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lilacstro · 3 months

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your birthday and profections

hey!! I hope you all are doing fine. If its your birthday, then happy birthday haha(so random lmao) This is a long post, so you may need to read through :) Apart from your solar return, profection years are another way to check major themes of your year.

At its most basic, every age that’s a multiple of 12 is a 1st House year. So that’s when you turn 0, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72 and so on.

Every year after is a 2nd house year, which is when you turn 1, 13, 25, 37, 49, 61, 73

3rd house year: 2, 14,26,38,50,62,74 and onwards

Once you know the house connected to your current age, you can plot your experience of life via the topics and themes of each of the 12 houses.

Themes House wise:

1st House - Self, Identity, Beginnings (YOU CHANGE)

Self-image, appearance, first impressions, approach to life, early environment, physical body, persona

2nd House - Value, Possessions (YOUR PERSONAL BELIEFS CHANGE)

Finances, personal resources, material wealth, values, self-worth, assets, possessions, spending habits

3rd House - Communication, Learning

Communication, siblings, local travel, early education, writing, neighbors, short trips, mental processes

4th House - Home, Family

Home, family, ancestry, roots, real estate, emotional foundation, private life, parents

5th House - Creativity, Pleasure

Creativity, romance, children, play, entertainment, hobbies, self-expression, speculation

6th House - Work, Health (TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH)

Daily work, service, health, routine, fitness, diet, pets, responsibilities

7th House - Partnerships

Marriage, partnerships, close relationships, contracts, public relations, collaboration

8th House - Transformation, Shared Resources

Transformation, death and rebirth, inheritance, shared resources, taxes, sexuality, mysteries, occult

9th House - Exploration, Higher Learning (YOUR LUCK CHANGES)

Higher education, philosophy, long-distance travel, religion, law, beliefs, exploration, publishing

10th House - Career, Public Life

Career, public image, reputation, social status, authority, ambitions, government, recognition

11th House - Social Networks, Aspirations

Keywords: Friendships, social groups, networks, aspirations, community, collective causes, social activities, ideals

12th House - Subconscious, Solitude (YOU CONNECT MORE WITH YOUR SOUL AND HIGHER SELF AND PURPOSE)

Subconscious, solitude, secrets, endings, spirituality, isolation, hidden enemies, mysticism

Your Time Lord for the Year

The other thing profections will do is turn on a planet as the ruler or ‘lord’ of your year ahead. This is called a time lord. This planet will be the traditional ruling planet of the sign on the profected house.

For example, your profected house by age is the 7th House, look at the sign in that house. Gemini in 7th? Mercury is the ruler. Taurus in 7th? Venus is your time lord.

This planet becomes a guiding influence for your year ahead. Not that if you have Venus as your time lord you will fall in love daily lmao, But rather, you will experience rulership of this planet affecting your themes of the year. I hope im making sense.

Planets in Houses

Next, check the placements and themes of your profected house in your natal chart. For instance, everyone turning 18 will be in a 7th house year BUT each person will have different planets in their 7th house, and a different sign ruling the house.

For example, my 7th house is empty, and in my 18th year nothing major or life changing has happened, I am on my gap year.

If you have Mars in your 7th House, then your Mars themes – developing or managing assertiveness in partnerships, dealing with a little tension, the impact other people have on your decision making process, that type of thing – are highlighted for that year.

If you have Pluto in your 7th house, then themes like power, struggles, isolation and transformation maybe highlighted that year.

I hope it makes sense, use this for both, your time lord and the ruler of your profected house: Sun: Vitality, Identity, Ego

Self-expression, leadership, creativity, purpose, individuality, confidence, recognition

Moon: Emotions, Nurturing, Instincts

Emotions, intuition, habits, home life, family, subconscious, nurturing, cycles, forming close relations

Mercury: Communication, Intellect, Movement

Communication, thinking, learning(even life lessons, or about yourself), travel, writing, siblings, negotiation, information, introspection

Venus: Love, Beauty, Harmony

Relationships, attraction, beauty, art, values, pleasure, social life, harmony, indulgence

Mars: Action, Desire, Conflict

Energy, drive, ambition, aggression, initiative, sexuality, competition, courage, assertiveness

Jupiter: Growth, Expansion, Wisdom

Growth, expansion, luck, optimism, philosophy, higher learning, travel, abundance, generosity

Saturn: Structure, Discipline, Limitation

Structure, discipline, responsibility, limitations, authority, perseverance, time, maturity, career

Uranus: Innovation, Change, Rebellion

Innovation, rebellion, change, freedom, individuality, technology, unexpected events, unconventionality

Neptune: Dreams, Intuition, Mysticism

Dreams, intuition, mysticism, spirituality, illusion, compassion, imagination, escapism, idealism

Pluto: Transformation, Power, Depth

Transformation, power, depth, rebirth, intensity, secrets, control, regeneration, shadow self

Chiron: Healing, Wounds, Growth

Healing, wounds, inner growth, wisdom, teaching, mentoring, empathy, vulnerability, self-discovery

PLANETS RULED BY AGE Ages 1 to 4 of your life is ruled by the Moon. Ages 5 to 14 is ruled by Mercury. Ages 15 to 22 is ruled by Venus. Ages 22 to 41 is ruled by the Sun. Ages 42 to 56 is ruled by Mars. Ages 57 to 68 is ruled by Jupiter. Ages 68 to death is ruled by Saturn.

