#Sell Used Appliances

[digi2l2]

Digi2L - India's 1st Digital Platform To Sell Used Appliances

Sell Old Appliances for Cash: A Convenient Guide

In a world that’s constantly evolving with the latest technological advancements, our homes often bear the brunt of these changes. Outdated appliances pile up in garages and basements, taking up valuable space and collecting dust. What if we told you that those neglected appliances could be transformed into cold, hard cash? Welcome to Digi2L, your go-to platform for selling old appliances and decluttering your space while filling your wallet. 

Why Sell Your Old Appliances with Digi2L? 

Digi2L stands out as a revolutionary platform designed to simplify the process of selling your old appliances. More than just a marketplace, Digi2L streamlines the selling experience, offering convenience, safety, and the promise of quick cash. Here’s why you should consider making Digi2L your trusted partner in turning clutter into currency. 

 1. Convenience at Your Fingertips:

   Digi2L’s user-friendly website and mobile app make the entire selling process a breeze. Forget the hassle of organizing a garage sale or dealing with the complexities of online classifieds. With Digi2L, you can list your old appliances in a matter of minutes, right from the comfort of your home. 

 2. Wide Range of Acceptable Appliances:

   Unlike other platforms that might be picky about the items they accept, Digi2L is your one-stop-shop for a variety of appliances. From refrigerators and washing machines to microwaves and blenders, Digi2L accepts a broad range of appliances, ensuring that you can sell whatever is taking up space in your home. 

 3. Fair and Transparent Pricing:

   Digi2L values transparency and fairness. The platform utilizes a sophisticated pricing algorithm that takes into account the condition, age, and market value of your appliances. This ensures that you receive a fair and competitive price for your items, making the selling process not only lucrative but also satisfying. 

 4. Secure Transactions:

   Safety is a top priority at Digi2L. The platform employs state-of-the-art security measures to protect your personal information and ensure secure transactions. You can sell your appliances with confidence, knowing that Digi2L has your back. 

 5. Fast and Efficient Payment:

   Tired of waiting for potential buyers or dealing with the uncertainties of payment? Digi2L guarantees fast and efficient payment for your old appliances. Once your items are accepted, you can expect cash in hand in no time, eliminating the long and tedious waiting periods associated with traditional selling methods. 

 6. Environmental Sustainability:

   By selling your old appliances with Digi2L, you’re not just making money – you’re also contributing to environmental sustainability. Recycling and reusing appliances reduce electronic waste, minimizing the ecological impact of outdated devices on our planet. Join the movement towards a greener future by choosing Digi2L as your preferred platform. 

How It Works: 

Now that you’re eager to start cashing in on your old appliances, let’s walk through the straightforward process of selling with Digi2L: 

 1. Create Your Account:

   Begin by creating an account on the Digi2L website or mobile app. This will be your hub for managing your listings, tracking sales, and receiving payments. 

 2. List Your Appliances:

   Once your account is set up, navigate to the “Sell” section and input details about the appliances you wish to sell. Provide accurate information about the condition, age, and any additional features your items may have. Include clear, high-quality photos to attract potential buyers. 

 3. Receive a Quote:

   Digi2L’s pricing algorithm will analyze the information you’ve provided and generate a quote for each appliance. Rest assured that the pricing is fair and competitive, reflecting the market value of your items. 

 4. Accept the Offer:

   Review the quotes and, if satisfied, accept the offers for your appliances. Digi2L will guide you through the next steps, including arranging for the pick-up or drop-off of your items. 

 5. Get Paid:

   Once your appliances are inspected and approved, you’ll receive your payment promptly. Digi2L offers various payment methods, ensuring flexibility and convenience for sellers. 

Digi2L isn’t just a platform; it’s a game-changer for anyone looking to declutter their space and make some extra cash. With its user-friendly interface, transparent pricing, and commitment to security, Digi2L is the go-to solution for turning your old appliances into money. Say goodbye to the clutter and hello to a more organized, profitable, and environmentally conscious lifestyle with Digi2L. Start selling today and experience the satisfaction of a cleaner home and a fuller wallet!

[the-punforgiven]

I think it should be illegal for landlords to use a property service that anonymizes them, like, what are you hiding from, buddy? 👁👁

Surely if you just treat your tenants well and do your job, you won't need to hide from anyone, right?

[victorluvsalice]

-->And with that, it was finally off to Van Liddelton Groceries once more! Alice got to open the place up this time, though first, I had her set the prices to “Sale” (aka 15% markup) down from the regular 25% markup. Why? Because they DO NOT need the money, and I wanted to see if stuff would sell faster if it was a little cheaper. She then got sent to have some zoomies to deal with her slowly-growing Fury (no wolfing out at work!) while Victor bunked down for a nap in the break room and Smiler went out to handle the sales floor (after consulting their future cube for advice, since I wanted them to do something while waiting for customers – “the cube abides,” apparently)! Amusingly, the very first Sim to show up for the day was L. Faba – guess she was tired of Morgyn getting all the attention whenever the gang visited the Magic Realm. XD (Which reminds me, I really gotta bind Victor’s dragon familiar to him already...) Anyway, after a bit of lag, Smiler was able to let off one of their patented vampiric happiness bursts for the incoming customers and chat with Catarina Lynx for a bit to try and convince her to buy stuff –

-->And then Alice came back, and I decided that I wanted her to make some more food downstairs rather than force her to chat with customers. A decision that led to me transferring $40,000 of their household funds over to the store so I could upgrade the downstairs kitchen area with the best Schmapple fridges and ovens, and add a counter by the corner so I could put in a stand mixer, a waffle iron, and a pizza oven! All in the blue swatches, since I thought those looked nice. :) I then had Alice use the bulk food processors from Simsonian Library to process some potato flour so she could whip up a batch of dough –

