#Industrial project cost analysis

[asestimationsconsultants]

Common Pitfalls in Industrial Estimating Service and How to Avoid Them

Industrial estimating service is a crucial aspect of project planning, helping businesses determine accurate costs for materials, labor, equipment, and unforeseen expenses. However, even experienced estimators can make costly mistakes that lead to budget overruns, project delays, and financial losses. Understanding these pitfalls and how to avoid them can significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of cost estimates.

1. Inaccurate or Incomplete Project Data

One of the most common pitfalls in industrial estimating is relying on incomplete or outdated project data. Without accurate information on material costs, labor rates, and project specifications, estimators may produce unreliable cost estimates.

How to Avoid It:

Gather detailed project requirements, including material specifications, site conditions, and workforce needs.

Use up-to-date cost databases and historical project data to ensure accuracy.

Collaborate closely with engineers, contractors, and suppliers to obtain precise information.

2. Underestimating Material Costs

Material prices fluctuate due to market conditions, inflation, and supply chain disruptions. Underestimating these costs can lead to budget shortfalls and procurement issues.

How to Avoid It:

Monitor market trends and material price changes regularly.

Include a contingency budget to account for unexpected price increases.

Work with reliable suppliers to secure competitive pricing and reduce cost variations.

3. Overlooking Labor Productivity Rates

Failing to account for labor productivity variations can result in inaccurate labor cost estimates. Factors such as worker skill levels, site conditions, and project complexity affect productivity.

How to Avoid It:

Use industry benchmarks and historical data to estimate labor productivity accurately.

Adjust labor estimates based on the complexity and location of the project.

Consider potential delays caused by weather conditions, union regulations, and workforce availability.

4. Ignoring Project-Specific Risks

Every industrial project has unique risks, including regulatory compliance, environmental factors, and equipment failures. Ignoring these risks can lead to unexpected expenses.

How to Avoid It:

Conduct a thorough risk assessment before finalizing estimates.

Include contingency funds for unforeseen challenges.

Stay informed about industry regulations and environmental requirements.

5. Inconsistent Use of Estimating Software

Many companies rely on estimating software, but inconsistent or incorrect usage can lead to errors. Misinputted data or outdated software can affect cost projections.

How to Avoid It:

Ensure estimators are trained in using the latest estimating software.

Regularly update cost databases and software settings.

Cross-check manual calculations with software-generated estimates for accuracy.

6. Failure to Factor in Inflation and Supply Chain Disruptions

Inflation and supply chain issues can significantly impact industrial project costs. Overlooking these factors may result in underestimated budgets.

How to Avoid It:

Include an inflation adjustment factor in long-term projects.

Diversify supply chain options to mitigate material shortages.

Monitor global economic trends to anticipate cost fluctuations.

7. Not Revisiting and Updating Estimates

Cost estimates should not be treated as fixed numbers. Failing to revise estimates as the project progresses can lead to discrepancies between budgeted and actual costs.

How to Avoid It:

Conduct regular cost reviews throughout the project lifecycle.

Adjust estimates based on real-time project updates.

Maintain clear communication between project managers, estimators, and financial teams.

8. Overlooking Hidden Costs

Hidden costs, such as equipment maintenance, transportation, and compliance fees, can add up over time. Ignoring these expenses can cause financial strain.

How to Avoid It:

Break down estimates into detailed cost components, including indirect expenses.

Identify all potential cost factors, including permits, inspections, and logistics.

Account for additional site preparation or unforeseen environmental adjustments.

9. Lack of Collaboration Between Teams

Poor communication between estimators, engineers, contractors, and suppliers can lead to misunderstandings and inaccurate estimates.

How to Avoid It:

Foster collaboration between all project stakeholders.

Organize regular meetings to align expectations and verify data accuracy.

Encourage transparency in cost estimation processes.

10. Unrealistic Schedule Assumptions

Underestimating project timelines can result in rushed work, increased labor costs, and missed deadlines. Delays can further inflate costs due to extended equipment rentals and idle labor.

How to Avoid It:

Develop realistic timelines based on past project experiences.

Account for potential weather disruptions, permitting delays, and supply chain issues.

Plan schedules with buffer time to absorb unforeseen delays.

Conclusion

Industrial estimating service is a fundamental part of project planning, but common pitfalls can undermine its effectiveness. By ensuring accurate data collection, monitoring market trends, integrating risk management strategies, and improving collaboration, businesses can enhance the reliability of their cost estimates. Avoiding these pitfalls will lead to better financial control, improved project efficiency, and reduced risk of budget overruns.

[europeanquality1]

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[reasonsforhope]

"California has approved a bill to help address the dark side effects of the externally glitzy fast-fashion sector, putting the onus on manufacturers to implement repair and recycling programs. 

According to CalMatters' Digital Democracy project, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 on Sept. 28, more than a year after the bill began making its way through the state legislature. 

The act seeks to address the growing problem of waste from the fashion industry. CalMatters notes in its analysis that the Golden State tossed more than 1.3 million tons of textiles in 2018. 

As it stands, the state ships 45% of the items that are donated overseas, which contributes to environmental pollution, and once there, much of it still ends up in landfills, where it produces potent heat-trapping gases such as methane. 

In Ghana, for example, which has seen its beaches polluted by fast-fashion waste, 40% of the 15 million garments received each week are discarded. All in all, despite the fact that 95% of California's materials are recyclable, only 15% of clothing and textiles are reused. 

Democratic state senator Josh Newman, the bill's sponsor, told the Guardian that these concerning figures inspired him to take action.   

"We worked really hard to consult with and eventually to align all of the stakeholders in the life cycle of textiles so that at the end there was no opposition," he explained. "That's an immensely hard thing to do when you consider the magnitude of the problem and all of the very different interests."

According to the Guardian, the program is expected to go into effect in 2028, with its numerous backers anticipating it could create as many as 1,000 jobs in the Golden State. 

Details are still being hammered out. However, garment manufacturers who aren't already participating in eco-friendly programs will have incentives to adopt greener practices, with recycling collection sites and mail-back programs among the possibilities.  

And while some have worried that small businesses and mid-sized brands could be disproportionately impacted by the legislation and end up passing on the prices to consumers, Newman estimates that the cost should be less than 10 cents per garment or textile."

-via The Cool Down, October 3, 2024

[probablyasocialecologist]

Big tech has made some big claims about greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. But as the rise of artificial intelligence creates ever bigger energy demands, it’s getting hard for the industry to hide the true costs of the data centers powering the tech revolution. According to a Guardian analysis, from 2020 to 2022 the real emissions from the “in-house” or company-owned data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple are likely about 662% – or 7.62 times – higher than officially reported.

[...]

Even though big tech hides these emissions, they are due to keep rising. Data centers’ electricity demand is projected to double by 2030 due to the additional load that artificial intelligence poses, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. Google and Microsoft both blamed AI for their recent upticks in market-based emissions.

[...]

Whether today’s power grids can withstand the growing energy demands of AI is uncertain. One industry leader – Marc Ganzi, the CEO of DigitalBridge, a private equity firm that owns two of the world’s largest third-party data center operators – has gone as far as to say that the data center sector may run out of power within the next two years.

15 September 2024

[mariacallous]

Anyone who has spent even 15 minutes on TikTok over the past two months will have stumbled across more than one creator talking about Project 2025, a nearly thousand-page policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation that outlines a radical overhaul of the government under a second Trump administration. Some of the plan’s most alarming elements—including severely restricting abortion and rolling back the rights of LGBTQ+ people—have already become major talking points in the presidential race.

But according to a new analysis from the Technology Oversight Project, Project 2025 includes hefty handouts and deregulation for big business, and the tech industry is no exception. The plan would roll back environmental regulation to the benefit of the AI and crypto industries, quash labor rights, and scrap whole regulatory agencies, handing a massive win to big companies and billionaires—including many of Trump’s own supporters in tech and Silicon Valley.

“Their desire to eliminate whole agencies that are the enforcers of antitrust, of consumer protection is a huge, huge gift to the tech industry in general,” says Sacha Haworth, executive director at the Tech Oversight Project.

One of the most drastic proposals in Project 2025 suggests abolishing the Federal Reserve altogether, which would allow banks to back their money using cryptocurrencies, if they so choose. And though some conservatives have railed against the dominance of Big Tech, Project 2025 also suggests that a second Trump administration could abolish the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which currently has the power to enforce antitrust laws.

Project 2025 would also drastically shrink the role of the National Labor Relations Board, the independent agency that protects employees’ ability to organize and enforces fair labor practices. This could have a major knock on effect for tech companies: In January, Musk’s SpaceX filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal court claiming that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was unconstitutional after the agency said the company had illegally fired eight employees who sent a letter to the company’s board saying that Musk was a “distraction and embarrassment.” Last week, a Texas judge ruled that the structure of the NLRB—which includes a director that can’t be fired by the president—was unconstitutional, and experts believe the case may wind its way to the Supreme Court.

