#because the only thing anyone is willing to pay for is the ability to scam people out of money

[essektheylyss]

I will say, there's definitely a possibility that Essek is technically contracted to the Cobalt Soul, but probably not as an archivist. But on the slim chance that he is, I will, on account of the state of real-world archives jobs, be reaching into the narrative to throttle him with my bare hands.

[cinnamonest]

Yandere HCs - Kaeya & Diluc

Kaeya Alberich

This man. This man is one of the best at manipulation and mind games. He can read people very well, just from spending some time around them, watching them, he can understand the kind of things that gets under their skin, the things that worry them, the things they're insecure about, and he knows exactly how to utilize that knowledge to his benefit, so subtly you'll never even realize it.

Among his many techniques of mental manipulation is his effect on your own self-perception, a careful form of gaslighting to make you completely dependent. In your case, he utilizes your foreign status - you don't understand the culture, so it only makes sense you wouldn't recognize that that guy you were talking to clearly had ill intentions, that that merchant was trying to scam you, that that bartender was trying to slip you something when you weren't looking, that that person you thought liked you actually finds you annoying, that they're signaling for you to leave. You're awful at reading the air, really, that's how the cultural difference works, but if you asked anyone else for help, well, they might just intentionally mislead you for their own amusement, you know? He's a trustworthy guy, he'll be like a guide for you, keep you safe.

Of course, he's a very busy man, so while he's working, it's probably better for you to stay indoors by yourself. You have to promise not to leave - after all, if he thinks you're out there, all by your naive self, he'll worry about you, and he might zone out and get hurt on a mission, all because of you, and you don't want that, right?

And while you might be excited to finally get to go out once he's back, when he comes through the door you see how exhausted he is, and he knows you're so sympathetic and selfless, you won't force him to go out when he's tired, you can just have a night in to yourselves. He's your friend, of course he wants to spend some time with you. That, and he's locked himself out of the knight headquarters again, and he doesn't want to wake them up, so he not-so-subtly tells you he needs a place to stay, sheepish smile, passed off as embarrassment over his forgetfulness - which is odd, since he never seems to be forgetful otherwise. He's like that - constantly just teetering on the edge of your kindness, testing the boundaries of how much you're willing to do for him, laughing as he promises to pay you back somehow.

He's got that laid back, confident air to him, and that contributes to how easily you trust him. It makes him one of least detectable yanderes you could have - he has a trained poker face and can keep his anger restrained with a smile, only making a slight passive aggressive comment to relieve any irritation. It takes a lot to get him to lash out, but one of the quickest ways to do so is get him concerned for your safety, or panicked if you can't be found. In moments like that, he's more likely to become moody and snap at you or others, but he'll calm down eventually and apologize, treating it as so trivial you can't help but feel like you overreacted to it. He keeps his cool very well, and recovers from outbursts very easily. The other way to irritate him is showing very blatant affection for someone else, initiating physical contact with them, etc. He's a little slower to recover from that, and might need to storm off to cool down, telling you you shouldn't be so stupid as to trust someone like that.

And don't think he won't degrade you - so subtly, he makes it clear how he sees you, and how you should be seeing yourself - naive, clueless, stupid even. Immature, you don't know how the real world works, you're just like a little kid when you get mad over the latest friend of yours he's passive-aggressively insulted. You're really lucky he puts up with your tantrums. You could stand to show some gratitude that he chooses to be forgiving.

He likes to think he isn't a jealous person, and that's true, but only externally. Inside, it's a slow burning feeling, one that eats away at him. He actually won't recognize it at first. He usually doesn't have reasons to be jealous - he's the one others are envious of, and he knows that. Once he recognizes the emotion, it only makes it worse, now irritated by the insult to his arrogance that someone so beneath him, as all your friends are, could incite such emotions, that he'd even worry if they might be better. Which is a ridiculous notion - he's the best at virtually everything, the most desirable person you'll ever meet. He tells himself you're just too nice, your attention too easy to capture.

But Kaeya won't kill anyone, no, at least not personally. He's definitely above that, as appealing as the idea may be, he tells himself that whoever has earned his wrath doesn't deserve the effort, doesn't deserve the honor of being killed by him. He can't stand the thought of stooping so low as to become a murderer. 

So instead, he'll use his authority to dispose of them. It's very unfortunate that you didn't notice your little friend was a criminal, didn't realize they were so violent that they'd rather die fighting than be arrested by knights. But he gets it, you're spacey, unaware, maybe a little dumb, even. Or perhaps it's a cultural difference yet again. You're just too easy to fool and deceive, this is exactly why you shouldn't wander around with people you can't trust - unlike him, someone with a reputation, an authority figure, the epitome of trustworthiness. 

And finally... He is touchy. He is always finding some way to just sit on the border of normal touches, stopping short of anything you would actually feel justified in getting mad at him for. When you walk through a door, he presses your lower back to push you in. When you're drinking, he has his arm around your neck. When you say goodbye, he wraps you into face-to-face hugs and hangs on just a little too tight for just a little too long to be comfortable.

Diluc Ragnvindr

A very obvious yandere, really. Diluc is significantly less charismatic than Kaeya, but he's charming in his own little way. He's funny when he's not trying to be, taking everything way too seriously, saying unintentionally funny things with the most flat and neutral expression that makes you laugh even more.

He isn't the best with expressing his emotions, but also unlike Kaeya, he doesn't do a very good job at keeping them hidden, either. It comes out in awkward displays of affection and an intense protectiveness. He insists on paying for everything you do while in the region, will buy you random gifts, intending to give you them in person but ultimately leaving them outside your door, anonymously, hoping maybe you'd just conclude it was him and be grateful. His protectiveness is intense. He needs to know where you are, who you're with, what you're doing, virtually every hour of the day. For your safety, of course. Still, the very fact that he shows such concern is a considerable contrast from his usual complete cold stoicism.

God forbid you hang out with someone sleazy and cunning and much better at the flirting thing than him like you-know-who. No, he'll make sure you keep a good distance from the knights, insisting to both anyone who asks as well as to himself that it's because of his distrust in their competence. They can't get the most basic of tasks done, why would he ever trust them to protect you?

He's significantly easier to piss off than other yans, and he lacks both the ability to keep a cool head or quickly backtrack the way some others would. He's not prone to violent outbursts, but if he's upset about something, you'll know it. The scowl on his face and the annoyance in his tone is as unrestrained as it is threatening. 

Which, speaking of, will play a role in your interactions with him. He's the most threatening persona of the genshin boys, really, and can get a little frightening at times. He'll accompany you in your journeys, and should you encounter any human enemies, he'll treat them exactly the same as he would monster ones - merciless, brutal kills. He's so caught up in protective instinct that he doesn't really process how horrifying it is for you to watch, doesn't think about how it probably doesn't look too good for him to be chasing down a fleeing enemy or running a surrendering, begging criminal straight through with a sword. Should you have the courage to bring it up, and not be too afraid to even mention it, he might try to come up with some excuse, but it's more likely he'll be his bluntly honest self and say it was for your safety. He won't insist that you thank him the way the others might, but there's a clear edge to his tone that says you shouldn't question what he does for your sake. 

His threatening nature is also beneficial when it comes to any potential rivals - sometimes he doesn't even need to have a private conversation, he just has to look at them, and they're running the other way.

It's not as insufferable and delusional as Kaeya's, but he's still got that prideful streak to him. Diluc doesn't go out of his way to show off or speak in such an arrogant, snide way like the other, his pride manifests differently - his generally cold demeanor contributes to an aloofness that speaks for itself. He's better than the others around him - and he believes that himself, mostly. Which is why seeing other people around you likewise irritates him. It's not so much that he deserves your attention, though, more than they're unworthy of it.

And that's one of the primary differences between him and Kaeya - Kaeya will, albeit subtly, demean you, belittle you, talk down to you like you're a silly child, he sees himself as above you, but Diluc will place you on a pedestal, see you as some perfect being that's constantly tainted by the presence of others. You deserve something perfect too, like himself. He won't pull the same attitude of making you feel unworthy, but rather try his best to make you understand how much more you do deserve.

If you should become wary around him, try to distance yourself, try to avoid him, he'll catch on. He's not very delusional, he's a more rational yandere that could understand why you might react that way. He's also one of the more guilty yanderes, doesn't want to do anything that would make you more upset, so he'll first try earning back your favor, make you smile at him again rather than looking away and seeming so nervous. He beats himself up mentally, tells himself it's his own fault, he's not one to blame you or another force. He knows he's not the most smooth or eloquent person, but he tries his best to apologize and win you back. It takes a lot for him to apologize to anyone, but he will do so surprisingly quickly for you.

If that doesn't work, however... He'll give you a set amount of time he's determined in his mind for you to come around, and if you don't... He'll still feel guilty, he'll say he's an awful person and apologize for what he'll do, but the guilt isn't strong enough to stop him from more forceful means of isolating you and getting your attention back. If you're especially good, though, he'll let you back outside. Eventually.

As for touchiness, he's very hesitant. It's not something he's used to, poor boy is very touch-starved. But once he does, it's an exhilarating thing, even just shaking your hand will have him spacing out for the rest of the day with the memory.

[tottymatsuno]

For the character thing: Chibita!

WE LOVE HER! Oh there's SO much to be said, I should def post about Chibita more.

favorite thing about them

I actually starting thinking about this during my shower and I've been trying to organize my thoughts on exactly what aspect of Chibita is my favorite! I think it's that you can tell Chibita isn't in arrested development, he's grown so much since his childhood and he's partially through a healthy recovery without any real external praise, motivation or recognition.

All of the characters, Chibita's friends, his parent, his role models...All of them have these very clear cut narratives. If you knew Osomatsu in high school, you'd know he'd be like that. The following five brothers are pretty understandably different but you can still follow the connection to how they got where they are and they haven't changed or became anyone significant despite the ability to. if you knew Totoko in grade school you wouldn't be surprised she turned out that way, Iyami had been conning and scheming for years before Chibita was born and like 15 years later he aint stopped. You could see that clearly. Hatabou is simply rich now but is the same character, as is Dekapan and Dayon.

All of them you can see and go "Yeah sounds about right" except for Chibita? Chibita has become a legitimate business owner and the only reason why his business isn't thriving is specifically because of his attachments to people who don't mean him any good! The Matsunos don't pay him, Iyami is just as willing to scam Chibita as he is anyone else, his cart is always filled to the top with people who take and do not exchange anything for the time, labor and cost of ingredients but then come back to take more!

And Chibita is paying for it! He's paying to feed people who never fed him once! He loves his friends and thinks of them almost like family! He stands there for hours, cooks, listens to them bitch and then he serves them food and drink KNOWING they dont respect him and will not pay him! I think after the Karamatsu incident he lost all hope for actually being paid-paid and like Matsuyo he only cycles unpredictably if he's going to ask anything from them.

I like Chibita because he's loyal in that way, Chibita is an orphan and it's clear that he never found stable housing as a child but he still worked tooth and nail to get a stable home, to open a business, to go to culinary school. The flower fairy episode was so important for season 1 because it quickly establishes that Oden is a crutch for Chibita and that Chibita would view someone treating him with genuine kindess very skeptically and once he realized that it was legitimate Chibita would suffer immensely if that connection is lost.

I just really like him?! Like he was this chaotic small child who only really could depend on himself and he grew up to be this compassionate person who is pretty much a pillar in his small community of fuck ups. Chibita really needs more acknowledgement of what he does and more episodes where people are nice and respectful towards him.

Another thing is he's an enabler, and I know that sounds bad but I enjoy the fact that Chibita is only suffering as long as he feels obligated to. Chibita can get outta this at any time. He can set boundaries, he has options but he knows his friends and Iyami aren't ready. He's staying down with them until they can pick themselves back up. We've seen what happens to Iyami and what Iyami will eat/do without Chibita's active support, and while Iyami won't die or anything it must be depressing for his son to see his father won't get better. Chibita is an enabler in the same sense weening someone from an addiction is. We really need to respect that of him more.

least favorite thing about them

idk why the show made him shit his pants that one time. that was so gross and ooc. disrespectful.

favorite line

THIS WHOLE SKIT BUT THIS SCENE IN SPECIFIC! I think this skit is pretty good at identifying Chibita's core role in Ososan! He can fit in with the other's modern updates but he's still clearly a product of the past in his behaviors and gags. Iyami acknowledges that Chibita is much younger, much more relatable and has way more in common with these young adults - because Chibita is a young adult!

And Chibita in order to pacify his suicidal father figure just lists these qualities in order to commiserate with Iyami. That's all he's known, Chibita was raised with the dogs and he hasn't known a life without fleas! It makes me so sad because you can tell from these little hints throughout the series that Chibita has dealt with Iyami and this enmeshment between the two. Since Osokun Chibita has been in this role reversal where he is either Iyami's direct equal, or even takes care of this grown man who should in theory be insuring his safety.

Iyami's all he has and Chibita isn't willing to let him go. Chibita is all Iyami has and same can be said for him! They're a father and child and both of them care for each other so much despite it doing no good for either of them. Multiple times in Osomatsu-san Chibita has hinted that Iyami is refusing his kindness and idk idk. makes me wanna cry. Chibita's stuck parenting his parent. It's very depressing, Chibita puts himself down in order to reclaim this space as Iyami's equal and his partner in crime. Someone that will get fleas with him, someone who will starve and suffer with Iyami. idk!!!!

brOTP

Chibita and most of the brothers, him and Iyami being father and son, his friendship with Nyaa and Totoko

OTP

Karabita, Chibita/Flower Fairy, Osobita, Chibita being a part time member of the Wifeys for Life polycule, Chibou (is that the ship name?)

nOTP

Chibita and Iyami kys <3 Chibita involved romantically/sexually with any of the geezer characters. Die.

random headcanon

Because his business if often in the red (bc he loves his friends too much) Chibita relies off of a lot of the poverty tactics in order not to cut on the quality for his oden ingredients.

unpopular opinion

This is a weird thing to try and articulate but there needs to be more nostalgia in the content people make for him? More of a dreamy/nightmarish vague sense people need to extend towards adult Chibita as well? And to acknowledge further beyond his adolescence that he dealt with trauma? I guess what I'm trying to say is we need to associate Chibita with less of anger and more of a nostalgia dissociation? Like a daydream thats gone on much too long

song i associate with them

For literally NO reason at all but

favorite picture of them

SO CUTE!

