#Open Banking Market Research

[vijukumar]

Banking Market: Trends, Players, and Opportunities

The banking industry has been undergoing a significant transformation, driven by technological advancements, changing consumer preferences, and regulatory shifts. As a market research company, we have closely analyzed the trends, key players, and challenges shaping the banking market.

Market Size, Share, and Growth

The global banking market was valued at USD 5.9 trillion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 7.8 trillion by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.8% during the forecast period. In the Asia-Pacific region, the banking market is projected to witness the highest growth, with a CAGR of 7.2% from 2022 to 2027. This growth is attributed to the rising middle-class population, increasing financial inclusion, and the adoption of digital banking services in countries like China, India, and Japan. The open banking market, a key segment within the banking industry, is also experiencing significant growth. The global open banking market was valued at USD 12.68 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 43.15 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 27.8% during the forecast period. 

Market Trends

Digital Transformation: The banking industry is undergoing a digital transformation, with the increasing adoption of technologies such as mobile banking, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Banks are investing in digital platforms and tools to enhance customer experience, improve operational efficiency, and mitigate risks.

Open Banking: The rise of open banking, driven by regulatory initiatives like the EU's PSD2 and the UK's Open Banking, is transforming the banking landscape. Open banking allows third-party providers to access customer data and offer innovative financial services, fostering collaboration and competition in the industry.

Personalization and Customization: Banks are focusing on providing personalized and customized services to their customers, leveraging data analytics and machine learning to understand individual preferences and offer tailored products and services.

Sustainability and ESG: The banking industry is increasingly incorporating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles into their operations and product offerings, responding to the growing demand for sustainable and socially responsible financial services.

Fintech Collaboration: Banks are partnering with fintech companies to leverage their innovative technologies and solutions, enabling them to stay competitive and meet the evolving needs of their customers.

Market Players

The banking market is dominated by several key players, including:

JPMorgan Chase & Co.: The largest bank in the United States, with a market share of approximately 10% in the global banking market. 

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC): The largest bank in the world by total assets, with a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Bank of America Corporation: One of the largest banking and financial services companies in the world, with a significant market share in the North American region.

China Construction Bank Corporation: The second-largest bank in China and a major player in the Asia-Pacific banking market.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG): A Japanese multinational banking and financial services company, with a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Market Challenges

Regulatory Compliance: Banks face increasing regulatory requirements, such as anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulations, which can be complex and time-consuming to implement.

Cybersecurity Threats: The banking industry is a prime target for cyber-attacks, and banks must invest heavily in cybersecurity measures to protect their customers' data and assets.

Legacy Systems and Infrastructure: Many banks operate on outdated legacy systems and infrastructure, which can hinder their ability to adapt to the rapidly changing digital landscape and meet the evolving needs of their customers.

Fintech Competition: The rise of fintech companies is disrupting the traditional banking industry, as they offer innovative and user-friendly financial services that can be more agile and responsive to customer needs.

Changing Customer Preferences: Customers are increasingly demanding more personalized, convenient, and digital-first banking experiences, which can be challenging for traditional banks to deliver.

Conclusion

The banking market is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by technological advancements, changing consumer preferences, and regulatory shifts. The industry is witnessing the rise of digital transformation, open banking, personalization, and sustainability, as well as the growing influence of fintech companies.

To remain competitive in this dynamic market, banks must adapt to these trends and address the challenges they face, such as regulatory compliance, cybersecurity threats, and legacy systems. By leveraging technology, fostering innovation, and prioritizing customer experience, banks can position themselves for success in the evolving banking landscape. As the market continues to evolve, we can expect to see further consolidation, collaboration, and innovation within the banking industry, as players strive to meet the changing needs of their customers and stay ahead of the curve.

[yandere-daydreams]

tw - sex doll au, implied dub/con, unhealthy relationships, possessive behavior, and generally depraved behavior.

You're starting to wonder if you should've gotten a different pair.

You knew what you were getting into when you decided that, of all the androids in Teyvat's stock, you were going to be one of the few brave souls that dared to put two members of the Akademiya Collection that weren't Tighnari and Cyno under the same roof. The salesperson had cringed as you made your selection, your more tech-savvy friends pursed their lips and asked if that was really for the best, and you couldn't mention your specific preferences on any public message board without being berated off the platform entirely. You didn't care, thought. The heart wants what it wants, and apparently, your heart wanted two burnt-out post-grads to rail you into next week.

That's what you told yourself until you got Alhaitham and Kaveh home, at least.

The bickering, you were prepared for. You weren't surprised by the constant passive-aggression, the subtle pokes at Alhaitham's arrogance and Kaveh's bleeding heart, and you managed to stomach it the first time your dreams of a multi-major threesome were dashed because Kaveh mentioned some ancient philosophical principle and Alhaitham couldn't resist the opportunity to correct his wording and you were left bouncing yourself on Alhaitham's cock while he dispassionately flipped through a textbook you haven't opened since you were an under-grad. Minor hiccups, nothing you couldn't forget about when Kaveh buried his face between your thighs or Alhaitham split you open on his fingers while reading your latest research paper aloud, denying you an orgasm for every grammatical error. That part, you wouldn't trade for the world.

The jealousy, though - you could live without that. You've heard that there's supposed to be fail-safes for this kind of thing, measures the developers take to make sure any companion droids can co-exist without tearing each other apart, but their mutual distaste seems strong enough to overwhelm whatever barriers their creators put in place. You've lost count of the number of times there's been a false-alarm in some other part of your apartment while you're on your knees at Alhaitham's feet, how many times Alhaitham's flawless hardware has suddenly 'malfunctioned' while Kaveh has your ankles propped on his shoulders.

Not getting laid, you can deal with, but it's a little hard to be so forgiving when Kaveh spends the better half a day pouting because you took Alhaitham to work and left him at home, when Alhaitham deletes your registered commands from his memory bank because you had the nerve to take Kaveh to a farmer's market that that he'd rather die than step foot in. You've tried to be fair, to divide your time evenly, but they're not happy with that, either. Neither of them would ever say it out loud, but it's clear enough that they both want to be the center of your attention. It'd be cute, if they weren't so spiteful.

The only thing worse than their jealousy is when they put aside their spitefulness, their petty arguments, and decide to agree on the only thing they can ever agree on: that their beloved 'master' should be the one to make up for all those hours of neglect. It's a little like your fantasies, but not quite; your chest pressed against Alhaitham's Kaveh's chin resting on your shoulder, the former inside of you while the latter whispers sweet-nothings against the curve of your throat. It's more violent than anything you ever would've expected from two men so scholarly, more aggressive - teeth buried in your skin, bruises in the shape of their palm painted across your thighs, fingers forcing their way past your lips whenever you so much as consider using your safe-word. You're left strung-out for hours after they're done with you, and Kaveh's free to press himself against your side while Alhaitham tries to pass himself off as the caretaker he so clearly isn't. It's the only time they don't waste their breath on bickering. It's the only time they ever get along.

It's the only time you don't have the strength to focus on anything but your two precious, precious androids.

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Retirement and How to Retire

How to start saving for retirement

Dafuq Is a Retirement Plan and Why Do You Need One?

Procrastinating on Opening a Retirement Account? Here’s 3 Ways That’ll Fuck You Over.

Season 4, Episode 5: “401(k)s Aren’t Offered in My Industry. How Do I Save for Retirement if My Employer Won’t Help?”

How To Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Workplace Benefits and Other Cool Side Effects of Employment 

Your School or Workplace Benefits Might Include Cool Free Stuff

Do NOT Make This Disastrous Beginner Mistake With Your Retirement Funds

The Financial Order of Operations: 10 Great Money Choices for Every Stage of Life

Advanced retirement moves

How to Painlessly Run the Gauntlet of a 401k Rollover

The Resignation Checklist: 25 Sneaky Ways To Bleed Your Employer Dry Before Quitting

Ask the Bitches: “Can I Quit With Unvested Funds? Or Am I Walking Away From Too Much Money?”

You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

Season 4, Episode 8: “I’m Queer, and Want To Find an Affordable Place To Retire. How Do I Balance Safety With Cost of Living?” 

How Dafuq Do Couples Share Their Money? 

Ask the Bitches: “Do Women Need Different Financial Advice Than Men?”

From HYSAs to CDs, Here’s How to Level Up Your Financial Savings

Season 3, Episode 7: “I’m Finished With the Basic Shit. What Are the Advanced Financial Steps That Only Rich People Know?” 

Speaking of advanced money moves, make sure you’re not funneling money to The Man through unnecessary account fees. Roll over your old retirement accounts FO’ FREE with our partner Capitalize:

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Investing for the long term

When Money in the Bank Is a Bad Thing: Understanding Inflation and Depreciation

Investing Deathmatch: Investing in the Stock Market vs. Just… Not 

Investing Deathmatch: Traditional IRA vs. Roth IRA

Investing Deathmatch: Stocks vs. Bonds 

Wait… Did I Just Lose All My Money Investing in the Stock Market? 

Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE)

The FIRE Movement, Explained 

Your Girl Is Officially Retiring at 35 Years Old

The Real Story of How I Paid off My Mortgage Early in 4 Years 

My First 6 Months of Early Retirement Sucked Shit: What They Don’t Tell You about FIRE

Bitchtastic Book Review: Tanja Hester on Early Retirement, Privilege, and Her Book, Work Optional

Earning Her First $100K: An Interview with Tori Dunlap 

We’ll periodically update this list with new links as we continue writing about retirement. And by “periodically,” we mean “when we remember to do it.” Maybe remind us, ok? It takes a village.