This proposal from Project 2025 could help quash the nascent unionization efforts within the tech sector, says Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation. “Tech, of course, relies a lot on independent contractors,” says West. “They have a lot of jobs that don't offer benefits. It's really an important part of the tech sector. And this document seems to reward those types of business.”

For emerging technologies like AI and crypto, a rollback in environmental regulations proposed by Project 2025 would mean that companies would not be accountable for the massive energy and environmental costs associated with bitcoin mining and running and cooling the data centers that make AI possible. “The tech industry can then backtrack on emission pledges, especially given that they are all in on developing AI technology,” says Haworth.

The Republican Party’s official platform for the 2024 elections is even more explicit, promising to roll back the Biden administration’s early efforts to ensure AI safety and “defend the right to mine Bitcoin.”

All of these changes would conveniently benefit some of Trump’s most vocal and important backers in Silicon Valley. Trump’s running mate, Republican senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, has long had connections to the tech industry, particularly through his former employer, billionaire founder of Palantir and longtime Trump backer Peter Thiel. (Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founder’s Fund, invested $200 million in crypto earlier this year.)

Thiel is one of several other Silicon Valley heavyweights who have recently thrown their support behind Trump. In the past month, Elon Musk and David Sacks have both been vocal about backing the former president. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, whose firm a16z has invested in several crypto and AI startups, have also said they will be donating to the Trump campaign.

“They see this as their chance to prevent future regulation,” says Haworth. “They are buying the ability to avoid oversight.”

Reporting from Bloomberg found that sections of Project 2025 were written by people who have worked or lobbied for companies like Meta, Amazon, and undisclosed bitcoin companies. Both Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have courted donors in the crypto space, and in May, the Trump campaign announced it would accept donations in cryptocurrency.

But Project 2025 wouldn’t necessarily favor all tech companies. In the document, the authors accuse Big Tech companies of attempting “to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.” The plan supports legislation that would eliminate the immunities granted to social media platforms by Section 230, which protects companies from being legally held responsible for user-generated content on their sites, and pushes for “anti-discrimination” policies that “prohibit discrimination against core political viewpoints.”

It would also seek to impose transparency rules on social platforms, saying that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “could require these platforms to provide greater specificity regarding their terms of service, and it could hold them accountable by prohibiting actions that are inconsistent with those plain and particular terms.”

And despite Trump’s own promise to bring back TikTok, Project 2025 suggests the administration “ban all Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, which pose significant national security risks and expose American consumers to data and identity theft.”

West says the plan is full of contradictions when it comes to its approach to regulation. It’s also, he says, notably soft on industries where tech billionaires and venture capitalists have put a significant amount of money, namely AI and cryptocurrency. “Project 2025 is not just to be a policy statement, but to be a fundraising vehicle,” he says. “So, I think the money angle is important in terms of helping to resolve some of the seemingly inconsistencies in the regulatory approach.”

It remains to be seen how impactful Project 2025 could be on a future Republican administration. On Tuesday, Paul Dans, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, stepped down. Though Trump himself has sought to distance himself from the plan, reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicates that while the project may be lower profile, it’s not going away. Instead, the Heritage Foundation is shifting its focus to making a list of conservative personnel who could be hired into a Republican administration to execute the party’s vision.

[merp-blerp]

A Gaylor/Kaylor Interpretation of "But Daddy I Love Him", Despite It Being Obvious, 'Cause Happy Pride

Overblown Analysis Under the Cut ↓

"I forget how the West was won // I forget if this was ever fun // I just learned these people only raise you // To cage you"

The opening line is a reference to a film called How the West Was Won (1962). I'm not well-versed in this film, but I know that older American Western films and the American cowboy aesthetic in general often represent male masculinity, and by extension, male heterosexuality, romanticized into picture-esque imagery of wealthy, cis, white, straight manly men ruling the West through violence. All this despite the fact that historically, many cowboys (not just boys/men, of course, so cow-folk maybe, if that's even a term) were broke queer people, often people of color, trying to survive. Similarly to Taylor, these individuals have had their queer history erased all for the sake of marketability and giving a general audience a more traditionally palatable and relatable portrayal of reality to consume. (For more on this topic, Kaz Rowe has two great videos on queer cowboy history and the queerness of cowboy movies, if that interests you.)

With "how the West was won" not being capitalized like a film title, it seems clear that while she's referencing the movie, she's not directly talking about How the West Was Won (1962). I think this line might hark back to "Cowboy Like Me", a song about Taylor (and her lover) swindling the public into assuming they're straight and the industry "rich folks" into thinking they'll abide by their rules forever. If she continues to beard and swindle she'll win the hearts of the general public more and more, or the hetero "west", but she forgets what the benefits of doing that at the unknowing cost of her happiness were. From my perspective, if Taylor forgets how the West was won, she's saying she forgets what the long-term value of hiding her queerness with straight narratives and beardings had in her mind once upon a time. She forgets if she ever found the beardings/stunts fun in her youth because she has now learned that "these people", likely industry people who have had hands in her career, only closeted her for their own money benefits, not truly caring about her at all.

"Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best // Clutchin' their pearls, sighing, "What a mess" // I just learned these people try and save you // 'Cause they hate you."

I think many songs or moments in TTPD are Taylor envisioning/anticipating what could happen if she were to come out. Obviously, the main source of bigotry against queer people is warped religious beliefs, so the "Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best" are homophobes in this reading, but considering Taylor's fanbase and the feminine names chosen, they could very specifically be swifties who are overprotective of Taylor. Swifties who do deplorable things in the name of protecting Taylor's honor, such as doxxing gaylors online because they disagree with them and see suggesting Taylor's queerness as immoral. These types of swifties will often call the act of speculation on Taylor's queerness "gross" and lean on the reasoning for that being that speculation is invasive, even though Taylor herself has never commented against speculation of her queerness in any way when she very well could if it bothered her. Therefore they have no actual clue if that's how Taylor sees it, it's just their homophobic opinion that the suggestion of queerness is gross and they project the opinion onto Taylor as if anti-speculation should be universal when it's not nearly that simple. They see the act of the Taylor sexuality discourse existing as a mess.

If Taylor is queer, seeing that a number of her fans find queerness disgusting would produce incredibly negative feelings, whether it's anger or sadness. While I don't think every anti-speculation swiftie has these particular feelings towards it (it's complicated and could have a post of it's own), some hetlors hate speculation because they know that it could be correct. If Taylor were out as queer she'd become a "queer thing" they couldn't enjoy the same way anymore; she wouldn't be their mirrorball anymore, and that's terrifying because for many that's Taylor's appeal. If she's queer she's no longer this bestie, big sister, twin from your dreams type of artist to hetlors, she's this "other" that belongs to "others". This subsection of fans try to defend her because they, consciously or not, hate the idea that an assumed "straight" woman could actually be queer and unlike them. And therefore they indirectly hate her. The real her. They'd rather have the brand Taylor Swift because they can relate to it more, so they don't want to see her. "You needed me, but you needed drugs more" (from "COSOSOM"). They try to "save" her from being seen/out 'cause they hate her.

"Too high a horse // For a simple girl // To rise above it // They slammed the door // On my whole world // The one thing I wanted."

Both the "Sarahs and Hannahs" and "Elders" exhibit a sense of superiority Taylor feels like she can't rise above by being simple. Many anti-speculation people see their opinion as the politically correct thing to do. Therefore it's superior to speculation in their eyes, despite the fact that speculation can be a critical step to finding other queers and even can be used as a form of coming out—letting people speculate. They're on "too high a horse". The attempted Lover coming out was very simple, with Taylor flagging rainbows without an obvious showing of potential contempt she had for the industry that closeted her, unlike TTPD, which exhibits much anger towards it. But the simplicity was partly why the coming out attempt didn't work. Taylor's general fandom still viewed her flagging as nothing because she didn't say anything and harassed gaylors while the SBs foiled the biggest part of her plan that would've freed her. In "I Hate It Here", Taylor mentions that she only "rise(es) above" her closeting in her fantasies for now. Instead of getting to come out, her closet door was slammed shut. Her identity, her whole world, was still in the shade of the closet.

"Now I'm runnin' with my dress unbuttoned // Scrеamin', 'But, Daddy, I love him' // I'm havin' his baby // No, I'm not, but you should see your faces"

The title of the song is pretty unanimously agreed to be a reference to The Little Mermaid (1989), which of course came out the same year Taylor was born. Arial yells this at her father when he discovers her hidden interest in the human Prince Eric before destroying her collection of human artifacts.

It's worth remembering that Arial in the film says that she is 16 years old, the same age Taylor was when her first album was released. Arial is still at an age where she would still be under her father's thumb, as she's a child, even if she doesn't feel like one. Meanwhile, Taylor is now in her 30s. She should not need her father's permission to have an interest in someone. The whole scene Taylor paints with these lyrics seems comical, Taylor running after and begging her father as her clothes come undone, maybe because she was caught in the act of making love to this "him", or she's going erratic and ripping her clothes off. Then she screams that she's having her apparent lover's baby. The story becomes more and more soap opera levels of dramatic till Taylor pulls the wool from over the listeners's eyes and reveals that it was all a lie once the facade becomes too crazy to believe unless you're gullible. It's easy to see just the "No I'm not" as a direct response to simply "I'm havin' his baby", but I think it's a response to the whole first half of the chorus. She's not a teen girl begging to be allowed to date, she's an adult.