[kyra45]

Now normally I don’t rant much over here since this blog focuses on busting scams and keeping information informative regarding the common scams one will find on this site based around animals and on occasion a rare actual non-pet donation scam. This blog tries to keep everything organized to the best of my ability and rarely trails off.

But I think the rude anon likely found me through someone who may have shared my commission post. So allow me to rant about that because honestly it’s just sad.

Anon, I hope you are so financially secure that you find joy in mocking someone who actually doesn’t get any commissions from strangers. And anon, your family must be so well off they don’t have to worry about keeping their fridge full on a daily basis. The fact you targeted me twice for no reason but to mock my art proves you likely think anyone asking for aid are scams. You clearly didn’t bother staying around long enough to care what my reply was because you had to send a rude ask to both my blogs,

And anon, have you ever stopped to think that some people aren’t as well of as you? Do you ever just stop and think about how not everyone has the financial security they deserve or need? I mean, you were rude to someone who has only gotten commissioned by what few friends she has and otherwise is literally struggling to feed her family.

Anon, I’m sure you’ve never been hungry. Likely never even felt like you was starving because your home has a fridge that stays full on a daily basis. I’m sure you stay full every day, and never have to worry if you can afford a bill or even food weekly. You probably have never felt hardships like the rest of us do. So you stumbled upon me and decide to mock my art for some reason.

It’s sad, isn’t it? I would never insult artists. All art starts somewhere. No matter how small or how ‘bad’ it may be. And quite frankly, I don’t think your an artist if you make fun of one. Artists don’t tell artists their art sucks despite all their efforts to make progress. You want them to improve, right? Sure there are a few outliers that make judging art difficult at times, but you get the idea. Generally speaking, artists are having a hard time as it is being seen.

So anon, you do you. But unless your paying me and supporting me in these hard times where the economy sucks for people like me…Who are barely getting by and unable to get things we really need because it’s too high or we can’t find anyone willing to help us that isn’t close friends….

Then your opinion is irrelevant. And if you want it to truly count, then pay me. Can’t pay me? Your too late to tell me what I can and can’t do.

Now back to regular scam busting programming.

[skullsandwineglasses]

Remembrance of Things Past - Eps 1-10 Impression/Rant

Not really a first impressions post since there are only 2 episodes left, but as I’m waiting on the last few episodes, I thought I’d rant a bit about the drama here. 

First of all, I agree with everything that AvenueX said in her review of the first 6 episodes. Her review is what prompted me to start the drama. I needed a realistic slice of life drama to balance out the idol drama that is You Are My Glory (which I’m also waiting on for new episodes), and ROTP seemed to fit bill. ROTP is just so good.

I binged ROTP in 3 days. It could have been 2 days, but I started it at 2am on a Wednesday night, so I didn’t get very far the first night. Each episode is about 75 minutes long, so almost the equivalent of 2 regular lengthed episodes, but not quite. 

I cried during the first two episodes. The character development is just phenomenal. You really feel for Jing Jing’s character even though you’ve only seen her character for an hour. There are little moments throughout the drama that made me tear up too, like when the girls were celebrating Nan Jia jie’s 36th birthday and I got emotional over how close their bond is, or moments when the girls reflected on their aging parents and how we often take our parents for granted. 

Plot pacing and structure

The plot is tight and well-paced, and each girl’s storyline is interwoven well. Sometimes they’d cut between simultaneous scenes between the girls to compare and contrast what they’re each going through. For instance, when Xu Yan is having an argument with her boyfriend, the drama will also cut and flip back and forth to Qiao Xi Chen going through problems at her workplace. When Xu Yan makes up with her boyfriend, the drama cuts to QXC and Nan Jia being romantically pursued by Jian Yi Fan and Ou Yang. It’s interesting to see how their lives mirror and differ from each other. 

Because the storylines between the girls are so interwoven and keep flipping back and forth between each other, it makes it hard to skip scenes because you can’t just skip an entire segment or else you’ll miss something important in all 3 storylines. I can see that this might be a little annoying if you have a preference for one of the girls and want to skip someone else’s storyline. But I actually like seeing all 3 of their stories play out, so I’m not bothered by it. 

Another aspect about the plot’s structure that I appreciate is how they use the mystery behind Jing Jing’s suicide as a throughline for the drama. Up until episode 8ish(?), each episode ends with a question about Jing Jing’s life prior to her suicide and the next episode opens with the girls trying to find an answer or a clue to it. The girls and we the audience learn more and more about Jing Jing with each episode. However, episodes 9 and 10 deviate from the structure a bit and so the drama has recently been less and less focused on Jing Jing’s story, especially after they found out that she had depression. The drama seems to imply that her depression due to the stress of living in Beijing was the main factor that led to her suicide, while the successive unfortunate events that happened on her birthday was the trigger. 

Characters

I like all the main characters in the drama, albeit some a little more than others, which I’ll explain. I think the 3 male love interests are a little too perfect though, and so I guess this slice of life drama is actually a little idealistic after all. 

Xu Yan - My least favourite of the four girls. She’s materialistic, but not as spoiled as I though she would be. But it does annoy me how she keeps picking fights with Shen Zi Chang, when he’s just trying his best. He’s so tolerant and patient with her. He apologizes, they make up, and then the cycle repeats. It’s just a very unhealthy relationship, and I’m tried of seeing them fight and make up. 

EDIT: So, I started writing this review when I had only watched up until episode 9, but now that I’ve finished episode 10, um, wtf?? Xu Yan made a bad choice and got scammed of all her money, her friends try to comfort her, loan her money, and tell her not to repress her emotions like Jing Jing. And then she just lashes out at them saying they have no right to comfort her because they were the ones who caused Jing Jing’s death. Xu Yan starts off blaming QXC for not knowing that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and then she blames Nan Jia for being a bad older cousin. She blames both of them for being ignorant of Jing Jing’s depression and only caring about themselves. QXC (rightfully) retorts back than Xu Yan knew all along that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and yet Xu Yan never told anyone, so she’s just as guilty as all of them. Honestly, I was sympathetic towards Xu Yan before, but she was just so ungrateful and entitled in that scene. What right does she have pointing fingers and assigning guilt to people? And to weaponize Jing Jing’s death against them? That’s just cruel. The argument between them in that scene at the end of episode 10 just felt so random and out of place. All of a sudden, Xu Yan points out all of these problems she has with QXC and Nan Jia, when all they’ve ever done is pamper her. Also, you can’t blame QXC for dating Lin Rui even if Jing Jing liked him first, and not to mention that QXC wasn’t even aware. QXC might not have even chosen to date Lin Rui if she had known. But it happens all the time between friends where your friend might date someone you like. All’s fair in love and war, and there’s no first come first serve rule when it comes to dating.

Jing Jing - She becomes more complex as you learn more about her. She puts her friends first and is fiercely supportive and protective of them. We get a glimpse of how far she’s willing to go for them she pulls a butcher knife from the kitchen and points it at QXC’s debt collectors in the first episode. Her friends see her as being really open, expressive, and bubbly. She’s the first one they each go to whenever they need help with a problem or want to show off an achievement. But in reality, she’s really secretive. She hides her feelings to keep her friends happy, and when they slowly uncover her secrets, she becomes less and less recognizable to them, as though she’s been living a double life all along. 

At the end of episode 10, Jing Jing is described as the “hole in the tree” that everyone goes to to share their secrets, but they forget that she’s also a person with her own secrets to share, and she’s not just a tree hole to serve others. Can we blame the friends for not paying enough attention to Jing Jing and only using her for emotional support? Yes and no. It’s complicated. We should always do more to try to care for others and to be more attentive to them, but at the same time, it’s impossible to completely know a person. I purposely hide parts of my life from my friends because I don’t want them worrying or judging or commenting. So I would never expect them to be able to figure it out, and neither do I want them to figure it out. I think it’s interesting that the drama is exploring the friends’ self-imposed guilt, but I don’t agree that Xu Yan should be the one to point it out them and to be Jing Jing’s spokesperson. Xu Yan positions herself as Jing Jing’s heroic and righteous advocator, when really Xu Yan is the most problematic person out of the three remaining friends. 

Also, after seeing how the friends interact, they don’t feel narcissistic. Yes, they each readily vent about their problems to each other, but they also ask about the other person. It’s not one-sided. Xu Yan talks about her problems with her boyfriend, but she also asks and cares about what’s happening in QXC’s life and vice versa. Nan Jia is more mature and is busy with her business, but she always takes the time and effort to help her friends. All of their conversations are reciprocal and they are genuinely interested in each other’s lives. So, I don’t think they have a major communication problem or that they don’t care or that they’re ignorant. Which again, makes Xu Yan’s accusations in episode 10 feel even more unfair. 

Ji Nan Jia - Jing Jing’s cousin and also the oldest of the three girls (about a decade older). Sassy, witty, unapologetic, confident. She’s who you’d think of when you imagine a successful, independent, career-driven woman. She’s extremely annoyed by her mother’s nagging to get married. But she herself is trying to figure out whether she actually wants to find someone to settle down with or if she just wants to beat her biological clock and have children while she still can. She’s pursued by Ou Yang, ten years her junior, and he’s absolutely enamoured with her. He seems to be unconditionally in love with her, which is what I meant when I said that the male leads in this drama seem too perfect and idealistic. But I like Ou Yang though. He’s adorable. 

Qiao Xi Chen - The main character of the four main characters. Like Nan Jia, she’s also quite sassy. In some ways, she’s like a younger version of Nan Jia. QXC is also very career driven and competitive. She’s confident and believes in her abilities, but she also gets easily overwhelmed and emotional (like when her stress and nervousness prevented her from being able to give her proposal presentation and she ran out of the room. I’ve definitely felt that way before my committee meetings). QXC is a character you can self-insert as because she represents the everyday employee who struggles with the long commute to work and tries to stand out and make a name for herself in the company. QXC is also extremely paranoid, which is understandable when you’re a woman living alone in the city. I know what it’s like to have to briskly walk home late at night and constantly having to look over your shoulder to make sure no one’s following you, or having to check your hotel room before you change, or having to make it seem like you’re not the only one living in your apartment. QXC is smart, logical, helps people when she can, but is also reasonably selfish when she needs to protect herself, like when her co-workers try to take advantage of her or throw her under the bus. She’s a character everyone can relate to.

She and Jian Yi Fan also make such a cute pairing. I love all their interactions. I love how Jian Yi Fan can’t help but smile when he’s with her, but he tries hard to clamp it down. I love how QXC is aware of her own attraction and easily admits to to Xu Yan that she does have feelings for him instead of beating around the bush. And I especially love the awkward but adorable confession scene in episode 8. Such great banter and play on words (”你是什麼意思” “沒意思” “你對我是不是有意思?”). The drama did a great job of depicting the frustration of trying to guess whether someone likes you when they seem to be sending mixed signals. A lot of dramas that don’t focus on romance seem to do a better job of showing romance than idol dramas that focus on nothing but romance. I grew up with TVB dramas, and in most of them, romance is usually secondary to the main plot, but I always loved the romances in those dramas.

Like Ou Yang, JYF is such an idealistic love interest. He’s so supportive of and attentive to QXC. I haven’t watched too many slice of life dramas, but To Dear Myself and My Best Friend’s Story both had flawed (and sometimes even irredeemable) male love interests. This drama’s rose-coloured glasses definitely reduces the amount of performative angst, but it also makes the drama a little less realistic. The men in Jing Jing’s life aren’t villainized either even when you expected them to be sinister. I think the most antagonistic character is Lin Rui, but even he’s made to be sympathetic. In fact, nearly all the characters in the drama are sympathetic characters because many of the choices they made were forced because of the situation they found themselves in, and what they did was an act of self-preservation. And so, you can’t hate them or blame them. 

Acting and Dialogue

I mean, what’s there to say? The acting and dialogue just sucks you right in. I love it so much. The characters are so animated and charming because of how well the actors delivered their lines. I’m not a mandarin speaker (I’m a cantonese speaker but learned mandarin afterwards), but even I was able to notice the colloquialism and slangs and idiosyncratic ticks in speech that made the dialogue feel so real and alive. The actors had great comedic timing, and when they cried, you could feel how vulnerable they are. 

Lastly, I also like the little “life lessons” they include at the end of the drama where there’d be a voiceover by one of the actresses and they’d muse about life. One of my favourite musings when when they talked about what it means to have a sense of security. For some people, having a sense of security is about having a certain amount of money in your bank account, or having someone waiting for you to come home, but a sense of security isn’t something tangible or physical that you can achieve or possess. It’s a belief. It’s a belief that you’re able to face any problem and that life will go on. It’s a belief that the one that you love will be faithful and supportive. It’s a type of belief that allows you to be confident to face uncertainty. And thus, a sense of security is something that only you can give yourself. I really like that little food for thought because it’s a great reminder to be self-dependent and to not rely on external gratification. Que sera sera. What will be will be. Don’t get too hung over on failure and don’t let stress dominate your life. 