I hope I explained it well, combining your profected house, time lord and the planets in the profected house and the ruling planet of your age, you can get some information about the themes and effects you might be experiencing in your life and use it as a guide for your betterment.

support me on ko-fi :)

Remember, nothing is bad/challenging and you always have free will for the most part of your life and you dont have to subscribe to things you dont wish for, all the best<33

If you want, leave suggestions and feedback for the next post in asks, and comments :)

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morphodae · 4 months

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Lawrence Bluewer | Headcanons

Including: general, relationship (x reader)

cw: none, mentions of “traditional Victorian era” views on heterosexual relationships, but otherwise this is relatively gender-neutral to be inclusive 💙

Read more P4 headcanons here: 🪻x 🌹x 🌱 x

General:

As we all know, Lawrence has seven sisters. He’s the only boy in the entirety of his siblings lol.

When he isn’t studying or remaining loyal to Blue House, he would be a bit more relaxed in private. As such, he’s — to no surprise — an introvert who prefers the company of those he’s known a long, long time. Or, rather, family members.

Even so, his sisters can be a bit… much. So, Lawrence does appreciate his own quiet time left alone when he has the chance.

His parents have tried and failed throughout the years to arrange a marriage for him. While he’s a man of tradition and standards, Lawrence prefers to focus himself on academics at Weston College before worrying himself with a spouse.

Relationship:

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Lawrence has little experience in the realm of romance. Sure, he has sisters and experience navigating how a woman might act, think, dress, and so on. But it’s not at all the same as courting one.

Still, I do see him as the type to be going about his business and bam — he meets someone and becomes a flustered mess against his wishes. It’s not quite the same as “love at first sight” but it’s pretty damn close. Lawrence would be taken completely off guard by someone who seems to connect with him upon first meeting.

You can absolutely guarantee that Edgar would try to play matchmaker, try to give unwarranted advice, or even set Lawrence and his crush on an outing. You know that blond man would.

The chances of Lawrence succumbing to Edgar’s whims or “generous offers of help” — as the blond calls it — are slim to none. Lawrence would rather read books, consult his calmer sisters, and try to do things his own way.

In terms of an “ideal” person, I believe that someone who can mentally stimulate Lawrence would have him swooning. Whether that be through games of chess, academic theories and knowledge, or even just supporting his escapades to seek out new things would be perfect for him.

A bit of manga spoilers that I didn’t include in Gregory’s but implied; having a supporter of his time in S4 at the music hall is also a good way to keep his attention. The sins of his past are haunting him and his friends. You likely wouldn’t know about it but whether you found out about it or not, showing him your unbridled loyalty is enough to make the stone-faced man cry.

To be honest, Lawrence is rather… simple to please. Once he falls for you, and you continue to woo him by showing support, respect, and having meaningful conversations with him, there’s not much else to do.

Outings (dates) are usually simple but nonetheless well-thought out and organized due to his diligence. He’s punctual and likes to ensure everything is no less than perfect for you. It isn’t about impressing you but rather, showing you he’s responsible. Plus, order and absolution have been instilled into his personality since he was young; so it’s likely that any managing or planning skills are second nature to him.

Acts of service is his primary love language. While traditional displays and gifts are common — and of no shortage due to his wealth — he feels much more comfortable doing things to make your life easier and show, rather than tell, of his affection. But, if you preferred a different love language then he would be willing to discuss it further and if it was something unfamiliar to him such as physical touch or words of affirmation, then he would find a compromise with you.

At the end of the day, Lawrence is also one of the two more “traditional men” of the original prefects so I do believe marriage would be in the future for you and him. Despite pressure from his family and sisters, Lawrence much prefers to love you in a way that is practical and altruistic with his acts. He’s patient and respectful, however, and would wait until you were ready for such a large step in the relationship.

#lawrence bluewer #lawrence x reader #lawrence bluewer x reader #black butler Lawrence #x reader #black butler x reader #black butler headcanons #anime x y/n #anime x reader #kuroshitsuji x reader #kuroshitsuji lawrence #kuroshitsuji Lawrence Bluewer #kuroshitsuji headcanons

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aki-shun · 10 months

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I don't know if you will accept this but can I get an Male Idol Mc x Savanaclaw. Fans of savanaclaw members pay for a special fan service with him. And as services can I ask Mc to wear a skirt or a dress.

Umm- After getting my life and other things in order, I went back to tumblr and started writing. I don't know if it was because of this or the cold I had, but I had a hard time writing and I drew a few sketches to make up for it, I hope you like it.

I don't remember if the gender of Jack's siblings was mentioned, but it is implied that he has a little sister and a little brother. Anyway I hope you like it

TW: Eng is not my first language, Feminization(?) not smut, but a little bit spacy drawings ;), maybe not but really a bit spacy, reader is a male but just used 'you' so you can read to if your a female or anythink-,Written by a writer who forgot how to write

Leona

Shit-I signed his hand with the veins I drew most beautifully.