"You should see your faces" directed at the listeners could be Taylor teasing about the shock on their faces at her wild story or the fact that it's a lie, but it could also be Taylor mocking the look of enjoyment the listener gets from her fake story, which represents her real life beard narratives. The dress unbuttoned story getting crazier and crazier seems to mirror how the real-life bearding narratives get more and more fantastical, at least in my opinion. With the current "Tayvis", Taylor is selling a high school fantasy of the popular cheerleader-type girl getting with the football boy, even though Taylor has never truly been the popular cheerleader-type in reality; she was a bullied nerd during her actual schooling days and has always portrayed herself as separate from the "cheer captain", instead being "on the bleachers" in "YBWM". Then there's the Joe vs. [Rat-dacted] narrative, where Taylor was reportedly head over heels for Joe for 6 or so years, with him not caring that she was famous and seeing her for her, till they suddenly "broke up" and the narrative changed to him stifling her. Then it changed again to her actually being deeply in love with [Rat-dacted] the whole time instead, with Joe simply being an elongated rebound type of relationship. And it gets even more confusing when you try to attach the original [Beard-DJ-dacted] → Tom Hiddleston → Joe Alwyn narratives into the mix. It's all just unraveling into less and less sense. Yet the Sarahs and Hannahs probably don't question a thing because the narrative is still straight, so what's there to ponder?

TTPD's first ever easter egg was "red herring", which is a tool meant to mislead the audience in storytelling, but an attentive audience member might be able to see past it, especially in time/hindsight. The dress unbuttoned story is a red herring to distract from the real story Taylor illustrates in the next half of the chorus, especially when the song is titled after the lie portion of the song. And by extension, in her whole career, all of Taylor's beards, many of the he/him pronouns in songs, lyrics like "your buzzcut and my hair bleach" in "Dress", and songs like "London Boy" and "So High School" are thinly veiled red herrings that keep up the surface appearance of straightness to distract yet invite the listener to dig deeper into the true queer stories in her music once noticed.

"I'm tellin' him to floor it through thе fences // No, I'm not coming to my senses // I know he's crazy, but he's the one I want."

Taylor now tells the listener what she's actually doing. She's telling her lover to run away, presumably along with her, especially with the song's end depicting the lovers returning to "town", but more on the ending later. The lover is still masked by he/him pronouns, but the story is still the truth. (While I do think the "he/him" in this song is in actuality a "she/her", it is interesting to view the first half of the chorus using "he/him" as a part of the red herring Taylor is telling.) In the lie, Taylor begs for her father's permission to love, but in reality, and in a lot of her music throughout her career, Taylor disobeys any disapproving peers and flees with her lover. They could either be fleeing out of the closet, or fleeing away from disapprovers. "Floor it through thе fences" reminds me of "And you know that I'd swing with you for the fences" from "Peace". The phrase "swing for the fences" means "to make a big effort to do something that is very impressive or important, but is difficult to achieve, especially if there is a risk of failure" according to Cambridge Dictionary. Both coming out and being in a glass closet can pose many risks. So Taylor telling her lover to floor it or rush through the fences could mean to run away quickly or have the double meaning of taking a big risk, like coming out or flagging when they should be closeted, along with herself doing the same.

The recurring storyline of running away and/or disregarding naysayers has appeared in songs like "Love Story", "Run", "Call It What You Want", "Speak Now", "MAATHP", "Down Bad", the unreleased "Better Off" from as far back as 2005, and so much more. Going against the grain is her reality. In her music she was never "Scrеamin', 'But, Daddy, I love him'", or just pleading to be accepted, but always running away, dreaming of an environment where she could be accepted, and refusing to come to her senses and just letting the cookie crumble passively. But her beards don't reflect the stories in her songs beyond the surface-level red herrings. The first half of the chorus is the flimsy public narrative, and the second half is the reality.

Taylor's lover is described by her as "crazy". Asylums are a recurring theme throughout this album. Historically and culturally people who were put into asylums were often dubbed "crazy" and mistreated rather than receiving the help they might've needed if they were truly in need at all, as some people who were put into asylums weren't even ill, just perceived as such, similar to queer people who are seen by homophobes as ill when queerness is natural. In this album, asylums represent the industry that raised Taylor and treated her like she was crazy. In the song "TTPD", both she and the lover call themselves crazy, so she and the lover are both in the asylum or industry.

From a specifically Kaylor perspective, Karlie Kloss, particularly in the years before meeting Taylor, has always seemed "louder" than Taylor. And not quite as disciplined in keeping her straight narrative(s) up properly (i.e. Kar recently posting an anniversary pic about being with Josh for 10 years when it's supposed to be 12 years by now. But who has she allegedly been with for 10 years as far as the public's known for sure...?). Through my interpretation of Tay's music, it seems like Kar is Taylor's driving force to potentially come out, as her albums up to 1989 seemed more keen on staying caged and being okay with it, but albums after that have felt like attempts to at least claw on the closet door. Being in a committed relationship with someone willing to be loud might risk Taylor's safety in the cage, so being with someone as "crazy" as Kar is a risk, but she's the one she wants.

"Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid // Tendrils tucked into a woven braid // Growin' up precocious sometimes means // Not growin' up at all."

Taylor mentions growing up precocious in at least 3 different songs on TTPD, this, "The Bolter" and "I Hate It Here". It's definitely something we're supposed to pay attention to. In "You're Losing Me" Taylor mentions being a pathological people pleaser, which lines up with her talk of trying to be the perfect "good girl" who didn't force herself onto people since childhood in Miss Americana. Often, AFAB people who behave this way are told that they're being very mature by being quiet, whether it's quiet in general or quiet on world issues instead of speaking up. As someone who also grew up precocious, it was always easy to get told you were doing a good job by just sitting pretty and never expressing anything. But these traits might begin to backfire the older you get as you suddenly realize that you never got to be a child, but you also weren't really an adult when you were called "mature for your age", so you might end up regressing in a way or just confused on how to actually be an adult properly.

If you're like me, you believe Miss Americana was originally meant to be a coming-out documentary, or a documentary meant to explain Taylor's journey with her sexuality, released after coming out, before those plans were foiled. Her early developmental years are likely a part of why she isn't out yet. She wants to come out in a very specific way that's more than "just saying it". Especially since theirs a lot at stake with her coming out the bigger she gets, the more employees she has to make sure get paid, and the more she has to protect her family. She can't be a "simple girl" and "rise above it" at the same time because the situation is way more delicate now than it was during the Lover era.

In Miss Americana and "The Archer", Taylor mentions feeling like she is stuck at the age she got famous, 16. If we see the lie of the first chorus representing her flimsy bearding narratives, then she could mean that she never grew up into being openly queer. Since she began writing songs, Taylor has always written her songs with the knowledge that one day they could be publicly heard. Even unreleased songs that are very queer-coded like "Welcome Distraction" still have he/him pronouns, just like the ones she writes to this day. Songs that don't have romantic he/him pronouns or are about a girl have always had plausible deniability, such as "Angelina" or "Question...?". Even if it's just a bit of that plausible deniability, heteronormativity makes it really easy to hide when you do it as well as Taylor does.

The mention of braids calls back to "Seven", a song in-part about childhood. Tendrils can be a part of a plant, which reminds me of "Please picture me in the weeds // Before I learned civility", which could be interpreted as Taylor being more wildly queer in some way when she was young before learning how to act straighter for her own good. Tendrils can also be stray pieces of hair, or metaphorically queerness, that was hidden in a straight, rigid braid. I also think this has to do with "Peter", a song I believe to be about Taylor apologizing to her inner queer child for taking so long to come out; when Taylor began hiding her queerness in her music, I'm sure she thought it would just be till the world was ready to hear her truth some years down the line. And if the song "Change" is anything to go off of, she might've been optimistic that that was soon. "I thought it was just goodbye for now // You said you were gonna grow up // Then you were gonna come find me". But here we are over 20 years after she began writing songs and she's still writing in the same closeted way, for now. The southern drawl (if that's the phrase I'm looking for), or her choice to use words cut short like "Runnin'", "'bout", and "ain't" during this song's most tense moments make this feel like her younger, pre-pop self-speaking up finally.

(As a bit of an extra tidbit, these lines really remind me of lyrics from "Welcome Distraction" that I think are meant to be, "A life and a plan and I wasn't gonna stray // Swore I’d never let a man in my way", but I get different results when I look up the lyrics due to its unreleased status. Younger and current Taylor possibly singing similar lines really expands on the never-growing-up aspect of this reading.)

"He was chaos, he was revelry // Bedroom eyes like a remedy // Soon enough, the elders had convened // Down at the city hall // 'Stay away from her' // The saboteurs // Protested too much // Lord knows the words // We never heard // Just screeching tires and true love."

