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Economic Times Classifieds: Tradition Meets Modernity

[thestuffedalligator]

Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.

The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.

And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.

I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.

[cleoselene]

In economics we divide the population into income quintiles -- top 20%, bottom 20%, etc

The Biden Economy has been very, very good to the bottom 20% -- I know because I am in that quintile and under the Biden Presidency I have seen multiple SNAP increases, the best COLA adjustments for Social Security in four decades, Medicare now pays my utilities, and because I'm part of the Affordable Connectivity Program, they can now never turn off my internet even if I can't afford to pay the bill.

The problem with the poorest people being the one who benefits the most? Is that it doesn't resonate as a media story. The media is not catering to that bottom quintile -- we don't have the expendable income their advertisers are seeking.

But if you want to elect a POTUS who is honestly helping the people who need it the most, you should be an enthusiastic Biden supporter. It won't make splashy news headlines, you're not even going to find MSNBC going GUESS WHAT THE POORS ARE DOING BETTER all the time because it's really not a sexy story. But it's a real story. A true story.

I'm just really sick of the pseudo-leftist takes that characterize Biden and the Democrats as 'conservative' or assertions that they don't have policy platforms except 'we're not the Republicans.' Such commentary sounds intelligent but only in the way Libertarian commentary sounds intelligent: you have to not think critically at all to some to such absurd conclusions. Democrats are working within a broken system and doing the best they can. You wanna fix the system? Great, I'm onboard, but smearing the only people trying to help is not going to get you anywhere.

[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

[unteriors]

Since you're Australian, why are so many of the posts from the US? Did you start with Australia and then move onto other countries once you'd felt like you exhausted it? Or is the US particularly interesting for your purposes?

A big part of the reason is the enormous difference in scale. Australia has about 25 million people, versus 300 or so million in the US. Each of the 50 states has at least one or two major cities, most have many more than that. In addition to the volume of real estate imagery produced by this market, there are a few things about the US in this context which draw me in from an Australian perspective. One is how real estate listings weirdly embody how much more visually apparent the harmful economic forces of the past 50 years are in American society than they are here or elsewhere. Australia's welfare state was developed roughly during the same time as in the US, and has similarly been cut back since the 1970s. But it was always much weaker in the US than in Australia or Western Europe, and correspondingly the effects of its deterioration - along with other economic trends - have been much more visible than they are here. The way this is played out in terms of localised funding for public services means that many American cities have pockets (of varying sizes) where poverty and other forms of systemic oppression are concentrated and left open to the elements. The sort of stuff Jacob Holdt documented in his photos in the 70s, or that you see in a lot crime films and thrillers with location shooting. Gentrification and other forces since then have pushed these pockets into other areas and made some places seem less grim, but from what I've heard it seems like it would be hard for the average person in the US to ignore that these large, systemic problems exist. Conversely, in Australia, this kind of intense poverty has been pushed into the margins of society during the same time period - to remote communities (where people suffer from chronic diseases that have been eradicated in most other wealthy countries), country towns with shrinking economies, or to the fringes of larger cities (where people sleep in their cars in parking lots, or multiple families form sharehouses to afford $400-500+ pw rents). Though as things have gotten worse, particularly since COVID, it's getting harder to ignore. But still there's a substantial part of the population here who have grown up in ignorance of any of the larger, percolating structural problems in Australian society, and who proactively retain that ignorance into adulthood.

I think you can see these different perspectives play in out in real estate listings. In most American states, even in most of the towns I've looked at, you can see a broad spectrum of living conditions (and commercial interpretations of ideal living conditions) - from burnt out trailers, to overpriced renovated shitty older houses with cheap grey vinyl flooring and white walls, to clearly lived-in time capsules to McMansions to actual mansions. Some photographs are clearly shot by owners, others by real estate agents with a great variety of care and attention to detail (from elaborate staging to crime scenes). Rightly or wrongly, I feel like I get a broader, more honest (or at least more direct) feel for the housing crisis. It's a more honest horror film.

Australian listings, I think in part due to concentrations in corporate power in the real estate industry (similar to other monopolies that have formed in our economy), tend to more heavily adhere to the visual language of advertising and are more heavily regulated by agencies. The problems still exist, the housing market here is among the worst in the world and little effort is being made to address the underlying structural issues, but you can see the lack of will to acknowledge these issues in the level of gloss that's applied. You can look at a listing of an older house in Western Australia, for instance, and know for a fact that it's riddled with asbestos and probably has several other structural issues, but most likely enough time and effort will have been spent on staging and lighting and maybe surface-level renovations that it will seem otherwise fine. Lots of turds that have been polished successfully enough that you need insider knowledge to properly identify them as dogshit. Incidentally, I spent part of my childhood in a house built in the 1960s that had asbestos in the walls and ceiling.