Leona is a wealthy individual. That's why he has all kinds of products, whether limited edition or not. What do other people think of him? Rest assured, no one wants to turn into sand. That's why everyone in the palace is silent about this. The two rooms that the Cheka are not allowed to enter belong to Leona. The first one is his room, the second one is the room he reserved specifically for you. Of course, he has your products in his room too, but he still has a separate room for more and some special pieces.

Most of your concerts are at Sunset Savanah. Because your manager likes the amount that self-indulgent Leona pays for the 'personal space' he reserves for himself at your concerts. (No, your manager is not Azul or Ruggie). Regardless of your special events or fan meetings, he pays a premium for his own private 'fan event' meetings, let alone attending them all. At the end of the work, your manager is as happy as Leona :)

And again, at such a time, you accepted the request of your dear fan, who provided nearly 40% of the money you earned, to wear a skirt. Dear Seven- he was looking at you with perfect admiration but also like a mouse he was about to grab in his claws. After a few seconds of silence, he approached you, lifted you into the air and held you in his arms. Since this was the nth date you had stopped counting, you were used to this kind of thing. In fact, you liked receiving such behavior from such a person, whether it was because of his perfect face, wealth or perfect body.

If you feel uncomfortable, just let me know. No, I'm not disturbed. You just surprise me more and more every time. Aah~ then it's because your pulse is excited huh~

His face moved a little closer to you with his smug grin. He definitely had a face that could make him famous. No matter how flirtatious Leona was, he was trying not to get over the Idol-Fan relationship. (And yes, he still made you sit on his lap but- who wouldn't want that). One of his naughty hands tugged at the waistband of your skirt.

Leona. Your voice had a slightly harsh tone. Hahaha I'm just kidding but you know this will happen one day. Nothing like this will happen between an Idol and a fan. Who said our relationship would be Idol-Fan when that time comes?

He leaned into your right ear and said, 'You won't be an Idol forever and I won't be just a fan forever.'

Some feelings begin to arise in your heart because you are experiencing a scene that only weird writers can write. Maybe you can attribute it to the long time you spent with Leona, but my option is the first option :)

Jack

His siblings were always listening to you and they were constantly pressuring his younger siblings to take them to your concert. Your tickets weren't expensive, but they weren't cheap either.

One day, his siblingss came to him in a hurry. They showed him the screen and it showed that his new concert was near where they lived. Since the tickets had just gone on sale, they were cheaper. (I've never been to a concert in my life, so I don't know much about ticket prices, sorry). Moreover, there was a fan event for the first 30 ticket buyers, and their siblings didn't want to miss it. So he bought the tickets.

He wasn't your listener before the day of the concert, but after the concert is over - now you have a new fan, but he doesn't accept it. When it came to event time, it wasn't a big deal. It was a simple thing where there was some sort of meeting and talking to the fans and stuff. It was him and his siblings' turn to talk, and they were babbling on about how much they loved you until that moment.

[Name]-san, my brother runs away from me whenever I try to make him wear a skirt. Because this thing was so girly. I don't want to wear those stupid skirts! No, you're the stupid one!!

Great, his siblings are fighting in front of a stranger (you). You stop them while the fight is about to get more heated.

Why do you want to force your brother to wear a skirt? Because when he tries to wear trousers, he cannot remove his tail properly. That's why I wear a skirt for his, because it's easier. I'm not a girl! Only girls wear skirts! [Name]-san, can you show my brother that it is easier to wear a skirt? Let me show him..? Yes, would you wear the tail you wore with a skirt like in your concert in the City of Flowers?

Okay, your shocked, but if you reject your fan's request, you may get a lot of criticism from your manager, who is looking at you suggestively through the door. (That manager works for us, my friend 🙂).

O-okey, of course.

Jack is a little further away, just waiting for his siblings to finish their work. There is no more!

WHY IS THE SKIRT SO SHORT? Damn that tail you use looks like his- YOU SHOULD NOT EVEN TRY TO SPIN AROUND THAT TAIL. He's happy that you're such a kind idol to give your siblings a nice farewell hug. NO, HIS TAIL IS NOT WAGING. IT'S JUST THE WIND. YES, DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THE WIND BLOWS EVEN IN A ROOM COVERED WITH WALLS ON FOUR SIDES!? NOW YOU KNOW!!

These were his thoughts :)

Ruggie

I couldn't draw a skirt in this pose and since I was too lazy to draw a new reference, imagine that there was a skirt in this picture (!)

He is a listener who listens to you with pleasure. But don't you think your tickets are too expensive? This makes his hyena heart ache. It just so happens that one of your tickets flies into his hand while he's walking on the street. No, it wasn't in anyone's back pocket. That ticket floated in the wind and fell into his palm :) Moreover, it was not such a simple ticket.

Ruggie is a fan like a fan. Just a more frugal version. That's why we should make the most of this ticket for all our fans. Even if they can't see it.

◜Time skip because I have a brain that can't function properly anymore due to the flu I had😔◞

He may have forgotten that people other than him have this ticket. But that won't stop him.

[Name]-san, could you wear a nice skirt for us fans? We'd love to see this.