The "he" being in actuality a "she" is the reading that makes the most sense for this song overall. With all the religious imagery in the song, religious elders would not object in this particular way so hard against a guy and a girl wanting to be together. It makes the most sense when Taylor's lover is thought of as another woman. If the lover is a woman, she would definitely represent chaos for Taylor, not necessarily because of her personality but through the way Taylor wants her and the trouble that want could cause. The lover was not a part of the plans laid. But the lover is also the celebratory feeling of being in love, and the celebratory feeling of pride you get from being queer once you've found someone who you can be yourself around and be proud of yourself with. Revelry.

If we think of the "elders" being the SBs specifically, than them meeting each other at the "city hall" could be them coming together to steal Taylor's masters, which recked her plans to come out the same day the news broke out.

Since I'm personally a late-stage Kaylor, I see the saboteurs saying "stay away from her" as the perpetrators and believers in the Kaylor feud, spreading the never-confirmed rumor that Karlie betrayed Taylor as if it's fact and being overprotective of Taylor by demanding Karlie stay away from Taylor since she's a "trader".

Alternatively, the saboteurs could be telling Taylor to stay away from Karlie, as even though there have been other rumored relationships with women Taylor has had, Karlie has always been the strongest suspect and the most well-known since Taylor was never really able to keep the straight facade up as well as usual around Karlie (i.e. Kissgate). I doubt this reading of the line a bit more purely because the lover has been constantly dubbed "him" through the song and it'd be odd to switch up here, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I'll move on with the former interpretation for this reading.

"Protested too much" is a reference to Hamlet by William Shakespeare. In the context of the play, Queen Gertrude says this as a reaction to Hamlet's play trying to weasel guilt out of her and mainly her new husband for marrying so soon after the original King's murder. When the queen in the play says she'll never remarry after her husband dies, Gertrude tells Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", meaning she thinks the queen in the play is putting on a front that shouldn't be believed. If Taylor believes the saboteurs are "protest(ing) too much" it could mean that she believes that they aren't being honest about their stance against the lover. That their hatred for them and calls for them to go away would falter if time were to prove their stance wrong. In "Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus", Taylor says "If you wanna tear my world apart // Just say you've always wondered", which I take as Taylor knowing that when she comes out, despite the strong rejection of her planting seeds to her truth right now, people will say that they had always suspected that she was queer once they feel socially safe to do so post coming out. If the lover in this song is Karlie, then it's not hard to imagine the saboteurs suddenly backtracking their hate in order to praise Kaylor and Karlie after Kaylor becomes publicly cordial again.

With "Lord knows the words // We never heard/ // Just screeching tires and true love" Taylor and her lover ignore the saboteurs's hatred and carry on with their love. Or they ignore the hypocritical words of "praise" for their relationship that'll come when they come out. I'm more inclined to believe the former due to the mention of "screeching tires", a car reference. I mentioned in my "Champagne Problems" analysis that vehicles often represent the closet/running away from the public for Taylor, so if she and the lover are enjoying "screeching tires and true love", they're making the best of their closet as they run away from the rest of the world for the time being, like how they do in "Paris".

"I'll tell you something right now // I'd rather burn my whole life down // Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin' and moanin'. // I'll tell you something 'bout my good name // It's mine alone to disgrace // I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing"

I believe Taylor is gearing up to come out, reveal at least aspects of her reality, and expose the harm the industry has done to her and maybe even others. This line syncs up perfectly with the "Burning Lover House" theory, with Taylor eliminating all the red herrings of her past albums and telling her truth. If Taylor's career and good name goes down the toilet due to her being herself, it'll be her doing and she wants to be in that much control of herself. The "vipers dressed in empath's clothing" are the fans who harass and harm people like Karlie all in the name of defending and "empathizing" with Taylor, even though Taylor has never okayed that behavior and has spoken against it. The vipers pretend to empathize with the situations they think Taylor's been in and her music, but their behavior shows they don't truly see eye-to-eye with her and what she stands for. She's done catering to them.

"God save the most judgmental creeps // Who say they want what's best for me // Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see // Thinkin' it can change the beat // Of my heart when he touches me // And counteract the chemistry // And undo the destiny // You ain't gotta pray for me // Me and my wild boy and all of this wild joy // If all you want is gray for me // Then it's just white noise, and it's just my choice."

Taylor calls out the "judgmental creeps" who hurt people in the name of her. Her asking God to save the "judgmental creeps" could be sarcasm, but I also know Taylor's a Christian (and maybe catholic. I know she grew up catholic), and as a queer Christian, I know that I tend to fully see homophobia as practically an illness, like how homophobes view queerness as an illness, and hope homophobes find it in their heart to overcome those ailments. I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor felt the same way.

The creeps "Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies" that Taylor will "never see". Doing something sanctimoniously is doing something in a performative way, calling back to the saboteurs protesting too much, being hateful only because it's so normalized in the community, and who are likely going to do a 180 once their hate is no longer in style for the times. If Taylor will never see these soliloquies then she could be saying that she'll never give them the time of day, the "words we never heard" from earlier. A soliloquy is a speech that's said when alone without listeners (they're also famously associated with Hamlet so that ties back to "protested too much"), so these creeps are essentially arguing with the wall, as Taylor turns a blind eye to them no matter how much the soliloquies are made to empathize with her or impress her because they do none of those things.

The creeps think their hateful soliloquies will change Taylor's truth. They think if they pretend Karlie doesn't or never existed in Taylor's life in any way and harass Karlie, then it'll change the reality that they secretly or unconsciously know is true, but it won't. The saboteurs and Taylor's closet-ers can't change who she is and what she has with her lover. If the Sarahs and Hannahs only want the straight, beard-narcotic-giving, grey Taylor Swift™, then their pearl-clutching just becomes white noise to Taylor, and it's her choice to be in screaming color, dazzling in the daylight.

"There's a lot of people in town that I // Bestow upon my fakest smiles // Scandal does funny things to pride, but brings lovers closer."

In my "I Look In People's Windows" analysis, I viewed the "town" as a metaphor for her tour locations and fanbase. Since she's of course performing on tour, Taylor's happiness could definitely be faked if she had to make it. She can do it with a broken heart and her fans wouldn't even notice. The amount of people inside the stadiums when she tours is massive, so it really is a lot. And if her beard is at the stadium, or "in town", she can give them all the fake winks and nods she needs to keep up appearances as the time to come out approaches. "Scandal does funny things to pride" has a double meaning. Scandal can take a shot at your ego or sense of pride. But queer scandal can also make you want/have to hide your urge to be openly queer and proud, as older queer celebs like Rock Hudson had to completely deny their queerness if rumors got out of control for their own safety. Still, scandal, or hardships, can bring lovers closer as they persevere through it.

"We came back when the heat died down // Went to my parents and they came around // All the wine moms are still holdin' out, but fuck 'em, it's over."

I like to see this and the incoming chorus as Taylor predicting the wake of the coming out. She'll burn it down, things in "town" or the fandom will be chaos, and then she and Karlie will return/publicly reunite in the afterglow of it all once the fandom's shock wanes. The narrative of this song is that Taylor and her lover ran away, disobeying Taylor's father figure rather than begging him, but when they return her family accepts everything. Taylor is still seen as at most a "PG-13" artist, accessible to children, so their parents, the wine moms, could still be upset once the heat dies down, wanting Taylor to be a sanitized image for their kids to look up to and still pearl clutching at her queerness. But fuck 'em, the pain of the closet is far behind her and her lover now. It's over.

"Now I'm dancin' in my dress in the sun and // Even my daddy just loves him // I'm his lady // And, oh my God, you should see your faces."

The lie is now gone, as Taylor gets to be joyous with her lover in the daylight, out of the shade, with her Dad accepting. She's possibly surprised by that, with the use of "even". She still mocks the creeps's outrage and shock.

"Time, doesn't it give some perspective? // And, no, you can't come to the wedding // I know it's crazy, but he's the one I want."

As mentioned before, the vipers suddenly backtracked their hate, as time proved their actions wrong, but no matter how much they might kiss up now, Taylor for the rest of the song continues to mock them with the post-chorus and outro. Especially with "Tayvis", her fans have been invited to vicariously and happily experience her "relationships" through her, despite her constant singing of private relationships and disapprovers. But the majority of her fans are not invited to her real relationship, the one she truly keeps private. No, they can't come to the wedding.

I like how "he's crazy" changes to "it's crazy". Taylor knows that the post-coming-out situation will be crazy, especially if she plans to expose an awful, buried side of the industry in some mass coming out with others as some theorize. But she wants her lover and the things that come with the freedom.

Thanks for reading!

[morgan-va]

Chapter 1: Another Day, Another Drone (Serial Designation N x Reader)

Story Masterlist

You’ve often wondered how you ended up here.

Your desk, a grayed-out island surrounded by a sea of other identical workstations, has seen better days. The once-shiny JCJenson logo etched into the corner is now dulled, just like your enthusiasm for the corporate grind. The monitor flickers faintly as you scroll through endless spreadsheets, each cell populated with strings of numbers that meant nothing to you beyond "quarterly projections" and "acceptable casualty margins."