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Holy Justin Baldoni that’s a lot of lengthy, well-researched, thoughtful articles on the subject of retirement. It sure took a lot of time and effort to finely craft all them words over the last five years!

In case I’m not laying it on thick enough: running Bitches Get Riches is a labor of love, but it’s still labor. If our work helped you with your retirement goals, consider contributing to our Patreon to say thanks! You’ll get access to Patreon exclusives, giveaways, and monthly content polls! Join our Patreon or comment below to let us know if you would be interested in a BGR Discord server where you can chat with other Patrons and perhaps even the Bitches themselves! Our other Patrons are neat and we think you should hang out together.

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[aesthet]

Love Brew 𓏊 ๋࣭°

Childe x fem!reader, aphrodisiac, top!childe, pet names; sweet cheeks, hun and girlie, light swearing

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦

When you heard the news that a researcher founded a new invention that causes excitement in the lower region of your body, of course you're intrigued. And so, you read the papers that has big bold letters that say

"𝑹𝑬𝑺𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑪𝑯𝑬𝑹 𝑭𝑶𝑼𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑫 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑹𝑬𝑨��� 𝑳𝑰𝑭𝑬 𝑳𝑶𝑽𝑬 𝑷𝑶𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵"

This title alone is crazy in itself, so coming from the trusted source being the Steambird you read it. The newspaper explains that an Amurta researcher accidentally came across a kind of flower that is able to make people aroused and this flower acts as the activator of the 'Love Brew' that gives excitement to the people who drinks it. Though it's still in the works, it's not the final and not the strongest product, the researcher admits that they want to test the waters and decided to sell a limited batch and distribute it.

After reading this, you can't help but get reminded of a certain orange haired man that you dearly loved. So while he was away to deal with some clients at the Northland Bank, you managed to get your hands on the bottle of the brew while the both of you are in Liyue.

Time passes by and the both of you returned to Wangshu Inn, and as soon as you stepped through the door of you and Ajax's room, you tell Ajax about your recent purchase. "Hey, Ajax" he closes the door as he begins to take off his outer layer of clothing. "Yeah? What's wrong, hun?" You pulled out the box from your bag and put it on the table, he tilted his head seeing the box. Seeing his reaction you can't help but smirk and open the box, beneath all the pink and white confetti sat a beautiful glass bottle with gold vine markings and a heart shaped lid, inside is filled with a glittery pink liquid that glistens under the light of your room in Wangshu Inn.

You put the bottle on the table beside the window and present it to him with a small 'ta-da~'. He chuckles at you and goes over to you, picking up the bottle and wrapping his arm around your waist "What's this? did you bought it in the market today?" you smiled seeing him examining the bottle in his hand "Yeah, it's a Love brew! a researcher from Sumeru found it, they said on the.." you continue to explain to him about what you read on the newspaper.

As he listens, he opens the bottle and takes a sniff. His nose is hit with a very sweet and floral smell, a mixture of berries, fruits and-

'Is that mint?' he thought to himself before snapping back to the real world after hearing you call out his name for the third time. "Did you listen to the last part?" you put your hands on your hips when he laughs awkwardly and scratching the back of his neck.

You sighed and repeat your words "Okay, so this potion isn't the final formula" he holds the bottle in front of his face, examining the glittery liquid "It isn't?" you nod "Why's that?" you take the bottle from his hand "It's still testing- a prototype, I suppose. It has a limited stock too" he nods, by then he smirked when an idea popped into his mind. "However" you cut off his thoughts by putting a finger in front of his face "the potion still works, but it isn't guaranteed. This bottle is enough for two people, so to put it simply, this potion has a 50/50 percent chance. Either you don't feel bothered at all or you feel an unbearable amount of heat and-" "excitement?" he smirks as he towers over you with hooded eyes.

"Uhm- yes, so are you up for it? We can leave a review once we're-" before you can finish his sentence, he pulls out two tea cups that was already in the room. He sits down across you and puts his arm on the table "Bring it on" your eyes widen but you can't help but chuckle, you then stand up to close the window beside the both of you for some privacy.

"Do you want to drink this whole? or add some tea or maybe water?" he looks at the bags of complimentary teas behind him and looks back at you "What's the fun in that?" he teased. You laugh at his competitiveness and poured for the both of you. After taking a breath you finally drink it, when the liquid enters your mouth and hits your tongue, you're hit with a sweet taste that also has a slight mint to it. It's almost addicting..

"Damn, that was good" he hums after chugging it all "Yeah, i wish it's just a regular drink and not a literal horny drug" you lick the left over potion on your lips. You then read the small instructions paper "It says wait for about two minutes" he hummed "Wanna place a bet?" he smirks, and this piqued your interest, placing down the instruction paper, you fold your arms over your chest "Go on" he then smiles widely "If the potion takes effect on you.." he trails off, pretending to think "You're not done until I'm satisfied" hearing this, you nod.

"If the potion chose you" you put fingers on your chin "I'll tie you up with my red rope" he barks out a laugh. "What? there's no way you actually bring-" you cut him off by pulling the red rope from your bag His face drops and his cheeks redden "My my, you got me. I didn't know you're so freaky" he teased. "Says you, you were the one who brought home the new Fontaine 'massager'. I admit, I really did believe for a second that it was a massager, until i saw the sucking part" now it's his turn to fold his arms. His muscles flexing, 'aren't those sleeves too small? when did he rolled them up? Did he start working on those arms more?' your train of thought was stopped after hearing his chuckle.

shit, he caught you staring..

You cleared your throat and looked away "Aw, did the potion affected you already? that quick?" he cooed, slightly leaning to the table and thus making his pecs stick out. When he leaned in, you almost gasped but managed to hold back, he smirked even more when he noticed you staring at his chest. The buttons do look like they're holding onto dear life "Eyes up here, sweet cheeks" he said.

You feel your cheeks warm up, you tried to laugh it off and joke about how big his tits are "Did you switch out your normal shirt? it looks tighter than usual" he tilts his head "Hm? but this is my regular shirt, i always buy them in the same size" oh-shit.. he's got you cornered "Oh.. really?" you laugh awkwardly as you feel your body starting to warm up.

Ajax noticed you moving in your seat and he smirks "𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮" he said in a deeper tone 'was his voice always this sexy?' you thought. "You alright there, girlie?" you look up at him that's now standing in front of you "Oh..yeah-of course!, why wouldn't I?" you laugh nervously, as you scratch the back of your neck as he looks down on you with hooded eyes an that familiar gaze.

"What?already? seems like i won this time-" his words are cut off when you begin fanning yourself and bouncing your feet in your seat. "What's happening?" you managed to squeak out "Hm? don't you remember?" his lips curled into a wide smirk. "You bought the potion..and we drank it with no added dr-" "I know! it's just so-" beads of sweat trickle down your neck as you try to play it cool "Is it hot in here? are you hot? I mean you are hot, i mean-" he broke into a fit of laughter after hearing you stuttering.

"Thank you, sweet cheeks" his gaze, playful. "Say. why don't I help you cool off, after all you lost didn't you?" and all you did was just let out a groan of his name "Alright alright, let me help you, yeah?".

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦

As soon as he made that offer, you immediately kissed his delicious lips. A breathy chuckle comes out of his mouth as your tongue wrestles with his, you then push him onto the bed and climb on to him.

"So hot...too warm" you whimpered as you take off your clothes with him doing the same but doing it slowly, teasing you. "I didn't know the potion can make you incredibly sweaty too" he teases "Oh shut it" you click your tongue. Seeing this Ajax grinned widely and pull you by your waist, placing you on top of him. Your chests touch each other and your hole is dripping with pre cum as you grind on his boxers, wetting it too. You reached out to touch the big bulge hiding underneath the last piece of clothing that he's wearing as you let out small pants, begging for him to fill you up already. "I didn't know you can be so needy" he pulls down his boxers and his dick grazes your pussy slightly and you let out a small whine "I like it" he says and rubs his tip at your entrance. You grind back, trying to get his dick in, only to be slapped in the ass by his rough hands. You let out a pathetic moan from the sting, and without warning he immediately pushes himself in you, making you gasp loudly.

"So desperate" he begins moving his hips, as you grab on to his shoulders. "So whiny" he says between pants, holding your hips in place and occasionally moving them to meet his thrusts "So cute" he then goes faster and deeper than before, making your eyes widen as you let out a loud moan. You clawed his shoulder "A-ajax! s-slow down agh-" you were cut off by a harsh spank given to your right cheek "Nuh uh" he rasped out as you lean your head into the crook of his neck with drool leaking out of your mouth and onto the sheets.

He's abusing that soft spot inside you that has you seeing stars. Not to mention, he's quite thick and because of that it's easy for him to reach every spot in you with ease. After rubbing against that sweet spot multiple times Ajax feels your walls grow tighter around him, making him let out a deep groan. "You're squeezing me s-so tight, sweet cheeks" he grabs your ass to use them as handles "Let loose will ya?" he said, breathless and desperate. You shook your head 'no', "You're too de-ep! wah-" he pushed his foot against the bed, thus making a leverage for him to push himself quicker and sloppier into you.

You let out a cry when he did that, holding on to his shoulders and scratching them in the process. Your vision begin to blur as your orgasm approaches, you whined out his name and he pants your name "Let it out for me- give it to me, come on girlie i know you can do it" you tried your best to not be too loud but the way Ajax moved his hips, the task at hand is proven to be impossible.