Yes yes [Name]-san. We would like to see this.- a fan A cute skirt with ruffles would be really nice. What do you think [Name]-chan 😊-M Manager..! How long have you been here? *whispering 😃-M (Ugh, that look again. I definitely have to change that manager somehow [those who support the manager to stay, raise your hand��])

Oh Big Seven! Can I take a photo of [Name]-san??-a another fan A great idea! Why don't we include some of these pictures in your new photo album?-M Manager- Come on [Name]-chan, give us some nice poses!-M This bitc- *Don't worry, no one heard it

Our beloved Ruggie now has new home screen images.

⫯ Since I did it in a bit of a hurry, the pictures are only for the white-skinned reader, but if requested (I will do it even if not), I will also edit the images for the dark-skinned reader. If anyone wants, I can tag them when I post. Just write in the comments whether you want to be tagged or not ^^

#twisted wonderland #Idol!Au🌙#twst #disney twst #male reader #twisted wonderland × male reader #twisted wonderland × bottom male reader #bottom male reader #savanaclaw #twst leona #twst jack #twst ruggie #savanaclaw x reader

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canary-prince · 3 months

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Ways For US-Americans To Help If You're Abstaining From Voting

Can't vote on moral grounds, but still raring to do something? Stuck in America and unsure of how to meaningfully serve your community? Here are some ideas that I, a social worker serving house-bound citizens, can share out of personal experience. Feel free to add other ideas or links. We are not powerless.

Volunteer (these are just examples/sources of info)

Planned Parenthood needs volunteers for nearly every non-medical department

See if your state has a volunteer stewardship program, where you can help weed out invasive plant species and defend your natural ecosystem

If you have medical skills, become a street medic

Contribute to the preservation of Queer History

Put your labor towards the upkeep or repair of properties in Indigenous communities

Adult literacy is not great right now, and we're harder to lie to if we're literate; volunteer to help your neighbors who were failed by the school system

Resources to help the unhoused constantly need volunteer counselors, cooks, and someone to sort donations

The sick and elderly are very under-served, particularly if they're broke, so reach out to a local hospice to see what skills they need

Give (if you can't physically volunteer but have money to spare)

Donate to an abortion fund; this one is for Native peoples specifically

Donate to a book gifting program or book mobile; this link is for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Donate to preserve the histories of communities of color; this fund is specifically for preserving African American historical sites

Donate to protect the natural environment

Donate to help free those caged in prisons; this link is for the Innocence Project, which aims to challenge wrongful convictions

The arts are for everyone, but wealth gaps interfere; this fund is for art initiatives that contribute to community building, including increasing accessibility

Learn (resources that many communities have but aren't widely educated on)

Community Action Agencies: these are non-profits and private companies that act in service of their communities' human rights and quality of life. Many have utility funds, run food banks, manage emergency shelters, provide education and job skills opportunities, and participate in social activism.

Area Agencies on Aging: Non-profits that serve elders (and non-elderly disabled citizens) in a designated service area. They primarily offer services to prolong independent living (free or low cost in home care, meals on wheels, home safety modifications, and Medicare guidance) or help with transition into assisted living.

Habitat For Humanity: They aren't just in disaster zones or on foreign soil; they have local US chapters that provide critical repairs to families in need. They repair roofs, address barriers to access, and perform electric and plumbing work.

Durable Medical Equipment Loan Closets: Communal sources of vital medical equipment including wheelchairs, walkers, canes, hospital beds, shower chairs, and more. May be able to provide incontinence supplies or diabetes supplies. Rarely but sometimes provide oxygen.

Non Emergency Medical Transportation/Alternatives to Mass Transit: Transportation for elderly, disabled, cognitively impaired, and low income citizens to help them reach medical providers, dental care, physical therapy, and eye exam appointments. Can also provide transit to shopping centers, the grocery store, religious events, cultural events, and polling stations. Offer door to door services for the housebound. IF YOU HAVE MEDICAID, YOU SHOULD NOT EVER BE PAYING FOR THIS. MEDICAID IS OBLIGATED TO MAKE SURE YOU REACH ANY AND ALL MEDICAL APPOINTMENTS.

Legal Aid Clinics: Sources of pro-bono or sliding scale legal advice and representation.

#mutual aid #harm reduction #usa harm reduction #community resources usa #the monster speaks #disability resources #reproductive rights #adult literacy #volunteer opportunities usa

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tozettastone · 9 months

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I'm casting an AU where the Akatsuki work in an office together.

Nagato and Konan comprise 51% ownership together. Nagato is CEO, Konan's COO so you know who does most of the work. They're not actually married but everyone thinks they are. They just trauma bonded after the tragic loss of the guy they were both dating. Konan talked him out of naming himself 'PAIN' but he does have a giant tattoo about it.

Kakuzu is the director of corporate affairs. He's a control freak about it.

Deidara and Sasori are the two man marketing department. Deidara doesn't believe in strategic vision; Sasori loses his mind when he has to alter his plans. It's going... not great. Together they are absolutely amazing at crisis management though. And Deidara loves crisis management.

Itachi is the head of legal. He used his family's money to get the fanciest law degree on the planet but had a falling out with them after his entry to the bar about the allegedly unethical source of their wealth. He still works for Akatsuki, which isn't exactly a nonprofit.

Kisame is Itachi's common law partner who is a... private contractor, who is employed on an ad-hoc basis by Akatsuki for specific professional services. He mostly takes gym selfies and sends them to Itachi to get him through each bonkers day. But some days, he charges tens of thousands to go to work for 3 hours. He's good at his job.