You sigh, leaning back in your chair. A branded pen rolls off the edge of your desk, landing with a dull clatter on the tile floor. You don’t bother picking it up; there’s a whole box of them in the supply closet.

Today’s tasks are, as always, a parade of monotony. Data entry, damage reports, and the ever-fun task of shredding documents that were marked CONFIDENTIAL in red ink. As you feed another stack of papers into the industrial shredder, you catch snippets of text:

"Serial Designation X-0T1010110 failed containment—Incident resulted in 14 human casualties...""Cost analysis of drone-related repairs versus human replacements..."

You shove the papers in faster, unwilling to linger on the details. It’s easier not to think about what these reports mean.

The office air is stale, recycled a thousand times over by a ventilation system older than most of the drones JCJenson manufactures. The faint hum of machines, the clicking of keyboards, and the distant buzz of the breakroom microwave form a symphony of corporate drudgery.

“Hey, you coming to the quarterly review meeting?” asks a coworker as they pass by, holding a coffee cup with JCJenson’s slogan: "Liability is our passion. Safety is the result."

You force a polite smile. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

They nod and shuffle off, leaving you alone with your spreadsheets and the nagging feeling that, for all the talk of liability and safety, the only thing JCJenson seems passionate about is grinding the life out of its employees.

The meeting is exactly as insufferable as you expected.

You sit near the back of the room, a strategic choice to avoid being called on for any questions or insights. A projection screen at the front displays an overly cheerful PowerPoint deck. Each slide is crammed with pie charts, bar graphs, and buzzwords like "synergy," "stakeholder alignment," and "Q4 optimization goals."

A senior manager drones (ha) on in a monotone voice, flipping through slides as though he’s on autopilot. You catch snippets of phrases:

"Revenue up by 0.3%...""Minimizing liability in high-risk sectors...""Drone maintenance backlog—actionable in Q1..."

Your mind drifts. You find yourself staring at the JCJenson motto printed at the top of every slide: "Liability is our passion. Safety is the result." It’s hard not to read it sarcastically.

Occasionally, someone in the audience offers a nod or a murmured "good point," though it’s doubtful they’re any more engaged than you are. At one point, the manager makes a joke about "cutting-edge safety measures" that earns a smattering of polite chuckles. You don’t even bother to fake it.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the meeting adjourns. You’re free—at least for the next five minutes.

You join the shuffle of employees heading to the breakroom, each of you moving with the enthusiasm of a dead lemur. It’s time for the corporate-mandated 5-minute donut break, a peculiar ritual meant to boost morale.

The breakroom smells faintly of coffee and powdered sugar. A box of donuts sits on the counter, already half-empty. You grab one without looking and take a bite, barely tasting it as you lean against the wall. Conversations buzz around you, but none of it registers.

For five blissful minutes, you don’t think about spreadsheets, shredders, or casualty reports. Just you, your donut, and the fleeting illusion of freedom.

The break ends far too soon, as it always does, and you find yourself back at your desk. The donut was mediocre, and the coffee left a bitter aftertaste that matches your mood.

Your next task: complaint emails. A never-ending stream of them floods your inbox, each one angrier than the last. You open the first message, its subject line screaming at you in all caps:

"RE: MY DRONE ATE MY DOG AND BURNED DOWN MY HOUSE."

You sigh, already bracing yourself. Without even reading the body of the email, your fingers move to type the same canned response you’ve sent a hundred times before:

"Dear Valued Customer,We are very sorry to hear you are dissatisfied with the quality of your JCJenson Drone. Please note that our products undergo rigorous testing to meet our industry-leading standards. Your feedback is important to us and has been forwarded to the appropriate department. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.Kind regards,JCJenson Customer Care Team."

Click. Send.

The next email isn’t much better:

"RE: WHY DID MY DRONE DROP MY GROCERIES AND ATTACK MY MAILMAN?"

You adjust the response slightly to fit, but the template remains the same. Apologies, assurances, and a whole lot of nothing.

It’s easier not to think about the implications of the complaints—the lives disrupted or ruined by faulty drones. You wonder if the people writing these emails ever get a real response. Probably not.

Your inbox refreshes, and another batch of complaints pours in. You pinch the bridge of your nose, groaning quietly to yourself. It’s just another day at JCJenson, where liability is our passion —and, apparently, yours to deal with.

The clock finally ticks over to quitting time, and you hit send on your last email with the same mechanical motion as every other. The subject line, "RE: MY DRONE LEVELED MY GARDEN SHED AND STOMPED ON MY CAT," disappears into the void of customer complaints, and you let out a long, cathartic sigh.

The weekend. Two days of freedom stretch before you like a mirage, promising peace, quiet, and absolutely no mention of drones, casualties, or pie charts. You’re already halfway to the coat rack, hand reaching for the worn overcoat you’ve had for years—it’s practically a relic of a simpler time.

But just as your fingers brush the fabric, a manila folder slams into your hand.

“Hold it right there, kid!”

You flinch at the unmistakable bark of your boss. He looms over you like a storm cloud, his perpetual scowl deepening as he gestures to the folder. He looks as though he’s about to chew you out but instead slaps you on the back, nearly knocking you off balance.

“Big job, huge job,” he says, his voice booming enough to turn a few heads nearby. “And you’re just the person for it!”

You open your mouth to object, but he barrels on, not giving you a chance to get a word in. “I handpicked you for this assignment because you’re the best we’ve got!” he declares, eyes darting suspiciously over his shoulder.

It’s then that you notice the unmistakable gleam of a golf club sticking out from behind his back. The clinking of clubs gives him away, but he quickly shifts his stance to obscure them further.

“Yeah, yeah,” he continues, waving vaguely at the folder in your hand, “confidential, high-priority, yada yada. Needs to be handled ASAP! ”

“Wait, what is—”

“No time for questions!” he interrupts, already backing toward the elevator. “You’re a pro! I know you’ll knock it outta the park! Or, uh—whatever it is you do!”

The elevator dings, and he practically leaps inside, his golf caddy rattling behind him. He stabs the “close doors” button repeatedly, giving you a quick salute as the doors slide shut.

“Good luck! Don’t mess it up!” he shouts just before disappearing entirely.

You’re left standing there, the manila folder in your hand, the weekend slipping away before your very eyes.

You stand there for a moment, folder in hand, watching the elevator doors close. Then, with a long, resigned sigh, you rub the bridge of your nose and trudge back to your desk. The coat you were so close to grabbing sways mockingly on the rack as you pass it by.

Your chair creaks as you sink back into it, tossing the folder onto the desk in front of you. You take a moment to glare at it, as if sheer willpower might make it vanish. It doesn’t.

With a heavy sense of inevitability, you flip the folder open. The first page stares back at you, black text on crisp paper, but you barely register what it says at first. You’re too busy mourning the weekend plans that had been so rudely snatched away from you.

Plans. Ha. Like you had anything ambitious in mind.

You were going to swing by the pizza place on the way home, pick up a large with extra cheese, and spend the evening on the couch watching the same YouTube documentary about dog breeds you’d already seen five times. The narrator’s voice was comforting, and you always liked the section on Golden Retrievers.

Instead, here you are. Another late night, courtesy of JCJenson. But hey, at least you have all the branded pens you could hope for.

You shake your head and focus on the contents of the folder. It’s filled with the usual corporate nonsense: incident reports, legal disclaimers, and technical diagrams of drones. But halfway through, something unusual catches your eye—a requisition form stamped with bright red ink:

"URGENT: TRANSFER PROTOCOLS FOR TEST UNIT N-0X0010010.”

The rest of the document is dense with jargon, but one thing is clear: you’re being tasked with supervising the “home protocols” of one of the company’s experimental drones. Whatever this is, it’s definitely not a task you’re qualified—or paid enough—for.

You lean back in your chair, staring at the requisition form. “Perfect,” you mutter to yourself, your voice dripping with sarcasm. “There goes my pizza night.”

With a groan, you shove the folder under your arm and head toward the elevators. The requisition form gives you just enough information to know where you’re supposed to go—down to the warehouse. You’d never been there before, but you’ve heard the stories: endless rows of drone parts, the hum of assembly lines, and an atmosphere so heavy with tension it feels like the walls themselves are judging you.

The elevator ride is mercifully short. The doors open to reveal a dimly lit corridor that smells faintly of grease and scorched metal. You follow the signs toward the warehouse, boots clacking on the scuffed floor as the sound of distant machinery grows louder.

Finally, you reach a massive set of double doors, with a glowing neon sign above them that reads:

“AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. HARD HATS REQUIRED.We have lawyers. You don’t. Wear a hard hat!”

You stop in your tracks, staring at the sign. A sigh escapes your lips, louder than you intended. Of course. Of course they’d make you turn back after getting all the way down here.

Muttering under your breath about liability paranoia, you retrace your steps to the maintenance closet you’d passed earlier. Sure enough, there’s a stack of faded yellow hard hats sitting on the shelf, each one more battered than the last. You grab the least crusty-looking one, dust it off, and jam it onto your head.