With tear filled eyes and a loud moan, you finally came and not long after Ajax does too. After the both of you catch breaths, Ajax pats your head and kisses your forehead but as Ajax's breaths start to become normal, you start grinding your hips against his dick that's still inside you. Even though you're filled already, you need more. "It's still hot..so hot" she mumbled as if she's in a trance of some sorts. She then sat up, bouncing on him. This forces out a gasp out of the Harbringer, he then lets out an amused chuckle "Well I did say you're not done until i said so" he chokes on his groans "But from the looks of it-ah~" he said between whimpers "It seems like I'm the one who lost the bet" you continued to bounce on him, losing yourself on the Harbringer's cock until the heat subsides.

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦

I never wrote for Childe, this is my first ever time writing about him. I hope you (Childe stans/fans) enjoy it. I was feeling a little silly writing this, don't mind me hihi

Also, I want to ask. Would you guys be intrigued by the idea of a weeping angel but instead it's those horse statue enemies in genshin that eventually bangs you. Would you guys want that? Comment down below, if u want to see it

also, free palestine y'all🍉

[probablyasocialecologist]

This is it. Generative AI, as a commercial tech phenomenon, has reached its apex. The hype is evaporating. The tech is too unreliable, too often. The vibes are terrible. The air is escaping from the bubble. To me, the question is more about whether the air will rush out all at once, sending the tech sector careening downward like a balloon that someone blew up, failed to tie off properly, and let go—or more slowly, shrinking down to size in gradual sputters, while emitting embarrassing fart sounds, like a balloon being deliberately pinched around the opening by a smirking teenager. But come on. The jig is up. The technology that was at this time last year being somberly touted as so powerful that it posed an existential threat to humanity is now worrying investors because it is apparently incapable of generating passable marketing emails reliably enough. We’ve had at least a year of companies shelling out for business-grade generative AI, and the results—painted as shinily as possible from a banking and investment sector that would love nothing more than a new technology that can automate office work and creative labor—are one big “meh.” As a Bloomberg story put it last week, “Big Tech Fails to Convince Wall Street That AI Is Paying Off.” From the piece: Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc. had one job heading into this earnings season: show that the billions of dollars they’ve each sunk into the infrastructure propelling the artificial intelligence boom is translating into real sales. In the eyes of Wall Street, they disappointed. Shares in Google owner Alphabet have fallen 7.4% since it reported last week. Microsoft’s stock price has declined in the three days since the company’s own results. Shares of Amazon — the latest to drop its earnings on Thursday — plunged by the most since October 2022 on Friday. Silicon Valley hailed 2024 as the year that companies would begin to deploy generative AI, the type of technology that can create text, images and videos from simple prompts. This mass adoption is meant to finally bring about meaningful profits from the likes of Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot. The fact that those returns have yet to meaningfully materialize is stoking broader concerns about how worthwhile AI will really prove to be. Meanwhile, Nvidia, the AI chipmaker that soared to an absurd $3 trillion valuation, is losing that value with every passing day—26% over the last month or so, and some analysts believe that’s just the beginning. These declines are the result of less-than-stellar early results from corporations who’ve embraced enterprise-tier generative AI, the distinct lack of killer commercial products 18 months into the AI boom, and scathing financial analyses from Goldman Sachs, Sequoia Capital, and Elliot Management, each of whom concluded that there was “too much spend, too little benefit” from generative AI, in the words of Goldman, and that it was “overhyped” and a “bubble” per Elliot. As CNN put it in its report on growing fears of an AI bubble, Some investors had even anticipated that this would be the quarter that tech giants would start to signal that they were backing off their AI infrastructure investments since “AI is not delivering the returns that they were expecting,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told CNN. The opposite happened — Google, Microsoft and Meta all signaled that they plan to spend even more as they lay the groundwork for what they hope is an AI future. This can, perhaps, explain some of the investor revolt. The tech giants have responded to mounting concerns by doubling, even tripling down, and planning on spending tens of billions of dollars on researching, developing, and deploying generative AI for the foreseeable future. All this as high profile clients are canceling their contracts. As surveys show that overwhelming majorities of workers say generative AI makes them less productive. As MIT economist and automation scholar Daron Acemoglu warns, “Don’t believe the AI hype.”

6 August 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An excerpt from The Bezzle

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me next in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

Today, I'm bringing you part one of an excerpt from Chapter 14 of The Bezzle, my next novel, which drops on Feb 20. It's an ice-cold revenge technothriller starring Martin Hench, a two-fisted forensic accountant specialized in high-tech fraud:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Hench is the Zelig of high-tech fraud, a character who's spent 40 years in Silicon Valley unwinding every tortured scheme hatched by tech-bros who view the spreadsheet as a teleporter that whisks other peoples' money into their own bank-accounts. This setup is allowing me to write a whole string of these books, each of which unwinds a different scam from tech's past, present and future, starting with last year's Red Team Blues (now in paperback!), a novel that whose high-intensity thriller plotline is also a masterclass in why cryptocurrency is a scam:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865854/redteamblues

Turning financial scams into entertainment is important work. Finance's most devastating defense is the Shield Of Boringness (h/t Dana Clare) – tactically deployed complexity designed to induce the state that finance bros call "MEGO" ("my eyes glaze over"). By combining jargon and obfuscation, the most monstrous criminals of our age have been able to repeatedly bring our civilization to the brink of collapse (remember 2008?) and then spin their way out of it.

Turning these schemes into entertainment is hard, necessary work, because it incinerates the respectable suit and tie and leaves the naked dishonesty of the finance sector on display for all to see. In The Big Short, they recruited Margot Robbie to explain synthetic CDOs from a bubble-bath. And John Oliver does this every week on Last Week Tonight, coming up with endlessly imaginative stunts and gags to flense the bullshit, laying the scam economy open to the bone.

This was my inspiration for the Hench novels (I've written and sold three of these, of which The Bezzle is number two; I've got at least two more planned). Could I use the same narrative tactics I used to explain mass surveillance, cryptography and infosec in the Little Brother books to turn scams into entertainment, and entertainment into the necessary, informed outrage that might precipitate change?

The main storyline in The Bezzle concerns one of the most gruesome scams in today's America: prison-tech, which sees America's vast army of prisoners being stripped of letters, calls, in-person visits, parcels, libraries and continuing ed in favor of cheap tablets that bilk prisoners and their families of eye-watering sums for every click they make:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

But each Hench novel has a variety of side-quests that work to expose different kinds of financial chicanery. The Bezzle also contains explainers on the workings of MLMs/Ponzis (and how Gerry Ford and Betsy DeVos's father-in-law legalized one of the most destructive forces in America) and the way that oligarchs, foreign and domestic, use Real Estate Investment Trusts to hide their money and destroy our cities.

And there's a subplot about music-royalty theft, a form of pernicious wage theft that is present up and down the music industry supply-chain. This is a subject that came up a lot when Rebecca Giblin and I were researching and writing Chokepoint Capitalism, our 2022 book about creative labor markets:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Two of the standout cases from that research formed the nucleus of the subplot in The Bezzle, the case of Leonard Cohen's batshit manager who stole millions from him and then went to prison for stalking him, leaving him virtually penniless and forced to keep touring to keep himself fed:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/19/leonard-cohen-former-manager-jailed

The other was George Clinton, whose manager forged his signature on a royalty assignment, then used the stolen money to defend himself against Clinton's attempts to wrestle his rights back and even to sue Clinton for defamation for writing about the caper in his memoir:

https://www.musicconnection.com/the-legal-beat-george-clinton-wins-defamation-case/

That's the tale that this excerpt – which I'll be serializing in six parts over the coming week – tells, in fictionalized form. It's not Margot Robbie in a bubble-bath, it's not a John Oliver monologue, but I think it's pretty goddamned good.

I'm leaving for a long, multi-city, multi-country, multi-continent tour with The Bezzle next Wednesday, starting with an event at Weller Bookworks in Salt Lake City on the 21st:

https://www.wellerbookworks.com/event/store-cory-doctorow-feb-21-630-pm

I'll in be in San Diego on the 22nd at Mysterious Galaxy:

https://www.mystgalaxy.com/22224Doctorow

And then it's on to LA (with Adam Conover), Seattle (with Neal Stephenson), Portland, Phoenix and beyond:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

I hope you'll come out for the tour (and bring your friends)!

Between 1972 and 1978, Steve Soul (a.k.a. Stefon Magner) had a string of sixteen Billboard Hot 100 singles, one of which cracked the Top 10 and won him an appearance on Soul Train. He is largely forgotten today, except by hip-­hop producers who prize his tracks as a source of deep, funky grooves. They sampled the hell out of him, not least because his rights were controlled by Inglewood Jams, a clearinghouse for obscure funk tracks that charged less than half of what the Big Three labels extracted for each sample license.