-->Aaand suddenly EVERYONE WAS BUYING SHIT. Yeah, apparently cheaper prices DO encourage more sales. I quickly had Alice run up there to help Smiler with the initial rush (since Victor was still working on taking care of his needs) – Catarina picked up a loaf of cheesy bread for $71; Christen a jar of blueberry jam for $80; and Janae a small mushroom for $5. We got a brief break while some of the customers got distracted by the sight of celebrity Brytani Cho in the store (long enough for Victor to get up and go to the bathroom), but after that and another annoying case of lag, the sales started coming again, with Bella Goth grabbing a box of dried sage for $413, and L. Faba getting a box of cheese for $621. I took a moment to check downstairs and saw that Alice’s dough was ready, so I had her go downstairs and grab that –

Aaand got an LE as she did so. However, that was shortly followed by customer Olivia grabbing an avocado from the produce fridges/warming racks, so I think the LE was actually related to that – specifically, to my Brazen Lotus stuff. Meh. At least I'm pretty sure I know what it is (the game doesn’t have a proper animation to play if a Sim is getting a normally-not-allowed-in-produce-fridges item out of a produce fridge, so it goes ��hey”) and that it’s not TOO game-breaking!

[luulapants]

25 ways to be a little more punk in 2025

Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality

Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway

Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups

Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay

Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward

Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient

Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative

Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!

Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community

DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!

Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?

Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.

Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability

Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough

Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing

Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work

Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market

Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question

Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them

Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area

Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...

Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable

Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact

Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive

Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people

[hajiausedfurniturebuyer]

Hajia Used Furniture and electronics buyer in Dubai

Looking to sell your gently used furniture or electronics in Dubai? Hajia Used Furniture Buyer offers a hassle-free solution! We purchase quality second-hand items like sofas, beds, appliances, laptops, and more, with fair, on-the-spot offers. Turn your pre-owned items into cash quickly and easily. Contact Hajia Used Furniture Buyer today and experience a smooth, reliable selling process!

[forestryfae]

i want moneeeey i want to go shopping i wanna go to the thriftstore i wanna spend money. specifically. i wanna buy a nightstand for my bedroom, some fun plates and pasta bowls, a few extra forks would be nice, more pants, and i wanna buy some cleaning supplies im out of and a set of like 2 or 3 trashcans, and i really could use some winter underclothes. like wool or merino tights and sweaters.

but most importantly the trashcans and the cleaning stuff, rly need trashcans. ideally one for the kitchen, one for the bedroom and one for the bathroom. out of all the rest of this stuff tho i want pasta bowls and wool underclothes the most.

[teaboot]

Almighty Tumblr user Teaboot, what is your wisdom?

uh

You don't have to eat the gross jellybeans, you can just eat the ones you like, they have no nutritional value so there's nothing wrong with tossing em, candy is for fun not for food

Spiders and other household bugs are repulsed by cedar and lavender- you can get cedar balls online like how people used to sell mothballs and use em to keep spiders out of your closet

When you unplug an appliance from a wall there may still be an electrical charge in it for a sec so don't touch the metal end of the plug or you might get zapped a bit

Tiger's eye gems are a type of asbestos so if you crack or chip your tiger's eye you should probably not wear it anymore idk I'm not a rock scientist

If you wanna stay warmer when camping you should leave your sleeping bag rolled up until the moment you go to bed cause the fabric can absorb humidity in the air and make it damp and colder. Also fresh socks before you go to bed, even if your day ones still seem dry

Rayon, Viscose, and Lyocell are all made of plant fibers

Capsaicin is fat soluble, so if you eat something too spicy then drinking milk or cream will wash it away better than water. Swishing with vinegar should also work too if you're desperate

Fish are WAY more maintenance than you think they are. Goldfish can live well over a decade under proper care. Fish are not "easy" pets for the love of God. And they're smarter than you think they are

People having seizures are not going to swallow their tongue. At worst they may bite it. Hitting their head on something is a far bigger risk. Don't put shit in their mouth.

Children are more sensitive to bitter tastes as an evolutionary safety measure against accidental poisoning. If theycdont like eating something because it's bitter, remember that the taste is stronger to them.

Most symptoms of hauntings are also symptoms of gas leaks and black mold. Whether or not you believe in ghosts you should probably check you're not being poisoned before you drop money on a spirit medium

Purple skittles are grape flavour in some places like North America and blackcurrant in places like the UK. I personally prefer blackcurrant

Saguaro cacti can weigh literal tons and will crush you to death if they fall on you

Palm trees are technically grass

[drafty-castle]

I’ve said before but I moved from southern USA where urban sprawl has eaten everything to northern Maine where everything is vibrant Green or sparkling White depending on the season. No billboards. Minimal urban sprawl. A “large city” is the equivalent to a medium-small town in Georgia/Tennessee.

Beautiful.

Is it for everyone? No. There’s little to no entertainment that you can’t make yourself, everything closes at eight or ten (including Walmart and McDonald’s), and unless you live downtown in a city or town with local access to necessities the need for a car is dire because the nearest anything might be fifty to a hundred miles away.

But the people are kind. Not nice in the Southern sense. There’s little chitchat between strangers or automatic smiles and politeness. But there is a deep seated culture of kindness and community support. Not necessarily in the financial sense (though there are a significant amount of aid programs that just don’t exist in the south available here), but in the “stranger-helping-a-stranger” sense. I think it’s due to generations of people knowing it could be their car (and before that, horse and buggy) on the side of the road during a snow storm needing help and so people automatically go out of their way to help others in kind. No questions, no expectations, sometimes not even an introduction! Just, “Hey! You stuck? Want me to hitch up your car with my winch? [gets car out of snow ditch] All right, see around. [drives off]” (True story)

It’s a complete culture shock compared to living in the parts of the South I come from, where people are polite to your face but more likely to turn their eyes away from anyone needing help or blame misfortune on God’s judgement or just watch in glee and gossip but not help. I’ll take standoffish but genuinely kind over polite but selfish any day.

Places can be beautiful and I enjoy looking at that beauty. But people can make someplace so much more than just pretty to look at. Having both in one location is sick a blessing.