Orochimaru used to be the head of R&D but now he's left the company and has embroiled them in a litigious tangle about intellectual property in the commercialisation of his research. Itachi's predecessor was ousted ("ousted") over the hole in his contract, and now they're trying really hard to patch it up. It's not going great.

Hidan is the receptionist. If you canvas businesses to try to sell to them, or if you show up without an appointment, Hidan is there to take very, very good care of you. He's also carrying on with Kakuzu ("boyfriend," would be pushing it) but it's not really affecting his enthusiasm for his work.

Obito/Tobi: intern and general dogsbody, but he's also a 9% shareholder. He does not really need to work here. He's choosing this.

Zetsu shows up once a week to water the office plants. They're mostly lilies.

What, you might ask, does this company actually do? Well. Akatsuki has... a variety of interests. Waste management. Wealth management. Risk mitigation. You know. This and that.

#tozette's akatsuki office au #akatsuki

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treethymes · 7 months

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With the exceptions of North Korea and Cuba, the communist world has merged onto the capitalist highway in a couple different ways during the twenty-first century. As you’ve read, free-trade imperialism and its cheap agricultural imports pushed farmers into the cities and into factory work, lowering the global price of manufacturing labor and glutting the world market with stuff. Forward-thinking states such as China and Vietnam invested in high-value-added production capacity and managed labor organizing, luring links from the global electronics supply chain and jump-starting capital investment. Combined with capital’s hesitancy to invest in North Atlantic production facilities, as well as a disinclination toward state-led investment in the region, Asian top-down planning erased much of the West’s technological edge. If two workers can do a single job, and one worker costs less, both in wages and state support, why pick the expensive one? Foxconn’s 2017 plan to build a U.S. taxpayer–subsidized $10 billion flat-panel display factory in Wisconsin was trumpeted by the president, but it was a fiasco that produced zero screens. The future cost of labor looks to be capped somewhere below the wage levels many people have enjoyed, and not just in the West.

The left-wing economist Joan Robinson used to tell a joke about poverty and investment, something to the effect of: The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalists is not being exploited by capitalists. It’s a cruel truism about the unipolar world, but shouldn’t second place count for something? When the Soviet project came to an end, in the early 1990s, the country had completed world history’s biggest, fastest modernization project, and that didn’t just disappear. Recall that Cisco was hyped to announce its buyout of the Evil Empire’s supercomputer team. Why wasn’t capitalist Russia able to, well, capitalize? You’re already familiar with one of the reasons: The United States absorbed a lot of human capital originally financed by the Soviet people. American immigration policy was based on draining technical talent in particular from the Second World. Sergey Brin is the best-known person in the Moscow-to-Palo-Alto pipeline, but he’s not the only one.

Look at the economic composition of China and Russia in the wake of Soviet dissolution: Both were headed toward capitalist social relations, but they took two different routes. The Russian transition happened rapidly. The state sold off public assets right away, and the natural monopolies such as telecommunications and energy were divided among a small number of skilled and connected businessmen, a category of guys lacking in a country that frowned on such characters but that grew in Gorbachev’s liberalizing perestroika era. Within five years, the country sold off an incredible 35 percent of its national wealth. Russia’s richest ended the century with a full counterrevolutionary reversal of their fortunes, propelling their income share above what it was before the Bolsheviks took over. To accomplish this, the country’s new capitalists fleeced the most vulnerable half of their society. “Over the 1989–2016 period, the top 1 percent captured more than two-thirds of the total growth in Russia,” found an international group of scholars, “while the bottom 50 percent actually saw a decline in its income.” Increases in energy prices encouraged the growth of an extractionist petro-centered economy. Blood-covered, teary, and writhing, infant Russian capital crowded into the gas and oil sectors. The small circle of oligarchs privatized unemployed KGB-trained killers to run “security,” and gangsters dominated politics at the local and national levels. They installed a not particularly well-known functionary—a former head of the new intelligence service FSB who also worked on the privatization of government assets—as president in a surprise move on the first day of the year 2000. He became the gangster in chief.

Vladimir Putin’s first term coincided with the energy boom, and billionaires gobbled up a ludicrous share of growth. If any individual oligarch got too big for his britches, Putin was not beyond imposing serious consequences. He reinserted the state into the natural monopolies, this time in collaboration with loyal capitalists, and his stranglehold on power remains tight for now, despite the outstandingly uneven distribution of growth. Between 1980 and 2015, the Russian top 1 percent grew its income an impressive 6.2 percent per year, but the top .001 percent has maintained a growth rate of 17 percent over the same period. To invest these profits, the Russian billionaires parked their money in real estate, bidding up housing prices, and stashed a large amount of their wealth offshore. Reinvestment in Russian production was not a priority—why go through the hassle when there were easier ways to keep getting richer?