Even at that lower rate, those license payments would have set Stefon up for a comfortable retirement, especially when added to his Social Security and the disability check from Dodgers Stadium, where he cleaned floors for more than a decade before he fell down a beer-­slicked bleacher and cracked two of his lumbar discs. But Stefon didn’t get a dime. His former manager, Chuy Flores, forged his signature on a copyright assignment in 1976. Stefon didn’t discover this fact until 1979, because Chuy kept cutting him royalty checks, even as Stefon’s band broke up and those royalties trickled off. In Stefon’s telling, the band broke up because the rest of the act—­especially the three-­piece rhythm section of two percussionists and a beautiful bass player with a natural afro and a wild, infectious hip-­wiggle while she played—­were too coked up to make it to rehearsal, making their performances into shambling wreckages and their studio sessions into vicious bickerfests. To hear the band tell of it, Stefon had bad LSD (“Lead Singer Disease”) and decided he didn’t need the rest of them. One thing they all agreed on: there was no way Stefon would have signed over the band’s earnings to Chuy, who was little more than a glorified bookkeeper, with Stefon hustling all their bookings and even ordering taxis to his bandmates’ houses to make sure they showed up at the studio or the club on time. Stefon remembered October of ’79 well. He’d been waiting with dread for the envelope from Chuy. The previous royalty check, in July, had been under $250. The previous quarter’s had been over $1,000. This quarter’s might have zero. Stefon needed the money. His 1972 Ford Galaxie needed a new transmission. He couldn’t keep driving it in first.

The envelope arrived late, the day before Halloween, and for a brief moment, Stefon was overcome by an incredible, unbelieving elation: Chuy’s laboriously typewritten royalty statement ended with the miraculous figure of $7,421.16. Seven thousand dollars! It was more than two years’ royalties, all in one go! He could fix the Galaxie’s transmission and get the ragtop patched, and still have money left over for his back rent, his bar tab, his child support, and a fine steak dinner, and even then, he’d end the month with money in his savings account.

But there was no check in the envelope. Stefon shook the envelope, carefully unfolded the royalty statement to ensure that there was no check stapled to its back, went downstairs to the apartment building lobby and rechecked his mailbox.

Finally, he called Chuy.

“Chuy, man, you forgot to put a check in the envelope.”

“I didn’t forget, Steve. Read the paperwork again. You gotta send me a check.”

“What the fuck? That’s not funny, Chuy.”

“I ain’t joking, Steve. I been advancing you royalties for more than three years, but you haven’t earned nothing new since then—­no new recordings. I can’t afford to carry you no more.”

“Say what?”

Chuy explained it to him like he was a toddler. “Remember when you signed over your royalties to me in ’76? Every dime I’ve sent you since then was an advance on your future recordings, only you haven’t had none of those, so I’m cutting you off and calling in your note. I’m sorry, Steve, but I ain’t a charity. You don’t work, you don’t earn. This is America, brother. No free lunches.”

“After I did what in ’76?”

“Steve, in 1976 you signed over all your royalties to me. We agreed, man! I can’t believe you don’t remember this! You came over to my spot and I told you how it was and you said you needed money to cover the extra horns for the studio session on Fight Fire with Water. I told you I’d cover them and you’d sign over all your royalties to me.”

Stefon was briefly speechless. Chuy had paid the sidemen on that session, but that was because Chuy owed him a thousand bucks for a string of private parties they’d played for some of Chuy’s cronies. Chuy had been stiffing him for months and Stefon had agreed to swap the session fees for the horn players in exchange for wiping out the debt, which had been getting in the way of their professional relationship.

“Chuy, you know it didn’t happen that way. What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about when you signed over all your royalties to me. And you know what? I don’t like your tone. I’ve carried your ass for years now, sent you all that money out of my own pocket, and now you gotta pay up. My generosity’s run out. When you gonna send me a check?”

Of course, it was a gambit. It put Stefon on tilt, got him to say a lot of ill-­advised things over the phone, which Chuy secretly recorded. It also prompted Stefon to take a swing at Chuy, which Chuy dived on, shamming that he’d had a soft-­tissue injury in his neck, bringing suit for damages and pressing an aggravated-­assault charge.

He dropped all that once Stefon agreed not to keep on with any claims about the forged signature; Stefon went on to become a good husband, a good father, and a hard worker. And if cleaning floors at Dodgers Stadium wasn’t what he’d dreamed of when he was headlining on Soul Train, at least he never missed a game, and his boy came most weekends and watched with him. Stefon’s supervisor didn’t care.

But the stolen royalties ate at him, especially when he started hearing his licks every time he turned on the radio. His voice, even. Chuy Flores had a fully paid-­off three-­bedroom in Eagle Rock and two cars and two ex-­wives and three kids he was paying child support on, and Stefon sometimes drove past Chuy Flores’s house to look at his fancy palm trees all wrapped up in strings of Christmas lights and think about who paid for them.

ETA: Here's part two!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from @thisarenotarealblog:

There's a street near me that has eight car dealerships all on the same lot- i counted. it mystifies me that even one gets enough sales to keep going- but 8?? is there something you can tell me that demystifies this aspect of capitalism for me?

I had a few theories going in, but had to do some research. Here is my primary hypothesis, and then I'll run through what they mean and whether research agrees with me:

Sales make up only part of a dealership's income, so whether or not the dealership sells much is secondary to other factors.

Dealerships are put near each other for similar reasons to grouping clothing stores in a mall or restaurants on a single street.

Zoning laws impact where a car dealership can exist.

Let's start with how revenue works for a car dealership, as you mentioned 'that even one gets enough sales to keep going' is confusing. For this, I'm going to be using the Sharpsheets finance example, this NYU spreadsheet, and this Motor1 article.

This example notes that the profit margin (i.e. the percentage of revenue that comes out after paying all salaries, rent, supply, etc) for a car dealership is comparatively low, which is confirmed by the NYC sheet. The gross profit margin (that is to say, profits on the car sale before salaries, rent, taxes) is under 15% in both sources, which is significantly lower than, say, the 50% or so that one sees in apparel or cable tv.

Cars are expensive to purchase, and can't be sold for much more than you did purchase them. However, a low gross profit margin on an item that costs tens of thousands of dollars is still a hefty chunk of cash. 15% gross profit of a $20,000 car is still $3,000 profit. On top of that, the dealership will charge fees, sell warranties, and offer upgrades. They may also have paid deals to advertise or push certain brands of tire, maintenance fluids, and of course, banks that offer auto loans. So if a dealership sells one car a day, well, that's still several thousand dollars coming in, which is enough to pay the salaries of most of the employees. According to the Motor1 article, "the average gross profit per new vehicle sits at $6,244" in early 2022.

There is also a much less volatile, if also much smaller, source of revenue in attaching a repairs and checkup service to a dealership. If the location offers repairs (either under warranty or at a 'discounted' rate compared to a local, non-dealership mechanic), state inspections, and software updates, that's a recurring source of revenue from customers that aren't interested in purchasing a car more than once a decade.

This also all varies based on whether it's a brand location, used vs new, luxury vs standards, and so on.

I was mistaken as to how large a part of the revenue is the repairs and services section, but the income for a single dealership, on average, does work out math-wise. Hypothesis disproven, but we've learned something, and confirmed that income across the field does seem to be holding steady.

I'm going to handle the zoning and consolidation together, since they overlap:

Consolidation is a pretty easy one: this is a tactic called clustering. The expectation is that if you're going to, say, a Honda dealership to look at a midsize sedan, and there's a Nissan right next door, and a Ford across the street, and a Honda right around the corner, you might as well hit up the others to see if they have better deals. This tactic works for some businesses but not others. In the case of auto dealerships, the marketing advantage of clustering mixes with the restrictions of zoning laws.

Zoning laws vary by state, county, and township. Auto dealerships can generally only be opened on commercially zoned property.

I am going to use an area I have been to as an example/case study.

This pdf is a set of zoning regulations for Suffolk County, New York, published 2018, reviewing land use in the county during 2016. I'm going to paste in the map of the Town of Huntington, page 62, a region I worked in sporadically a few years ago, and know mostly for its mall and cutesy town center.

Those red sections are Commercially Zoned areas, and they largely follow some large stroads, most notably Jericho Turnpike (the horizontal line halfway down) and Walt Whitman Road (the vertical line on the left). The bulge where they intersect is Walt Whitman Mall, and the big red chunk in the bottom left is... mostly parking. That central strip, Jericho Turnpike, and its intersection with Walt Whitman... looks like this:

All those red spots are auto dealerships, one after another.

So zoning laws indicate that a dealership (and many other types of commercial properties) can only exist in that little red strip on the land use map, and dealerships take up a lot of space. Not only do they need places to put all of the cars they are selling, but they also need places to park all their customers and employees.

This is where we get into the issue of parking minimums. There is a recent video from Climate Town, with a guest spot by NotJustBikes. If you want to know more about this aspect of zoning law, I'd recommend watching this video and the one linked in the description.

Suffolk county does not have parking minimums. Those are decided on a town or village level. In this case, this means we are looking at the code set for the town of Huntington. (I was originally looking on the county level, and then cut the knot by just asking my real estate agent mom if she knew where I could find minimum parking regulations. She said to look up e360 by town, and lo and behold! There they are.)

(There is also this arcgis map, which shows that they are all within the C6 subset of commercial districting, the General Business District.)

Furniture or appliance store, machinery or new auto sales - 1 per 500 square feet of gross floor area

Used auto sales, boat sales, commercial nurseries selling at retail - 5 spaces for each use (to be specifically designated for customer parking) - Plus 1 for each 5,000 square feet of lot area

This is a bit odd, at first glance, as the requirements are actually much lower than that of other businesses, like drive-in restaurants (1 per 35 sqft) or department stores (1 per 200 sqft). I could not find confirmation on whether the 'gross floor area' of the dealership included only indoor spaces or also the parking lot space allotted to the objects for sale, but I think we can assume that any parking spaces used by merchandise do not qualify as part of the minimum. Some dealerships can have up to 20,000 gross sqft, so those would require 40 parking spaces reserved solely for customers and employees. Smaller dealerships would naturally need less. One dealership in this area is currently offering 65 cars of varying makes and models; some may be held inside the building, but most will be on the lot, and the number may go higher in other seasons. If we assume they need 30 parking spaces for customers and employees, and can have up to 70 cars in the lot itself, they are likely to have 100 parking spaces total.

