Ladies’ FS 00:55 (live); Free Dance 06:00 (live); Pairs’ FS 07:20 (live)

12/10: Gala 01:00 (live)

Unblocked streams: Stream 1, Stream 2, Stream 3, Stream 4, Stream 5, Stream 6

Match TV: Russia’s Match TV will air parts of the competition live. Broadcast schedule in Moscow Time:

12/7: Men’s SP 06:40 (live); 

12/8: Rhythm Dance 06:00 (live); Men’s FS 08:30 (live)

12/10: Gala 00:55 (live) 

Unblocked streams: Stream 1, Stream 2, Stream 3, Stream 4, Stream 5

Sportbox: Russia’s Sportbox.ru will stream the entire competition and gala live. The streams are blocked outside of Russia. Broadcast schedule in Moscow Time:

12/7: Men’s SP 06:40; Ladies’ SP 08:00

12/8: Rhythm Dance 06:00; Pairs’ SP 07:20; Men’s FS 08:30

12/9: Ladies’ FS 00:55; Free Dance 06:00; Pairs’ FS 07:20

12/10: Gala 00:55

Eurosport Player: Subscribers to Eurosport Player can stream the competition and gala live online. Eurosport Player is only available in Europe. Please check the schedule in your own respective countries.

British Eurosport: British Eurosport 2 will air parts of the competition live. Other Eurosport channels may have slightly different schedules; check your local TV listings to make sure. Broadcast schedule in GMT:

12/8: Men’s FS 21:00 (taped); Ladies’ FS 22:00 (live)

12/9: Free Dance 20:00 (taped); Pairs’ FS 21:00 (taped); Gala 22:00 (live)

Unblocked streams: Stream 1, Stream 2, Stream 3

YLE: Finland’s YLE Areena and YLE TV2 will stream/air most of the competition live. The streams are blocked outside of Finland. Schedule in EET:

12/7: Men’s SP 05:40 (live); Ladies’ SP 06:55 (live)

12/8: Rhythm Dance 05:00 (live); Pairs’ SP 06:15 (live); Men’s FS 07:30 (live); Ladies’ FS 23:50 (live)

12/9: Free Dance & Pairs’ FS 20:40 (taped)

12/10: Gala 15:25 (taped)

SBS Sports: South Korea’s SBS Sports will air the senior men’s competition live. Broadcast schedule in KST:

12/7: Men’s SP 12:35 (live)

12/9: Men’s FS 09:10 (live)

Unblocked stream

CCTV 5: China’s CCTV 5 and CCTV 5+ will air parts of the competition live. Broadcast schedule in China Standard Time:

12/7: Ladies’ & Men’s SP 13:00 (CCTV5, live?)

12/8: Rhythm Dance & Pairs’ SP 12:00 (CCTV5+, live); Pairs’ SP & Men’s FS 13:00 (CCTV5, live)

12/9: Free Dance & Pairs’ FS 11:00 (CCTV5+, live); Ladies’ FS 13:30 (CCTV5+, taped)

CCTV 5 streams: Official stream (blocked outside of China), Stream 1, Stream 2

CCTV 5+ streams: Official stream (blocked outside of China), Stream 1, Stream 2

ELTA Sports: Taiwan’s ELTA Sports 3 will air the entire competition and gala live. Schedule in China Standard Time:

12/7: Men’s SP 11:45 (live); Ladies’ SP 13:00 (live)

12/8: Rhythm Dance 11:00 (live); Pairs’ SP 12:30 (live); Men’s FS 13:30 (live)

12/9: Ladies’ FS 05:45 (live); Free Dance 11:00 (live); Pairs’ FS 12:20 (live)

12/10: Gala 06:00 (live)

Official stream (blocked outside of Taiwan)

Other TV channels: Other TV channels such as TV Asahi will also air parts of the competition in taped broadcasts. Check your local TV channels for other skating broadcasts.

On demand: If you can’t watch live, videos from the competition will be uploaded online by fans, so you can always catch up later. Search skaters' names on Youtube and filter by upload date for the latest videos. See this post for useful skating Youtube and Dailymotion channels.

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GOLDEN SPIN OF ZAGREB

Golden Spin is the last Challenger Series competition of the season. Events for junior skaters will also be held at this competition.