“Safety first,” you grumble, rolling your eyes as you head back toward the warehouse. The hard hat sits awkwardly on your head, just a little too small, the strap digging into your chin. You resist the urge to rip it off as you push open the double doors and step inside.

You push the warehouse doors open, greeted by the echoing hum of machinery and the acrid scent of oil and melted plastic. The place is cavernous, rows of shelves stretching up toward the high ceiling, filled with spare parts, crates, and what looks like a disassembled drone that probably belongs in a museum.

As you step into the loading bay, a familiar voice calls out: “Yo, dude! Wassup?”

Oh no. Not him.

Brad, the shipping manager, waves lazily from behind a forklift. His perpetual slouch and that ridiculous mop of sun-bleached hair make him look like he got lost on his way to a surf competition.

“Boss said you’d be droppin’ by,” he drawls, sauntering toward you like he has all the time in the world. He’s wearing a JCJenson polo shirt that looks one size too big, untucked and wrinkled, like he grabbed it off the floor this morning.

You’ve met Brad a handful of times—mostly at company retreats and awkward holiday parties. He’s the guy who raids the snack table and disappears halfway through the event, leaving you to wonder how anyone can eat an entire bowl of chips by themselves.

“Uh, yeah,” you reply, already exhausted by his energy. “Boss said there was something for me?”

“Totally, totally,” Brad says, gesturing vaguely toward a massive shipping crate sitting on a pallet. The thing is huge, easily taller than you and sealed with bright red warning labels.

“All yours, bro,” Brad says with a lazy grin. “I’ll load it into a truck for ya. Y’know, company wheels. Real sweet ride.”

You glance at the crate, then back at him. “And what am I supposed to do with this, exactly?”

Brad shrugs, leaning against the forklift like he’s in a photoshoot. “No idea, dude. I just move the boxes.”

You resist the urge to rub your temples.

“Oh, heads up, though,” he adds, as if remembering something important. “Truck’s got GPS, so, like, don’t even think about takin’ a joyride. You go anywhere but where the bigwigs said? Boom. Pay docked. Or whatever. Not my problem.”

He says it all with such a lack of enthusiasm that you’re not entirely sure he’s serious.

“Great,” you mutter, staring at the crate as Brad ambles toward the forklift. This was shaping up to be such a fun weekend.

You lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching Brad maneuver the forklift with surprising precision. For someone with the demeanor of a guy who says “radical” unironically, he handles the equipment like he’s been doing it for years.

The massive crate is lifted and gently deposited into the bed of a JCJenson-branded pickup truck—a surprisingly seamless process. You raise an eyebrow, almost impressed, but quickly squash the feeling.

“Boom. Done,” Brad says, hopping down from the forklift and tossing you the keys. You barely catch them, fumbling for a second before they settle in your palm.

“Thanks,” you mutter, making your way toward the driver’s side.

“Enjoy the ride, dude!” Brad calls after you, already heading back to whatever it is he does when no one’s watching. “And don’t forget the GPS thing! Seriously!”

You don’t bother replying, sliding into the truck’s seat and slamming the door shut behind you. The truck smells like stale coffee and something faintly metallic, and the dashboard is cluttered with enough buttons and dials to make you feel like you’re piloting a spaceship.

The keys turn in the ignition, and the engine roars to life. You grip the wheel tightly, eager to get this over with. The sooner you’re home, the sooner you can—well, not relax exactly, but at least pretend to.

As you pull out of the warehouse and onto the road, your mind starts to wander.

This whole thing is ridiculous. Not just the last-minute assignment, but the fact that they’ve shoved you into a task so far outside your job description it’s laughable. You’re customer support. Your life is answering emails about worker drone-related catastrophes and shredding documents that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Testing experimental drones? Ha. Not even close.

You’ve never owned a drone. Not that you’d want to. The thought of one of those unpredictable, clunky metal bipeds stomping around your apartment is enough to make your skin crawl. You’ve read way too many emails about battery failures that turned into small fires or drones deciding to interpret their owner’s sarcastic remarks a little too literally.

“RE: WORKER DRONE SHATTERED MY KITCHEN WINDOW WITH A FLYING PLATE”—that one stuck with you.

And then there were the personality glitches. Oh, the personality glitches. Reading through frantic emails about drones throwing tantrums, refusing to perform tasks, or just standing in the corner staring at the wall for hours… yeah, you didn’t need that kind of energy in your life.

Besides, it’s not like you get paid enough to afford one anyway. Ha.

You glance at the GPS display, following the glowing line that marks your route home. The crate rattles slightly in the back with every bump in the road, a constant reminder of the weekend you didn’t sign up for.

The truck hums along, the city lights blurring past as you make your way toward home.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 26, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 27, 2024

Today presented a good example of the difference between governance by social media and governance by policy.

Although incoming presidents traditionally stay out of the way of the administration currently in office, last night, Trump announced on his social media site that he intends to impose a 25% tariff on all products coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Trump claimed that they could solve the problem “easily” and that until they do, “it is time for them to pay a very big price!”

In a separate post, he held China to account for fentanyl and said he would impose a 10% tariff on all Chinese products on top of the tariffs already levied on those goods. “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he added.

In fact, since 2023 there has been a drop of 14.5% in deaths from drug overdose, the first such decrease since the epidemic began, and border patrol apprehensions of people crossing the southern border illegally have fallen to the lowest number since August 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. In any case, a study by the libertarian Cato Institute shows that from 2019 to 2024, more than 80% of the people caught with fentanyl at ports of entry—where the vast majority of fentanyl is seized—were U.S. citizens.

Very few undocumented immigrants and very little illegal fentanyl come into the U.S. from Canada.

Washington Post economics reporter Catherine Rampell noted that Mexico and Canada are the biggest trading partners of the United States. Mexico sends cars, machinery, electrical equipment, and beer to the U.S., along with about $19 billion worth of fruits and vegetables. About half of U.S. fresh fruit imports come from Mexico, including about two thirds of our fresh tomatoes and about 90% of our avocados.

Transferring that production to the U.S. would be difficult, especially since about half of the 2 million agricultural workers in the U.S. are undocumented and Trump has vowed to deport them all. Rampell points out as well that Project 2025 calls for getting rid of the visa system that gives legal status to agricultural workers. U.S. farm industry groups have asked Trump to spare the agricultural sector, which contributed about $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2023, from his mass deportations.

Canada exports a wide range of products to the U.S., including significant amounts of oil. Rampell quotes GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, as saying that a 25% tax on Canadian crude oil would increase gas prices in the Midwest and the Rockies by 25 cents to 75 cents a gallon, costing U.S. consumers about $6 billion to $10 billion more per year.

Canada is also the source of about a quarter of the lumber builders use in the U.S., as well as other home building materials. Tariffs would raise prices there, too, while construction is another industry that will be crushed by Trump’s threatened deportations. According to NPR’s Julian Aguilar, in 2022, nearly 60% of the more than half a million construction workers in Texas were undocumented.

Construction company officials are begging Trump to leave their workers alone. Deporting them “would devastate our industry, we wouldn’t finish our highways, we wouldn’t finish our schools,” the chief executive officer of a major Houston-based construction company told Aguilar. “Housing would disappear. I think they’d lose half their labor.”

Former trade negotiator under George W. Bush John Veroneau said Trump’s plans would violate U.S. trade agreements, including the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) that replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement that Trump killed. The USMCA was negotiated during Trump’s own first term, and although it was based on NAFTA, he praised it as “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law. It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made.”

Trump apologists immediately began to assure investors that he really didn’t mean it. Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posted that Trump wouldn’t impose the tariffs if “Mexico and Canada stop the flow of illegal immigrants and fentanyl into the U.S.” Trump’s threat simply meant that Trump “is going to use tariffs as a weapon to achieve economic and political outcomes which are in the best interest of America,” Ackman wrote.

Iowa Republican lawmaker Senator Chuck Grassley, who represents a farm state that was badly burned by Trump’s tariffs in his first term, told reporters that he sees the tariff threats as a “negotiating tool.”

Foreign leaders had no choice but to respond. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum issued an open letter to Trump pointing out that Mexico has developed a comprehensive immigration system that has reduced border encounters by 75% since December 2023, and that the U.S. CBP One program has ended the “caravans” he talks about. She noted that it is imperative for the U.S. and Mexico jointly to “arrive at another model of labor mobility that is necessary for your country and to address the causes that lead families to leave their places of origin out of necessity.”

She noted that the fentanyl problem in the U.S. is a public health problem and that Mexican authorities have this year “seized tons of different types of drugs, 10,340 weapons, and arrested 15,640 people for violence related to drug trafficking,” and added that “70% of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country.” She also suggested that Mexico would retaliate with tariffs of its own if the U.S. imposed tariffs on Mexico.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau did not go that far but talked to Trump shortly after the social media post. The U.S. is Canada’s biggest trading partner, and a 25% tariff would devastate its economy. The premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, seemed to try to keep her province’s oil out of the line of fire by agreeing with Trump that the Canadian government should work with him and adding, “The vast majority of Alberta’s energy exports to the US are delivered through secure and safe pipelines which do not in any way contribute to these illegal activities at the border.”