[homeappliences]

Buy and Sell Easily Used Appliances Abu Dhabi

Finding affordable yet reliable home appliances can be a challenge. However, with the option to buy and sell used home appliances in Abu Dhabi, residents can enjoy cost-effective solutions without compromising on quality. At Buy and Sale Used Home Appliances Abu Dhabi, we specialize in providing a seamless experience for buyers and sellers alike.

1. Affordable Options: Buying used home appliances offers a budget-friendly alternative to purchasing brand new items. With our platform, residents of Abu Dhabi can find high-quality appliances at prices that won't break the bank.

2. Convenience of Selling: For those looking to upgrade or declutter, selling used appliances through our platform is a hassle-free process. Simply list your items, connect with potential buyers, and enjoy the convenience of selling from the comfort of your home.

3. Extensive Range of Appliances: From air conditioners to electric stoves, our platform offers a diverse range of used home appliances to suit every need. Whether you're looking for kitchen appliances or electronic gadgets, you'll find a wide selection to choose from.

4. Reliable Repair Services: In addition to buying and selling, we also offer repair services for used home appliances. Our experienced technicians are skilled in diagnosing and fixing various issues, ensuring that your appliances are restored to optimal working condition.

5. Seamless Transactions: With our user-friendly platform, buying and selling used home appliances in Abu Dhabi has never been easier. Browse through listings, communicate with sellers, and complete transactions with confidence, knowing that you're getting the best value for your money.

At Buy and Sale Used Home Appliances Abu Dhabi, we're committed to simplifying the process of buying, selling, and repairing home appliances. Whether you're in need of a new air conditioner or looking to sell your old electric stove, our platform offers convenient solutions tailored to your needs. Experience the convenience and affordability of buying and selling used home appliances in Abu Dhabi today.

[usedfurniturealain]

Affordable Elegance: Exploring Used Furniture in Al Ain

Find the quality furniture In Al Ain that fits your budget can be a challenge. However, with the rise of used furniture shops in the area, residents now have access to a wide range of affordable options to furnish their homes, offices, and more. Let's delve into the world of used furniture in Al Ain and discover the variety of services available to help you transform your space.

Storage Furniture: Storage furniture plays a crucial role in keeping your home organized and clutter-free. Whether you're in need of bookshelves, cabinets, or wardrobes, used furniture shops in Al Ain offer a plethora of options to suit your storage needs. From sleek modern designs to timeless classics, you'll find storage solutions that blend seamlessly with your décor.

Home Appliances: From kitchen essentials like refrigerators and ovens to household gadgets like vacuum cleaners and washing machines, used furniture shops in Al Ain also stock a variety of home appliances. Whether you're moving into a new home or simply upgrading your existing appliances, opting for used options can help you save money without compromising on quality.

Office Furniture & Appliances: Furnishing an office space can be costly, but with used furniture shops in Al Ain, you can create a functional and stylish workspace without breaking the bank. Explore a range of desks, chairs, filing cabinets, and more to design an office that promotes productivity and comfort. Additionally, shop for office appliances such as printers, computers, and scanners to complete your setup.

Table Furniture: Tables are essential pieces of furniture in any home or office. Whether you're in need of a dining table, coffee table, or study desk, used furniture shops in Al Ain offer an array of table options to suit your space and style preferences. Choose from various materials, sizes, and designs to find the perfect table for your needs.

Sleeping Furniture: Your bedroom should be a sanctuary where you can relax and unwind after a long day. Used furniture shops in Al Ain offer a selection of sleeping furniture, including bed frames, mattresses, and bedside tables, to help you create a cozy and comfortable sleeping environment. With options ranging from single beds to king-size sets, you're sure to find the perfect sleeping furniture for your space.

Seating Furniture: Seating furniture is essential for creating comfortable and inviting living spaces. Whether you're looking for sofas, armchairs, or ottomans, used furniture shops in Al Ain offer a variety of seating options to suit your needs and preferences. Choose from different styles, fabrics, and colors to find seating furniture that complements your decor and enhances your comfort.

Conclusion: With the availability of used furniture shops in Al Ain, residents have access to affordable and quality furniture options to furnish their homes, offices, and more. From storage furniture to home appliances, office furniture to table furniture, sleeping furniture to seating furniture, these shops offer a diverse range of products to cater to every need and budget. Transform your space today with the help of used furniture in Al Ain and create a home or office that reflects your style and personality.

[digi2l2]

Digi2L - India's 1st Digital Platform To Sell Used Appliances

Sell Old Appliances for Cash: A Convenient Guide

In a world that’s constantly evolving with the latest technological advancements, our homes often bear the brunt of these changes. Outdated appliances pile up in garages and basements, taking up valuable space and collecting dust. What if we told you that those neglected appliances could be transformed into cold, hard cash? Welcome to Digi2L, your go-to platform for selling old appliances and decluttering your space while filling your wallet. 

Why Sell Your Old Appliances with Digi2L? 

Digi2L stands out as a revolutionary platform designed to simplify the process of selling your old appliances. More than just a marketplace, Digi2L streamlines the selling experience, offering convenience, safety, and the promise of quick cash. Here’s why you should consider making Digi2L your trusted partner in turning clutter into currency. 

 1. Convenience at Your Fingertips:

   Digi2L’s user-friendly website and mobile app make the entire selling process a breeze. Forget the hassle of organizing a garage sale or dealing with the complexities of online classifieds. With Digi2L, you can list your old appliances in a matter of minutes, right from the comfort of your home. 

 2. Wide Range of Acceptable Appliances:

   Unlike other platforms that might be picky about the items they accept, Digi2L is your one-stop-shop for a variety of appliances. From refrigerators and washing machines to microwaves and blenders, Digi2L accepts a broad range of appliances, ensuring that you can sell whatever is taking up space in your home. 

 3. Fair and Transparent Pricing:

   Digi2L values transparency and fairness. The platform utilizes a sophisticated pricing algorithm that takes into account the condition, age, and market value of your appliances. This ensures that you receive a fair and competitive price for your items, making the selling process not only lucrative but also satisfying. 