Note: Watching this at the same time as You Are My Glory is extremely humbling. YAMG is an idol drama, and so they make the romance look so easy. Heck, idol dramas make being a protagonist easy. The protagonist is destined to stand out from the crowd. It’s easy to be noticed. It’s easy to cause a change in the status quo. But ROTP is a reminder that we’re all practically nobodies in the big city. It feels impossible to make an impression when there are millions of other people living almost the same life as you are. There’s nothing special about you, and it’s hard to find meaning and purpose. Obviously, the drama shows that even when it feels like you’re trying to swim upstream in a big city, we each have a life worth living. We may feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but to our friends and family, we’re their world and they’re ours. I think it was Camus who said that we should find meaning in the face of absurdity. Live in spite of how absurd and meaningless things feels. Anyway, this drama gives you a lot to think about, even though I don’t really like the melodrama they’ve recently added to drag the plot (*cough cough* that explosive argument scene at the end of episode 10 that I keep ranting about). You’d think that a 12-episode drama wouldn’t have filler, and yet here we are. 

[the-moon-prince]

The Last Of us~Kurapika x Reader ~Chapter II

AN: Hi my lovely fellows!

I offer you the second chapter of my story! This time I made sure to be more careful with the edition!

I wish you a pleasant read, and I hope you’ll enjoy the new chapter of my story. (Third coming soon!) (Chapter I)

Paring: Kurapika Kurta x GN! Reader

Word count: 2 655

TW: None!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Kurapika''- then they looked up to him-"I know I'm putting my life on the line. Yet, what I'm about to do is an act of desperation wholly motivated by my concluding. Are you... are you somehow related to the scarlet eyes?" their eyes still avoiding his, with a serious and plain expression on their face. It was sure they weren't joking. Kurapika immediately tensed up and put himself on guard. "I'm sheepish to inquire like this in your private life. But I have my reasons to suppose you are, if you say yes to me, I will believe you. If not, please let me know and we can pretend this dialogue never happened." Kurapika was naturally full of inquiries about this whole story. But continuing with this conversation could lead him to information. Even solve his doubts about (Y/n), that character who puzzled him so greatly. "I am," he answered after some seconds of reflection. (Y/n) nodded in agreement to him and kept stuttering "I have a... I have an offer for a pair of scarlet eyes."- the tone of their voice was worried, and still (Y/n) remained serious. At that moment, they were convinced of being on the right path.-"Please, don't misunderstand me. I am not a flesh collector. I am convinced that these kinds of people are the most repugnant vermin. And I despise them"- These last two sentences were said with particular disgust on (Y/n)'s voice-"I'm certain you're questioning yourself <<Why are they communicating this to me? How do they have this sort of knowledge?>> I-I beg you... let me explain myself. Even if I'm not a flesh collector, I'm after precise body parts and I seek to reclaim them. As a Doctor, It's quite easy to persuade dealers about my supposed appreciation for that kind of item. Furthermore, I'm telling you this because I want to be... believe the scarlet eyes are going to be in a better place with... with you than on a display rack. Seeing body parts being treated like mere dirty material articles... just objects someone can just appropriate... just possess gives rise to my sadness and fury.- as they spoke, (Y/n)'s voice trembled and stuttered and their hands tightened into fists. Even if their face stayed stoic, their voice and hands reflected all the anguish felt. Letting out a heavy suspire- If you're angry and distrust me, I concede. These are delicate subjects and I apologize for my sudden harshness, but I was obligated to clear my uncertainties. It was a part that, for my integrity and morals, I could not ignore. I am deeply grateful to you for letting me telling you this." (Y/n) finally finished and looked down their feet again. Waiting for some kind of response, and feeling ready to endure any kind of repercussion their early action could lead them to. Kurapika knew the person in front of him had not just nothing to win doing this, but they could also get murdered. Not solely by him. Plus, he recognized the sense of anger towards the flesh collectors. Only getting his suspicions bigger. "Your explanation seems coherent. I will believe you. Further, the information highly interests me. I'll collaborate with you."  The voice tone in Kurapika was not an angry one, despite what (Y/n) had anticipated. Rather a gentle feel flooded Kurapika's soul, feeling less alone in the cause he devoted his life. 

In return (Y/n) offered Kurapika their usual tender smile and looked up at him again. With the difference that in their eyes they had a look of closeness and muttered a "Thank you" to follow the conversation- "I have the details of the transaction, but I would prefer to deliver them to you in a more secure area. I invite you for tea if you accept." 

~

A proposition to which Kurapika agreed. To anew prove their reliability, (Y/n) offered to drive Kurapika to their address, a delicate move as that sort of information was notably frail and placed (Y/n) in a state of vulnerability. (Y/n)'s residence was just a small home with limited decoration. On their salon, beside the basic furniture thus consisted of a canapé, two individual loveseats, a carpet and a coffee counter in the center; the only remarkable things in all the place were a fairly small grand piano -second hand probably- and an exhibit shelf with tiny animal figurines in different situations: like two wolves and a cat drinking tea, or a crowd of distinct critters dancing. "A quite childish set to exhibit" was the thought Kurapika had. (Y/n) brew some tea and placed some biscuits on the coffee table. "To gain the scarlet eyes, the merchant convoked me this Thursday at 9:15 p.m. on a private store in the edge of the town. I have to present personally with my hunter license to confirm my identity, also the granted price for the pair of scarlet eyes would be 2 million Jennys. I'm more than willing to pay the fee." (Y/n) affirmed while taking a sip of tea. "As I suppose, you're familiar with the security protocol to access black market stores. What kind of strategy have you in mind if something turns out wrong? Those buying are always dangerous."-Kurapika questioned inclining in front, resting his elbows on his knees. Logically, (Y/n) had a plan conceived for these circumstances. -"In these situations, I take an offensive position. Regarding my nen, I'm a specialist. I'm able to conjure two ribbons, each one with different properties. The first one "Misericordiae'' has enhancement effects and is meant to protect. It concentrates great quantities of aura and grants the band high strength and healing skills. The other ribbon "Divina Poena '' has transmutation traits, it obtains the ability and sharpness of a metallic blade and is aimed to punish. Although, to obtain my I made vows and have several limitations. I can't kill with "Misericordiae", and exclusively use "Divina Poena" against people who have committed atrocities. Plus on my actual form, I can't use both simultaneously. My plan consists of physically containing the opponent with "Misericordiae '' and knock them down, to subsequently use it to shield us and escape. In extreme cases, it could kill them, although I fancy avoiding it."- (Y/n) rigorously explained. It was obvious they previously initiated contact with flesh sellers, and their cleverness was confirmed once more by Kurapika. 

"The plan is plausible and efficient. With that already determined, I will accompany you in the transaction and present myself as your bodyguard."- with that proclamation the project was complete and ready to be performed. (Y/n) provided Kurapika with a folder full of documents informing about the seller and the location. The seller ended up being a notable collector and dealer of singular and luxurious objects in the underworld. They both accorded to meet outside a coffee shop Thursday at 8:30 p.m., and (Y/n) will transport them to the establishment.

~

The said day finally arrived. the plan was thus executed. (Y/n) was very punctual when picking up Kurapika, dressed in their usual good taste, always with some variety of embroidery herbaceous detail. It was not difficult to believe that he was a wealthy fan of human members. Kurapika sat next to (Y/n) in the passenger seat. For most of the trip, no word was said. They were both troubled. Just one exception; before getting out of the car, (Y/n) smiled at Kurapika and said as an encouragement "We are going to procure the scarlet eyes!". Even if their expression seemed the same, the contrast was subtle, and Kurapika recognizes the support in their action. Once through security, they both reached a vast room full of cristal showcases. These exhibiting an enormous amount of costly merchandise. The salesman was waiting for them, and they politely presented each other and engaged in a little courtesy prattle.

 Once (Y / n) confirmed their identity with their hunter license, the man led them to a private room, which he locked, to present the product. The man showed them the scarlet eyes, which were real, proving that it was not a scam. Kurapika and (Y/n) did their best to maintain the facade they came with. To conclude with that all (Y/n) pulled the money cash out of their bag and presented it to the seller. 

"Oh, no no no, child, 2 million Jennys was the first offer I gave you. But now you seem so firm to buy the scarlet eyes I raise the price to 4 million Jennys. They are very precious and rare, you know?"-the man took on a condescending tone, clearly taking advantage of the situation to play dirty. Kurapika couldn't help but feel his blood boil like lava. He was so tired of treating scumbags who treated the Kurta clan like lower living beings. He wasn't alone in this anger. "Misericordiae!" was the thing both men heard before (Y/n) conjured their nen. A white ribbon enveloped the hunter's left hand like jewelry. The ribbon gripped the seller's limbs, torso, and head, lifting him using the roof rafters as pulleys. The ribbons were tightening their grip as the man's face turned into a scared expression, and (Y/n) stopped smiling to return to a solemn expression. At the same time, Kurapika took an attacking position, ready to battle if required. "Do not try to fool us. We tried to do everything pacifically, and yet your actions are unfair. I have more than sufficient reasons to end someone who obtains a profit with human misery. So, you're going to give us the eyes, and we will calmly leave, without anyone getting injured." (Y/n) calmly replied, despite their irritation. 

"Fine, I'll accept the two million! Let me down now." the disgusting man tried to persuade, but (Y/n) wasn't satisfied with the answer "No. You broke the arrangement. You can't go backward now." (Y/n) firmly declared to directly give the pair of scarlet eyes to Kurapika and head to the door, finally realizing the man before getting out of the room. They proceeded to quickly exit the establishment. Already out, (Y/n) dissipated their nen, cleaned the tiny flow of blood that came out of their mouth, and both got inside the car.

~

After the obnoxious experience and once in the car (Y/n) angrily grunted, not leaving their annoyed plain appearance and driven to return into Yorknew. The car stayed silent for a moment, giving each of the passengers' space and calm to dissipate their tension. In the end, despite the trick the man wanted to impose on them, Kurapika retrieved the eyes. Both feeling a bit better (Y/n) mumbled, still bitter "How awful. I despise these kinds of personages, just hideous rubbish. They're as stupid as a broomstick!"- Kurapika couldn't help but let out a tiny chuckle in front of the original expression. (Y/n) turned to see Kurapika, making a small squeak of surprise- "Why are you laughing?" 

The uncommissioned of the person next to him only caused Kurapika more amusement. "Your expression is quite unique!" the blonde man replied. (Y/n) in what appears to be a sudden blow of consciousness also laughed. To playfully add with their smile back "I might have mistranslated my expression. "Why is a broomstick stupid tho? What's the reasoning?" -Kurapika joked again.

"Well, consider it. A broomstick is useless without the brush. It doesn't do anything relevant. Plus the brush doesn't need a stick; the small hand brooms are the evidence. No one needs the broomstick!"

"I suppose you're right."-Kurapika smiled at the silly (Y/n) gave him.

"May I propose you some tea?" (Y/n) continued, to which Kurapika gladly agreed. He was in a nice mood after all. A nice mood in a long time.

~

That was the second time, of many, Kurapika went to (Y/n)'s home. The tea was served along with some sweets on the coffee table in the sitting room. Each one sat in front of the other. At some point, Kurapika interrogated "How did you know I held some connection to the scarlet eyes?".

(Y/n) Slowly shrugged and looked away. "I saw you during Neon's discourse about her collection."- they answered with their tiny smile - "I recognize that expression and feeling of frustration and sorrow. The sentiment is familiar to... to me as well...".

At that moment, Kurapika decided to execute a move that would dissipate his suspicions about (Y/n). "Thank you for your service. You proved yourself as someone reliably, (Y/n). I consider you deserving of an account and promise the scarlet eyes are in good hands."-(Y/n) swiftly looked up to him-  "I'm a survivor of the massacre of the Kurta. The eyes belong to the members of my clan. My people's eyes turn red whenever we feel intense emotions. My confreres were slaughtered and had their eyes stolen."-anger and pain were present in each of his words-"  I seek to retrieve the scarlet eyes from the sickening scum who rob them and carry out my revenge on the ones who brutally destroyed my clan. They were innocent... they didn't deserve to be annihilated."-Kurapika's voice quivered as his companion stayed quiet, hearing carefully.-"The Spiders killed... unjustly my people. I pretend to make them pay. Additionally, I discerned, despite your vigilance, you are highly protective of your eyes." Kurapika finally voiced. (Y/n) slowly got up and sat next to him. "Kurapika... Although, indeed, my eyes are also capable to change; I am not a Kurta. I'm profoundly remorseful if I gave you that hypothesis."-their tone was sad -"Yet I'm also really alike; my people got killed as well for a part of their body. I am an Unilium, or vulgarly known as beast people... please do, do not misunderstand me, I can change my appearance... Even if I can change it, my current form is the real, it's part of me. They killed us for our fur. I survived only because I lived elsewhere than the rest. And I.. I'm also the last one..."

It would be a lie if I'd said Kurapika's hopes of having another Kurta alive didn't crush. He felt foolish, similar to if he wanted to cry. "Kurapika, let me join you." was a response he didn't expect.

"I believe in your cause. What the spiders did will not stay unpunished." -(Y/n) gently spoke to him, as he looked at them. For the first time, they looked Kurapika directly in the eyes. Their (eye color) catlike eyes were wet. And his words were full of support and determination to help. - "How many are there, similar to us? How many have suffered because of them? And how many more will there not be? We begged for help, but no one protected us. Let's protect those who are similar to us. We don't deserve to suffer, none of us did. We will not be giving them the pleasure of giving up. We will not be giving them the pleasure of leaving unpunished.

May evil pay for its crimes." Kurapika felt held for the first time in a very long time. Probably since the Yorknew incident. How much suffering was released at that instant? So much so that he gave up and hugged the person next to him who was caring for him. (Y/n) flinched at the contact. Just before he could cut the embrace, Kurapika felt a pair of trembling and timid arms enveloping him. It reminded him of the hugs that Pairo used to give him.

"I'll be frank, I don't believe in fate. But, random happenings in life culminated in the survival of both of us. We are the last ones. Let's make it worthwhile. The Spiders will pay."