Trudeau has called an emergency meeting with Canada’s provincial premiers tomorrow to discuss the threat.

Spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington Liu Pengyu simply said: “No one will win a trade war or a tariff war” and “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

In contrast to Trump’s sudden social media posts that threaten global trade and caused a frenzy today, President Joe Biden this evening announced that, after months of negotiations, Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the U.S. and France, to take effect at 4:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday. “This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Biden said.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel shortly after Hamas’s attack of October 7, 2023. Fighting on the border between Israel and Lebanon has turned 300,000 Lebanese people and 70,000 Israelis into refugees, with Israel bombing southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnel system and killing its leaders. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,000 people and injured more than 13,000, while CBS News reports that about 90 Israeli soldiers and nearly 50 Israeli civilians have been killed in the fighting. Under the agreement, Israel’s forces currently occupying southern Lebanon will withdraw over the next 60 days as Lebanon’s army moves in. Hezbollah will be kept from rebuilding.

According to Laura Rozen in her newsletter Diplomatic, before the agreement went into effect, Israel increased its airstrikes in Beirut and Tyre.

When he announced the deal, Biden pushed again for a ceasefire in Gaza, whose people, he said, “have been through hell. Their…world is absolutely shattered.” Biden called again for Hamas to release the more than 100 hostages it still holds and to negotiate a ceasefire. Biden said the U.S. will “make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza with the hostages released and the end to the war without Hamas in power.”

Today’s announcement, Biden said, brings closer the realization of his vision for a peaceful Middle East where both Israel and a Palestinian state are established and recognized, a plan he tried to push before October 7 by linking Saudi Arabia’s normalization of relations with Israel to a Palestinian state. Biden has argued that such a deal is key to Israel’s long-term security, and today he pressed Israel to “be bold in turning tactical gains against Iran and its proxies into a coherent strategy that secures Israel’s long-term…safety and advances a broader peace and prosperity in the region.”

“I believe this agenda remains possible,” Biden said. “And in my remaining time in office, I will work tirelessly to advance this vision of—for an integrated, secure, and prosperous region, all of which…strengthens America’s national security.”

“Today’s announcement is a critical step in advancing that vision,” Biden said. “It reminds us that peace is possible.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[accirax]

A genuine question for you all: as I've mentioned in a few posts now, @venus-is-thinking and I have been working on a very long analysis/review regarding Project: Eden's Garden's first chapter. To be completely transparent, there are a few parts of the chapter that we thought could be improved, which we occasionally remarked upon throughout the essay.

The reason why we did so is because we care a lot about the art of crafting a fangan, have invested much of our time discussing with each other what we believe makes a good fangan narrative, and wanted to share some of that speculation with you guys (and the team, should they ever find the post and choose to read it). We were attempting to show our passion for both P:EG and fangans as a whole by investing the time to thoroughly analyze how P:EG both succeeded and struggled in telling its story, respecting the project in the same way we would a fully licensed game, through the lens of our opinions.

However, we have also recently seen (or at least, recently seen brought to attention) an uptick of so-called "fans" being cruel to unpaid, passionate fancreators (of fangans or otherwise). Many good points have been raised about how, as a fangan is essentially a fanfic, it's not fair to walk up to them and criticize them in the same way you would a published novel or triple-A game. A creator sharing the fruits of their passion might not necessarily want to receive industry-style criticism on their free-time hobby.

The last thing either of us wants to do is incite drama or a barrage of cruel commentary towards members of the community that we love. So, again-- as genuinely as I can communicate through this text box--

I would include the option of posting only the positive parts of the analysis, but if we can only post half of our opinion we would rather not post it at all. I hope you can understand that stance. And thank you for reading! <3

[asestimationsconsultants]

Key Cost Factors in Industrial Estimating Service

An Industrial Estimating Service plays a critical role in budgeting and financial planning for large-scale industrial projects. From raw material procurement to labor costs and risk contingencies, various factors contribute to the overall cost estimation. Understanding these key cost factors helps businesses create more accurate budgets, minimize financial risks, and ensure project feasibility.

1. Material Costs

Materials make up a significant portion of industrial project expenses. The cost of raw materials such as steel, concrete, glass, piping, and specialized equipment fluctuates due to factors like supply chain disruptions, inflation, and demand trends. An industrial estimating service evaluates:

Current Market Prices – Keeping track of price variations to ensure accurate budgeting.

Bulk Purchasing Discounts – Identifying cost-saving opportunities through bulk orders.

Alternative Material Options – Recommending cost-effective alternatives without compromising quality.

2. Labor Costs

The workforce required for industrial projects varies based on project complexity and duration. Labor costs include:

Hourly Wages and Salaries – Skilled labor, project managers, and specialized workers contribute to overall costs.

Overtime and Shift Work – If a project requires 24/7 operation or overtime work, costs increase significantly.

Union Regulations – In some regions, labor unions set minimum wages and benefits that must be factored into estimates.

3. Equipment and Machinery Costs

Industrial projects require heavy machinery, such as cranes, excavators, and conveyor systems. Cost factors include:

Equipment Purchase vs. Rental – Estimators determine whether it’s more cost-effective to buy or lease machinery.

Maintenance and Repairs – Regular maintenance costs must be considered to avoid unexpected breakdowns.

Fuel and Energy Consumption – Industrial machinery often requires high energy input, increasing operational costs.

4. Site Preparation and Land Development

The condition of the construction site influences the overall project cost. Some common cost factors in site preparation include:

Excavation and Land Clearing – Removing existing structures, debris, or vegetation to prepare the site.

Soil Testing and Foundation Work – Ensuring the ground is stable and suitable for construction.

Drainage and Environmental Compliance – Meeting environmental regulations and setting up proper drainage systems.

5. Permit and Regulatory Costs

Industrial projects must comply with various government regulations, permits, and safety standards. These costs include:

Building Permits – Fees for obtaining construction approvals from local authorities.

Environmental Compliance – Costs for assessments related to pollution control, waste management, and sustainability.

Safety and Occupational Health – Ensuring compliance with worker safety regulations and hazard control measures.

6. Project Management and Administrative Costs

A well-managed industrial project requires experienced project managers, engineers, and administrative staff. These costs include:

Project Coordination – Salaries of engineers, supervisors, and management personnel.

Legal and Accounting Services – Expenses for handling contracts, financial planning, and audits.

Software and Technology – Investing in project management and estimating software for accurate budgeting.

7. Contingency and Risk Management

Unforeseen expenses can disrupt industrial projects, so a contingency budget is essential. Cost estimators include:

Risk Allowance – A percentage of the total budget allocated for unexpected changes.

Market Fluctuations – Protection against sudden price increases in materials or labor.

Delays and Penalties – Financial preparation for project delays and potential contractual penalties.

8. Logistics and Transportation

Transporting materials, machinery, and labor to the project site contributes to overall costs. Estimators analyze:

Freight and Shipping Fees – Costs of importing or transporting heavy materials.

Storage and Warehousing – Expenses related to storing materials before use.

On-Site Transportation – Fuel and maintenance costs for vehicles used within the project site.

Conclusion

A reliable Industrial Estimating Service considers all these key cost factors to develop a precise project budget. By evaluating materials, labor, equipment, permits, and unforeseen risks, industrial estimators help companies optimize spending and avoid financial setbacks. With technological advancements improving cost estimation accuracy, businesses can achieve better financial control and efficiency in industrial projects.

[eaglesnick]

“Rethinking capitalism means rethinking the role of the public sector, the role of the private sector, the role of finance, and the relationship between them all” -  Mariana Mazzucato

Yesterday I was arguing for the creation a REAL sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to replace the “Micky Mouse” national wealth fund (NWF) created by Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer.

90 countries from across the world have a SWF whereby governments set up a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets or in such enterprises as private equity funds or hedge funds. Any profits or income generated from these investments go toward the country’s economy and its citizens.

Britain does not have a SWF. Instead we give money to private enterprise, often in the form of tax breaks, in the hope they will provide jobs or tax revenue for the British economy.  This tax revenue may or may not be greater than payments made to business and industry by the British taxpayer. This is absolute madness!

Lets take the Rosebank gas and oil field as an example of this crazy situation.

In 2024 the Norwegian state-owned Equinor company made global pre-tax profits of £24billion. The year prior to this, Equinor was given a £400million tax break by the British government.

“The Norwegian state-owned oil giant behind controversial Rosebank plans has secured £400 million from a little-known tax break from the Treasury, new analysis has revealed.” (The Scotsman: 24/1024)

According to Equinor’s own  2024 Tax Contribution Report they only paid the British government $4million in taxes on their “extractive activities”.

$4million equals just over £3million, so we, the British taxpayer, gave Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned company, £400 million in tax exemptions while they paid us a mere £3 million. I think even a 6 year old could tell that was not a good deal!

Despite this Kemi Badenoch has no intension of creating a UK SWF, preferring instead to let foreign state-owned companies invest in Britain while at the same time advocating such funds are not taxed.