 4. Secure Transactions:

   Safety is a top priority at Digi2L. The platform employs state-of-the-art security measures to protect your personal information and ensure secure transactions. You can sell your appliances with confidence, knowing that Digi2L has your back. 

 5. Fast and Efficient Payment:

   Tired of waiting for potential buyers or dealing with the uncertainties of payment? Digi2L guarantees fast and efficient payment for your old appliances. Once your items are accepted, you can expect cash in hand in no time, eliminating the long and tedious waiting periods associated with traditional selling methods. 

 6. Environmental Sustainability:

   By selling your old appliances with Digi2L, you’re not just making money – you’re also contributing to environmental sustainability. Recycling and reusing appliances reduce electronic waste, minimizing the ecological impact of outdated devices on our planet. Join the movement towards a greener future by choosing Digi2L as your preferred platform. 

How It Works: 

Now that you’re eager to start cashing in on your old appliances, let’s walk through the straightforward process of selling with Digi2L: 

 1. Create Your Account:

   Begin by creating an account on the Digi2L website or mobile app. This will be your hub for managing your listings, tracking sales, and receiving payments. 

 2. List Your Appliances:

   Once your account is set up, navigate to the “Sell” section and input details about the appliances you wish to sell. Provide accurate information about the condition, age, and any additional features your items may have. Include clear, high-quality photos to attract potential buyers. 

 3. Receive a Quote:

   Digi2L’s pricing algorithm will analyze the information you’ve provided and generate a quote for each appliance. Rest assured that the pricing is fair and competitive, reflecting the market value of your items. 

 4. Accept the Offer:

   Review the quotes and, if satisfied, accept the offers for your appliances. Digi2L will guide you through the next steps, including arranging for the pick-up or drop-off of your items. 

 5. Get Paid:

   Once your appliances are inspected and approved, you’ll receive your payment promptly. Digi2L offers various payment methods, ensuring flexibility and convenience for sellers. 

Digi2L isn’t just a platform; it’s a game-changer for anyone looking to declutter their space and make some extra cash. With its user-friendly interface, transparent pricing, and commitment to security, Digi2L is the go-to solution for turning your old appliances into money. Say goodbye to the clutter and hello to a more organized, profitable, and environmentally conscious lifestyle with Digi2L. Start selling today and experience the satisfaction of a cleaner home and a fuller wallet!

[reasonsforhope]

"The man who has called climate change a “hoax” also can be expected to wreak havoc on federal agencies central to understanding, and combating, climate change. But plenty of climate action would be very difficult for a second Trump administration to unravel, and the 47th president won’t be able to stop the inevitable economy-wide shift from fossil fuels to renewables. 

“This is bad for the climate, full stop,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School. “That said, this will be yet another wall that never gets built. Fundamental market forces are at play.”

A core irony of climate change is that markets incentivized the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels beginning in the Industrial Revolution, creating the mess humanity is mired in, and now those markets are driving a renewables revolution that will help fix it. Coal, oil, and gas are commodities whose prices fluctuate. As natural resources that humans pull from the ground, there’s really no improving on them — engineers can’t engineer new versions of coal. 

By contrast, solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances like induction stoves only get better — more efficient and cheaper — with time. Energy experts believe solar power, the price of which fell 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, will continue to proliferate across the landscape. (Last year, the United States added three times as much solar capacity as natural gas.) Heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces in the U.S., due in part to government incentives. Last year, Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, in part thanks to state rebates. So if the Trump administration cut off the funding for heat pumps that the IRA provides, states could pick up the slack. 

Local utilities are also finding novel ways to use heat pumps. Over in Massachusetts, for example, the utility Eversource Energy is experimenting with “networked geothermal,” in which the homes within a given neighborhood tap into water pumped from underground. Heat pumps use that water to heat or cool a space, which is vastly more efficient than burning natural gas. Eversource and two dozen other utilities, representing about half of the country’s natural gas customers, have formed a coalition to deploy more networked geothermal systems.

Beyond being more efficient, green tech is simply cheaper to adopt. Consider Texas, which long ago divorced its electrical grid from the national grid so it could skirt federal regulation. The Lone Star State is the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, but it gets 40 percent of its total energy from carbon-free sources. “Texas has the most solar and wind of any state, not because Republicans in Texas love renewables, but because it’s the cheapest form of electricity there,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, a climate research nonprofit. The next top three states for producing wind power — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — are red, too.

State regulators are also pressuring utilities to slash emissions, further driving the adoption of wind and solar power. As part of California’s goal of decarbonizing its power by 2045, the state increased battery storage by 757 percent between 2019 and 2023. Even electric cars and electric school buses can provide backup power for the grid. That allows utilities to load up on bountiful solar energy during the day, then drain those batteries at night — essential for weaning off fossil fuel power plants. Trump could slap tariffs on imported solar panels and thereby increase their price, but that would likely boost domestic manufacturing of those panels, helping the fledgling photovoltaic manufacturing industry in red states like Georgia and Texas.

The irony of Biden’s signature climate bill is states that overwhelmingly support Trump are some of the largest recipients of its funding. That means tampering with the IRA could land a Trump administration in political peril even with Republican control of the Senate, if not Congress. In addition to providing incentives to households (last year alone, 3.4 million American families claimed more than $8 billion in tax credits for home energy improvements), the legislation has so far resulted in $150 billion of new investment in the green economy since it was passed in 2022, boosting the manufacturing of technologies like batteries and solar panels. According to Atlas Public Policy, a research group, that could eventually create 160,000 jobs. “Something like 66 percent of all of the spending in the IRA has gone to red states,” Hausfather said. “There certainly is a contingency in the Republican party now that’s going to support keeping some of those subsidies around.”

Before Biden’s climate legislation passed, much more progress was happening at a state and local level. New York, for instance, set a goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 40 percent by 2030, and 85 percent by 2050. Colorado, too, is aiming to slash emissions by at least 90 percent by 2050. The automaker Stellantis has signed an agreement with the state of California promising to meet the state’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate even if a judicial or federal action overturns it. It then sells those same cars in other states. 