That's a lot of parking.

Other businesses that require that kind of parking requirement are generally seeing much higher visitation. Consider this wider section of the map:

The other buildings with comparative parking are a grocery store (Lidl) and a post office (can get some pretty high visitation in the holiday season, but also just at random).

Compare them, then, to the "old town" section of the same town.

There are a handful of public parking areas nearby (lined in blue), whereas the bulk of the businesses are put together along this set of streets. While there is a lot of foot traffic and vehicle passage, which is appealing for almost any business, opening a car dealership in this area would require not only buying a building, but also the buildings surrounding it. You would need to bulldoze them for the necessary parking, which would be prohibitively expensive due to the cost of local real estate... and would probably get shot down in the application process by city planners and town councils and so on. Much easier to just buy land over in the strip where everyone's got giant parking lots and you can just add a few extra cramped lanes for the merchandise.

Car dealerships also tend to be very brightly lit, which hits a lot of NIMBY sore spots. It's much easier to go to sleep if you aren't right next to a glaring floodlight at a car dealership, so it's best if we just shove them all away from expensive residential, which means towards the loud stroads, which means... all along these two major roads/highways.

And if they're all limited to a narrow type of zoning already, they might as well take advantage of cluster marketing and just all set up shop near each other in hopes of stealing one of the other's customers.

As consumers, it's also better for us, because if we want to try out a few different cars from a few different brands, it's pretty easy to just go one building down to try out the Hyundai and see if it's better than a Chevy in the same price group.

(Prompt me on ko-fi!)

[mariacallous]

Now that Donald Trump is returning to a second term as U.S. president, ascertaining the true state of Russia’s war economy is more important than ever. Trump’s advisors believe that Ukraine must settle for peace by whatever means necessary “to stop the killing.” Implicit in this argument is the view that Russia has the ability to sustain the war for many years to come. On close examination of the evidence, however, the narrative that Russia has the resources to prevail if it so chooses does not hold.

The apparent resilience of the Russian economy has confounded many strategists who expected Western sanctions to paralyze Moscow’s war effort against Ukraine. Russia continues to export vast quantities of oil, gas, and other commodities—the result of sanctions evasion and loopholes deliberately designed by Western policymakers to keep Russian resources on world markets. So far, clever macroeconomic management, particularly by Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, has enabled the Kremlin to keep the Russian financial system in relative health.

At first glance, the numbers look surprisingly strong. In 2023, GDP grew by 3.6 percent and is expected to rise by 3.9 percent in 2024. Unemployment has fallen from around 4.4 percent before the war to 2.4 percent in September. Moscow has expanded its armed forces and defense production, adding more than 500,000 workers to the defense industry, approximately 180,000 to the armed forces, and many thousands more to paramilitary and private military organizations. Russia has reportedly tripled its production of artillery shells to 3 million per year and is manufacturing glide bombs and drones at scale.

Despite these accomplishments, Russia’s war economy is heading toward an impasse. Signs that the official data masks severe economic strains brought on by both war and sanctions have become increasingly apparent. No matter how many workers it tries to shift to the defense industry, the Kremlin cannot expand production fast enough to replace weapons at the rate they are being lost on the battlefield. Already, about around half of all artillery shells used by Russia in Ukraine are from North Korean stocks. At some point in the second half of 2025, Russia will face severe shortages in several categories of weapons.

Perhaps foremost among Russia’s arms bottlenecks is its inability to replace large-caliber cannons. According to open-source researchers using video documentation, Russia has been losing more than 100 tanks and roughly 220 artillery pieces per month on average. Producing tank and artillery barrels requires rotary forges—massive pieces of engineering weighing 20 to 30 tons each—that can each produce only about 10 barrels a month. Russia only possesses two such forges.

In other words, Russia is losing around 320 tank and artillery cannon barrels a month and producing only 20. The Russian engineering industry lacks the skills to build rotary forges; in fact, the world market is dominated by a single Austrian company, GFM. Russia is unlikely to acquire more forges and increase its production rate, and neither North Korea nor Iran have significant stockpiles of suitable replacement barrels. Only a decision by China to provide barrels from its own stockpiles could stave off Russia’s barrel crisis.

To resupply its forces, Russia has been stripping tank and artillery barrels from the vast stockpiles it inherited from the Soviet Union. But these stockpiles have withered since the start of the war. Combining current rates of battlefield loss, recycling from stockpiles, and production, Russia looks set to run out of cannon barrels some time in 2025.

Russia is consuming other weapons, too, at rates far faster than its ability to produce them. Open-source researchers have counted the loss of at least 4,955 infantry fighting vehicles since the war’s onset, which comes out to an average of 155 per month. Russian defense contractors can produce an estimated 200 per year, or about 17 per month, to offset these losses. Likewise, even Russia’s expanded production of 3 million artillery shells per year pales in comparison to the various estimates for current consumption at the front. While those estimates are lower than the 12 million rounds Russian forces fired in 2022, they are much higher than what Russian industry can produce.

We do not know when Russia will hit the end of the road with each equipment type. But there is little the Kremlin can do little to stave off that day. With the Russian economy essentially at full employment, Russian defense companies now struggle to attract workers. To make matters worse, these companies are competing for the same personnel as the Russian armed forces, which need to recruit 30,000 fresh troops each month to replace casualties. To this end, the military is offering lavish signing bonuses and greatly increased pay. Defense producers, in turn, have had to increase wages fivefold, contributing to an inflation rate that reached 8.68 percent in October.

Paradoxically, the same factors that are converging to restrict Russia’s ability to wage war also mean that it cannot easily make peace.

Russia’s economic performance—marked by low unemployment and rising wages—is a product of military Keynesianism. In other words: Vast military expenditures, which are unsustainable in the long term, are artificially boosting employment and growth. Almost all the new jobs are related to the military and produce little of value to the civilian economy, where most sectors have great difficulty finding workers.

Defense spending has officially jumped to 7 percent of Russia’s GDP and is projected to consume more than 41 percent of the state budget next year. The true magnitude of military expenditures is significantly higher. Russia’s nearly 560,000 armed internal security troops, many of which have been deployed to occupied Ukraine, are funded outside the defense budget—as are the private military companies that have sprouted across Russia.

Paring back these massive defense expenditures, however, will inevitably produce an economic downturn. If the Kremlin draws down the armed forces to a sustainable level, large numbers of traumatized veterans and well-paid defense workers will find themselves redundant. The experience of other societies—in particular, European states after World War I—suggests that hordes of demobilized soldiers and jobless defense workers are a recipe for political instability.

The magnitude of the post-war Russian recession will be all the worse because Russia’s civilian economy—particularly small- and medium-sized firms—has shrunk due to the war. In a phenomenon familiar to economists, high defense expenditures have bid up salaries and attracted labor away from nondefense firms. The Russian Central Bank’s policy of raising interest rates, which currently stand at 21 percent, has made it much more difficult for nondefense companies to raise capital through loans. In post-war Russia, a shrunken civilian sector will not be able to absorb the soldiers and workers cast off by the military and defense sector.

Therefore, Russia’s leaders face an unenviable set of dilemmas entirely of their own making. Russia cannot continue waging the current war beyond late 2025, when it will begin running out of key weapons systems.

Concluding a peace agreement, however, poses a different set of problems, as the Kremlin needs to choose between three unpalatable options. If it draws down the armed forces and defense industries, it will spark a recession that could threaten the regime. If Russian policymakers instead maintain high levels of defense spending and a bloated peacetime military, it will asphyxiate the Russian economy, crowding out civilian industry, and stifle growth. Having experienced the Soviet Union’s decline and fall for similar economic reasons, Russian leaders will probably seek to avoid this fate.

A third option, however, is available and likely beguiling: Rather than demobilizing or bankrupting themselves, Russian leaders could instead use their military to obtain the economic resources needed to sustain it—in other words, using conquest and the threat thereof to pay for the military.

Plenty of precedents exist. In 1803, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ended 14 months of peace in Europe because he could not afford to fund his military based on French revenues alone—and he also refused to demobilize it. In 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein similarly invaded oil-rich Kuwait because he could not afford to pay the million-man army that he refused to downsize. In both cases, the mirage of conquest seemed attractive for sustaining overly large defense establishments without having to pay for them.

Russia could likewise exploit its expanded military to extract rents from other states. Even though Russia is running out of key weapons systems for its all-out war on Ukraine, its forces will still be capable of punctual acts of aggression. Indeed, it’s easy to imagine how Russia might pursue such a policy.

Substantial offshore gas reserves have been discovered in the Black Sea within Ukraine’s and Georgia’s internationally recognized exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Whenever Western states are distracted by other priorities, Russia could also renew its aggression against Ukraine in order to gain control of its agricultural, gas, and rare-earth resources. Finally, Russia might use threats of force rather than actually fighting in order to coerce European states to withdraw sanctions, unfreeze Russian assets, or reopen gas and oil pipelines.