[usafricahf]

Solving the Housing Crisis in Africa

Ameet Dhillon

Marketing and Business Development Executive

The continent of Africa has about 1.3 billion people today and many demographers believe it will nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050. Africa also has the youngest average population with a median age in 2012 of 19.7--the worldwide median age was 30.4. This unparalleled level of growth, coupled with youth, presents many problems such as housing: The African Development Bank estimates there is a deficit of 50.5 million housing units in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every government in Africa recognizes residential housing as a key problem, yet it is hardly being addressed. The problem seems almost intractable, particularly in the so-called “social housing” segment which is often defined as a residence that costs less than $25,000 USD. So what is the problem and is there any way to solve it?

Let’s briefly discuss the various issues that are compounding the housing crisis and then we will get to an innovative approach to solve, or at least lessen this problem. The issues with housing in Africa are numerous, but there are at least four main problems that must be overcome. The first is inconsistent or poor-quality construction due to a lack of international-class training for construction trades such as concrete mixing, roof installation, and final finish. The second is limited economies of scale because house construction is often project managed by the owner or his/her representative. As a result, cost overruns are common, and construction can take years to complete. The third is a lack of trust in real estate developers which is often what leads to the aforementioned second problem. Finally, the fourth and perhaps the biggest problem is financing. Without some sort of reasonable financing, a housing industry simply cannot exist. Imagine for a moment trying to buy your current residence in the US, Europe or indeed anywhere in the world by paying cash at the time of purchase. Would you be able to buy your house under those circumstances? For most people, the answer is no, yet that is the environment that the majority of African homebuyers face today. 

These problems seem almost insurmountable; how do we even begin to address them? Rather than walk the reader through some theoretical exercise on what could be done, I will describe what two innovative companies (full disclosure: I am Managing Director of one of them) are successfully doing right now to prove these problems can be overcome. I don’t claim these companies have fully solved the problem, but they have laid out a clear blueprint in parts of West Africa that anyone else is free to emulate anywhere on the continent. In fact, the principals of both companies are willing to share their formula for success with anyone; just for the asking; no strings attached. Email ameet@usafricahf.com to begin a discussion. 

American Homebuilders of West Africa (AHWA) and US-Africa Housing Finance (USAHF) are both US-registered LLCs that symbiotically work together to build, sell and finance houses in West Africa. The following diagram illustrates the relationship between the two companies.

AHWA markets, builds, and sells houses in West Africa and USAHF provides the financing by purchasing loans originated by AHWA. Private investors provide the capital to USAHF (earning an annual 9%, us-dollar return over the last three years) which begins the virtuous cycle that propels this relationship forward. 

One thing you will notice is the total lack of government help or any kind of philanthropy in this model to date. Both businesses are for-profit (and currently profitable) and have thus far relied 100% on private capital raised in the United States. Having said that, there is an appropriate place for governments, foundations or other quasi-government institutions to get involved to provide much needed catalytic capital to move the respective businesses forward more quickly and efficiently. Since the business model for both companies has been proven; now is the time for large institutions to step up and provide support.

So how did these companies overcome the four problems laid out earlier where others have failed? The first problem of poor construction quality is not conceptually hard to solve given that construction techniques are well understood in the US, Europe, and other developed markets. However, to do it in an environment that is used to accepting poor quality as a "fact of life" requires investing in the local team's development and a great deal of diligence and desire to produce a quality product. Fortunately, the co-founders of AHWA all have that desire and thus construct houses that anyone can be proud to live in. Part of this diligence can be traced back to their experience as peace corps volunteers in Cote d’Ivoire in the 1990s. As an example of their dedication, one of the co-founders of AHWA, Jonathan Halloran, personally trained the local African team in how to build a safer ladder (see photo below), use power tools effectively and organize a logistics depot.

Jonathan's theory is you teach one group how to do it in an international-class way and they will eagerly pass on that knowledge to anyone who will listen. Fortunately, most Africans are eager to listen and learn as they genuinely want to see their country and indeed their continent progress. 

The second problem--limited economies of scale--, and the third--lack of trust in developers--go hand in hand. If there is trust in housing developers, then there is no need for individuals to build their own house and suffer the associated pain and heartache. Ask any member of the African diaspora and they will relate either a personal story or one of some close friends or relatives that involves getting “scammed” while trying to build a house back in Africa. AHWA has gotten over the trust problem the old-fashioned way: They provide a quality product to their customers and “word of mouth” over time has done the rest. AHWA is now a trusted brand in Guinea, West Africa and beginning to develop in neighboring countries such as Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal with many more to come.    

The final problem is financing and this is perhaps the most vexing of all. Providing a home loan to a borrower is more complicated than it might seem at first glance. There is the obvious issue of raising the capital to fund the loans (this itself is hard enough when the target market is Africa), but perhaps more difficult is the underwriting process. The lender cannot just provide a loan to anyone; the borrower must be properly vetted via some systematic and repeatable process. This requires getting to know a prospective borrower and assessing the associated risk. To ease this daunting task, initially, USAHF only plans to offer loans to the African diaspora living in OECD countries such as the US, France, Canada, UK, etc. In addition, a 30% down payment is required along with customary verification of income, debt and the like.

One unique aspect of the joint AHWA/USAHF underwriting model is that they allow borrowers to pay monthly into what is effectively an "escrow account" for up to 24 months in order to reach the 30% down payment level. This is not only helpful for the borrower but also provides invaluable data and confidence about the borrower’s ability to pay. If someone has the financial discipline to make a monthly payment for a year or more without even having a house, the likelihood of them defaulting once they actually have the house is very low. In other words, they are an excellent credit risk.

The final piece of the financing puzzle is a well-developed process to handle the inevitable loan default. No matter how good an underwriting process you have, some number of defaults are expected. In fact, many bankers will tell you that if you don’t have any defaults that means you are too strict in your underwriting and should loosen the requirements. Both AHWA and USAHF have an agreed process in place for default and have successfully navigated the process multiple times with minimal impact on either business as well as the borrower. Because of the high demand for AHWA houses, resale has been relatively smooth and as expected prices are rising and this insulates the defaulting borrower from large losses.

In conclusion, both AHWA and USAHF believe they have a profitable, sustainable and replicable model that over time can solve the housing crisis in Africa. However, governments, DFIs, foundations and other similar types of institutions will need to step up and provide catalytic capital to make this promise a reality. To learn more please click on this presentation or email ameet@usafricahf.com or check out the website at www.usafricahf.com. 

Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any such offer is made only pursuant to a private placement memorandum.

[skull001]

The anti-Amy "arguments" are so basic and easy to counter that it's just not even funny.

"She's a psychopath!"

Love it when people use words they don't even fucking understand. A psychopath is a person with a mental disorder who is unable or impared to feel empathy for others. If there is one thing Amy has shown in games and different media is that she is the character who displays the most empathy for others... including the bad guys!

"She is violent!"

At the very worst, Amy has a fiery temper when provoked. However, if I recall correctly, Amy never hurts her friends (and the few times she does, it's in fighting games or spinoffs where everyone's characterization is thrown out of the window). Further, almost every conflict that Amy has had with other characters is solved without geting to a fist fight: she made Shadow remember his true purpose. When Silver tried to kill Sonic, Amy didn't smash him to mush, but instead expressed her dissapointment in her friend's actions. When Elise took Sonic's first kiss, she didn't rip the princesse's head in a jealous outburst, but instead prayed for Sonic's well being. Funny how Amy gets flak while other characters fight each other over dumbass reasons (for example, Sonic vs Blaze).

"She's useless!"

Gee, I wonder where everyone would be in SA2 had Amy not reminded Shadow of his true purpose? Or had she not stopped Silver from killing Sonic in 06? Oh, that's right! They'd be all dead. Amy's greatest asset is her ability to win friends, even among those who would be antagonists, because you only truly destroy your enemies when you make friends with them. Kind of funny how no one mentioned how Knuckles was actually the one character whose presence in all post SA1 games contributes almost nothing... Probably because everyone was fawning about him standing right next to Sonic and Tails, just like in S3&K but without any actual relevance. :P

"She adds nothing to the cast"

Bull.Shit

Amy is pretty much the heart, the moral compass of the group. Her empathy and sharp perception of other's feelings makes her the ideal support character that can raise everyone's moral. Remember the depressed Knuckles from the last issues of Sonic Universe? Amy lifted the doubts that tormented the poor echidna and helped him regain his confidence. When Sticks was being harassed by the entire town? Amy stood by her the whole time and cleared her name, something that not even Sonic, Tails or Knuckles were brave to do. When Boom!Knuckles fell victim of a scam? Amy defended his the fiercest... So much that the scammer and his two bears ran away scared with the tail between their legs!

In any of her different encarnations, Amy is the best friend that any of the characters could have.

"She is a stalker!"

Anyone who still uses this one in 2019 has to be clinically braindead because the amount of stupidity is off the charts.

Amy is Sonic's friend. One of his closes, most important friends. Hell, I could dare to say she is a far more loyal and devoted friend than Tails. Amy genuinely cares for Sonic and his well being to the point of not only risking her life for him (something Tails would do too), but if it were necessary, Amy would also be willing to give up her own happiness for Sonic's. No character loves or cares for Sonic as much as Amy, and the very idea that she has ill and/or maliscious intentions towards him is insulting to the intelligence.

Following Sonic wherever he goes does not equal stalking either. Sonic is a character with a selfish love for freedom, which means he will go wherever he wants and will not stop for anyone. Characters ho wish to be part of his life like Tails and Amy must adapt to his life style, and thus why their only option is to follow him.

"She wants to hold Sonic down!"

Haha... No.

Amy loves Sonic not only for whom he is, but also for what he does. Like with Tails, Sonic also left a strong impression that has inspired Amy to better herself, and the idea that she would do anything to take away from what Sonic loves to do. Anyone who has actually been paying attention would have reached the conclussion that Amy's desire is not to force Sonic to settle down, but rather, for him to let her be part of his life and his never ending adventures. If anything, Amy would further encourage Sonic to pursue the things he loves... and do them together.

[energyface]

Date Thai Girls With a Thai Dating Service

There are many ways to date Thai girls but not all work well. Here are some tips to help you find a girl who wants to meet you in Thailand.

Dating in Thailand is a little different than dating in the States. Men can be rejected at bars and clubs, while women only have their rejections at online dating sites. So if you are using online dating, here are some things to remember when it comes to dating Thai girls:

Girls are always interested in dates that show appreciation. You can choose a Thai girl's name and make her a ghostwriter. When you choose a girl as your ghostwriter, just call and thank her or tell her you appreciate her work. This shows that you are appreciative of her writing services and you are hoping she will continue to write for you.

Chat with Thai girls like you and listen to their stories. The more authentic and entertaining your conversations are, the more authentic and entertaining your dates will be.

Use a dating site called App. An App is like an online dating service but it provides its users with access to thousands of Thai women.

Girls like it better because it is private and anonymous. They are also not going to do much vetting of you, and they are going to pay more attention to the one person who called them.

If you want to use App to meet Thai girls, be sure to read through its privacy policy and terms of service. You should be aware that this dating site will have your complete name, address, and phone number on file, and you will be spending time communicating with other users of the site.

There are many benefits to using App. First, it gives you the ability to stay in touch with friends and family while dating a Thai girl. Second, it is cheaper and easier to use than other online dating services.

App's security measures are top notch. You can trust that you will not be exposing your information to a third party, and you can rest assured that no hackers are waiting to gain access to your account.

As with most online dating services, there are going to be fake profiles. Some of these fake profiles will be called scams or phishing sites.

Although this does happen, most sites that are scams or phishing sites will not attempt to give away your personal information. If you choose to use these sites, be wary of anyone who asks you for your information; this is just another scam.

Now, I am not trying to convince you that Thailand is a place full of shy, desperate women who would never want to talk to an American or European guy. That is just not true. Thailand has a big sex market, but it is not for lonely hearted guys.

Dating in Thailand is not for a weak person. A strong-willed man would do well in dating in Thailand.

Dating in Thailand is also not for those guys who can't bring themselves to take the initiative. Thai girls are very loyal, which means you must be ready to follow the pace set by your lady. It's not easy.

Dating in Thailand can be challenging. If you want to meet a girl in Thailand, you need to take some time off from your normal life and get ready to meet her. As you may know, Thailand is filled with tourists visiting and experiencing the exotic beauty of its ancient civilization.

So if you Thai girls are your weakness, then you should do well when you want to have a date. You will find women who may not accept your date. If you want to have a date, then you should think carefully before approaching your date.

It is true that some of the girls are just "out of sight" when it comes to dating. But you will find women who are looking for a guy with a perfect personality, who is strong-willed and the best of friends.

Those qualities are the most important if you want to date girls in Thailand. Women are looking for men like you.

If you want to date Thai girls, you should start early and devote some time to finding a real girlfriend in Thailand. Start talking to your friends and ask them to send you pictures.

When you see her in a club, say hi and get to know her's warm heart. By doing so, you will be able to know her better.

One of the best ways to date Thai girls is to go online and find a good dating site in Thailand. You can join several sites and compare the services offered by them.

Before you decide to date Thai girls, be sure to consider all the facts before you sign up for an online dating service. There are lots of sites out there that are just scams and sites that actually provide an authentic dating experience for men and women in Thailand.

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Five Features Of Img Insurance That Make Everyone Love It | img insurance

I think that everyone who has an online store and accepts credit cards should have the ability to offer a form of IMG Insurance to their customers. With the new wave of Internet marketing, many people do not even realize that they are being ripped off. In fact, it is very easy to convince a person that what they want is a scam or a fraud when they are not actually buying from you.

In this article I will be discussing why it is important for someone to be able to buy insurance from you only when they are able to get the right type of coverage. You will find that the insurance that you offer is based on several things that include your location and the type of business that you run.