Results | Entries | Schedule | Website | ISU

Designation: Challenger Series When: Dec. 5-8 Where: Zagreb, Croatia Level & disciplines: senior men, ladies, ice dance, pairs How to watch: Livestream

Senior Schedule (CET, UTC+1) 12/6: Men’s SP 17:00; Pairs’ SP 21:00 12/7: Ladies’ SP 08:00; Rhythm Dance 13:45; Men’s FS 16:00; Pairs’ FS 20:45 12/8: Free Dance 09:30; Ladies’ FS 12:00; Gala 20:00

Notable entries: Alexei Bychenko, Daniel Samohin, Daniel Grassl, Deniss Vasiljevs, Mikhail Kolyada, Alexander Samarin, Jason Brown, Anastasiia Gubanova, Anastasiia Guliakova, Maria Sotskova, Mariah Bell, Bradie Tennell, Alisa Efimova/Alexander Korovin, Ashley Cain/Timothy Leduc, Alexa Scimeca Knierim/Chris Knierim, Deanna Stellato Dudek/Nathan Bartholomay, Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier, Natalia Kaliszek/Maksym Spodyriev, Betina Popova/Sergey Mozgov

[12hrisbnjpeg]

Hypermodern imagery for December 31, 2018 at 01:15PM from The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project http://bit.ly/1jwjfd5

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Tomorrow (June 3) at 1:30PM, I’m in Edinburgh for the Cymera Festival on a panel with Nina Allen and Ian McDonald.

Monday (June 5) at 7:15PM, I’m in London at the British Library with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Baroness Martha Lane Fox.

On Tuesday (June 6), I’m on a Rightscon panel about interoperability.

On Wednesday (June 7), I’m keynoting the Re:publica conference in Berlin.

On Thursday (June 8) at 8PM, I’m at Otherland Books in Berlin.

#15yrsago John McCain vows to continue Bush’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program https://www.wired.com/2008/06/mccain-id-spy-o/

#10yrsago OccupyGezi: the People’s Bulldozer https://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/post/52008000563/peoples-bulldozer-chases-police-toma-vehicles-in

#10yrsago Meet austerity’s millionaires https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jun/01/top-earners-millionaires-inequality-city-finance

#10yrsago Gas-mask dervish: #occupygezi https://twitter.com/joeman42/status/341492885650292738

#5yrsago Private equity bosses took $200m out of Toys R Us and crashed the company, lifetime employees got $0 in severance https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/01/how-can-they-walk-away-with-millions-and-leave-workers-with-zero-toys-r-us-workers-say-they-deserve-severance/

#5yrsago Bernie Sanders rallies Disneyland employees for a $15 minimum wage https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/390430-bernie-sanders-disney-needs-moral-defense-for-having-hungry-workers-while/

#5yrsago UK consumer review magazine Which?: your smart home is spying on you, from your TV to your toothbrush https://web.archive.org/web/20180603221154/https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/06/which-investigation-reveals-staggering-level-of-smart-home-surveillance/

#5yrsago America is the world’s first poor rich country https://eand.co/why-america-is-the-worlds-first-poor-rich-country-17f5a80e444a

#5yrsago Zuckerberg blows off Facebook shareholders’ demand for transparency, says he’s committed to transparency https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/01/corporate-dictatorship-facebook-shareholders-get-their-turn-to-grill-mark-zuckerberg/

#5yrsago Illinois votes to eliminate inmates’ doctor visit co-pays, equivalent to one month’s wages https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/05/30/the-580-co-pay

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

[sangklp]

@GrantLodes @kron4news @KRON4VLiviakis Hero and Origami said to tell you that they sure enjoyed their TV debut, thank you!! Love, Muttville https://www.youtube.com/c/lifesang

[gesau-it]

»✿« ● GESÙ HA BISOGNO DI NOI!! Vogliamo aiutarlo? per saperne di più vedere questo link http://messaggidivinamisericordia.blogspot.com/2018/01/gesu-ha-bisogno-di-noi-vogliamo-aiutarlo.html ºººº — █ █ March 14, 2023 at 02:15PM

[doublemmedia]

December 8, 2018 at 01:15PM

December 8, 2018 at 01:15PM

[sandramiksaauthor]

Writing Update: Calendar (First Draft) #66

date: 25/01/2021

time: 7:50-8:15pm

words out of: 410 of 62 572

status: Continued Chapter 26!

feelings: The funny thing is that in total if I look at the updates; I’ve worked on this project for 2 months worth but in the long run with the long gaps - I wrote this in 2+ years. 

music: Mixed playlist of Persian songs

excerpt:

He would look at me half-remorseful, “It’s for our safety.” 

I held his hand, “The safety you’re seeking does not exist. You’re feeding yourself false reassurance.” When the threats were as high as our fear of the threat, then I would give in.  

google search: -

research: -

deadline: 01/08/2018 01/11/2018 01/03/2019 01/06/2019 01/09/2020 01/12/2020 01/02/2020

[sywtwfs]

2018 GP Skate America: Info & Streaming

The 2018 Grand Prix Series kicks off this week with Skate America in Everett, Washington! Here's a guide on how to watch. Keep an eye on this post for updates as more info appears.