Some important lessons emerge. First, Russia’s economy cannot indefinitely sustain its war against Ukraine. Labor and production bottlenecks will condemn Russia to defeat as long as Ukraine’s allies sustain it beyond the second half of 2025. Contrary to the myth of infinite Russian resources, the Kremlin’s armies are far from unbeatable. But Russia’s defeat demands a level of Western patience and commitment that a combination of vacillating Western leaders and volatile domestic politics renders questionable.

Second, the cessation of full-scale fighting in Ukraine will not end the West’s problems with Russia. Russia’s supersized military sector incentivizes the Kremlin to use its military to extract rents from neighboring states. The alternatives—demobilizing and incurring a recession or indefinitely funding a bloated military and defense industry—pose existential threats to Putin’s regime.

However Russia ends its current war, the country’s economic realities alone will generate new forms of insecurity for Europe. Far-sighted policymakers should focus on mitigating these future threats, even as they focus on how the current round of fighting in Ukraine will end.

[blueiscoool]

Who Buried the $10M in Rare Gold Coins Found by a California Couple?

What they found, where it's from—and what are the odds?

The dream of discovering buried treasure came true for a California couple who found a real pot of gold while walking their dog. The largest such hoard ever found in the U.S. is comprised of 1,411 gold coins, minted between 1847 and 1894, worth an estimated $10 million in today's market.

The coins are now known as the Saddle Ridge Hoard, after a feature on the couple's property. Both the location of the land and the couple's identity are being kept secret.

According to an interview given to the coin company that will market the hoard, the discovery was made on a path they had used for years. Spotting the side of a rusted can barely emerging from a hillside, they dug it out with a stick and carried it home. Subsequent trips to the site turned up several more treasure-filled cans.

Most of the coins are $20 gold pieces, known as double eagles. All of those were made at the San Francisco mint, founded in 1854 to process the nuggets that prospectors were finding in the newly discovered California gold fields.

But at least one of the coins came from a much earlier bonanza—a $5 piece known as a Dahlonega half eagle.

That's Dahlonega, Georgia.

East Coast Gold Rushes

"Before the California gold rush, there were discoveries [of gold] in North Carolina and Georgia in the early 1800s—not on the same scale, of course, but enough to cause rushes to those places," said Douglas Mudd, the director and curator of the American Numismatic Association's Money Museum, in a phone interview.

"The U.S. government then opened two mints—one in Charlotte and the other in Dahlonega," he explained. Before that time, the mint in Philadelphia was the country's only such facility, established in 1792 when the city was the national capital.

At the start of the U.S. Civil War, the Confederate government took over the mints in North Carolina and Georgia. But by then, the East Coast gold had mostly played out, and the mints closed after the end of the war.

Mint Condition

Aside from sheer quantity, one of the extraordinary features of the Saddle Ridge Hoard is the condition of the coins. "They are in very good shape—they don't show a whole lot of wear," says Mudd. "Some of them probably haven't circulated at all."

About a dozen of the coins, in fact, are among the best surviving examples of their kind.

Condition affects the value of a coin, as does rarity. In 1860, for example, San Francisco produced more gold double eagles than it did in 1866, so coins from the latter year have added value. One of the finest double eagles from the Saddle Ridge Hoard, minted in 1866, has an estimated value of $1 million.

List of Suspects

Based on the dates of the coins and the cans they were found in, experts believe that the hoard may have been buried over a span of time, but surely not after the early years of the 20th century.

The hoard's face value is $28,000. "That was a lot of money in the late 1800s," says Mudd. "A huge amount."

Who would have left a fortune in the ground and not returned to claim it?

A prospector who wanted to protect his stash? Not likely. "There were still a few people panning for gold in the 1890s," says Mudd, "but by then companies were doing most of the mining."

An outlaw trying to hide the coins while on the lam?  Perhaps.

Someone extremely wealthy, eccentric, and distrustful of banks? Another possibility.

A researcher with the time and interest, who knows the location of the find, might uncover an answer. Property records would record the owner of the land in the late 1800s, says Mudd. That might be one clue. And a search through newspapers of the time could turn up a report of money gone missing. There might even have been a local tradition of buried treasure recorded somewhere.

What Are the Odds?

Could another lucky person strike gold like this, somewhere in the U.S., in the future? Not very likely.

"You get a lot of hoards in Europe—coins buried for hundreds or thousands of years," says Mudd, "but they're less common in the U.S. Our history isn't that long, and for most of the time we've had banks, so people have tended to put their money there."

The occasional cache of Spanish pieces of eight comes to light in the Southwest. Or a modest collection of colonial coins is uncovered. Finding "60, 70, 200 coins—yes," says Mudd. "1,400? That's exceptional."

There are exceptions.

In 1985, construction workers in Jackson, Tennessee, unearthed 300 gold coins in almost mint condition. The workers quickly took them to banks for cash, traded them for jewelry, and in one case even exchanged some for a used car. A book called Gold Is the Key, published in 2012, makes the case that the coins are linked to a local bank robbery and murder in 1859.

Most discoveries wouldn't have such a dramatic backstory, and are rare occurrences anyway. Still, people who sweep metal detectors over fields as a hobby, and backyard dog walkers casually kicking up a bit of dirt, can always hope for a lucky strike.

BYA. R. WILLIAMS

[eretzyisrael]

by REBEKA ZELJKO

The conservative nonprofit Consumers’ Research launched a campaign on Tuesday going after investment firm Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) for “embracing” in their environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) ratings.

The Consumers’ Research six-figure ad campaign features a new website, a national mailer, digital marketing ads and a mobile billboard outside of MSCI’s headquarters in New York City. This campaign came after a coalition of Republican attorneys general opened an investigation over allegations that MSCI had implemented anti-Israeli policies from the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. (RELATED: Consumers’ Research Goes After Bank of America Over ESG Policies)

“MSCI is yet another example of a massive investment firm pushing their anti-Israel agenda instead of following their fiduciary duty,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s especially appalling given the attack on the nation last October.”

(Consumers’ Research/MSCILies)

In March, the Jewish News Syndicate (JSN) reported that MSCI’s ESG policies allegedly downgraded several companies that “it said committed ‘human rights violations’ simply for conducting business in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.” Soon after, the coalition of 18 attorneys general, led by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, sent MSCI’s Chairman and CEO Henry A. Fernandez a letter expressing “great concern” over the JNS report.

“In other words, it appears that MSCI is embracing the BDS movement’s false narrative of Israeli occupation and taking actions designed to pressure companies to Boycott Israel — specifically by downgrading those companies’ EGS scores if they do business in Israel,” the letter reads.”

[luvrlou]

Spy Deal

Pairing: Charlie Conway x fem!reader

Summary: Coach Orion has a little job for his younger sister.

Warnings: Charlie's anger issues lol

A/N: I think I'll make a part 2 for this.

Word Count: 1.9k

Coach Bombay had heard wonders about you, since he had met Ted Orion, to him you were the best marketer in the Hockey world, of course, Orion was a bit biased considering you were his younger sister. You had controlled advertisements for some of the biggest teams in the USA, even the National team. At your ripe age of sixteen you were really making a name for yourself.

"Y/N!" Your older brother called through to you, for a few years you had been living in Minneapolis with your brother, his wife and your niece, Jen.

You left your bedroom and walked down the wooded corridor to the living room, "yeah what's up?"

"I have a little research job for you, perhaps you could help me learn more about this new team I'm taking on this year," he told you, offering you a seat on the sofa across for him.

You were instantly interested, your work had been quiet ever since the local hockey team had moved on to bigger things, "yeah I would be happy to help, under one condition."

He let out a chuckle, despite being twenty-two years older than you, you always had a price when it came to a bit of help, "okay, okay, you help and I we go on a brother-sister laser tag and sweetie shop run. Just like the old days."

"Oh my god! Yes! We haven't done that since I was like nine!" You grinned, reminiscing about your ninth birthday where your parents both had meetings all day so Ted took you out.

He smiled softly before continuing, "I have a new team coming via scholarships, they like to call themselves the Ducks, they won the Junior Goodwill Games last season."

"I'll be through with whatever I find later, then it's shooting time buddy!" You chuckled, standing up.

"Whatever you say baby sister," he mocked, drawing his attention back to his television as you left the room.

You quickly ran back to your room and flung yourself into your office chair and turned on your computer, after a few minutes your home screen appeared. You hummed a little tune as you opened up the internet.

"I'm sure there will be some newspaper files about them," you spoke to yourself, finding the local Minneapolis news paper. Despite the world wide web being a new phenomenon the archives were easy to access.

You slowly grew more intrigued as stories of this so-called 'wonder team' popped up, you filtered the site to only show clippings that contained the words 'ice hockey', 'ducks' and 'Bombay', their coach and a close friend of your brothers.

More and more clippings came up, this team were incredible, you had noticed that they had 4 'star' players, Captain Charlie Conway, Adam Banks and the Bash Brother, Fulton Reed and Dean Portman. They had even beaten Iceland's team, which was coached by the Wolf, a well-respected genius in the hockey world.

• • •

Bombay felt much more at ease knowing his beloved team would be passed onto the great Ted Orion, and after learning of your work in the hockey industry, he was thrilled that the ducks could gain even more attraction.

However, the Ducks were not too fond of their new coach, he had stripped Charlie of his captaincy and had taken away the team's spirit. They were no longer the ducks, they were Eden Hall's JV team.

"They hate me it's impossible to work with!" Ted groaned as you were all sat around the dinner table, knees deep in yet another of his rants.

Jen, who always tried to see the best in a situation spoke, "who knows, they might just be scared of you?"