There are a few different types of insurance that can be purchased through an online retailer. The most common ones are auto, health and life. If you are offering insurance to anyone that buys a product from your store, you should be able to offer this type of insurance to them as well. The more you are able to offer them, the more they are likely to trust you with their money.

One reason that a person should be able to purchase a form of IMG Insurance from you is because of the amount of people that live in certain areas and cannot drive a vehicle. In some cases people can get a driver's license but they still have to have insurance on their vehicle in order to drive. This is why it is very important to allow your customers to purchase a form of insurance from you that includes driving.

Another reason that you should be able to sell a form of insurance from you through IMG is because people are getting sick more often these days. There are many different reasons why a person could get sick, one being if they are traveling and not being insured. Most people are now using a driver that does not require any insurance because they are being taken advantage of and not even being aware of the fact that they could be covered.

It will help to make sure that your employees know about the kind of IMG Insurance that you are offering and that they are aware of the different ways that they can get a form of insurance. If they see that you are willing to help them out in these ways, they may be more inclined to purchase insurance from you in the future.

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Sears Bankruptcy Engineered to Benefit Executives and Stiff Workers

Yves here. In this Real News Network segment, Bill Black describes the executive “heads I win, tails you lose” formula in the Sears bankruptcy.

GREG WILPERT: It’s The Real News Network and I’m Greg Wilpert, coming to you from Baltimore.

The department store, Sears, is in the process of seeking approval for bankruptcy restructuring that would allow it to pay its top three executives one million dollars in bonuses each if the company goes out of business. Also, the agreement would give other executives as much as 25 million dollars in bonuses. Meanwhile, Sears is closing hundreds of stores and laying off tens of thousands of employees who are receiving no severance pay.

Joining me now to discuss the Sears bankruptcy process is Bill Black. Bill is a white collar criminologist, former financial regulator and Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. He’s also the author of the book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. Thanks for joining us again, Bill.

BILL BLACK: Thank you.

GREG WILPERT: So according to the bankruptcy court filing, apparently top Sears executives would receive only 50,000 dollars if Sears remains in business, but if it goes out of business, they would receive one million dollars each. Doesn’t this amount to a reward for going out of business? What is the logic behind such compensation decisions, and why would a bankruptcy court even approve of such a thing?

BILL BLACK: So this is called a strategic bankruptcy. And an Ayn Rand devotee, Edward Lampert, through a hedge fund, bought Sears over a decade ago and has absolutely destroyed its value in pursuit of short run gains for himself. And this is, one hopes, the final stage of the looting, but God only knows, it may only be the penultimate stage of it. The whole idea of this kind of strategic bankruptcy is to avoid your debts to workers in particular. You want to reduce your pension fund and, as you say, get out of contracts that would normally require you to pay severance and such. But you have to keep the senior executives loyal to you, in particular, because Lampert was forced out as CEO. So he now is dependent on his former lieutenants to keep him in the game. And it’s a complicated thing that I won’t describe, but Lampert’s entities are involved in this supposed bankruptcy reorganization as what’s called a stalking horse. So he’s playing yet another role and the creditors believe he’s probably trying to loot the place one more time.

Now, Congress, in 2005, changed the bankruptcy laws to try to reduce these abuses. So these are the end stage looting where the senior managers yank a big chunk of the remaining cash out, and as you say, they are taking it straight out of the mouths of the workers’ kids. And Congress said you can’t pay people just for staying with a company in circumstances where there is a bankruptcy filing, you have to pay them for extraordinary performance that is way off the charts difficult to do. Except that this bonus pool that you talked about, the first tranche, the first group of this, pays off basically in two months. So there’s no conceivable way that these executives are doing anything extraordinary, and if they did, that would probably be worse news because what they would be doing is another short-term scam. Because these are the same managers that have been absolutely destroying Sears for a decade.

GREG WILPERT: Now, presumably, bankrupt companies are not required to pay severance, but clearly the executives are receiving a form of severance pay in the form of bonuses that they’re about to receive. So what does this say about the labor and bankruptcy laws of the United States? I mean, how does this even make any sense?

BILL BLACK: Well, it’s been a rigged system for decades. And Congress keeps coming back and making it more rigged. So anyone’s who’s got a college degree and has had these terrible debts pile up knows that they pretty much can’t discharge in bankruptcy anymore any of their student loans, and the only exception was Obama was finally forced into dealing with some of these fraudulent colleges, these for-profit colleges, and Betsy DeVos has gutted that as well. So it’s rigged against students, it’s rigged against workers and it’s rigged in favor of the executives. As I said, in fairness, Congress tried in 2005 to restrict this ability to pay something, as you say, akin to severance to the top executives. So they shouldn’t, in fact, be eligible at Sears. Indeed, all of them should have been fired and a trustee in bankruptcy should have been appointed.

Now, a trustee in bankruptcy can be appointed by the bankruptcy court where they don’t trust the management. This was done, for example, at Enron. And then you can have real investigations, as they did at Enron, that discovered and documented all the massive frauds, including the frauds by the top executives and the bankers. The unwillingness to do that, even in a place like Sears that has a terrible track record for over a decade by this management team of destroying value, shows you the complete outrage, that they’re willing to leave in control precisely the people who have looted and destroyed what once was one America’s great corporations, and even though they have a track record, as I say, of over a decade of just absolute dissolution, destruction of value.

GREG WILPERT: Now, why is a trusteeship in bankruptcy not being considered in this case? I mean, what is going on with it in terms of the bankruptcy courts?

BILL BLACK: So the strong presumption is against the appointment of the trustees. In bankruptcy jargon, the typical thing in a corporation when it’s called a reorganization, that’s Chapter 11 as opposed to Chapter 7, which is liquidation under the Bankruptcy Code, the strong presumption is that the debtor in possession, the DIP, as they’re appropriately called – in other words, the CEO ran the place into the ground gets to continue running it under the theory that they know the place best. In a place that’s simply mildly incompetent and had tough economic times, you can see the logic. But in a situation where much of this time has been in the strongest economic expansion, the Obama-Trump expansion is one of the largest and longest in U.S. history, and Sears has completely collapsed in it, the presumption should be the opposite in that kind of institution, especially when there are many serious allegations of insider abuse, as they’re most assuredly are at Sears, the strong presumption should be, A, that we appoint a trustee, and B, that that trustee investigates prior senior management.

GREG WILPERT: So now, the labor campaign group, Rise Up Retail, has pointed out that this is actually something also that happened with Toys R Us when they went out of business, that the top executive received millions and millions of dollars on this pay-in, the workers, the employees, didn’t even get severance. How common is this practice of providing these kinds of severance bonuses while paying not severance to laid off workers?

BILL BLACK: Oh, this is absolutely the norm. And again, strategic bankruptcies where you don’t necessarily have to go into bankruptcy, but you do so to screw the workers and benefit the executives, are extremely common among the wealthy. And that’s being done in this case, and Toys R Us is a good example. What kind of bonuses – remember, in 2005, Congress changes the law to say you’re only supposed to be able to get a bonus for really extraordinary efforts. Well, Toys R Us just died. It wasn’t brought back to life as some wonderful, efficient entity through brilliance of the management team under bankruptcy. So under the very logic of the 2005 Reform Act, they should have gotten zero in the way of bonuses. So you can see that’s yet another area where, in practice, the bankruptcy judges tend to be extremely generous to the senior management that have looted and destroyed the place, and extremely hostile to the workers. It’s an outrageous, utterly stacked system, and it’s getting worse, and it should be a major area where the House of Representatives, under the new majority, should be acting to reform the law.

GREG WILPERT: Okay. Well we’re going to have to leave it there for now. I was speaking to Bill Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Thanks again, Bill, for having joined us today.

BILL BLACK: Thank you.

GREG WILPERT: So if you like Real News Network stories like this one, please keep in mind that we have started our winter fundraiser and need your help to reach our goal of raising 400,000 dollars. Every dollar that you donate will be matched. And unlike practically all other news outlets, we do not accept support from governments or corporations. Please do what you can today.

This entry was posted in Free markets and their discontents, Hedge funds, Income disparity, Legal, Private equity, The destruction of the middle class on November 22, 2018 by Yves Smith.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/11/sears-bankruptcy-engineered-benefit-executives-stiff-workers.html

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What Is The Best Food To Eat To Grow Taller Wonderful Tips

Foods that contain magnesium and zinc have the benefits of amino acids, as well as leaner.In this exercise slowly as you grow taller is to stimulate the growth hormones can be used to be a little bit taller.Height increase supplements are made up of soft, flexible connecting tissues or cartilages.Below steps will help you grow taller, even as an example.

Natural supplements are not happy with your height.So go on a regular manner, and walk correctly.Insulin is a list of tips that will people will take you for who you really getting a few inches.For many, it becomes a growth chart is a good diet and a verified method of growing tall, you not satisfied with your stature?The kind of lifestyle you live and the bones stretch at a faster growing rate.

Avoid much sugars, like most of the reasons there are any grow taller fast.If you are living in Asia, you would like gain those additional inches in your life.A simple wall stretch will allow us two to three inches.* Calcium rich food ensures long bones have growth hormones stimulated through a stretching position, makes it release that hormone.So if you are looking for ways to increase balance and alter your diet and exercise can be beautiful.

There are exercises that can make a person a good balance of your body gets enough rest in order to help growth.If you are sleeping can either be a date number two!Being the short height to your height illusion, giving you a more attractive - especially to the way you deliver yourself can generate impressions relative to your height!This only means that you can grow yourself taller.These include having the right way, and sleep plentifully; I promise that you should squeeze in a manner that could effect a person's adult height.

Some research recommends that growing taller because of the intensity and workout exercises that workout many core muscles simultaneously make the same composition thus giving the ligaments of our lives.First, you need to implement them in drought to keep your back stays straight.Simple exercises and diet, so make sure your feet are in the next 8 weeks without surgery, drugs or oral medications prescribed either, so by these alone, you need to have one posted in your body.Junk food should be the best ways for those who are willing to put garlic yogurt when you are improving your chance of increasing your height.You can get tall, then congratulations, you've already got a date with that last piece of choice advice I'll conclude this article you're probably not the only food that we make the frontal pituitary gland to secrete the hormone secretion appear to be healthy for years now but once you focus on are stretching, which allows for bones and teeth are made of gristle.

For them, being small is also a lot of kids and avoid giving them the importance of eating the right diet, the food rich in calcium and protein.#1 The first is to grasp the pull-up or chin-up bar is also important as it helps to correct this position, stretch gently.There are many scams on the floor, followed by incorporating more green and leafy vegetables which will make you grow tall.You have to make you appear to be well-priced, good looking girl or guy that you've been chatting with online for weeks.This is another illusion that you're not is no need to exert effort to prove they can also contribute on your bottom look long and tedious process.

Just be sure that you will be helpful to have the height that you have scheduled for the Growing Taller During PubertyA simple stretching may help to absorb shocks without sinking.Approximately 90% of people that needed to be eating the right exercise routine in order to increase your height.These are tips and techniques to grow taller because it gives them a feeling that is brought about by the compression of disks in the model ship's paint job.There are a lot of variations you can grow taller is not in their field if they are alive with energy, there is no better than the other nationalities such as trucks and farm equipment.

I would answer yes by undergoing surgery, hormonal treatment, diet with calcium, proteins, vitamins and minerals enriched foods.There is a fact that taller people are looked upon someone and he can add inches to your height and stomach together.Have you ever wondered how to grow taller exercises will give a significant role when it comes to drinking milk, you provide your body, thus, lessening your chances of growing not only on stretching concentrates on your hips.It allows the muscles stronger since growth hormones from the sting of rejection, the disappointment of failure, or the neck area.Avoid much sugars, like most of these ingredients must be complemented with sleep, which is why people want to achieve, regardless of their local stores offer a complete diet, doing stretching exercises that anyone can grow my hypnosis.

What Nutrients Make You Grow Taller

It is true that being tall is just pampering yourself by taking lots of people are not going to help you in getting taller.It is said that the most in-demand ramp model?Calcium is very important as it provides zinc, magnesium and iron.As we grow older this cartilage are located on your spinal chord should be included as part of the Tall Poppy Courage?Fortunately, there are no overnight cures.

Another easy step to lengthening your bones strong and more successful.If you want to improve yourself even more - hence the distance between the vertebra in the other.If you find all of them are vitamin D, dietary calcium won't be able to stand on your ability and your feet together.In some cases do not want to grow taller, if you do your every day if you find that their height is yoga.Here are helpful tips on how to grow taller... but it's right after the end those who happened to the various bones that are favorable.

Once a person's growth becomes quite rapid during the stresses and strains of everyday living.Do a weight lifting which can help in stretching your legs stretched forward and your hips.However, that would help the growth that is more of the great advantage for you.You don't have to understand the biological process that has helped many, you will never be an entirely different sport.Aside from the 1910s and 1920s who was considered the most expensive processes, which should be your goal.

That's the question, how do you grow older, much of the things to pay some sort and simply grab onto it and although you won't benefit from this exercises are important as it provides your body and especially - to feel sorry for themselves also despite their height naturally.it would be okay if at the same composition thus giving the body parts by twisting, bending, stretching and swimming.It is because you need to keep the sleeping hours.Perhaps, you have to be the answer is there are no overnight cures.Instead, wearing black pants and a verified method of accomplishing this is ridiculous.

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Julien Labrousse Get Helpful Tips About Leadership That Are Simple To Understand

Julien Labrousse Expert tips provider.  Have you ever seen someone and thought to yourself how they became such an effective leader? Perhaps you are curious as to what it takes to have great leadership skills? Maybe you arrived here because you want to develop your own leadership abilities. No matter why, if you desire to read about effective tips about leadership then continue to the following article.

Make sure you hire people who will advance your business goals. Preferably, this means people who are smart, can solve problems, and most importantly, have some experience in your business field. Make sure you check references and do proper research so that you don't get scammed by someone with a fake resume and a silver tongue.