I'm still interested in images from Australian listings (and other sources) though, I just look for other things that are interesting. Anything that runs contrary to the artificially positive, limited world view that advertising promotes. Even if its a poorly-lit time capsule that is directly aesthetically opposite to the ideal of house-beauty at the moment, or an obviously run-down house that has had every realtor photography trick in the playbook thrown at it until it becomes deeply uncanny. And it's always interesting to see what other people find interesting; I genuinely think the housing crisis underwrites every other political issue we have to contend with, its tendrils extend in many different directions, and I think this also means imagery like this can reach people in a diversity of ways. Aesthetically, nostalgically, inspiring fear and self-loathing and horror. All good sources of inspiration for creativity.

[aeth-eris]

★  majors/higher  education  |  signs  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

★   book   a   reading   ★   ★   masterlist   1   ★   ★   masterlist   2   ★

★  aries  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  tied  to  action,  leadership,  and  bold  thinking—aries  energy  thrives  in  fields  that  require  initiative  and  innovation.  think  degrees  in  law  (debate,  litigation),  sports  science  (coaching,  performance  training),  or  military  science  (strategy,  defense).  you  might  also  pursue  something  competitive  like  entrepreneurship  or  pre-med,  where  you’re  constantly  challenged  to  stay  ahead.  aries’  restless  energy  makes  hands-on,  fast-paced  majors  appealing,  so  engineering  or  mechanics  could  also  fit.  their  love  of  adventure  means  international  relations  or  global  studies  might  appeal,  especially  if  you  want  to  explore  different  cultures  or  engage  in  diplomatic  work.  creative  fields  like  film  production  or  performing  arts  (theater,  dance)  might  call  to  you,  as  aries  loves  self-expression  and  commanding  attention.  expect  a  major  that  keeps  you  moving  and  doesn’t  confine  you  to  routine;  aries  doesn’t  do  well  in  stagnant  or  overly  theoretical  environments.  you  might  also  gravitate  toward  activism-based  studies,  like  political  science  or  criminal  justice,  where  you  can  champion  causes  and  fight  for  change.  your  education  could  take  unexpected  turns,  as  aries  energy  often  thrives  in  challenges  and  chaos—possibly  leading  you  to  switch  majors  mid-way  when  something  more  exciting  catches  your  attention.

★  taurus  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  rooted  in  stability,  beauty,  and  value-driven  work.  taurus  energy  is  practical  yet  artistic,  so  degrees  in  interior  design,  architecture,  or  fine  arts  (sculpture,  painting)  align  well  with  their  aesthetic  sensibilities.  you  might  also  find  satisfaction  in  agricultural  sciences  or  environmental  studies,  connecting  with  the  earth  and  sustainable  practices.  taurus’  practical  mindset  leans  toward  finance,  economics,  or  business—majors  that  ensure  long-term  security  and  tangible  rewards.  culinary  arts  or  nutrition  could  appeal,  especially  if  you  enjoy  creating  or  nurturing  through  food.  degrees  in  real  estate  or  hospitality  management  might  align  with  taurus’  love  of  comfort  and  luxury,  allowing  you  to  curate  beautiful  spaces  or  experiences  for  others.  taurus  in  the  9th  craves  knowledge  they  can  use  practically,  so  hands-on  fields  with  clear  career  paths  are  key.  psychology  or  social  work  might  also  resonate,  especially  if  you’re  drawn  to  steady,  nurturing  roles  that  help  others  build  better  lives.  you  could  lean  toward  something  like  cultural  studies  or  anthropology  if  there’s  a  focus  on  the  sensory  aspects  of  different  traditions  (food,  art,  craftsmanship).  whatever  you  choose,  it’ll  likely  be  a  slow,  deliberate  decision,  as  taurus  takes  their  time  to  find  what  truly  aligns  with  their  values.

 ★  gemini  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  focused  on  communication,  ideas,  and  variety—gemini  thrives  in  fields  that  stimulate  the  mind  and  offer  flexibility.  journalism,  creative  writing,  or  media  studies  are  strong  fits,  as  gemini  excels  in  storytelling  and  connecting  with  others.  degrees  in  education  (teaching,  curriculum  development)  might  appeal,  especially  if  you’re  drawn  to  sharing  knowledge  in  dynamic  environments.  gemini’s  curiosity  could  also  pull  you  toward  marketing,  public  relations,  or  advertising—majors  that  let  you  craft  messages  and  explore  trends.  linguistics,  foreign  languages,  or  international  studies  might  resonate,  allowing  you  to  learn  and  communicate  across  cultures.  gemini’s  love  of  tech  and  information  could  lead  to  fields  like  computer  science,  digital  media,  or  data  analysis.  their  versatility  means  you  might  combine  seemingly  unrelated  interests,  like  a  double  major  in  psychology  and  graphic  design  or  sociology  and  creative  writing.  gemini  doesn’t  thrive  in  rigid  or  overly  specialized  fields;  they  need  variety,  collaboration,  and  intellectual  stimulation.  philosophy  or  political  science  could  also  align,  especially  if  you  enjoy  debating  and  exploring  complex  ideas.  gemini  in  the  9th  house  often  means  your  education  will  involve  constant  learning  and  adapting—expect  internships,  networking,  and  possibly  changing  majors  to  keep  things  fresh.