"Darling, I don't think so," he smiled almost sadly.

"How about this, I can come with you to practise sit at the side and see if I can get some information off of them, I'll try to see why they haven't taken a liken to you." You suggested, Ted seemed to enjoy this suggestion as he nodded slightly.

"Are you sure they would talk to you?" Your sister-and-law asked, "I mean you are the younger sister of their coach."

"Well I am the same age as most of them, they might feel like they could say something." You answer, hoping you were right.

• • •

"Gather round team," your brother called, before growing impatient, "god gave you legs for a reason, use them!"

They all grumbled while they skated over, stopping in a messy semi-circle around you and him, peculiar looks on their faces.

"You may be wondering who this is-" Orion began before getting cut off by a tall looking boy with brown hair.

"Y'all that's Y/N! That girl who made that team in Chicago mega-famous!" He shouted.

"The team can't be that famous if you don't know the name, Dwayne," another boy quipped back, this one had off-black hair and was shorter than this Dwayne character.

"Yes Dwayne, this is the Y/n and she is my younger sister, she's just here to supervise the game. She finally decided that lying in her bed all day fawning over Michael J Fox in Back to the Future wasn't being productive." He introduced you, his last comment making you shake your head and flush.

They all exchanged looks, before yet another boy, this time you recognised as Charlie Conway, spoke up, "What age is she, shouldn't she be a bit older if she's your sister?"

"I'm sixteen, our mum had him quite young," you clarified. "Okay Ted, I'm going to go sit down." The team's uproar started again after hearing that their new coach's name is Ted. You laughed, something so normal was causing quite the stir.

The practice wasn't anything interesting, just some drills and a mock game to finish. You were brought out of the trance, that you had caught yourself in when the sound of skates dragging to a halt in front of you.

It was girl who had a long plait in going down her back, "Hi, I'm Connie!"

"Y/N, it's lovely to meet you," you smiled.

She smiled back before pondering her next question, "does coach Orion always act grumpy?"

You laughed slightly, "no, don't worry, he does really want to see you all succeed but he just doesn't know how to get around it."

"Well he doesn't act like it, look!" Connie gestured to the rest of the team, who were all shooting at Goldberg as Orion barked out orders. That's when you noticed that one of the players who had played with them since the PeeWees wasn't there.

"Connie, is there not meant to be another boy, he's blonde, wears number ninety-nine?" You inquired, looking back at the girl.

She smiled slightly, "awe yeah, Banks, he plays for Varsity now." She spoke, almost proud of her ex-teammate. "Well, I better get back to practising, we need to speak again Y/N!"

You grinned, "definitely!"

the girl skated away, lapping around some of the other players, then shooting a puck past Goldberg into the net.

When practise finished Ted approached you, "so did you speak to anyone?"

"Only Connie, she's super nice, but she thinks you're dead grumpy." You answered, this made him frown slightly.

"I know this is a lot to ask, but do you think you could find Conway and try to talk to him?" He asked, a glint of pleading in his eyes.

You smiled, "yeah I'll speak to him, just because I love you so very much," you teased lightly, which caused him to gently slap the back of your head.

"You're a cheeky prick," he laughed, helping you up.

"That's what you get for having a sixteen-year-old sister when you're thirty!" You grinned back, walking off the ice with your beloved older brother.

• • •

You spotted the brunette boy in the distance walking out of Eden Hall, quickly, you jogged after him.

"Charlie!" You called out, which made him turn around.

He grimaced when he saw you fast approaching, "what do you want?"

"I just want to talk, you seemed kind of," you hummed. You tried to think of a way to make this sound like you weren't being bitchy, "agitated, earlier."

He huffed slightly, "Obviously, have you seen my coach!"

"Hey! Let's remember that's my brother!" You faked annoyance before laughing.

This made him smile, "Fine we can talk, under one condition."

"Woah there Conway, take me out for dinner then we can see where it goes!" You joked, making him flush under the blinding sun.

He shook his head sheepishly, "no! Not like that, I meant to buy me ice cream!" He scrambled out, "if you buy me ice cream, I'll talk to you about anything you want."

You pondered his requirement, "are you asking me on a date Conway?"

"It's a get-together, not a date! Don't be so silly!" He groaned.

You chuckled at his comment, "come on!" You cheered, beckoning him to follow you towards the seafront. Where an ice cream truck would roll on by tweeting out a chirpy tune at exactly ten past five every evening.

The pair of you reached the boardwalk next to the swirling sea just in time to hear the merry tune which signified it was ice cream time. Charlie immediately sped-walked over to where the truck would park and scowled at you as you slowly traipsed over.

"Okay, number ninety-six what are you for having?" You quipped looking up at the boy.

"Two scoops, chocolate orange and vanilla," he answered back after studying the array of flavours intently.

You only smiled at him before going up to the window, "a two scoop cone of chocolate orange and vanilla," you hummed, "and a rocket ice lolly for me."

"That'll be four dollars and fifty cents, doll," the woman in the truck said, handing Charlie both of the sweet treats while you reached for a five-dollar note then slid it over to her.

"Thank you!" You grinned, taking your ice lolly from Charlie.

"Since we never introduced ourselves directly to each other," you spoke before tasting your lolly. "I'm Y/N Orion, I'm sixteen and I grew up in Tampa."

Charlie gave you an odd look before reluctantly speaking, "I'm Charlie Conway, ex-captain of the Ducks and the USA team and I'm also sixteen. Oh and I'm from Minneapolis."

"Lovely to meet you, Charlie Conway!" You smiled towards him, a smile which he returned apprehensivley.

You grabbed his free hand and pulled him towards a free bench and sat down, indicating him to sit down next to you.

"So, Y/N what brings you to Eden Hall?" He asked.

"Well I don't go to school there but Ted just wondered if I could help him gain some information on the players." You explained, Charlie didn't seem to be fond of this answer.

"So you're only here right now with me for some sort of spy deal?" He accused, anger radiating off of him.

"No! Of course not, he just wanted to know how to get you guys working as a team!" You defended, hoping this answer would calm him down.

He scoffed, "well excuse me, we are a team, the ducks, it's just Orion is not a part of it!"

"Come on Charlie! He just wants whats best for you!" you pleaded.

He huffed again and silently got up and stormed away, you quickly followed him, "Charlie, he doesn't mean anything bad!"

•••

You trudged back into the Orion household, swiftly going to your room and slamming the door.

"Y/N you good?" Ted shouted over towards your room, there was a lengthy silence that followed which made him enter your room.

"Charlie hates me!"

[vijukumar]

Banking Market: Trends, Players, and Future Outlook

The banking industry has undergone significant transformations in recent years, driven by technological advancements, shifting consumer preferences, and regulatory reforms. This blog provides an in-depth analysis of the banking market, covering its size, share, growth, trends, players, challenges, and future outlook.

Market Size and Share

The global banking market size was estimated at USD 25.14 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.4% from 2024 to 2030, reaching USD 135.17 billion by 2030. Europe dominated the market with a share of 36.93% in 2023, driven by the increasing need for online payment security and government directives for banks to open APIs.

Market Trends

Several key trends are shaping the banking market:

Digitalization: The adoption of digital solutions is transforming the banking sector, with a focus on data security and privacy.

Open Banking: The integration of open banking systems is expected to grow significantly, driven by regulatory reforms and consumer demand for seamless digital experiences.

Fintech Integration: Collaboration between traditional banks and fintech startups is fostering innovation and competitiveness in the market.

Mobile Banking: The growth of mobile banking is driven by consumer demand for convenient and accessible financial services.

Market Players

Some key players operating in the banking market include:

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA)

Crédit Agricole

DemystData, Ltd.

finleap connect

Finastra

FormFree Holdings Corporation

Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.

Mambu.

Mineral Tree, Inc.

NCR Corporation

Market Challenges

Despite the growth prospects, the banking market faces several challenges:

Data Security: The increasing threat of online fraud and data insecurity is a significant concern.

Regulatory Compliance: Banks must navigate complex regulatory requirements, including PSD2 and GDPR.

Competition: The market is highly competitive, with fintech startups and traditional banks competing for market share.

Conclusion The banking market is poised for significant growth, driven by digitalization, open banking, fintech integration, and mobile banking. Key players are adapting to these trends, and regulatory reforms are promoting innovation and competitiveness. However, the market also faces challenges related to data security and regulatory compliance. As the industry continues to evolve, it is essential for banks to prioritize these issues and leverage technological advancements to stay ahead of the curve.

[saturnznct]

d-9; crafts | jsc

➸ note; sorry this is late, i was working tonight!!

➸ word count; 889 words

➸ mira; aged 8, nayoung; aged 4

dadmas masterlist | nct masterlist 

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ⋆✦⋆ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ 

Sungchan was an extremely creative parent, in terms of coming up with activities to entertain your two young daughters with. You’d found that your two girls, Mira and Nayoung, were rather restless when their days weren’t filled up with school. So, during school holidays, weekends and bank holidays, you and Sungchan always had to improvise and research things to do. Usually this involved a lot of trips out, to parks and kid cafes and anything he thought would entertain their little minds. 

This Christmas, Seoul had been plagued with heavy snowfall. Sungchan had taken them outside quite a few times, engaging them in snowman building and snowball fights, but eventually the girls became bored of this repetition and Nayoung had come down with a pretty nasty cold, which had spooked Sungchan a little bit.

‘What can we do in the house?’ He thinks aloud, ‘I want to do Christmassy things with the girls but I don’t think we can go outside too much anymore.’