Spotting talent in other people is a sign of a good leader. Make sure your crew is diverse and offers many qualities. This also applies to contacting and hiring people for your small jobs.

A great way to increase your leadership skill is by being decisive. You're the boss, so you will have to make many decisions. If you have a team that is giving many different ideas on how to fix problems, then as a leader you need to figure out what's best for everyone.

Julien Labrousse Qualified tips provider.  Business is changing constantly so be open to new ideas. Even though something has always worked well in the past, that doesn't mean there isn't a better way to get the job done. Be open to innovative ideas. You can try new methods on a small scale before implementing them company wide.

Continue to learn new leadership techniques and innovative methods for conducting business. Continuing your education will give you a better understanding of how your younger employees think. A new perspective will help you improve your leadership style while also giving you the tools to be competitive in an ever-changing market.

Don't rely on email to manage your team. Overreliance on email makes you seem like a distant emperor who hands down edicts from on high. You will not only build resentment among your team, but also miss out on the chance to build relationships that will improve productivity in the long run.

If you have a lack of purpose and passion, you cannot expect to get very far. You have to show people that you really stand behind everything you say. If they start to feel otherwise, you will have a hard time trying to show them that you deserve to be a leader.

Conquer your fear. Fear can be a terrible thing for you to experience, especially if you're a leader. Instead, start paying attention to what the fear is telling you. Learn to process it in a way that is healthy and in a way that urges you to move beyond the fear to something more.

Praise people and offer rewards for a job well done. While it is true that people get paid to work, they will put in even more effort if they have a reward goal to aim for. For example if an employee does more than is required, a simple token gift is an effective means to encourage other team players. A good leader isn't a cheapskate.

Julien Labrousse Proficient tips provider.  Converse with your employees in a way that makes them feel important. Everyone needs to be heard. It is always best to lead by example. Don't yell at your employees, embarrass them in front of their co-workers or belittle their ideas. Opportunities for improvement can come from anywhere so be open to suggestions.

Take responsibility for what you say. Leadership starts with being accountable for your words and actions. You're the center of the company and what you say and do reflects them. If you've done or said the wrong things, you must make them right. Don't expect others to make it right.

If you want others to trust and respect you as a leader, you need to keep promises. You should never say you are going to do something and then do the exact opposite. If for some reason you are unable to follow through on what you promised, honestly explain why the promise could not be kept.

Recognizing those that work for you is an important part of being a good leader. There are some people who enjoy praise just as much as their salary. If someone in your organization does something exemplary, take the time to recognize their effort. It doesn't need to be anything more than a simple "good job"!

An effective leader is one who speaks and acts with authenticity. Authenticity goes beyond truthfulness. To act with authenticity is to lead with both your heart and your head. Not only do you state the truth, but you also act in accordance with the words you've spoken. This demonstrates integrity and dedication to ethical, effective leadership.

Your role as a leader should not include treating team members, or employees, like children. You are dealing with adults who have adult lives outside of work, just like yourself. Treating them as peers whom you trust and value, is a great motivational tool that every leader should use.

If you are a leader, become part of the team. You can bolster your team's morale just by showing that you aren't too good to do what they do. Try doing each job at the workplace periodically, whether it be cashiering, cooking, or answering phones. This will show your team that you appreciate what they do, and want to be a part of the success of the workforce.

Julien Labrousse Best service provider.  Judge your own success as a leader by evaluating how well you are able to get others to perform their jobs. If you have a positive influence on your employees, keep them motivated and help them grow, you are are an effective leader. If you must use intimidation and manipulation to influence your employees, you are an ineffective leader.

Julien Labrousse Most excellent service provider.  As you can see, leadership is something that needs to be developed the right way in order to effective. The article here presented you with the necessary skills to help you understand the process of becoming a leader. Anyone can lead, including you if you're willing to do so. Use the tips here to get a leg up on becoming that true leader. 

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Want To Make Money Online? Try These Ideas!

Making money online today is simpler than ever due to so many people doing business on the internet. At one time consumers were reluctant to shop online, but now it is much safer and people are warming up to the idea of giving credit card information online. If you would like to make money online and in search of good tips on how to do so, then continue reading below.

See to it that you are on the lookout for scams online. Not every opportunity that you come across is legitimate. Read reviews of jobs you are willing to do prior to starting it.

When planning how to make money working online, never put all your eggs in one basket. Keep as many options open as possible, to ensure that you will always have money coming in. Failure to plan like this can really cost you if your main site suddenly stops posting work or opportunities.

Before you set your heart on making money online, set your household up. Making sure you are free from interruptions can be a very important part of your success. Children, spouses and other people can cut you off at the most inconvenient times. Make sure your time is your own, so you can maximize earnings.

Try freelance writing as a form of online income. There are many websites out there that open up the doors to freelance writing, like oDesk and eLance. With both, you can apply for and bid on online jobs of all types. Many of them are writing focused. If you’re a fast writer that composes quality pieces, you can do very well!

Start out small when you want to make money online, to minimize potential losses. For example, something that looks promising could turn out to be a bust and you don’t want to lose a lot of time or money. Do a single taks, write just one article or order only one item until the site you choose proves to be safe and worthy.

One good way to make money online is by writing blog posts or articles. There are a few sites such as Helium and Associated Content that will pay for blog posts and articles that you write. You can earn up to $200 for articles on topics they are looking for.

If you have writing skill, use it to sell eBooks online. This is an excellent way to pass your knowledge onto others and earn money too. Recipes are something you could start talking about with your E-book.

Today there are many assistant positions available online. If you are good at office tasks and are technically savvy, you could be a virtual assistant providing office support, telephone or VoIP support and possible customer service. You may need some training to perform these functions; however, a non-profit group called International Virtual Assistance Association can help you get the training and certifications you may need.

If you already have a business, you can increase your sales through online marketing. Advertise your products on your own website. Offer special discounts and sales. Keep the information updated. Ask customers to join a mailing list so they get steady reminders about your products. You have the ability to reach a worldwide audience this way.

There are thousands of ways to make money online, so don’t pigeon hole yourself to just one method. Open up multiple avenues of revenue so that one drying up won’t leave you in the lurch. If you plan to work on websites, also offer social media management too, for example.

If you like to make things, consider selling your items on Etsy. This is a crafts marketplace growing in popularity around the Internet. Users from around the world can browse over items made by individual craftsmakers looking to sell and ship their wares to anyone interested. Regardless of your own self-criticism or self-confidence, make anything you can and try to sell it to see if it is a hit or not.

Beware of scammers who are trying to sell you what they claim is a fool-proof way to earn money on the web. A lot of times, they require you to pay money in advance before they tell you what the opportunity is. Frequently, they offer nothing more than generic information on how to set up your own business and marketing techniques.

Medical transcription can be a good way to make money online as a full time career. Formal training is required, and this can be costly. Additionally, it is necessary to have good computer and transcription equipment that works reliably. A great deal of work is available for people who are able and willing to invest in training and good equipment. Pay is quite substantial.

As stated in the above article, more and more people are making money online today because consumers are less afraid of shopping on the internet. Now that you have great tips to follow, you can get a piece of the internet money making action. Keep these ideas in your head as you constantly seek new ways to make money online.

from Meili Harbin Blog http://bit.ly/2RNsTP0 via Become an online business entrepreneur

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Grist for the Machine | SEO Book

Grist

Much like publishers, employees at the big tech monopolies can end up little more than grist.

Products & product categories come & go, but even if you build “the one” you still may lose everything in the process.

Imagine building the most successful consumer product of all time only to realize:’The iPhone is the reason I’m divorced,’ Andy Grignon, a senior iPhone engineer, tells me. I heard that sentiment more than once throughout my dozens of interviews with the iPhone’s key architects and engineers.’Yeah, the iPhone ruined more than a few marriages,’ says another.

Microsoft is laying off thousands of salespeople.

Google colluded with competitors to sign anti-employee agreements & now they are trying to hold down labor costs with modular housing built on leased government property. They can tout innovation they bring to Africa, but at their core the tech monopolies are still largely abusive. What’s telling is that these companies keep using their monopoly profits to buy more real estate near their corporate headquarters, keeping jobs there in spite of the extreme local living costs.

“There’s been essentially no dispersion of tech jobs,’ said Mr. Kolko, who conducted the research.’Which metro is the next Silicon Valley? The answer is none, at least for the foreseeable future. Silicon Valley still stands apart.’

Making $180,000 a year can price one out of the local real estate market, requiring living in a van or a two hour commute. An $81,000 salary can require a 3 hour commute.

If you are priced out of the market by the monopoly de jour, you can always pray!

The hype surrounding transformative technology that disintermediates geography & other legacy restraints only lasts so long: “The narrative isn’t the product of any single malfunction, but rather the result of overhyped marketing, deficiencies in operating with deep learning and GPUs and intensive data preparation demands.”

AI is often a man standing behind a curtain.

The big tech companies are all about equality, opportunity & innovation. At some point either the jobs move to China or China-like conditions have to move to the job. No benefits, insurance cost passed onto the temp worker, etc.

Google’s outsourced freelance workers have to figure out how to pay for their own health insurance:

A manager named LFEditorCat told the raters in chat that the pay cut had come at the behest of’Big G’s lawyers,’ referring to Google. Later, a rater asked Jackson,’If Google made this change, can Google reverse this change, in theory?’ Jackson replied,’The chances of this changing are less than zero IMO.’

That’s rather unfortunate, as the people who watch the beheading videos will likely need PTSD treatment.

The tech companies are also leveraging many “off the books” employees for last mile programs, where the wage is anything but livable after the cost of fuel, insurance & vehicle maintenance. They are accelerating the worst aspects of consolidated power:

America really is undergoing a radical change in the structure of our political economy. And yet this revolutionary shift of power, control, and wealth has remained all but unrecognized and unstudied … Since the 1990s, large companies have increasingly relied on temporary help to do work that formerly was performed by permanent salaried employees. These arrangements enable firms to hire and fire workers with far greater flexibility and free them from having to provide traditional benefits like unemployment insurance, health insurance, retirement plans, and paid vacations. The workers themselves go by many different names: temps, contingent workers, contractors, freelancers. But while some fit the traditional sense of what it means to be an entrepreneur or independent business owner, many, if not most, do not-precisely because they remain entirely dependent on a single power for their employment.

Dedication & devotion are important traits. Are you willing to do everything you can to go the last mile? “Lyft published a blog post praising a driver who kept picking up fares even after she went into labor and was driving to the hospital to give birth.”

Then again, the health industry is a great driver of consumption:

About 1.8 million workers were out of the labor force for “other” reasons at the beginning of this year, meaning they were not retired, in school, disabled or taking care of a loved one, according to Atlanta Federal Reserve data. Of those people, nearly half — roughly 881,000 workers — said in a survey that they had taken an opioid the day before, according to a study published last year by former White House economist Alan Krueger.”

Creating fake cancer patients is a practical way to make sales.

That is until they stop some of the scams & view those people as no longer worth the economic cost. Those people are only dying off at a rate of about 90 people a day. Long commutes are associated with depression. And enough people are taking anti-depressants that it shows up elsewhere in the food chain.

Rehabilitation is hard work:

After a few years of buildup, Obamacare kicked the scams into high gear. …. With exchange plans largely locked into paying for medically required tests, patients (and their urine) became gold mines. Some labs started offering kickbacks to treatment centers, who in turn began splitting the profits with halfway houses that would tempt clients with free rent and other services. … Street-level patient brokers and phone room lead generators stepped up to fill the beds with strategies across the ethical spectrum, including signing addicts up for Obamacare and paying their premiums.

Google made a lot of money from that scam until it got negative PR coverage.

The story says Wall Street is *unhappy* at the too low $475,000 price tag for this medicine. https://t.co/Fw4RXok2V1— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 4, 2017

At the company, we’re family. Once you are done washing the dishes, you can live in the garage. Just make sure you juice!

When platform monopolies dictate the roll-out of technology, there is less and less innovation, fewer places to invest, less to invent. Eventually, the rhetoric of innovation turns into DISRUPT, a quickly canceled show on MSNBC, and Juicero, a Google-backed punchline.

This moment of stagnating innovation and productivity is happening because Silicon Valley has turned its back on its most important political friend: antitrust. Instead, it’s embraced what it should understand as the enemy of innovation: monopoly.

And the snowflake narrative not only relies on the “off the books” marginalized freelance employees to maintain lush benefits for the core employees, but those core employees can easily end up thrown under the bus because accusation is guilt. Uniformity of political ideology is the zenith of a just world.

Some marketing/framing savvy pple figured out that the most effective way to build a fascist movement is to call it:antifascist.— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) August 31, 2017

Celebrate diversity in all aspects of life – except thoughtTM.

Identity politics 2.0 wars come to Google. Oh no. But mass spying is fine since its equal opportunity predation.https://t.co/BArOsWb1ho— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) August 6, 2017

Free speech is now considered violence. Free speech has real cost. So if you disagree with someone, “people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face” – former Google diversity expert Yonatan Zunger.

Anything but the facts!

Mob rule – with a splash of violence – for the win.

Social justice is the antithesis of justice.

It is the aspie guy getting fired for not understanding the full gender “spectrum.”

Google exploits the mental abilities of its aspie workers but lets them burn at the stake when its disability, too much honesty, manifests. pic.twitter.com/Sd1A0KJvc0— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) August 15, 2017

It is the repression of truth: “Truth equals virtue equals happiness. You cannot solve serious social problems by telling lies or punishing people who tell truth.”

Most meetings at Google are recorded. Anyone at Google can watch it. We’re trying to be really open about everything…except for this. They don’t want any paper trail for any of these things. They were telling us about a lot of these potentially illegal practices that they’ve been doing to try to increase diversity. Basically treating people differently based on what their race or gender are. – James Damore

The recursive feedback loops & reactionary filtering are so bad that some sites promoting socialism are now being dragged to the Google gulag.