“State governments are going to be the clearest counterbalance to the direction that Donald Trump will take the country on environmental policy,” said Thad Kousser, co-director of the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at the University of California, San Diego. “California and the states that ally with it are going to try to adhere to tighter standards if the Trump administration lowers national standards.”

[Note: One of the obscure but great things about how emissions regulations/markets work in the US is that automakers generally all follow California's emissions standards, and those standards are substantially higher than federal standards. Source]

Last week, 62 percent of Washington state voters soundly rejected a ballot initiative seeking to repeal a landmark law that raised funds to fight climate change. “Donald Trump’s going to learn something that our opponents in our initiative battle learned: Once people have a benefit, you can’t take it away,” Washington Governor Jay Inslee said in a press call Friday. “He is going to lose in his efforts to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, because governors, mayors of both parties, are going to say, ‘This belongs to me, and you’re not going to get your grubby hands on it.’”

Even without federal funding, states regularly embark on their own large-scale projects to adapt to climate change. California voters, for instance, just overwhelmingly approved a $10 billion bond to fund water, climate, and wildfire prevention projects. “That will be an example,” said Saharnaz Mirzazad, executive director of the U.S. branch of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. “You can use that on a state level or local level to have [more of] these types of bonds. You can help build some infrastructure that is more resilient.”

Urban areas, too, have been major drivers of climate action: In 2021, 130 U.S. cities signed a U.N.-backed pledge to accelerate their decarbonization. “Having an unsupportive federal government, to say the least, will be not helpful,” said David Miller, managing director at the Centre for Urban Climate Policy and Economy at C40, a global network of mayors fighting climate change. “It doesn’t mean at all that climate action will stop. It won’t, and we’ve already seen that twice in recent U.S. history, when Republican administrations pulled out of international agreements. Cities step to the fore.”

And not in isolation, because mayors talk: Cities share information about how to write legislation, such as laws that reduce carbon emissions in buildings and ensure that new developments are connected to public transportation. They transform their food systems to grow more crops locally, providing jobs and reducing emissions associated with shipping produce from afar. “If anything,” Miller said, “having to push against an administration, like that we imagine is coming, will redouble the efforts to push at the local level.” 

Federal funding — like how the U.S. Forest Service has been handing out $1.5 billion for planting trees in urban areas, made possible by the IRA — might dry up for many local projects, but city governments, community groups, and philanthropies will still be there. “You picture a web, and we’re taking scissors or a machete or something, and chopping one part of that web out,” said Elizabeth Sawin, the director of the Multisolving Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes climate solutions. “There’s this resilience of having all these layers of partners.”

All told, climate progress has been unfolding on so many fronts for so many years — often without enough support from the federal government — that it will persist regardless of who occupies the White House. “This too shall pass, and hopefully we will be in a more favorable policy environment in four years,” Hausfather said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to keep trying to make clean energy cheap and hope that it wins on its merits.”"

-via Grist, November 11, 2024. A timely reminder.

[is-this-fascism]

My plan to escape homelessness. I need your help to get started before winter!

hello friends! i'm a homeless queer guy living in a tiny car. it's been like this for most of my adult life, and i'm trying to make a change! I want to convert a van into my new home! my plan involves these stages:

Stage 1: acquire a van.

while still living off donations in my car, i'm fundraising. as soon as i can afford one, i'll purchase a van. the market shows most used vans that would be suitable are around $3.5-4.5k give or take. we're already about halfway there!

I'm really hoping this stage can be complete before november, as my car is not suited to survive another winter and it could be devastating to attempt it.

Stage 2: survive winter

since winter is approaching, i'll need to quickly put insulated walls in the van and make sure i can live in it. at this point, it'll already be an upgrade to my car, but i won't be able to do much building in cold weather, so it'll just be the bare minimum i need to survive the winter.

during this time, i'll be taking measurements, drawing plans, researching appliances, and generally preparing for the build process. i'll continue fundraising to make sure i can afford all the materials and tools i'll need. i may also take care of any maintenence the van might need. i'll also clean and sell my car so i have some cash from that as well.

Stage 3: build my home!

when it gets warm enough, i'll start doing the actual build. i'll document this on video as much as i can, and post the process on my youtube channel for not only the people who helped me, but for anyone who's curious. i'll start with solar panels and an electricity system, i'll add countertops and kitchen appliances, a shower and sink with plumbing and warm water, a toilet, a real bed, lights, climate control. it'll be essentially a house on wheels, and just the right size for me!

Stage 4: whatever comes next

once i have my new home, i'll need an income. i may take a regular job to support myself at first, and that will actually be possible when i have a shower. but, i've been considering making content pretty much my whole life, and now i think i have a great chance to actually pursue that. i'll use some of the money from selling my car in stage 2 to get some basic equipment (laptop, mic, camera). i'll be posting my van build at first, and after that i'll probably start by telling stories about my time being homeless, but i'm also interested in streaming and video essays. thanks to all the generous support i've been getting from my followers and other people on the internet, i feel my opportunities are wide open!

Please consider donating to my fundraiser to help me change my life!

GFM

2115/10k

[chaoticwriting]

GOTHAM'S NEW ROGUE 4

Part 3

Danny looks at the guy skeptically. Last time someone approached him, they were Red Robin, Spoiler and Signal. This time, a dude that looks like an average office worker approaches him.

Trickster: Sure, why not?

???: Thank you.

Trickster: So, what do you want with me?

???: Let me introduce myself first. I am Clark Kent. A journalist from the Daily Planet. I would like to ask, is it true that you know Batman's secret identity?

Trickster: You mean those pictures I stole from his wallet? Yeah sure. Why do you wanna know?

Clark: As you know, I am a journalist. And it is our job to find out about news and share it with the general public. I am just thinking, what would you like to exchange for the real identity of Batman.

Trickster: Hmmm..... What price huh? Let me think for a moment.

Danny then continues to eat his food as he pretends to think about Clark's offer. Honestly, he doesn't give a damn about this Clark guy. He is also a vigilante once, so he knows the importance of their secret identities. While slurping away his last coke, Danny gains a very good idea (He thinks it is a good idea).