 ★  cancer  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  that  center  around  nurturing,  emotional  connection,  and  building  safe  spaces  for  others.  cancer  energy  thrives  in  fields  like  psychology,  counseling,  or  social  work—anything  where  you  can  provide  care  and  emotional  support.  education  might  also  appeal,  particularly  in  early  childhood  development  or  special  education,  as  cancer  loves  nurturing  young  minds.  degrees  in  nursing,  midwifery,  or  healthcare  align  with  cancer’s  caregiving  nature,  especially  if  you’re  drawn  to  maternal  health  or  pediatrics.  cancer’s  connection  to  home  and  history  could  lead  to  majors  like  interior  design  (creating  comforting  spaces)  or  history  and  anthropology,  focusing  on  family  lineage  or  cultural  traditions.  culinary  arts  or  hospitality  management  could  also  resonate,  especially  if  you  love  bringing  people  together  through  food  or  creating  warm,  inviting  environments.  cancer  in  the  9th  might  draw  you  toward  majors  that  focus  on  healing  or  personal  growth,  like  alternative  medicine,  holistic  therapy,  or  even  spiritual  studies.  film  and  media  studies  could  appeal  if  you’re  interested  in  storytelling  with  emotional  depth.  whatever  you  choose,  it’s  likely  tied  to  themes  of  care,  protection,  and  emotional  resonance.  you  might  also  feel  pulled  toward  studying  abroad  in  places  that  feel  familiar  or  tied  to  ancestral  roots,  seeking  deeper  connections  with  your  personal  history.

 ★  leo  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  centered  around  creativity,  leadership,  and  self-expression.  leo  thrives  in  fields  where  they  can  shine,  so  performing  arts  (theater,  dance,  or  music)  might  be  at  the  top  of  your  list.  film  studies  or  directing  could  appeal  if  you  want  to  create  bold,  visual  stories  that  captivate  an  audience.  degrees  in  business,  entrepreneurship,  or  leadership  studies  might  also  resonate,  as  leo  loves  being  in  charge  and  inspiring  others.  if  you’re  drawn  to  communication,  public  relations  or  marketing  with  a  focus  on  branding  and  storytelling  could  fit.  leo’s  dramatic  flair  might  pull  you  toward  law—especially  areas  like  courtroom  litigation  where  your  charisma  and  presence  can  shine.  education,  particularly  as  a  professor  or  in  roles  that  allow  for  mentorship,  could  also  appeal,  as  leo  loves  to  teach  and  lead.  graphic  design  or  fashion  might  be  your  calling  if  you’re  drawn  to  creating  visually  impactful  work.  majors  involving  performance,  creativity,  or  roles  where  you  can  stand  out  will  feel  most  fulfilling.  study  abroad  programs  in  culturally  vibrant  or  artistic  cities  might  inspire  your  studies.  whatever  you  choose,  it’ll  likely  be  something  where  your  natural  talent  for  commanding  attention  and  creating  joy  takes  center  stage.

 ★  virgo  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  grounded  in  precision,  practicality,  and  service.  virgo  excels  in  detail-oriented  fields,  so  degrees  in  healthcare  (nursing,  medical  technology,  public  health)  or  environmental  science  could  be  strong  fits.  you  might  also  thrive  in  majors  like  biology,  chemistry,  or  nutrition,  especially  if  you’re  drawn  to  solving  real-world  problems.  virgo’s  analytical  nature  makes  them  well-suited  to  data-heavy  fields  like  statistics,  economics,  or  information  systems.  education  is  another  natural  fit,  particularly  in  curriculum  design  or  teaching  science  and  math  subjects.  virgo’s  focus  on  improvement  could  lead  to  degrees  in  psychology,  especially  counseling  or  behavioral  analysis,  where  you  help  others  refine  and  improve  their  lives.  technical  writing,  editing,  or  publishing  might  appeal  if  you’re  drawn  to  language  and  its  meticulous  application.  environmental  studies,  agricultural  science,  or  urban  planning  align  with  virgo’s  interest  in  sustainable  systems.  virgo  in  the  9th  house  often  seeks  practical  applications  for  higher  learning,  so  your  education  might  focus  on  how  to  create  order  and  efficiency  in  the  world.  internships  or  research  opportunities  are  likely  to  play  a  key  role,  as  virgo  thrives  on  hands-on  experience.  you’re  also  likely  to  be  drawn  to  majors  where  you  can  serve  others  and  create  meaningful,  measurable  change.