While Russia grew billionaires instead of output, China saw a path to have both. As in the case of Terry Gou, the Chinese Communist Party tempered its transition by incorporating steadily increasing amounts of foreign direct investment through Hong Kong and Taiwan, picking partners and expanding outward from the special economic zones. State support for education and infrastructure combined with low wages to make the mainland too attractive to resist. (Russia’s population is stagnant, while China’s has grown quickly.) China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, in 2001, gave investors more confidence. Meanwhile, strong capital controls kept the country out of the offshore trap, and state development priorities took precedence over extraction and get-rich-quick schemes. Chinese private wealth was rechanneled into domestic financial assets—equity and bonds or other loan instruments—at a much higher rate than it was in Russia. The result has been a sustained high level of annual output growth compared to the rest of the world, the type that involves putting up an iPhone City in a matter of months. As it has everywhere else, that growth has been skewed: only an average of 4.5 percent for the bottom half of earners in the 1978–2015 period compared to more than 10 percent for the top .001 percent. But this ratio of just over 2–1 is incomparable to Russia’s 17–.5 ration during the same period.

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, certain trends have been more or less unavoidable. The rich have gotten richer relative to the poor and working class—in Russia, in China, in the United States, and pretty much anywhere else you want to look. Capital has piled into property markets, driving up the cost of housing everywhere people want to live, especially in higher-wage cities and especially in the world’s financial centers. Capitalist and communist countries alike have disgorged public assets into private pockets. But by maintaining a level of control over the process and slowing its tendencies, the People’s Republic of China has built a massive and expanding postindustrial manufacturing base.

It’s important to understand both of these patterns as part of the same global system rather than as two opposed regimes. One might imagine, based on what I’ve written so far, that the Chinese model is useful, albeit perhaps threatening, in the long term for American tech companies while the Russian model is irrelevant. Some commentators have phrased this as the dilemma of middle-wage countries on the global market: Wages in China are going to be higher than wages in Russia because wages in Russia used to be higher than wages in China. But Russia’s counterrevolutionary hyper-bifurcation has been useful for Silicon Valley as well; they are two sides of the same coin. Think about it this way: If you’re a Russian billionaire in the first decades of the twenty-first century looking to invest a bunch of money you pulled out of the ground, where’s the best place you could put it? The answer is Palo Alto.

Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto

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mbta-unofficial · 6 months

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If your city is a Brand, it’s already too late

Long post time. What is it that drives gentrification? Also, what is gentrification? Is it when a city gets blue hair and pronouns? No, it probably already had those.

Gentrification is the result of concentration of wealth in the hands of business owners, including landlords, over and above the hands of residents.

Let’s start with rent. Rent, like any good, is priced according to the laws of supply and demand. Supply of available rental housing is primarily determined by construction costs and estimated return on investment for new construction, and property management costs and estimated return on investment for existing units.

Breaking that down a bit, the higher construction costs get the higher the rent needs to be to break even on new construction. Construction costs include labor (which can always go down but you want it high for moral and practical reasons), materials (highly variable depending on the project) and bureaucratic costs. A bureaucratic cost is a cost that is based on how projects fit into the legal and practical environment, and are usually non-negotiable. Dig Safe, a program which requires three days of surveying local records before breaking ground, is an example where the function is to prevent crews from flattening a neighborhood by puncturing a gas main. Environmental Impact Statements, Fire Codes, Habitability Guidelines, and other regulations increase costs to projects. These programs are good and need to exist, but do stop smaller projects from happening at all because the capital investment required just to actually break ground on a new house might cost as much as the land and materials put together at which point you might as well build another 120$/sqft luxury midrise.

Property management costs for existing units are largely dependent on age and wear. A unit with no occupant is going to depreciate little, and may also appreciate in value. Depreciation and appreciation here are sort of unintuitive because they can happen at the same time. Imagine an old luxury sports car with a high resale price. Driving depreciates the value because it’s literal condition is poorer, even as the resale value goes up over time. The appreciation needs to beat both inflation and the value of depreciation for it to go up in real value. For companies with large capital holdings however, losses such as through the upkeep of empty apartment buildings are useful to a point because they reduce these organizations’s tax burdens. A company that makes a killing on the stock market only has to pay taxes if they keep it: if they buy houses they then don’t rent, they can claim they “lost” their stock market earnings with “bad investments” and then pay no tax while saving the real estate to rent later. Again, this favors the largest possible projects and the largest possible operators because small companies can be killed by an unprofitable quarter or 4 while large ones explicitly benefit from unprofitability in reducing their tax burden.

Expected ROI is the final piece of this, which affects both new and existing units. Every private developer and landlord wants to make as much money as they can, unless they are explicitly are renting as a service. An example of renting as a service would be families, who will rent to each other at favorable rates or for free, privileging people with large and/or wealthy families that are friendly with each other. Now, ROI is also subject to supply and demand. Everyone wants to build 120$/sqft luxury apartments but once everybody does nobody can sell/rent for those prices without setting a price floor and waiting for buyers to catch up. If you are a small developer, you can’t afford to do this. Your expenses will eat you alive. If you are a big developer, though, those expenses are offsetting the gains you make and serving to reduce you tax bill. Units at prices nobody can pay are effectively furloughed, meaning off the market, and, so long as they remain cheap to maintain, will remain that way, artificially restricting supply. It doesn’t matter if it’s for sale or not when it’s at a price you can’t afford. (Sidebar, anyone who tells you that the minimum wage depresses hiring because it artificially restricts demand is lying to you. It’s not strictly false, but like the above it’s a multi-variable equation and blanket statements about cost of labor are aimed at killing wages.)