Trickster: Well, I don't think I would sell the pictures just yet since the card is still useful and I don't need money. However, I have a very interesting topic you can investigate.

Clark: Oh? What is it?

Trickster: Try searching for something called GIW. It is a government branch and I'm sure it will be a hit piece.

Clark: GIW? What is that?

Trickster: Well that's for you to figure out. Oh well. I'm pretty full now. Gotta go now. See you never.

Danny then disappears right in front of Clark before he can do anything. Clark can't even hear or see the kid anymore with his enhanced sense and x-ray vision further cementing that the kid probably has teleportation power.

Danny meanwhile is laying on his makeshift bed while watching the stars after he uses his power to clear the sky thinking what he just did is very smart. Unfortunately, he doesn't know this decision is as good as the previous time he thinks his idea is good.

-1 month later-

Danny is picking up scraps from the junkyard for his next prank. Collecting some toasters, some blenders and even some radios. Danny has spent a lot of time these past few months, tinkering with machines that he practically knows what component is in which appliances.

Suddenly, he sees a very familiar device among the junk. A sleek silver gun with a few green buttons on it. It doesn't have the usual designs that Danny used to see but Danny knows without a doubt in his mind that it is an ecto gun.

The problem is that, the gun is new. Very new. Like it is just created. And that means one thing. A GIW agent is here. Shit! Danny needs to run. But where? He has checked before this but the only place with enough ectoplasm to hide him is either Gotham or Amity Park. No where else in the world has as much ambience ectoplasm to hide him from the ecto detector.

But now that they are in Gotham, he might as well not hide since at such close proximity, the ambient ectoplasm can only hide him if they are not close. Danny is thinking very hard when his ears pick up something. A group of people is coming his way, and from the way they are all carrying heavy devices, they are probably GIW agents.

Danny against his better judgement turns invisible and flies high enough so that if the agents decide to shoot him, he will have time to dodge them. Danny watches quietly as the ecto detector bips faster and faster the more they go to where he is previously.

???: Damn it. I thought this is where Trickster is. But it's just the gun that you lost.

???: Hey, at least we don't need to file reports of missing weapons right? Also, didn't that thing already get set up by the Fentons to find Trickster?

???: It's probably them messing it up. It's not like them messing shit up is something new anyway.

???: Yeah. Let's just say it is a false alarm. I hear the higher ups are thinking of lowering our budgets next year if we don't produce any results soon.

???: Ugghh, don't remind me of that. Not only do they pressure us like that. I even heard that there is some guy that has been snooping around our base, taking pictures and stuff.

???: I hate those reporters. We are trying to do our job and save them from those savages, and yet here they are messing with us. Calling us genocidal maniacs and the second coming of Nazis.

???: If that is not bad enough, they even say that they feel like we should treat the ghost as if they are people. Ghosts are not people! They are merely beast pretending to be someone we used to know and love.

???: I would love to just punch those reporters to the face if not for the fact that Boss ordered us to stay put.

Suddenly their walky talky start to beep.

Walkie-talkie: Agent P, Agent Q. Return to the base of operation immediately. We are receiving visits from the higher ups.

Both of the agents reply with Roger and hurriedly run towards their van and drive off somewhere. Danny looks at them and decides, he has found what his next prank is going to be.

Part 5

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to shatter the class solidarity of the ruling class

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me WEDNESDAY (Apr 11) at UCLA, then Chicago (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Audre Lorde counsels us that "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," while MLK said "the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me." Somewhere between replacing the system and using the system lies a pragmatic – if easily derailed – course.

Lorde is telling us that a rotten system can't be redeemed by using its own chosen reform mechanisms. King's telling us that unless we live, we can't fight – so anything within the system that makes it easier for your comrades to fight on can hasten the end of the system.

Take the problems of journalism. One old model of journalism funding involved wealthy newspaper families profiting handsomely by selling local appliance store owners the right to reach the townspeople who wanted to read sports-scores. These families expressed their patrician love of their town by peeling off some of those profits to pay reporters to sit through municipal council meetings or even travel overseas and get shot at.

In retrospect, this wasn't ever going to be a stable arrangement. It relied on both the inconstant generosity of newspaper barons and the absence of a superior way to show washing-machine ads to people who might want to buy washing machines. Neither of these were good long-term bets. Not only were newspaper barons easily distracted from their sense of patrician duty (especially when their own power was called into question), but there were lots of better ways to connect buyers and sellers lurking in potentia.

All of this was grossly exacerbated by tech monopolies. Tech barons aren't smarter or more evil than newspaper barons, but they have better tools, and so now they take 51 cents out of every ad dollar and 30 cents out of ever subscriber dollar and they refuse to deliver the news to users who explicitly requested it, unless the news company pays them a bribe to "boost" their posts:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The news is important, and people sign up to make, digest, and discuss the news for many non-economic reasons, which means that the news continues to struggle along, despite all the economic impediments and the vulture capitalists and tech monopolists who fight one another for which one will get to take the biggest bite out of the press. We've got outstanding nonprofit news outlets like Propublica, journalist-owned outlets like 404 Media, and crowdfunded reporters like Molly White (and winner-take-all outlets like the New York Times).

But as Hamilton Nolan points out, "that pot of money…is only large enough to produce a small fraction of the journalism that was being produced in past generations":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/what-will-replace-advertising-revenue

For Nolan, "public funding of journalism is the only way to fix this…If we accept that journalism is not just a business or a form of entertainment but a public good, then funding it with public money makes perfect sense":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/public-funding-of-journalism-is-the

Having grown up in Canada – under the CBC – and then lived for a quarter of my life in the UK – under the BBC – I am very enthusiastic about Nolan's solution. There are obvious problems with publicly funded journalism, like the politicization of news coverage:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jan/24/panel-approving-richard-sharp-as-bbc-chair-included-tory-party-donor

And the transformation of the funding into a cheap political football:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-defund-cbc-change-law-1.6810434

But the worst version of those problems is still better than the best version of the private-equity-funded model of news production.