 ★  libra  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  tied  to  beauty,  harmony,  and  interpersonal  connection.  libra  thrives  in  fields  like  art  history,  design,  or  fashion,  where  aesthetics  and  balance  play  a  central  role.  degrees  in  law,  especially  focused  on  mediation  or  human  rights,  align  with  libra’s  natural  sense  of  fairness  and  justice.  if  you’re  drawn  to  communication,  public  relations  or  marketing  might  appeal,  particularly  in  industries  like  luxury  goods  or  entertainment.  libra’s  love  of  people  and  relationships  could  also  pull  you  toward  psychology  or  sociology,  exploring  how  humans  connect  and  interact.  education,  especially  in  arts  or  humanities,  is  another  natural  fit—teaching  subjects  like  literature,  philosophy,  or  visual  arts  could  fulfill  your  love  for  beauty  and  intellectual  stimulation.  majors  like  international  relations  or  cultural  studies  align  with  libra’s  global  perspective  and  interest  in  diplomacy.  libra  in  the  9th  house  also  points  to  a  strong  desire  for  study  abroad  experiences,  especially  in  culturally  refined  cities  like  paris,  florence,  or  tokyo.  you  might  also  be  drawn  to  interior  design,  event  planning,  or  hospitality  management—fields  where  you  create  harmonious  and  beautiful  spaces.  whatever  you  choose,  it  will  likely  involve  collaboration,  creativity,  and  a  focus  on  creating  balance  in  the  world  around  you.

 ★  scorpio  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  steeped  in  intensity,  mystery,  and  transformation.  scorpio’s  fascination  with  the  unseen  might  lead  you  toward  psychology,  especially  fields  like  forensic  psychology,  trauma  therapy,  or  psychoanalysis.  criminology,  law  enforcement,  or  investigative  journalism  are  also  natural  fits,  as  scorpio  thrives  in  uncovering  hidden  truths.  degrees  in  medicine  or  research,  particularly  in  areas  like  oncology,  genetics,  or  pathology,  align  with  scorpio’s  need  to  transform  and  heal.  scorpio’s  deep,  transformative  energy  might  also  pull  you  toward  majors  like  philosophy,  theology,  or  occult  studies,  where  you  explore  life’s  profound  questions.  anthropology,  archaeology,  or  history  with  a  focus  on  ancient  civilizations  could  appeal  if  you’re  drawn  to  uncovering  buried  secrets.  scorpio’s  intensity  lends  itself  to  creative  fields  as  well—screenwriting,  film  directing,  or  novel  writing  in  genres  like  horror,  thriller,  or  fantasy  might  resonate.  scorpio  in  the  9th  house  might  also  gravitate  toward  environmental  studies  or  activism,  especially  if  there’s  a  focus  on  regeneration  or  fighting  for  underrepresented  causes.  your  educational  journey  may  feel  transformative  and  even  karmic,  with  pivotal  experiences  that  challenge  your  worldview  and  deepen  your  understanding  of  life’s  complexities.  you’re  drawn  to  majors  that  let  you  explore  the  depths  and  create  profound  change.

 ★  sagittarius  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  focused  on  exploration,  freedom,  and  the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  sagittarius  in  the  9th  house  practically  screams  for  degrees  in  international  relations,  global  studies,  or  cultural  anthropology—anything  that  allows  you  to  explore  different  cultures  and  philosophies.  you  might  also  be  drawn  to  majors  in  philosophy,  religious  studies,  or  political  science,  as  sagittarius  loves  diving  into  big-picture  questions  about  morality  and  society.  education  is  another  natural  fit,  particularly  higher  education,  where  you  could  thrive  as  a  professor  or  academic  researcher.  travel  and  adventure  are  key  themes,  so  tourism  management,  hospitality,  or  even  adventure  filmmaking  could  appeal  if  you  want  to  combine  movement  and  creativity.  sagittarius’  connection  to  optimism  and  growth  might  also  lead  you  to  fields  like  motivational  speaking,  public  relations,  or  even  sports  management.  if  you’re  drawn  to  physicality,  degrees  in  physical  education,  sports  science,  or  outdoor  recreation  could  align  with  your  adventurous  spirit.  study  abroad  programs  or  internships  in  foreign  countries  might  feel  essential  to  your  academic  journey.  whatever  you  choose,  it’ll  likely  involve  expanding  your  horizons,  chasing  new  experiences,  and  finding  ways  to  bring  a  sense  of  inspiration  and  adventure  to  your  studies  and  career.