What this alludes to also is a need for greater income equality. In order for rental to be a competitive option with furlough, not only does the price of furlough have to be increased, the real value of wages have to be increased in order to create opportunities for people to splurge. This is a twofold strategy, of both increasing the rewards of putting units on the market and increasing the costs of keeping them off. If real wages barely cover cost of living, or don’t cover cost of living, nobody can realistically spend more real wages on rent regardless of the percentage of their income it is. (Real wages here refers to the political power implied by dollar wages. A dollar is really worth whatever it can be exchanged for, whether that is a candy bar or a square inch of a 144$/sqft condo) The real value of everything except time and land are also constantly going down because of constant improvements in manufacturing. The cost in acres of land and hours of labor of a pound of beef, a bolt of cloth, or a pint of beer have dropped dramatically in the last century. Unfortunately, land is one of the few things that remains in marxist terms uncommodifiable, because it cannot be fully abstracted from the physical properties that make it valuable and we can’t make more of it just by making a better machine. This means that as the real value of things goes down because of supply and demand, the value of land only goes up because the supply is hard capped. If the value of everything under capitalism must go down because of increased production, while the value of capitalist assets must go up, or the system collapses, it makes sense that land would become a fixed point in that equation, the marxist speed of light observable from all reference points. The best approximation of land as commodity is, what else, apartments, which make available as living space the empty air above us. Because production never stops, the value of everything but land must go down. Therefore, as time passes, the price of land, and hence the price of housing, must tend upwards. Therefore, in order for housing to remain affordable, real wages must grow. This is the opposite of what is currently happening, as real wages have gone down for decades.

This income inequality which is one facet of capitalism is not new. For as long as people have lived in urban areas there have been issues between the abject class, the working class, the ruling class, and the professional class, a four part distinction I will seriously argue for in opposition to a lot of marxist theorists. The ruling and working classes ought to be familiar, or at least self explanatory. However, the other two classes I identify, the professionals and the abject, are useful to this analysis because they fill both a racial gap in the primarily marxist analysis I put forward and identify the two most likely groups to rent, which is to say the worker who works to produce but owns without governing and the professional who works to govern but does not own. The ruling class both governs and owns, but its court is full of courtiers who are there to push various agendas from within the rule of law without per se producing. Likewise, the working class pensioner exists in opposition to the abject who is denied the opportunity or the resources to be productive explicitly as a means to manufacture a threat against which inter-class solidarity between the workers and the rulers is developed. The textbook nazi conspiracy theory about “elites” doing a great racial replacement picks out perfectly what I mean by both the racial character of the professional and the abject and their utilization to foster solidarity between your plumber uncle and Elon Musk. This is relevant to both the broad theme of gentrification and the narrow theme of rent because gentrification is a wedge issue that divides the working class and the professional class far more than its impact on any other. The working class’ disidentification with doctors, lawyers, PMCs and other yuppie types, as well as the professional class’ disidentification with union politics, illegalism, and radicalism in general is brought to firecrackers in virtually any conversation about gentrification which seems in passing to be more about tapas bars than about real politics. Likewise, these groups shared distrust of and disdain for the abject, who are explicitly labeled by the state as constitutionally guilty, is the basis for the very broken windows policing strategy that empties neighborhoods of minorities regardless of class. The Rent is Too Damn High, and excluding homeless people from the “working” working class is a big part of how we got here specifically because the interests of small time owners and small time government functionaries, carried to their conclusions, are necessarily self defeating. These two groups eliminate the presence of the abject from their spaces at their own financial peril.

In addition to class, there is also a specific historical movement that is crucial to the understanding of gentrification as it exists, which is the movement of factories in search of cheap labor. The United States is not a good place to find cheap urban labor. You build a factory and suddenly everyone complains about air quality and labor violations and you can’t just kill them because everyone has lawyers. You kill one (us citizen) organizer and the NLRB is trying to get you in court for intimidation. What’s the country come to? But a shipping container costs a quarter cent per mile and the goods aren’t perishable so you go to Guangzhou or Cape Town where you can kill union bosses in peace. But for the American city, that’s a loss of what once made land prime real estate. What jobs can replace the insatiable demand for labor that a 24 hour paper mill once produced? Service labor, which crucially is site specific and therefore not outsourceable, is what the US has predominantly turned to. (and arms manufacturing which is not outsourced for very different reasons) However, service labor is only in demand if there is already a stable population that can be served, which requires a constant influx of capital holders in demand of service. This is why Airbnb exists and is hollowing out rental availability, why Boston as a college town is the way it is, and why there are in fact so many damn tapas bars. Fred Salveucci talked about being able to go north of the expressway in the 70s and being able to get a plate of mac and beans for half a buck. I went looking for a 5$ slice of pizza on my lunch break today around Government Center and found two places that were boarded up and ended up spending 20$ at Chilacates. Cities are being slowly turned into Cancun, complete with the fences to keep out the homeless.

What can be done about this? Obviously the factors we’ve discussed that favor consolidation of housing are mostly either contained within a gordion’s knot of tax policy or intrinsic to capitalism/goods as commodities. But, given that we narrow our objectives to making the rent lower, some obvious weaknesses jump out: increasing the cost of vacancy forces units out of furlough, because companies are no longer able to justify the losses, and increasing real wages increases the availability of capital for workers to spend on rent. These are the prongs I talked about earlier.