But Nolan notes the emergence of a new form of hedge fund news, one that is awfully promising, and also terribly fraught: Hunterbrook Media, an investigative news outlet owned by short-sellers who pay journalists to research and publish damning reports on companies they hold a short position on:

https://hntrbrk.com/

For those of you who are blissfully distant from the machinations of the financial markets, "short selling" is a wager that a company's stock price will go down. A gambler who takes a short position on a company's stock can make a lot of money if the company stumbles or fails altogether (but if the company does well, the short can suffer literally unlimited losses).

Shorts have historically paid analysts to dig into companies and uncover the sins hidden on their balance-sheets, but as Matt Levine points out, journalists work for a fraction of the price of analysts and are at least as good at uncovering dirt as MBAs are:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-02/a-hedge-fund-that-s-also-a-newspaper

What's more, shorts who discover dirt on a company still need to convince journalists to publicize their findings and trigger the sell-off that makes their short position pay off. Shorts who own a muckraking journalistic operation can skip this step: they are the journalists.

There's a way in which this is sheer genius. Well-funded shorts who don't care about the news per se can still be motivated into funding freely available, high-quality investigative journalism about corporate malfeasance (notoriously, one of the least attractive forms of journalism for advertisers). They can pay journalists top dollar – even bid against each other for the most talented journalists – and supply them with all the tools they need to ply their trade. A short won't ever try the kind of bullshit the owners of Vice pulled, paying themselves millions while their journalists lose access to Lexisnexis or the PACER database:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/24/anti-posse/#when-you-absolutely-positively-dont-give-a-solitary-single-fuck

The shorts whose journalists are best equipped stand to make the most money. What's not to like?

Well, the issue here is whether the ruling class's sense of solidarity is stronger than its greed. The wealthy have historically oscillated between real solidarity (think of the ultrawealthy lobbying to support bipartisan votes for tax cuts and bailouts) and "war of all against all" (as when wealthy colonizers dragged their countries into WWI after the supply of countries to steal ran out).

After all, the reason companies engage in the scams that shorts reveal is that they are profitable. "Behind every great fortune is a great crime," and that's just great. You don't win the game when you get into heaven, you win it when you get into the Forbes Rich List.

Take monopolies: investors like the upside of backing an upstart company that gobbles up some staid industry's margins – Amazon vs publishing, say, or Uber vs taxis. But while there's a lot of upside in that move, there's also a lot of risk: most companies that set out to "disrupt" an industry sink, taking their investors' capital down with them.

Contrast that with monopolies: backing a company that merges with its rivals and buys every small company that might someday grow large is a sure thing. Shriven of "wasteful competition," a company can lower quality, raise prices, capture its regulators, screw its workers and suppliers and laugh all the way to Davos. A big enough company can ignore the complaints of those workers, customers and regulators. They're not just too big to fail. They're not just too big to jail. They're too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Would-be monopolists are stuck in a high-stakes Prisoner's Dilemma. If they cooperate, they can screw over everyone else and get unimaginably rich. But if one party defects, they can raid the monopolist's margins, short its stock, and snitch to its regulators.

It's true that there's a clear incentive for hedge-fund managers to fund investigative journalism into other hedge-fund managers' portfolio companies. But it would be even more profitable for both of those hedgies to join forces and collude to screw the rest of us over. So long as they mistrust each other, we might see some benefit from that adversarial relationship. But the point of the 0.1% is that there aren't very many of them. The Aspen Institute can rent a hall that will hold an appreciable fraction of that crowd. They buy their private jets and bespoke suits and powdered rhino horn from the same exclusive sellers. Their kids go to the same elite schools. They know each other, and they have every opportunity to get drunk together at a charity ball or a society wedding and cook up a plan to join forces.

This is the problem at the core of "mechanism design" grounded in "rational self-interest." If you try to create a system where people do the right thing because they're selfish assholes, you normalize being a selfish asshole. Eventually, the selfish assholes form a cozy little League of Selfish Assholes and turn on the rest of us.

Appeals to morality don't work on unethical people, but appeals to immorality crowds out ethics. Take the ancient split between "free software" (software that is designed to maximize the freedom of the people who use it) and "open source software" (identical to free software, but promoted as a better way to make robust code through transparency and peer review).

Over the years, open source – an appeal to your own selfish need for better code – triumphed over free software, and its appeal to the ethics of a world of "software freedom." But it turns out that while the difference between "open" and "free" was once mere semantics, it's fully possible to decouple the two. Today, we have lots of "open source": you can see the code that Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook uses, and even contribute your labor to it for free. But you can't actually decide how the software you write works, because it all takes a loop through Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook's servers, and only those trillion-dollar tech monopolists have the software freedom to determine how those servers work:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/04/which-side-are-you-on/#tivoization-and-beyond

That's ruling class solidarity. The Big Tech firms have hidden a myriad of sins beneath their bafflegab and balance-sheets. These (as yet) undiscovered scams constitute a "bezzle," which JK Galbraith defined as "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it."

The purpose of Hunterbrook is to discover and destroy bezzles, hastening the moment of realization that the wealth we all feel in a world of seemingly orderly technology is really an illusion. Hunterbrook certainly has its pick of bezzles to choose from, because we are living in a Golden Age of the Bezzle.

Which is why I titled my new novel The Bezzle. It's a tale of high-tech finance scams, starring my two-fisted forensic accountant Marty Hench, and in this volume, Hench is called upon to unwind a predatory prison-tech scam that victimizes the most vulnerable people in America – our army of prisoners – and their families:

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

The scheme I fictionalize in The Bezzle is very real. Prison-tech monopolists like Securus and Viapath bribe prison officials to abolish calls, in-person visits, mail and parcels, then they supply prisoners with "free" tablets where they pay hugely inflated rates to receive mail, speak to their families, and access ebooks, distance education and other electronic media:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

But a group of activists have cornered these high-tech predators, run them to ground and driven them to the brink of extinction, and they've done it using "the master's tools" – with appeals to regulators and the finance sector itself.