 ★  capricorn  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  rooted  in  structure,  ambition,  and  long-term  success.  capricorn  in  the  9th  house  suggests  a  preference  for  fields  that  offer  tangible  career  paths  and  clear  rewards,  such  as  law,  business  administration,  or  economics.  you  might  also  excel  in  architecture,  engineering,  or  urban  planning,  as  capricorn  thrives  on  building  systems  and  structures  that  last.  degrees  in  political  science,  public  policy,  or  governance  could  appeal  if  you’re  drawn  to  leadership  roles  and  creating  societal  impact.  capricorn’s  disciplined  energy  might  also  lead  you  toward  accounting,  finance,  or  real  estate—fields  that  align  with  your  pragmatic  mindset  and  interest  in  material  security.  academia  or  teaching  might  also  appeal,  especially  if  you’re  focused  on  rising  to  leadership  positions,  like  becoming  a  dean  or  head  of  a  department.  capricorn  in  the  9th  values  practicality,  so  you  may  prioritize  internships,  certifications,  or  degrees  with  clear  professional  applications.  environmental  science  or  sustainability  studies  could  resonate,  especially  if  you’re  drawn  to  creating  lasting  change  in  ecological  systems.  your  educational  journey  will  likely  be  marked  by  hard  work,  steady  progress,  and  a  focus  on  achieving  long-term  goals,  with  a  major  that  reflects  your  ambition  and  desire  for  mastery.

 ★  aquarius  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  centered  around  innovation,  social  change,  and  intellectual  freedom.  aquarius  thrives  in  unconventional  fields,  so  degrees  in  computer  science,  information  technology,  or  artificial  intelligence  are  natural  fits.  if  you’re  drawn  to  the  social  sciences,  majors  like  sociology,  political  science,  or  human  rights  might  appeal,  especially  if  there’s  a  focus  on  progressive  or  revolutionary  ideas.  aquarius’  love  of  innovation  might  also  lead  to  engineering,  especially  aerospace  or  renewable  energy,  where  you  can  create  futuristic  solutions.  degrees  in  environmental  studies  or  urban  planning  could  resonate  if  you’re  interested  in  designing  sustainable  communities.  aquarius  in  the  9th  house  suggests  a  fascination  with  global  movements  and  humanitarian  efforts,  so  international  relations  or  global  health  might  align  with  your  vision  for  creating  change.  you  might  also  be  drawn  to  fields  like  psychology  or  neuroscience,  exploring  how  the  mind  works  and  how  it  shapes  behavior.  aquarius  values  intellectual  freedom,  so  you  could  pursue  interdisciplinary  studies  that  allow  you  to  combine  multiple  interests,  like  technology  and  ethics  or  science  and  art.  your  educational  journey  might  involve  unconventional  paths,  like  online  programs,  self-directed  learning,  or  studying  abroad  in  innovative  or  forward-thinking  countries.

 ★  pisces  in  the  9th  house  ★ 

majors  infused  with  imagination,  spirituality,  and  emotional  depth.  pisces  in  the  9th  house  suggests  a  pull  toward  fields  like  creative  writing,  fine  arts,  or  film  studies,  where  you  can  channel  your  dreams  into  storytelling  or  visual  expression.  degrees  in  psychology  or  counseling  might  appeal,  especially  if  you’re  drawn  to  helping  others  navigate  their  emotions  or  uncover  deeper  truths.  pisces’  spiritual  energy  might  also  lead  you  toward  religious  studies,  theology,  or  even  alternative  medicine,  focusing  on  healing  and  connection  to  the  divine.  majors  in  marine  biology  or  environmental  sciences  might  resonate,  especially  if  you  feel  called  to  protect  and  explore  the  natural  world.  pisces  also  thrives  in  fields  like  music,  dance,  or  acting,  where  emotional  expression  takes  center  stage.  humanitarian  studies  or  social  work  could  be  a  fit,  particularly  if  you  want  to  help  underserved  populations  or  work  for  global  peace.  pisces  in  the  9th  house  also  points  to  a  love  for  escapism  and  exploration,  so  degrees  in  tourism,  hospitality,  or  cultural  studies  might  align  with  your  wanderlust.  your  educational  journey  may  feel  fluid  and  intuitive,  with  shifts  in  direction  driven  by  inner  callings  rather  than  external  expectations.

 ★   book   a   reading   ★   ★   masterlist   1   ★   ★   masterlist   2   ★

[communistkenobi]

I’m watching FD Signifier’s new video about edgelord white guy movies. He spends a decent amount of time talking about how creators have responded to their edgelord fanbases, using The Joker and The Boys as two examples, where these creators feel uncomfortable with how their art has been received and taken up by “angry white men,” and that in response to this, they have followed up these artistic products with sequels or new seasons of television that are incredibly blunt and obvious about how you shouldn’t think of Homelander as a based chad or Arthur Fleck as a motivational figure in your life. And like he ends the video saying this is insufficient because these audiences won’t care about the messages in these follow-ups (largely bc these are downstream of larger social issues), but his framing of it in terms of “the death of media literacy” is still really frustrating and annoying because it’s buying into the idea that the main problem with people “not getting” art is literacy/education. And its not just his video, this framing is a popular memetic phrase across social media, and he does a better job than most people in talking about it