Live results | Entries & overview | Detailed schedule | Website | ISU

SCHEDULE

Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7). Click on the links for time conversions or subscribe to our Google Calendar to get all competition times in your own time zone!

Oct. 19: Pairs’ SP 19:30; Men’s SP 21:00 Oct. 20: Pairs’ FS 13:10; Men’s FS 15:03; Ladies’ SP 19:19; Rhythm Dance 21:10 Oct. 21: Free Dance 11:00; Ladies’ FS 13:03; Gala 18:15

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HOW TO WATCH

Be careful of popups and ads on free streaming sites. We are not responsible for the quality of the streams; we only provide the links. This post focuses on live broadcasts. Other TV channels not mentioned here might show the competition in delayed broadcasts. Please check your local TV channels for more skating broadcasts.

Many streams for major figure skating events have geographical restrictions. In order to unblock streams, consider using a VPN (Virtual Private Network). Free VPN services are available online (eg. Setup VPN), but the most reliable ones usually require a fee.

Fan streams: These fan-run streams may livestream part or all of the event: QQ Live, Fanpage Zagitova, FS Live. Check the streams when the events are on. The streams should be available worldwide.

ISU: The ISU will stream the entire competition and gala live in countries that have not purchased broadcasting rights for the event.

NBC Gold: Subscribers in the USA can watch the entire competition live on NBC Gold. NBC Gold subscriptions include most major competitions in the skating season.

NBC/NBC Sports: USA's NBC and NBC Sports will air part of the competition live. Schedule in EDT:

10/20: Men’s FS 6:00PM-8:00PM (NBCSN, live)

10/21: Recap 12:30PM-1:30PM (NBC, taped); Ladies’ FS 4:00PM-6:00PM (NBCSN, live)

Official NBCSN stream (blocked outside of USA), Unblocked stream

CBC Sports: Canada's CBC Sports will stream the entire competition and gala live on their website. CBC will also air the competition on TV in delayed broadcasts; see their website for more info. Streaming schedule in EDT:

10/19: Pairs’ SP 10:30PM

10/20: Mens’ SP 12:00AM; Pairs’ FS 4:25PM; Men’s FS 6:00PM; Ladies’ SP 10:20PM

10/21: Rhythm Dance 12:10AM; Free Dance 2:10PM; Ladies’ FS 3:00PM; Gala 9:15PM

Official streams (blocked outside of Canada)

Eurosport Player: Subscribers to Eurosport Player can stream the competition and gala live online. Eurosport Player is only available in Europe. Please check the schedule in your own respective countries.

Russian Eurosport: Russian Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2 will air parts of the competition. Other Eurosport channels may have slightly different schedules; check your local TV listings to make sure. Broadcast schedule in Moscow Time:

10/20: Pairs’ SP 22:00 (ESP2, taped); Pairs’ FS 23:00 (ESP2, live)

10/22: Free Dance 00:00 (ESP1, taped); Ladies’ FS 01:00 (ESP1, taped)

Eurosport 1 streams: Stream 1, Stream 2

Eurosport 2 streams: Stream 1, Stream 2

YLE: Finland's YLE Areena will livestream the entire competition and gala. The streams are blocked outside of Finland. Schedule in EET:

10/20: Pairs’ SP 05:25; Men’s SP 07:00; Pairs’ FS 23:20

10/21: Men’s FS 01:00; Ladies’ SP 05:20; Rhythm Dance 07:10; Free Dance 21:00; Ladies’ FS 23:00

TV Asahi: Japan's TV Asahi will air the competition in taped broadcasts. Schedule in JST:

10/21: Men’s SP 03:00 (taped); Ladies’ SP & Men’s FS 13:55 (taped)

10/22: Ladies’ FS 10:25 (taped)

Unblocked stream

ELTA Sports: Taiwan’s ELTA Sports 3 will air the entire competition and gala live. Schedule in China Standard Time:

10/20: Pairs’ SP 10:30; Men’s SP 12:00

10/21: Pairs’ FS 04:30; Men’s FS 06:00; Ladies’ SP 10:00; Short Dance 12:00

10/22: Free Dance 02:00; Ladies’ FS 04:00; Gala 09:00

Official stream (blocked outside of Taiwan)

Other TV channels: Other TV channels such as Eurosport will also air parts of the competition. Check your local TV channels for other skating broadcasts.

On demand: If you can’t watch live, videos from the competition will be uploaded online very quickly, so you can always catch up later. Search skaters' names on Youtube and filter by upload date for the latest videos. See this post for useful skating Youtube and Dailymotion channels.

[12hrisbnjpeg]

Hypermodern imagery for December 30, 2018 at 01:15PM from The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project http://bit.ly/1jwjfd5

[drawrty]

Red cabbage by DasBlendwerk