Writing for The Appeal, Dana Floberg and Morgan Duckett describe the campaign they waged with Worth Rises to bankrupt the prison-tech sector:

https://theappeal.org/securus-bankruptcy-prison-telecom-industry/

Here's the headline figure: Securus is $1.8 billion in debt, and it has eight months to find a financier or it will go bust. What's more, all the creditors it might reasonably approach have rejected its overtures, and its bonds have been downrated to junk status. It's a dead duck.

Even better is how this happened. Securus's debt problems started with its acquisition, a leveraged buyout by Platinum Equity, who borrowed heavily against the firm and then looted it with bogus "management fees" that meant that the debt continued to grow, despite Securus's $700m in annual revenue from America's prisoners. Platinum was just the last in a long line of PE companies that loaded up Securus with debt and merged it with its competitors, who were also mortgaged to make profits for other private equity funds.

For years, Securus and Platinum were able to service their debt and roll it over when it came due. But after Worth Rises got NYC to pass a law making jail calls free, creditors started to back away from Securus. It's one thing for Securus to charge $18 for a local call from a prison when it's splitting the money with the city jail system. But when that $18 needs to be paid by the city, they're going to demand much lower prices. To make things worse for Securus, prison reformers got similar laws passed in San Francisco and in Connecticut.

Securus tried to outrun its problems by gobbling up one of its major rivals, Icsolutions, but Worth Rises and its coalition convinced regulators at the FCC to block the merger. Securus abandoned the deal:

https://worthrises.org/blogpost/securusmerger

Then, Worth Rises targeted Platinum Equity, going after the pension funds and other investors whose capital Platinum used to keep Securus going. The massive negative press campaign led to eight-figure disinvestments:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-05/la-fi-tom-gores-securus-prison-phone-mass-incarceration

Now, Securus's debt became "distressed," trading at $0.47 on the dollar. A brief, covid-fueled reprieve gave Securus a temporary lifeline, as prisoners' families were barred from in-person visits and had to pay Securus's rates to talk to their incarcerated loved ones. But after lockdown, Securus's troubles picked up right where they left off.

They targeted Platinum's founder, Tom Gores, who papered over his bloody fortune by styling himself as a philanthropist and sports-team owner. After a campaign by Worth Rises and Color of Change, Gores was kicked off the Los Angeles County Museum of Art board. When Gores tried to flip Securus to a SPAC – the same scam Trump pulled with Truth Social – the negative publicity about Securus's unsound morals and financials killed the deal:

https://twitter.com/WorthRises/status/1578034977828384769

Meanwhile, more states and cities are making prisoners' communications free, further worsening Securus's finances:

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

Congress passed the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, giving the FCC the power to regulate the price of federal prisoners' communications. Securus's debt prices tumbled further:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

Securus's debts were coming due: it owes $1.3b in 2024, and hundreds of millions more in 2025. Platinum has promised a $400m cash infusion, but that didn't sway S&P Global, a bond-rating agency that re-rated Securus's bonds as "CCC" (compare with "AAA"). Moody's concurred. Now, Securus is stuck selling junk-bonds:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

The company's creditors have given Securus an eight-month runway to find a new lender before they force it into bankruptcy. The company's debt is trading at $0.08 on the dollar.

Securus's major competitor is Viapath (prison tech is a duopoly). Viapath is also debt-burdened and desperate, thanks to a parallel campaign by Worth Rises, and has tried all of Securus's tricks, and failed:

https://pestakeholder.org/news/american-securities-fails-to-sell-prison-telecom-company-viapath/

Viapath's debts are due next year, and if Securus tanks, no one in their right mind will give Viapath a dime. They're the walking dead.

Worth Rise's brilliant guerrilla warfare against prison-tech and its private equity backers are a master class in using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. The finance sector isn't a friend of justice or working people, but sometimes it can be used tactically against financialization itself. To paraphrase MLK, "finance can't make a corporation love you, but it can stop a corporation from destroying you."

Yes, the ruling class finds solidarity at the most unexpected moments, and yes, it's easy for appeals to greed to institutionalize greediness. But whether it's funding unbezzling journalism through short selling, or freeing prisons by brandishing their cooked balance-sheets in the faces of bond-rating agencies, there's a lot of good we can do on the way to dismantling the system.

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/2024/04/08/money-talks/#bullshit-walks

Image: KMJ (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boerse_01_KMJ.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[teaboot]

how could you like the colour yellow

see a therapist immediately

I actually used to hate it! Like, actually despise it! Yellow was too bright, too loud, discordant, unruly, and clashed with everything. Nothing like what I wanted in my life, nothing I wanted to be.

When I first moved away from home, everything I owned was black. Jet back. As black as I could get. Smooth, cool, sleek, discrete, calm, unassuming. Flexible, cohesive, agreeable black. Fashionable black.

I had a really, really bad time. Unrelated to the decor. It was my first year out of a toxic place I'd grown used to my whole life, my first year acknowledging a mental illness I'd believed to be normal, my first year fending for myself with very little money or sleep or companionship.

I'd grown up on instant white rice and unseasoned ground beef. One day I realized that everything I'd been raised on tasted like cardboard. While out on an assignment, I passed a tent with a woman selling spices, and bought myself some turmeric. I went home and tried making curry with it. It was so yellow.

Another time, my professor took us out to a modern art gallery. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but when we got there, the whole building had been painted bright sunshine yellow.

The artist's theme was "happiness".

What it is. How we make it. How to share it.

All bright, lovely yellow.

The house I grew up in was beige. The walls were white. The appliances were post 9/11 stainless steel. My job was to be quiet, compliant, presentable and agreeable.

Black goes with everything. Black is neutral. Black is quiet, reserved, elegant and mysterious.

Yellow is warm. Yellow does what it wants. Yellow tastes sweet and spicy and hot and cool, like a summer breeze, like sunflower petals, powdery like dust on a long dirt road and soothing like well-worn linen.

I still like the look of black. I like the look of most colors. But I like the way that Yellow makes me feel.

Do you understand?