But like I just straight up do not accept that the audience of these edgelord movies “didn’t get” that they are portraying bad people, that audiences of mass media are “taking the wrong message” of “very obvious” pieces of art. Not because I think they do secretly get what these films are ‘actually saying,’ I don’t care about what’s in their hearts, but because this concern with people ‘not getting it’ feels wildly off-topic. I think it has been demonstrated over and over again that mass media is not an educational tool where people go to “learn lessons” or “take away a particular message.” I think the very fact that we have a consumptive marketised relationship to these artistic products structures and produces a specific set of responses, which is, above all else, “getting my money’s worth.” Who gives a shit what the movie is ‘really’ trying to say! That’s unimportant when faced with the question of did I get what I paid for? And I don’t mean this in an annoying lib “consumerism is making us all stupider” way I mean the economic structure of artistic production is the primary determinant of how commodities on a market are received. The idea that, under these conditions, we can purchase a piece of art that will “teach us” something about the world is laughable, that art-by-itself contains the authority to impart political knowledge. The idea that we can purchase our way into good values, good politics, that we can buy a movie ticket and see the error of our ways is buying into this same exact consumptive framing.

“The death of media literacy” implies a point in recent history where this economic relationship to art was unimportant, that we used to be able to participate in mass standardised artistic production and be unaffected by this arrangement. I think about Adorno & Horkheimer’s argument in The Culture Industry, that the profit motive is itself an object of consumption under capitalism, that advertisements are themselves products & as a result, all mass standardised artistic products are advertisements for their own capitalist production processes and logics. 

I think when people “don’t get” that Starship Troopers is depicting a fascist society, when people “don’t get” that Travis Bickle is a bad, un-admirable person, they aren’t stricken by a sudden deficit of education or literacy, they are responding to the conditions under which these things get made. Being able to get art’s “true message,” no matter how supposedly clear or compellingly-articulated, is to argue that ‘message’ and ‘meaning’ can be made independent of the conditions under which those things are created and presented to people. The industrial capitalist machinery outputting standardised artistic products is itself an authority telling you how to interpret its own products, much the same way a cathedral is presented as evidence of god. There is a material & physical authority in their presence and social arrangement that are themselves arguments. Adorno talks about this with the radio - that this vast industrial infrastructure of radio towers, broadcast stations, systems of wires and cables, and the production of standardised radio receivers (available for purchase, of course) is utterly incomprehensible to most people and amounts to hearing the voice of god when you turn on the radio. The arrangement of artistic production & presentation is itself the structure through which you experience art, and that structure is an authority you can neither comprehend nor alter. And again as A&H say in The Culture Industry, the techniques, narratives, and genres of the culture industry become standardised themselves, cookie-cutters on a production line, and therefore dictate meaning above and beyond any particular semantic meaning injected into an individual film or story. “Romcoms” are a cultural authority above and beyond the sum total of every romcom film ever made, and it is these genres and techniques that transmit the justification for their own continued reproduction. Under this arrangement, the meaning of this film or that television show are rendered marginal - not unnoticeable or irrelevant, certainly, but secondary to the cookie-cutters they were produced from 

Now does this lead to a widespread ignorant, impoverished, reactionary view of art? Of course, but that is not because the guy who likes wearing V for Vendetta masks is illiterate. To place the blame on individual education, discipline, or literacy is to take Hollywood for granted as a natural eternal entity, to take it as just another church. It’s a goofy fucking argument! 

[theologyy]

Review: “My Investing Journey and Learning” by Carmen Mundt

Qualifications: I’m a journalist reporting on business, economics, and defense who’s been in the industry for 7 years — the last 3 have been at, debatably, the #1 business publication in the world.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Thoughts: I cannot believe I spent 39 euros on this.

This 39 page ebook provides incredibly basic information that can all be found in this article.

First: while the ebook is about 40 pages, it probably has about 10 pages of actual information in it, interspersed with inspirational quotes from Sheryl Sandberg and Warren Buffet, with some pictures of Carmen in Monaco.

There’s about 1 page of “introduction” from Carmen that talks about her upbringing and journey to university in London. I won’t comment too much on her personal story, but an important thing to note is that she says she came from a “traditional Spanish household” where her father was the breadwinner and her mother had no access to family finances. After the 2008 crash, her family couldn’t afford to send her to college. She moved to London, applied for a student loan, and began studying finance at a university while working part time.

Carmen very, very briefly mentioned her regrets as to her mother’s inability to access higher education, work, and family financial planning; she says she’d never want to be in that position. While literally only one sentence, I think it makes it clear who the audience for this ebook is: someone who has absolutely, positively, no idea about money.