Legal means to pursue each prong exist. Both a minimum wage and a maximum wage, depending on their implementation, can potentially increase real wages, and vacancy taxes directly increase the costs of vacancy. The government can also ignore the market and directly mandate maximum rents within certain parameters. This tends to decrease the long term supply of housing for the reasons discussed at the outset, given that if the revenues from house building don’t cover the costs of building, less gets built. However, any political movement that exists exclusively within the white lines of the law fails to genuinely threaten change. Landlords, like bosses, break the law constantly with the impunity that a lawyer provides them against consequence. This is why a healthy dose of illegalism is an important part of any effective political movement. The most direct action one can take is property occupation, or squatting. Squatter’s rights are nearly non-existent in the United States. The most leeway that any state grants to any unknown persons occupying a dwelling is 60 days notice to vacate the property, and there are states that allow no notice evictions or lack statutes governing squatting at all. Every single state regards the occupation of owned property as trespassing, meaning most kinds of squatting are prosecutable offenses. However, squatting, even temporarily in ways that don’t expose the squatter to liability provided they don’t get caught, can seriously impact the value of properties. You have heard of rent lowering gunshots. This is the serious version of that. At the same time, illegal action needs legal defense, both in terms of non-compliance with police to protect those willing to take illegal actions from arrest and in terms of legal, 1st amendment protected disruption to keep focus on the issue. The most effective movements have a radical wing and a institutionalist wing who do not acknowledge each other but share the same tactics and objectives.

If you are housed, you need to be willing to protect and support homeless people because they are your front line. Start or join an Occupy movement, where they are your peers in occupying a public space illegally in a way that is too public to prosecute. Give to people on the street, and smash anti-homeless architecture if nobody is watching. Be willing to distract cops if you see someone doing something dodgy so they can get away. Remember that following the law is a tactic, and so is breaking it.

The case for this being on my transit blog is arguably weak, but I felt compelled after a particularly hateful experience looking at facebook memes about homeless people on the T. You should want those people there. You should want those people breaking down the doors of luxury apartments and setting up shop. You should want them keeping your city safe because the cops you hire to separate you from them will train their guns on you next.

And for gods sake, don’t let your city become a brand. Branding is marketing. Branding is clean, and bloodless, and a gloved hand around your throat that leaves no fingerprints.

#long post

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copperbadge · 2 years

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If you could buy Tumblr, would you?

Hm, an interesting thought!

If I were capable of buying Tumblr this would imply one of two things: either Tumblr is so devalued and has become so cheap to maintain that a single man living in downtown Chicago with two cats to feed could afford to buy it and keep it, or I have somehow come into enough wealth that I am capable of squandering millions on the Hellsite.

(Or I'm running the most incredible con, which is actually the most flattering option.)

If we're talking a situation where Tumblr would cost me roughly the price of a third cat to purchase and maintain, sure. Buy it, keep it like a pet. This is a bit of an unrealistic vision of things, because under what circumstances would this possibly happen, but as long as we're in unreality, let's pretend I could also simply add and remove features at will. That's some fun shit. Sure, I would.

The more realistic option (for a given value) is that I have mysteriously come into a massive sum of money and could afford to purchase Tumblr. In this scenario, I could likely afford to operate it at a loss only for so long, but I don't actually know how much Tumblr costs on a yearly basis to keep it operational. Most of the problems with most social media, however, come from the fact that they don't just have to break even, they have to turn a profit to continue to function, or they have to have regular infusions of venture capital. A thorny issue.

Ideally what I would do once Tumblr was purchased, and presuming all the other share/stakeholders and investors were paid off, was immediately convert it to a nonprofit. What you can do with nonprofit cash is a lot smaller than what you can do with for-profit levels of investment, but turning Tumblr into a nonprofit has the immediate advantage of no longer having to make money. Tumblr can actually run at a "loss" if it's a public service, because it's all donation-supported anyway. I could think of half a dozen immediate easy targets for major gift fundraising for "Tumblr 503", and I would immediately begin planning both an annual campaign (that's what you see Wikipedia and AO3 doing each year) and a capital campaign to create an endowment to protect the org from future depredation.

Depending on funding I would also be willing to create an arm of the Tumblr Foundation that could start separate initiatives like legal protection for activists on the platform, AI that is better at recognizing illegal content so we don't have huge buildings of poor traumatized motherfuckers doing that moderation work, and such things. This isn't at all uncommon -- the nonprofit I work for now is a medical nonprofit, but even as small as we are, we have numerous different initiatives, from political lobbying to pharma outreach to a helpline for the newly diagnosed to a yearly conference for doctors in the field to funding for young researchers.

Would it work? Dunno. Possibly not, I'm not experienced in backend management of a massive website. But I know people who are, and if the money was there I'd take a stab at it. Worst case scenario, we just take it private again and sucker a couple of billionaires out of their money a second time. Promise if the nonprofit doesn't work and we sell Tumblr to the highest bidder, everyone on the site when we do gets a cut.

#tumblr #blue hellsite

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