You think for a few moments, ‘you could watch movies with them?’

‘I don’t think they would pay attention for that long,’ Sungchan frowns, ‘they need to be doing something.’

‘Trust us to have the most easily bored children in the world.’

’They’re just at that age,’ he sighs.

‘Maybe google some things to do,’ you suggest, ‘Google and Pinterest have never failed us.’

‘Very true,’ Sungchan pulls out his phone, opening the safari app and typing in some words.

He scrolls silently for a few minutes, reading through several articles that are mostly made up of outside trips such as viewing Christmas lights or going to markets, which Sungchan is fairly sure his daughters would find rather boring. He wades through useless articles before he finally finds one based on indoor activities.

‘Crafts?’

‘They might enjoy those,’ you say, ‘keeps their hands and mind occupied.’

‘Salt dough?’ he suddenly furrows his eyebrows, ‘they can make ornaments with it.’

‘Salt dough?’

‘Apparently you just mix flour, salt and water together. Then use cookie cutters to make shakes and they can decorate them., and then you bake them for a few hours.’

‘They can make ornaments for the tree!’ you exclaim, ‘I’ve wanted ornaments made by them for the longest time.’

‘I guess since you approve… we’ll try it out.’

—

The next day, you bring the girls home from school to find Sungchan in the kitchen, kneading a large ball of dough in a bowl.

‘Daddy!’

‘Hiya, princess, how was school?’

‘Fun,’ Nayoung bounces up and down, ‘what are you doing?’

‘We’re going to do something super fun, Nayoungie!’

‘What is it, what is it?’ 

‘You, me and Mira are going to make ornaments for the Christmas tree!’

‘We’re making them?’ Mira asks.

‘Yep, we’re going to cut these into shapes and you can paint, draw, and put as much glitter on as you’d like! Then we’ll put them in the oven, and they’ll go all hard. Then, when they’re all ready, we can hang them on the tree!’ 

The girls seem interested, hopping onto dining room chairs.

Sungchan has already covered the table with a plastic sheet, to protect it from the inevitable mess that the girls will create.

He puts the dough down on the table, patting it down so that it’s flat.

‘Right, Mira, which shape would you like?’

Mira looks at the cookie cutters for a few moments, before deciding, ‘gingerbread man.’

Sungchan takes the cutter, printing out the shape and placing it in front of Mira, who immediately takes a brown felt-tip pen to the dough.

’Nayoung?’

‘Just a circle,’ she’s swinging her feet in anticipation.

’There you are darling.’

Sungchan watches, completely enthralled with just observing his daughters. Mira colours a fairly traditional gingerbread man, colouring the whole ornament in brown, leaving white spaces for the button eyes and mouth, as well as a red bowtie. It was a little messy looking, with random white gaps and colouring outside of the lines, but it was cute nonetheless. 

’That’s so good, Mira! You did so well.’

’Thank you, dada.’

‘Want to make another one?’

‘Uh… No,’ she hops down from the chair, running presumably off to her room, likely to play with her own toys.

‘Well,’ Sungchan shrugs at you, ‘I had her for half an hour at least.’

A few minutes later, Nayoung announces she’s finished with her own ornament.

‘Is that us, Nayoungie?’ Sungchan asks, being able to make out the four people she’s drawn.

‘Yeah, it’s you, mummy/mommy, me and Mira-unnie.’

‘I can see!’ Sungchan’s chest is filled with pride at his daughter’s creation, ‘your drawing is so good. I’m so proud.’

Nayoung chooses to make another ornament, deciding to make a glittery Christmas Tree, which Sungchan does most of, dipping the dough in the glitter and making sure it stuck.

‘Thank you for making these with me Nayoung, I had fun,’ Sungchan says, ruffling her hair when she gets shy, ‘we’ve got to clear this away so we can have dinner, is that okay?’

Nayoung nods, happily retreating back to playing with her toys, mind suddenly burnt out from both school and her little creativity session.

’That went down really well,’ you comment as you clear away the leftover dough and art supplies.

‘I guess we now know crafts keep them occupied for a few hours.’

[caramelcoffeeaddict]

today I was tagged by @forabeatofadrum. thanks for tagging me! I haven't touched my new Florist!Kurt story in a few days because I'm having a small writing block with it. I have a lot of ideas for the fic, I'm just not sure how to write them or where in the story they should go. but I really want to work on it some more, and sometimes sharing bits-and-pieces of the fic can help. so here's a little snippet of what I do have...

-

Kurt put his head in his hands and took a moment to compose himself before looking back at Blaine. “I’m sorry for your loss. Iris was a lovely woman – an incredible human, and the best boss I’ve ever had.” He hesitated slightly before adding, “And I hate to sound so callous or insensitive right now, but do you have any idea what’s going to happen to the store? Is it going to be closed? Sold? Something else?” “Well, Auntie Iris had everything completely paid off – business loans, building mortgage, etc. – so there are no banks or investors involved, which means I own the store outright; therefore, what happens to it is entirely up to me. However, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it yet. I don’t know if keeping the store open is feasible or not. I don’t know the products; I don’t know the vendors; I don’t know the first thing about selling or arranging flowers. I’m good with bookkeeping and marketing and other administrative tasks, but… I already own two other businesses. I don’t know if I’m capable of taking on a third one right now,” he replied. “Not to mention, with my own stores, I knew what I was getting into before I opened them. Music and coffee are both things that I’m very passionate about – I play several musical instruments, and I’ve always been a little bit of a coffee connoisseur. But I also had time to research the parts of those businesses that I was unfamiliar with before committing to anything. And unfortunately, the only thing I know about flowers is they are pretty, and they smell good.”

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

okk so for my boys being from 1940s, anything related to music I have down but I have NO IDEA how life operated back then and since you mentioned it I haven't been the same since please talk to me all you want abt the '40s

imma be honest, most of my knowledge on the 40s is either about the war or the precursor to the war, so probably not the most helpful of info-remember to do your own research for extra information!

with that, some quick bullet points cuz I can’t sort thoughts concisely:

Okay so to get into the 40s we gotta go at least 10 years before that cuz that’s also important: the Great Depression hits in 1929-not just in America, but the rest of the world as well-the US supposedly suffers the worst (aside from Germany, which was in debt from the first world war and their crippled economy as a result of the treaty of Versailles). I’m assuming your story takes place in the US?-otherwise I’d probably have to do some digging to find you some facts. But yea, with the stock market crash in the 20’s, tons of people were placed out of jobs, banks closed, people started living out on the streets. Government started creating random corporations to give people jobs after 1932-FDR’s presidency.

Fun fact, the radio was around at this point, so if you wanna listen to tunes, there’s your ticket. TV was a thing, but it became more popular in the mid 40s because it was used to showcase propaganda-televised entertainment became a thing in the 50s.

Anyways, some laws were passed and stuff to give people jobs-not all of them would be considered important for you, I think, cuz most of them were environmental or economical-the Workers Progress Administration was a thing though, and it hired artists and actors and others for their talent, if that’s of any importance.

Corporations weren’t faring much better either, especially the entertainment industry. The 20s were their peak years, with film being introduced and festivals or carnivals brought in cities-but with the crash of the market and extreme poverty, not too many people wanted to spend money on amusement over food. So a lot of those industries lost money and laid off a lot of people before either shutting down or being extremely poor.

Nother fun fact-ovens and stoves existed at this time, similar to how they are today-just in case one of your guys needs to make their human pal some food on their possibly outdated technology. Telephones were also available to the public by the 20s, the landlines.

Games like Monopoly (kinda ironic that it was made during the Depression), Scrabble, Sorry, and the Game of Life (originally made in 1860) were popular at the time-plus actual sports. Yes, kick the can was a thing around this time, you can make that reference.

If you want literature, I'm told island adventure stories were pretty popular for kids at the time (you'd have to double check that one, though, cuz I'm not too sure)-Superman and other heroes were a thing in the late 30's early 40s-Donald Duck comic strips were early 30s. Comedies and dramas/romances were popular in both literature and theatre (Charlie Chaplin was pretty funny), though they had this trope of things magically working in their favor until sometime in the 20s (you're gonna need to check that one cuz again, this isn't really my strong suit).

The Depression really only evened out with the start of the war-the US needed to militarize and stock up on their artillery, which meant a ton of job openings in that department, and other ones related-car companies (yea cars were a thing-you'd have to check how accessible they are though, that's not really my strong suit in history-only thing I remember is Ford releasing a model in the 20s) started building tanks, film productions started making propaganda videos (donald duck was a common character in Disney's anti-nazi propaganda for some reason), toy companies sold toy soldiers and guns to kids to convince them to support the war effort. Propaganda had advanced after ww1, which meant bigger, more eye-catching headlines in the media and clever usage of poster layouts and formatting to persuade people. The US stayed neutral up until 1941, though it did provide resources for the Allies who were fighting Germany.

That's basically all I have about the 40s-again, most of it is about the war and the economy, so not sure how much that would help. Maybe FazCo went bankrupt during the Depression and prompted your carnival to shut down?-I can see it trying to start more locations in the MidWest or something (the Plex is in Utah, if I remember correctly, though I don't know how important that is to your plotline) and scrapped it after the Depression and the War? I dunno, take your story in whichever direction you'd like, it'd be interesting any way you make it! Thanks for the opportunity to ramble, by the way-I hardly ever get to talk history or philosophy on here, so it's pretty refreshing! Hope this helped, thanks for droppin by!