(She also very, very briefly mentions “big changes in her personal life” that made a full-time job in finance “not sustainable,” leading to her move to Monaco. This is her only reference to George.)

The rest of the book very simply explains how to make a budget, set financial goals, invest in the stock market, and mitigate risk. The information was kinda factually correct, and was written in a coherent manner. I think that’s the highest praise I can give it.

Here’s the thing: like other reviewers have called out, I am pretty certain that Carmen didn’t write anything besides the introduction. Whole sections (and indeed the entire format of the ebook) were clearly ripped from the Female Invest introductory courses. (I spent 3 hours clicking through each course so I could find direct wording comparisons to make this claim. I really wouldn’t recommend it.) I do think she edited these sections, and she interjected a few personal sentences; but I believe that’s where her involvement ended.

From an expert perspective, a lot of the information is so simplistic as to be almost incorrect. This isn’t a “first day of Econ 101” ebook — this is a “freshman year of high school home ec class” ebook. (Did anyone else’s home ec classes teach budgeting, or just me?)

Here’s an example. In a section on stocks, Carmen/Female Invest writes: “Investing in stocks allows you to support companies and causes you care about while still making a profit.”

On a basic level, this is correct. Purchasing a stock technically means you’re buying a little bit of a company, and I guess therefore supporting it. But unless a company is IPOing, you’re buying those stocks from another investor — which means your purchase has no effect on the company. So it’s a little disingenuous to claim you’re somehow helping the company. The ebook is rife with this kind of thing.

Carmen pushed in her advertising posts that the Female Invest courses were a key supplement to her book. So obviously, I had to do those too. And holy shit, they were so much worse than the ebook. Some parts were blatantly incorrect on basic information (they claim markets are open 24/7, when most are only open 9am-4:30pm on weekdays) and have some of the most patronizing metaphors I have ever read. (One of the most egregious was comparing your investment portfolio to a pizza because “stocks, bonds, and ETFs” make up different “sizes of slices to make a whole pie”. This isn’t even an accurate equivalent — maybe a calzone, pasta, and pizza make up a whole meal? I don’t even know.)

I would not recommend buying this ebook unless you, too, were barred from even thinking about a stock by your traditional father. Even then, consider free sources.

A Disclaimer on disclosures: So, after @ohblimeygeorge sent me a reddit post also reviewing Carmen’s book that mentioned ad disclosures, I decided to dive into the regulations. In the U.S., influential advertising is regulated by the FTC — in the EU, it’s regulated by the EU Commission, which I believe Carmen would qualify under since she is a Spanish citizen who lives in Monaco. First, I looked at this legal brief on content monetization business models, and concluded that that the ebook likely falls under “affiliate marketing” as Carmen likely receives a percentage of each ebook sold through her link.

(An additional disclaimer: obviously, I don’t know the details of the deal Carmen has with Female Invest, but I’d think it unlikely that she isn’t getting paid for their collaboration. She mentioned in an Instagram story under her Female Invest highlight that she “tried purchasing equity but they were already too big for what I could afford” but “did buy a bit of their crowdfunding.” Since she doesn’t have equity, i.e. doesn’t own a piece of the company, it’d be weird if she was doing this for free.)

Back on topic. I next looked at this legal brief on advertising disclosures. It states that affiliate marketing must be disclosed: “you need to make sure your audiences understand that it’s advertising.” Disclosures can include hashtags and “mentioning” advertising in the caption. Carmen has not disclosed advertising in any of her Female Invest posts, and appears to be violating this regulation. (Interestingly, her only posts that follow disclosure requirements are her Tommy posts.)

It’s apparently not uncommon. An EU Commission study showed 80% of influencers in the EU do not properly disclose ads.

So, there’s that too.

[newspaper-advertisement]

Economic Times Classifieds: Empowering Your Business Growth!

[newspaper-advertisements]

Unlock the Power of Economic Times Classifieds: Reach Your Target Audience!

[releasemyad1]

Discover Endless Opportunities with Economic Times Classifieds!

[probablyasocialecologist]

As environmental, social and humanitarian crises escalate, the world can no longer afford two things: first, the costs of economic inequality; and second, the rich. Between 2020 and 2022, the world’s most affluent 1% of people captured nearly twice as much of the new global wealth created as did the other 99% of individuals put together, and in 2019 they emitted as much carbon dioxide as the poorest two-thirds of humanity. In the decade to 2022, the world’s billionaires more than doubled their wealth, to almost US$12 trillion. The evidence gathered by social epidemiologists, including us, shows that large differences in income are a powerful social stressor that is increasingly rendering societies dysfunctional. For example, bigger gaps between rich and poor are accompanied by higher rates of homicide and imprisonment. They also correspond to more infant mortality, obesity, drug abuse and COVID-19 deaths, as well as higher rates of teenage pregnancy and lower levels of child well-being, social mobility and public trust. The homicide rate in the United States — the most unequal Western democracy — is more than 11 times that in Norway. Imprisonment rates are ten times as high, and infant mortality and obesity rates twice as high.