“UK drops plan to tax sovereign wealth funds The FT said business and trade minister Kemi Badenoch had urged the Treasury to drop the proposals out of concern that sovereign funds might pull out of projects in Britain.”  (zawya.com: 17/03/23)

The Labour government in the meantime has created a national wealth fund that is neither fowl nor beast. It is there to encourage private investment. When you visit the National Wealth Fund web site the first heading you see is “Private sector finance” and when you click on that link you find a set of operating principles, the forth of which is:

“Investment Principle 4: The investment is expected to crowd in significant private capital over time.” 

No hint of the British taxpayer owning shares, property assets, mineral rights or anything else that generates a profit for the taxpayer. Reeve’s NWF is just a disguise for maintaining the Tory policy of subsidising business and industry at the expense of the British taxpayer.

While other countries from around the world invest their taxpayer’s money in profitable business enterprises, we continue to give our tax revenues away, regarding them as a necessary cost for "growth". This strategy clearly hasn’t worked. Our governments need to rethink.

The payment of taxpayers money to private businesses and industries should be viewed not as a cost but as an investment, an investment that expects a return for its money. 

Margaret Thatcher is often quoted as saying: "We are all capitalist's now" . Let's make that true.

[soon-palestine]

Oxfam experts, together with cocoa farmers, will be at the World Cocoa Conference in Brussels (21-24 April), taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented production shortfalls and skyrocketing cocoa prices, which topped $11,000 per metric ton for the first time.

Chocolate giants have already raised prices for consumers to offset rising cocoa costs and, despite years of soaring profits and massive payouts to shareholders, have consistently pushed back on anything that could reduce their profit margins. New Oxfam analysis has found: - Lindt, Mondelēz, and Nestlé together raked in nearly $4 billion in profits from chocolate sales in 2023. Hershey’s confectionary profits totaled $2 billion last year. - The four corporations paid out on average 97 percent of their total net profits to shareholders in 2023. - The collective fortunes of the Ferrero and Mars families, who own the two biggest private chocolate corporations, surged to $160.9 billion during the same period. This is more than the combined GDPs of Ghana and Ivory Coast, which supply most cocoa beans.

Decades of low prices have made farmers poorer and hampered their ability to hire workers or invest in their farms, limiting bean yield. Old cocoa trees are particularly vulnerable to disease and extreme weather. Many farmers are abandoning cocoa for other crops, or selling their land to illegal miners.

Speaking ahead of the conference, Oxfam’s Policy Advisor Bart Van Besien said: “It’s ironic —the cocoa price explosion could have been averted if corporations had paid farmers a fair price and helped them make their farms more resilient to extreme weather. And it’s hypocritical —chocolate giants are paying high prices now that the market demands it, but have pushed back every single time that cocoa farmers have. The only way forward is fairly rewarding farmers for their hard work.”

And Ismael Pomasi, Chairman of Ghana’s Cocoa Abrabopa Association, said: "Nothing is more demotivating —all my hard work on the farm barely pays off. Between battling pests and the drought that is killing my cocoa trees, I'm really struggling. I wish I could afford irrigation. If the multibillion-dollar chocolate industry paid fair prices for cocoa, I could actually tackle these problems and make a decent living."

Oxfam spokespersons and farmers available for interviews in Brussels:Nana Kwasi Barning Ackay, project officer at SEND Ghana and Coordinator of the Ghana Civil Society Cocoa Platform (GCCP) (English) Ismael Pomasi, Chairman of Ghana’s Cocoa Abrabopa Association (English) Anouk Franck, Policy Advisor on Business and Human Rights, Oxfam Novib (Dutch, English) Bart Van Besien, Policy Advisor, Oxfam Belgium (Dutch, English, French)

Key dates: Oxfam spokespersons and farmers will come together to hand out chocolate produced by Ghana’s Women in Cocoa Cooperative (Cocoa Mmaa), and will be available for interviews and photos. 7:30-9:00am CET on 22 April at Place d’Albertine, in front of the World Cocoa Conference.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this EcoWatch story:

A new report by the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University explains the high cost that would come to the U.S. if the incoming Trump administration repeals existing climate policies.

According to the report, Donald Trump’s plans to undo climate policies would cost the U.S. billions of dollars. Rolling back policies such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would create lost opportunities for U.S. manufacturing and trade, leading to job losses, tax revenue declines and losses in exports, the report authors said.

“Our scenario analysis shows that U.S. repeal of the IRA would, in the most likely scenario, harm U.S. manufacturing and trade and create up to $80 billion in investment opportunities for other countries, including major U.S. competitors like China,” the authors wrote. “U.S. harm would come in the form of lost factories, lost jobs, lost tax revenue, and up to $50 billion in lost exports.”

As The Guardian reported, these repealed policies would lead to a loss of opportunities in clean energy for the U.S., while China and other nations will gain money and power when it comes to developing solar and wind energy infrastructure, electric vehicles, battery storage and more.

In 2023, China already installed more solar panels in one year than the U.S. has in total. As of July 2024, Global Energy Monitor found that China had projects with about 180 gigawatts of utility-scale solar power and 159 gigawatts of wind power in progress, which is about double the capacity of utility-scale renewables under construction compared to the rest of the world.

Even if the U.S. invests more in fossil fuels and strips back investments and progress in clean energy projects under the new administration, the rest of the world is continuing the transition to clean energy, which has already led to economic gains globally. As the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported, clean energy made up 10% of economic growth in 2023, and clean energy accounted for about 80% of new electricity capacity additions last year. There has also been a growth in electrified transportation, with one in five cars sold globally being EVs.

The U.S. will continue to add more renewable energy as it becomes more affordable, but rolling back subsidies and policies on clean energy will mean the country needs to import these products rather than producing them, the report authors warned.

“The U.S. will still install a bunch of solar panels and wind turbines, but getting rid of those policies would harm the U.S.’s bid for leadership in this new world,” Bentley Allan, co-author of the report and an environmental and political policy expert at Johns Hopkins University, told The Guardian. “The energy transition is inevitable and the future prosperity of countries hinges on being part of the clean energy supply chain. If we exit the competition, it will be very difficult to re-enter.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

The U.S. political right wing does not have an answer to climate change. Neither does the technocratic and centrist net-zero discourse, which has failed to achieve adequate reductions, as will become increasingly apparent within just a few years. With no one else driving the agenda, the left needs to offer an alternative, sector-by-sector roadmap for decarbonization. We need to fill the voids in leadership, analysis, planning, organizing, and coalition-building. Rather than focusing on particular technologies, we need to be setting objectives for the areas in which these technologies could be used. If we put forward both best-use cases for CCS and alternatives to CCS, we are more likely to avoid bad CCS projects—and we can play a leading role rather than a defensive one. 

[...]

It’s true that we need a robust climate movement to block truly harmful projects that would lock in new fossil fuel infrastructure or violate Indigenous sovereignty, and it is critical to support communities in this work. But it would be a mistake to narrowly focus climate organizing on reenacting successful infrastructure-blocking tactics in ways that fail to discern useful industrial carbon projects from bad ones.  Such an approach puts the climate movement into a reactive role just when climate advocates need to be the ones who plan the energy transition. Taking a wider-strategy approach to CCS will take patience. It will require building broader coalitions and organizing in rural areas where a lot of decarbonization needs to happen. It will be challenging—but the cost of being absorbed by the CCS distraction is not one that the movement can afford.

[cognitivejustice]

Report hails benefits of the EU's multi-billion-euro environmental action

A cost-benefit analysis by the European Commission says nearly €3.5 billion of EU money pumped into real-world environmental schemes through the LIFE programme gave a tenfold return on investment – justification, green groups say, for massively ramping up spending.

The EU’s flagship environmental protection scheme has improved the conservation status of 435 species while cutting greenhouse gas and nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution, producing a tenfold return on the €3.46 billion invested in the seven years to 2020, the European Commission has claimed in a review of the last budget period.

The LIFE programme is the only European instrument which directly funds environmental action on the ground, with the 1,167 projects supported during the 2014-2020 period, ranging from ‘traditional’ projects like boosting vulture populations in the mountains between Greece and Bulgaria to supporting policy makers in redesigning the EU emissions trading system, which sets a cap for industrial carbon emissions.

Energy saved amounted to the average energy consumption of nearly a million European households, while carbon dioxide was cut by 11.8 million tonnes a year, equivalent to the net annual emissions of Cyprus, according to the report published on Thursday (1 August).

The yearly production of NOx, another greenhouse gas which is also linked to respiratory illness, was cut by around 152,000 tonnes – more than Portugal emitted in 2019, the EU executive noted.

A relatively small proportion of the funding was used to co-finance the purchase of 3,127 square kilometres of land at a cost of €83m, helping to expand the Natura 2000 network of protected areas, which covered some 18.6% of the EU’s land mass by 2021, according to the European Environmental Agency (EEA).

“LIFE contributed to the overall objective of moving towards an environmentally friendly economy that uses resources wisely, lowers carbon emissions, and can withstand climate changes, as well as protecting and improving the environment,” the report concludes.