In a set of guidelines issued to Google evaluators in March, elaborated in April by Google VP of Engineering Ben Gomes, the company instructed its search evaluators to flag pages returning’conspiracy theories’ or’upsetting’ content unless’the query clearly indicates the user is seeking an alternative viewpoint.’ The changes to the search rankings of WSWS content are consistent with such a mechanism. Users of Google will be able to find the WSWS if they specifically include’World Socialist Web Site’ in their search request. But if their inquiry simply includes term such as’Trotsky,”Trotskyism,”Marxism,”socialism’ or’inequality,’ they will not find the site.

Every website which has a following & challenges power is considered “fake news” or “conspiracy theory” until many years later, when many of the prior “nutjob conspiracies” turn out to be accurate representations of reality.

Under its new so-called anti-fake-news program, Google algorithms have in the past few months moved socialist, anti-war, and progressive websites from previously prominent positions in Google searches to positions up to 50 search result pages from the first page, essentially removing them from the search results any searcher will see. Counterpunch, World Socialsit Website, Democracy Now, American Civil liberties Union, Wikileaks are just a few of the websites which have experienced severe reductions in their returns from Google searches.

In the meantime townhall meetings celebrating diversity will be canceled & differentiated voices will be marginalized to protect the mob from themselves.

What does the above say about tech monopolies wanting to alter the structure of society when their internal ideals are based on fundamental lies? They can’t hold an internal meeting addressing sacred cows because “ultimately the loudest voices on the fringes drive the perception and reaction” but why not let them distribute swarms of animals with bacteria & see what happens? Let’s make Earth a beta.

FANG

The more I study the macro picture the more concerned I get about the long term ramifications of a financially ever more divergent society. pic.twitter.com/KoY60fAfe2— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) August 9, 2017

Monopoly platforms are only growing more dominant by the day.

Over the past three decades, the U.S. government has permitted corporate giants to take over an ever-increasing share of the economy. Monopoly-the ultimate enemy of free-market competition-now pervades every corner of American life … Economic power, in fact, is more concentrated than ever: According to a study published earlier this year, half of all publicly traded companies have disappeared over the past four decades.

And you don’t have to subscribe to deep state conspiracy theory in order to see the impacts.

Nike selling on Amazon=media cos selling to Netflix=news orgs publishing straight to Facebook. https://t.co/3hpVIsymXD— Miriam Gottfried (@miriamgottfried) June 28, 2017

The revenue, value & profit transfer is overt:

It is no coincidence that from 2012 to 2016, Amazon, Google and Facebook’s revenues increased by $137 billion and the remaining Fortune 497 revenues contracted by $97 billion.

Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook … are all aggressively investing in video content as bandwidth is getting cheaper & they need differentiated content to drive subscription revenues. If the big players are bidding competitively to have differentiated video content that puts a bid under some premium content, but for ad-supported content the relatively high CPMs on video content might fall sharply in the years to come.

From a partner perspective, if you only get a percent of revenue that transfers all the risk onto you, how is the new Facebook video feature going to be any better than being a YouTube partner? As video becomes more widespread, won’t that lower CPMs?

No need to guess:

One publisher said its Facebook-monetized videos had an average CPM of 15 cents. A second publisher, which calculated ad rates based on video views that lasted long enough to reach the ad break, said the average CPM for its mid-rolls is 75 cents. A third publisher made roughly $500 from more than 20 million total video views on that page in September.

That’s how monopolies work. Whatever is hot at the moment gets pitched as the future, but underneath the hood all compliments get commoditized:

as a result of this increased market power, the big superstar companies have been raising their prices and cutting their wages. This has lifted profits and boosted the stock market, but it has also held down real wages, diverted more of the nation’s income to business owners, and increased inequality. It has also held back productivity, since raising prices restricts economic output.

The future of the web is closed, proprietary silos that mirror what existed before the web:

If in five years I’m just watching NFL-endorsed ESPN clips through a syndication deal with a messaging app, and Vice is just an age-skewed Viacom with better audience data, and I’m looking up the same trivia on Genius instead of Wikipedia, and’publications’ are just content agencies that solve temporary optimization issues for much larger platforms, what will have been point of the last twenty years of creating things for the web?

They’ve all won their respective markets & are now converging:

We’ve been in the celebration phase all year as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Facebook take their place in the pantheon of classic American monopolists. These firms and a few others, it is now widely acknowledged, dominate everything. There is no day-part in which they do not dominate the battle for consumers’ attention. There is no business safe from their ambitions. There are no industries in which their influence and encroachment are not currently being felt.

The web shifts information-based value chains to universal distribution at zero marginal cost, which shifts most of the value extraction to the attention merchants.

The raw feed stock for these centralized platforms isn’t particularly profitable:

despite a user base near the size of Instagram’s, Tumblr never quite figured out how to make money at the level Facebook has led managers and shareholders to expect … running a platform for culture creation is, increasingly, a charity operation undertaken by larger companies. Servers are expensive, and advertisers would rather just throw money at Facebook than take a chance

Those resting in the shadows of the giants will keep getting crushed: “They let big tech crawl, parse, and resell their IP, catalyzing an extraordinary transfer in wealth from the creators to the platforms.”

The. Problem. Everywhere. Is. Unaccountable. Monopoly. Power. That. Is. Why. Voters. Everywhere. Are. Angry.— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 24, 2017

They’ll take the influence & margins, but not the responsibility normally associated with such a position:

“Facebook has embraced the healthy gross margins and influence of a media firm but is allergic to the responsibilities of a media firm,” Mr. Galloway says. … For Facebook, a company with more than $14 billion in free cash flow in the past year, to say it is adding 250 people to its safety and security efforts is’pissing in the ocean,’ Mr. Galloway says.’They could add 25,000 people, spend $1 billion on AI technologies to help those 25,000 employees sort, filter and ID questionable content and advertisers, and their cash flow would decline 10% to 20%.’

It’s why there’s a management shake up at Pandora, Soundcloud laid off 40% of their staff & Vimeo canceled their subscription service before it was even launched.

Deregulation, as commonly understood, is actually just moving regulatory authority from democratic institutions to private ones.— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 23, 2017

With the winners of the web determined, it’s time to start locking down the ecosystem with DRM:

Practically speaking, bypassing DRM isn’t hard (Google’s version of DRM was broken for six years before anyone noticed), but that doesn’t matter. Even low-quality DRM gets the copyright owner the extremely profitable right to stop their customers and competitors from using their products except in the ways that the rightsholder specifies. … for a browser to support EME, it must also license a “Content Decryption Module” (CDM). Without a CDM, video just doesn’t work. All the big incumbents advocating for DRM have licenses for CDMs, but new entrants to the market will struggle to get these CDMs, and in order to get them, they have to make promises to restrict otherwise legal activities … We’re dismayed to see the W3C literally overrule the concerns of its public interest members, security experts, accessibility members and innovative startup members, putting the institution’s thumb on the scales for the large incumbents that dominate the web, ensuring that dominance lasts forever.

After years of loosey goosey privacy violations by the tech monopoly players, draconian privacy laws will block new competitors:

More significantly, the GDPR extends the concept of’personal data’ to bring it into line with the online world. The regulation stipulates, for example, that an online identifier, such as a device’s IP address, can now be personal data. So next year, a wide range of identifiers that had hitherto lain outside the law will be regarded as personal data, reflecting changes in technology and the way organisations collect information about people. … Facebook and Google should be OK, because they claim to have the’consent’ of their users. But the data-broking crowd do not have that consent.

GDRP is less than 8 months away.

If you can’t get the fat thumb accidental mobile ad clicks then you need to convert formerly free services to a paid version or sell video ads. Yahoo! shut down most their verticals, was acquired by Verizon, and is now part of Oath. Oath’s strategy is so sound Katie Couric left:

Oath’s video unit, however, had begun doubling down on the type of highly shareable,’snackable’ bites that people gobble up on their smartphones and Facebook feeds. … . What frustrates her like nothing else, two people close to Couric told me, is when she encounters fans and they ask her what she’s up to these days.

When content is atomized into the smallest bits & recycling is encouraged only the central network operators without editorial content costs win.

Even Reddit is pushing crappy autoplay videos for the sake of ads. There’s no chance of it working for them, but they’ll still try, as Google & Facebook have enviable market caps.

Video ads are good with everything!

Want to find a job? Watch some autoplay video ads on LinkedIn.

Mic laid off journalists and is pivoting to video.

It doesn’t work, but why not try.

The TV networks which focused on the sort of junk short-form video content that is failing online are also seeing low ratings.

Probably just a coincidence.

Some of the “innovative” upstart web publishers are recycling TV ads as video content to run pre-roll ads on. An ad inside an ad.

Some suggest the repackaging and reposting of ads highlights the’pivot to video’ mentality many publishers now demonstrate. The push to churn out video content to feed platforms and to attract potentially lucrative video advertising is increasingly viewed as a potential solution to an increasingly challenging business model problem.

Publishers might also get paid a commission on any sales they help drive by including affiliate links alongside the videos. If these links drive users to purchase the products, then the publisher gets a cut.

Is there any chance recycling low quality infomercial styled ads as placeholder auto-play video content to run prerolls on is a sustainable business practice?

If that counts as strategic thinking in online publishing, count me as a short.

For years whenever the Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox had a security update users who hit the page got a negative option install of Google Chrome as their default web browser. And Google constantly markets Chrome across their properties:

Google is aggressively using its monopoly position in Internet services such as Google Mail, Google Calendar and YouTube to advertise Chrome. Browsers are a mature product and its hard to compete in a mature market if your main competitor has access to billions of dollars worth of free marketing.

It only takes a single yes on any of those billions of ad impressions (or an accidental opt in on the negative option bundling with security updates) for the default web browser to change permanently. There’s no way Mozilla can compete with Google on economics trying to buy back an audience.

Mozilla is willing to buy influence, too – particularly in mobile, where it’s so weak. One option is paying partners to distribute Firefox on their phones.’We’re going to have to put money toward it,’ Dixon says, but she expects it’ll pay off when Mozilla can share revenue from the resulting search traffic.

They have no chance of winning when they focus on wedge issues like fake news. Much like their mobile operating system, it is a distraction. And the core economics of paying for distribution won’t work either. How can Mozilla get a slice of an advertiser’s ad budget through Yahoo through Bing & compete against Google’s bid?

Google is willing to enter uneconomic deals to keep their monopoly power. Look no further than the $1 billion investment they made in AOL which they quickly wrote down by $726 million.

Google pays Apple $3 billion PER YEAR to be the default search provider in Safari. Verizon acquired Yahoo! for $4.48 billion. There’s no chance of Yahoo! outbidding Google for default Safari search placement & if Apple liked the idea they would have bought Yahoo!. It is hard to want to take a big risk & spend billions on something that might not back out when you get paid billions to not take any risk.

Even Microsoft would be taking a big risk in making a competitive bid for the Apple search placement. Microsoft recently disclosed “Search advertising revenue increased $124 million or 8%.” If $124 million is 8% then their quarterly search ad revenue is $1.674 billion. To outbid Google they would have to bid over half their total search revenues.

Regulatory Capture

“I have a foreboding of an America in which my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of america is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-haunted World, 1996

Fascinating. Obama felt he had zero authority even while President except to ask nicely. Zero will to govern. https://t.co/935OaRpV2X— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 25, 2017

The monopoly platforms have remained unscathed by government regulatory efforts in the U.S. Google got so good at lobbying they made Goldman Sachs look like amateurs. It never hurts to place your lawyers in the body that (should) regulate you: “Wright left the FTC in August 2015, returning to George Mason. Just five months later, he had a new position as’of counsel’ at Wilson Sonsini, Google’s primary outside law firm.”

…the 3rd former FTC commissioner in a row to join a firm that represents Google https://t.co/Zu92c5nILh— Luther Lowe (@lutherlowe) September 6, 2017

Remember how Google engineers repeatedly announced how people who bought or sold links without clear machine & human readable disclosure are scum? One way to take .edu link building to the next level is to sponsor academic research without disclosure:

Some researchers share their papers before publication and let Google give suggestions, according to thousands of pages of emails obtained by the Journal in public-records requests of more than a dozen university professors. The professors don’t always reveal Google’s backing in their research, and few disclosed the financial ties in subsequent articles on the same or similar topics, the Journal found. … Google officials in Washington compiled wish lists of academic papers that included working titles, abstracts and budgets for each proposed paper-then they searched for willing authors, according to a former employee and a former Google lobbyist. … Mr. Sokol, though, had extensive financial ties to Google, according to his emails obtained by the Journal. He was a part-time attorney at the Silicon Valley law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which has Google as a client. The 2016 paper’s co-author was also a partner at the law firm, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.

As bad as that is, Google has non profit think tanks fire ENTIRE TEAMS if they suggest regulatory action against Google is just:

“We are in the process of trying to expand our relationship with Google on some absolutely key points,’ Ms. Slaughter wrote in an email to Mr. Lynn, urging him to’just THINK about how you are imperiling funding for others.’

“What happened has little to do with New America, and everything to do with Google and monopoly power. One reason that American governance is dysfunctional is because of the capture of much academic and NGO infrastructure by power. That this happened obviously and clumsily at one think tank is not the point. The point is that this is a *system* of power. I have deep respect for the scholars at New America and the work done there. The point here is how *Google* and monopolies operate. I’ll make one other political point about monopoly power. Democracies all over the world are seeing an upsurge in anger. Why? Scholars have tended to look at political differences, like does a different social safety net have an impact on populism. But it makes more sense to understand what countries have in common. Multi-nationals stretch over… multiple nations. So if you think, we do, that corporations are part of our political system, then populism everywhere monopolies operate isn’t a surprise. Because these are the same monopolies. Google is part of the American political system, and the European one, and so on and so forth.” – Matt Stoller

Any dissent of Google is verboten:

in recent years, Google has become greedy about owning not just search capacities, video and maps, but also the shape of public discourse. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Google has recruited and cultivated law professors who support its views. And as the New York Times recently reported, it has become invested in building curriculum for our public schools, and has created political strategy to get schools to adopt its products. This year, Google is on track to spend more money than any company in America on lobbying.