[...]

Our work has shown that the amount spent on advertising as a proportion of gross domestic product is higher in countries with greater inequality. The well-publicized lifestyles of the rich promote standards and ways of living that others seek to emulate, triggering cascades of expenditure for holiday homes, swimming pools, travel, clothes and expensive cars. Oxfam reports that, on average, each of the richest 1% of people in the world produces 100 times the emissions of the average person in the poorest half of the world’s population. That is the scale of the injustice. As poorer countries raise their material standards, the rich will have to lower theirs.

[...]

The scientific evidence is stark that reducing inequality is a fundamental precondition for addressing the environmental, health and social crises the world is facing. It’s essential that policymakers act quickly to reverse decades of rising inequality and curb the highest incomes.

[autumngracy]

"Trump is better for the economy, though!"

Aside from almost every major economist agreeing that Trump's economic plans would actually make things far worse than they are now, this man can't even manage his campaign's, his businesses', OR his personal finances.

Case in point, here a list from Public Opinion of his failed business endeavors:

"Trump's companies have filed for bankruptcy at least six times. This is no exaggeration. Digital World noted this in its SEC filings. This excludes additional business failures that might not have declared bankruptcy, but closed owing vendors, employees and others."

"For the record, here are some of Trump's noteworthy business failures."

Trump Airlines — Trump borrowed $245 million to purchase Eastern Air Shuttle. He branded it Trump Airlines. He added gold bathroom fixtures. Two years later Trump could not cover the interest payment on his loan and defaulted.

Trump Beverages — Although Trump touted his water as "one of the purest natural spring waters bottled in the world," it was simply bottled by a third party. Other beverages, including Trump Fire and Trump Power, seem not to have made it to market. And Trump's American Pale Ale died with a trademark withdrawal.

Trump Game — Milton Bradley tried to sell it. As did Hasbro. After investment, the game died and went out of circulation.

Trump Casinos — Trump filed for bankruptcy three times on his casinos, namely the Trump Taj Mahal, the Trump Marina and the Trump Plaza in New Jersey and the Trump Casino in Indiana. Trump avoided debt obligations of $3 billion the first time. Then $1.8 billion the second time. And then after reorganizing, shuffling money and assets, and waiting four years, Trump again declared bankruptcy after missing ongoing interest payments on multi-million dollar bonds. He was finally forced to step down as chairman.

Trump Magazine — Trump Style and Trump World were renamed Trump Magazine to reap advertising dollars from his name recognition. However, Trump Magazine also went out of business.

Trump Mortgage — Trump told CNBC in 2006 that "I think it's a great time to start a mortgage company. … The real-estate market is going to be very strong for a long time to come." Then the real estate market collapsed. Trump had hired E.J. Ridings as CEO of Trump Mortgage and boasted that Ridings had been a "top executive of one of Wall Street's most prestigious investment banks." Turned out Ridings had only six months of experience as a stockbroker. Trump Mortgage closed and never paid a $298,274 judgment it owed a former employee, nor the $3,555 it owed in unpaid taxes.

Trump Steaks — Trump closed Trump Steaks due to a lack of sales while owing Buckhead Beef $715,000.

Trump's Travel Site — GoTrump.com was in business for one year. Failed.

Trumpnet — A telephone communication company that abandoned its trademark.

Trump Tower Tampa — Trump sold his name to the developers and received $2 million. Then the project went belly-up with only $3,500 left in the company. Condo buyers sued Trump for allegedly misleading them. Trump settled and paid as little as $11,115 to buyers who had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Trump University or the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative — Trump staged wealth-building seminars costing up to $34,995 for mentorships that would offer students access to Trump's secrets of success. Instructors turned out to be motivational speakers sometimes with criminal records. Lawsuits and criminal investigations abound.

Trump Vodka — Business failed due to a lack of sales.

Trump Fragrances — Success by Trump, Empire by Trump, and Donald Trump: The Fragrances all failed due to being discontinued, perhaps as a result of few sales.

Trump Mattress — Serta stopped offering a Trump-branded mattress, again likely due to slacking sales.

Truth Social — This existing Trump business owes big money, and may well be breathing its last.

And then of course is his long history of stiffing contractors, restaurants, and even entire cities for their event venues he used for his rallies—as well as some of his own followers—

—such as the case where he promised a greiving hispanic American family that he would pay for the burial of their daughter, Vanessa Guillén, a servicewoman who had been brutally murdered by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood in 2020, but later told his chief of staff not to pay for it after learning it would cost $60,000, reportedly saying "It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!"