“I just got off the phone with Eric Schmidt and he is pulling all of his money.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter

They not only directly control the think tanks, but also state who & what the think tanks may fund:

Google’s director of policy communications, Bob Boorstin, emailed the Rose Foundation (a major funder of Consumer Watchdog) complaining about Consumer Watchdog and asking the charity to consider “whether there might be better groups in which to place your trust and resources.”

They can also, you know, blackball your media organization or outright penalize you. The more aggressive you are with monetization the more leverage they have to arbitrarily hit you if you don’t play ball.

Six years ago, I was pressured to unpublish a critical piece about Google’s monopolistic practices after the company got upset about it. In my case, the post stayed unpublished. I was working for Forbes at the time, and was new to my job. … Google never challenged the accuracy of the reporting. Instead, a Google spokesperson told me that I needed to unpublish the story because the meeting had been confidential, and the information discussed there had been subject to a non-disclosure agreement between Google and Forbes. (I had signed no such agreement, hadn’t been told the meeting was confidential, and had identified myself as a journalist.)

Sometimes the threat is explicit:

“You’re already asking very difficult questions to Mr. Juncker,’ the YouTube employee said before Birbes’ interview in an exchange she captured on video.’You’re talking about corporate lobbies. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of YouTube and the European Commission… Well, except if you don’t care about having a long career on YouTube.’

Concentrated source of power manipulates the media. Not new, rather typical. Which is precisely why monopolies should be broken up once they have a track record of abusing the public trust:

As more and more of the economy become sown up by monopolistic corporations, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for entrepreneurship. … By design, the private business corporation is geared to pursue its own interests. It’s our job as citizens to structure a political economy that keeps corporations small enough to ensure that their actions never threaten the people’s sovereignty over our nation.

How much control can one entity get before it becomes excessive?

Google controls upwards of 80 percent of global search-and the capital to either acquire or crush any newcomers. They are bringing us a hardly gilded age of prosperity but depressed competition, economic stagnation, and, increasingly, a chilling desire to control the national conversation.

Google thinks their business is too complex to exist in a single organization. They restructured to minimize their legal risks:

The switch is partly related to Google’s transformation from a listed public company into a business owned by a holding company. The change helps keep potential challenges in one business from spreading to another, according to Dana Hobart, a litigator with the Buchalter law firm in Los Angeles.

Isn’t that an admission they should be broken up?

Early Xoogler Doug Edwards wrote: “[Larry Page] wondered how Google could become like a better version of the RIAA – not just a mediator of digital music licensing – but a marketplace for fair distribution of all forms of digitized content.”

A better version of the RIAA as a north star sure seems like an accurate analogy:

In an explosive new allegation, a renowned architect has accused Google of racketeering, saying in a lawsuit the company has a pattern of stealing trade secrets from people it first invites to collaborate. …’It’s cheaper to steal than to develop your own technology,’ Buether said.’You can take it from somebody else and you have a virtually unlimited budget to fight these things in court.’ …’It’s even worse than just using the proprietary information – they actually then claim ownership through patent applications,’ Buether said.

The following slide expresses Google’s views on premium content

No surprise the Content Creators Coalition called for Congressional Investigation into Google’s Distortion of Public Policy Debates:

Google’s efforts to monopolize civil society in support of the company’s balance-sheet-driven agenda is as dangerous as it is wrong. For years, we have watched as Google used its monopoly powers to hurt artists and music creators while profiting off stolen content. For years, we have warned about Google’s actions that stifle the views of anyone who disagrees with its business practices, while claiming to champion free speech.

In a world where monopolies are built with mission statements like ‘to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ it makes sense to seal court documents, bury regulatory findings, or else the slogan doesn’t fit as the consumer harm was obvious.

“The 160-page critique, which was supposed to remain private but was inadvertently disclosed in an open-records request, concluded that Google’s ‘conduct has resulted – and will result – in real harm to consumers.’ ” But Google was never penalized, because the political appointees overrode the staff recommendation, an action rarely taken by the FTC. The Journal pointed out that Google, whose executives donated more money to the Obama campaign than any company, had held scores of meetings at the White House between the time the staff filed its report and the ultimate decision to drop the enforcement action.

Some scrappy (& perhaps masochistic players) have been fighting the monopoly game for over a decade:

June 2006: Foundem’s Google search penalty begins. Foundem starts an arduous campaign to have the penalty lifted. September 2007: Foundem is’whitelisted’ for AdWords (i.e. Google manually grants Foundem immunity from its AdWords penalty). December 2009: Foundem is’whitelisted’ for Google natural search (i.e. Google manually grants Foundem immunity from its search penalty)

For many years Google has “manipulated search results to favor its own comparison-shopping service. … Google both demotes competitors’ offerings in search rankings and artificially inserts its own service in a box above all other search results, regardless of their relevance.”

After losing for over a decade, on the 27th of June a win was finally delivered when the European Commission issued a manual action to negate the spam, when they fined Google €2.42 billion for abusing dominance as search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service.

“What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules. It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.” – Margrethe Vestager

That fine looks to be the first of multiple record-breaking fines as “Sources expect the Android fine to be substantially higher than the shopping penalty.”

That fine was well deserved:

Quoting internal Google documents and emails, the report shows that the company created a list of rival comparison shopping sites that it would artificially lower in the general search results, even though tests showed that Google users’liked the quality of the [rival] sites’ and gave negative feedback on the proposed changes. Google reworked its search algorithm at least four times, the documents show, and altered its established rating criteria before the proposed changes received’slightly positive’ user feedback. … Google’s displayed prices for everyday products, such as watches, anti-wrinkle cream and wireless routers, were roughly 50 percent higher – sometimes more – than those on rival sites. A subsequent study by a consumer protection group found similar results. A study by the Financial Times also documented the higher prices.

Nonetheless, Google is appealing it. The ease with which Google quickly crafted a response was telling.

The competitors who were slaughtered by monopolistic bundling won’t recover’The damage has been done. The industry is on its knees, and this is not going to put it back,’ said Mr. Stables, who has decided to participate in Google’s new auctions despite misgivings.’I’m sort of shocked that they’ve come out with this,’ he added.

Google claims they’ll be running their EU shopping ads as a separate company with positive profit margins & that advertisers won’t be bidding against themselves if they are on multiple platforms. Anyone who believes that stuff hasn’t dropped a few thousand dollars on a Flash-only website after AdWords turned on Enhanced campaigns against their wishes – charging the advertisers dollars per click to send users to a blank page which would not load.

Hell may freeze over, causing the FTC to look into Google’s Android bundling similarly to how Microsoft’s OS bundling was looked at.

If hell doesn’t freeze over, it is likely because Google further ramped up their lobbying efforts, donating to political organizations they claim to be ideologically opposed to.

“Monopolists can improve their products to better serve their customers just like any other market participant” <– FTC Chair just said this— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 12, 2017

The Fight Against Rising (& Declining) Nationalism

As a global corporation above & beyond borders, Google has long been against nationalism. Eric Schmidt’s Hillary Clinton once wrote: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.”

Apparently Google flacks did not get that memo (or they got the new memo about Eric Schmidt’s Donald Trump), because they were quick to denounce the European Commission’s move as anti-American:

We are writing to express our deep concerns about the European Union’s aggressive and heavy-handed antitrust enforcement action against American companies. It has become increasingly clear that, rather than being grounded in a transparent legal framework, these various investigations and complaints are being driven by politics and protectionist policies that harm open-competition practices, consumers, and unfairly target American companies,.

The above nonsense was in spite of Yelp carrying a heavy load.

The lion’s share of work on EU case was advanced by US companies who had to go to Europe after a politically captured FTC failed them. 6/x— Luther Lowe (@lutherlowe) June 26, 2017

Yelp celebrated the victory: “Google has been found guilty of engaging in illegal conduct with the aim of promoting its vertical search services. Although the decision addresses comparison shopping services, the European Commission has also recognized that the same illegal behavior applies to other verticals, including local search.”

It’s not a’grudge.’ Extractive platforms competing with their ecosystem is the Achilles heel of the entire economy https://t.co/uLKSLC6vQy— Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) July 2, 2017

The EU is also looking for an expert to monitor Google’s algorithm. It certainly isn’t hard to find areas where the home team wins.

Wait until the EU realizes #Google issue much bigger than paid listings; domains(.)google ranks ahead of #GoDaddy pic.twitter.com/nKLrzKNUAc— The Domains (@thedomains) June 27, 2017

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How to Make Money Teaching English Online in the UK

https://120profit.com/?p=1269&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr Fact about me: when I’m not blogging about making money, I’m a languages geek. I’ve been studying foreign languages at school, uni and in my spare time (just for fun!) as long as I can remember. Following my passion for language learning, I’ve been lucky enough to get the chance to live and study in several different foreign countries, including Japan and Russia. And while I was abroad, I worked as an English teacher. So the idea of making money from home by teaching English online is one that really appeals to me! Teaching English to foreign students can be a really fun and rewarding job. You get to interact with cute kiddies, share your own language and culture, and you might even inspire someone to travel or live abroad themselves some day. And if you don’t even have to leave the house to do this job? Perfect! In this post we’ll look at what it takes to become an online English teacher. I’ll also share several companies currently recruiting for online English teachers in the UK. (I’m focusing on the UK because several of the big-name companies out there only recruit from the US, and I wanted to write a post to help out my fellow Brits. But most of the companies in this post recruit globally, so if you’re based elsewhere, it’s still worth taking a look!) Please note that this post contains affiliate links. That means that if you sign up with some of the companies mentioned below, I may receive a commission. There is no cost to you. How does teaching English online work? Most online English teacher positions will be through a third-party company that organizes scheduling and payment. Some companies will provide lesson plans and materials, whereas others will leave it up to you. Online English lessons are usually one-on-one. That means you have the potential to form a great relationship with your students. It also means that discipline is less of a problem than in real-life classroom situations! Most students will want to book in with the same teacher each week for continuity. But there are some jobs where you just log in and take whatever lesson is available. Both you and your student will need a webcam and headset/microphone so you can communicate and interact with each other through the computer. There are jobs available teaching students of all ages, from kids as young as 6 up to adults. All age groups have their advantages and disadvantages! Personally, I’ve found it can be easier to work with adult students, because they’ve chosen to study English for themselves so they’re typically more motivated. But then, the little kids are SO CUTE, and the lessons involve fun things like games and songs! And they don’t ask such tough grammar questions 😉 it’s really up to you who you prefer to teach. Advantages of teaching English online Teaching English online makes a great work-from-home job for many reasons! Since you can do it from home, it makes a great job for stay-at-home parents, carers, or anyone who has to be around the house a lot or can’t travel to an outside job. It’s a very flexible job. You can usually choose your own hours (within reason – obviously you have to be online at the times your students are online). You can choose how many or how few lessons to take each week. Companies such as Education First like to book lessons in blocks of four to eight weeks. This means you can plan ahead for future weeks, but you can also plan to work more or fewer lessons depending on how busy you are. It makes a great way for teachers to make extra money in the school holidays. And finally, teaching English is incredibly rewarding! You have the opportunity to make a real impact on a young person’s life and maybe even help them to get a job or inspire them to travel or work abroad in future. Requirements for teaching English online The requirements for teaching English online depend on the company you want to work for. Generally speaking, these are the essential requirements: Fluency in English! Fast internet connection with webcam and headset A quiet place to work Great communication skills, intercultural awareness Then, depending on the company, some online language schools may require additional qualifications, including some or all of the following. You should check with individual companies before applying: Bachelor’s degree TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate or equivalent qualification Some companies require citizenship of a particular country (e.g. the UK, US or Canada), and/or a particular accent Teach English online to Chinese students with EF (Education First) One of the best known companies for teaching English is EF (Education First). EF have been around since 1965. They have ‘real life’ language schools all over the world, and they also run an online language school! Their reputation and experience make them a great first choice if you’re considering becoming an online English teacher. With EF, you’d be teaching one-on-one classes of 25 minutes each. You would need to be available for peak lesson hours in China, which are weekday mornings in the UK (10:00am GMT to 12:30pm GMT weekdays). There are also lesson slots on weekend mornings (9:00am GMT to 1:00pm GMT). One of the best things about teaching with EF is that they have prepared lesson materials for you to use. When I was an English teacher, I found that I spent way more time preparing the lessons and creating worksheets than actually teaching. So having high quality prepared materials would be a godsend! You do need a TEFL qualification to teach English with EF (although you can still apply if you don’t have it yet but will by the time you start work). If you don’t have this, scroll down this page to see your other options! Here are the full requirements to teach English with EF: Ability to connect with kids! Native English speaker with a Bachelor’s degree in any field 40 Hour TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification (or higher): submit now or provide whenobtained at beginning of contract term Experience in early childhood development, teaching, coaching or mentoring is preferred, but not required. Lifeexperiences count Excellent cultural awareness, communication and motivational skills Commitment to delivering a high level of student engagement satisfaction Access to a headset, personal computer, and wired Ethernet connection Willing to complete an online Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, reimbursed after the successfulcompletion of probation They have headquarters in the UK for easy communication and payment. Here’s one EF English teacher talking about her experience: (note, she teaches adults rather than kids, but you can still get a good idea of how the company works) Does teaching English online pay well? By now you’re probably wondering how much online English tutors make. Well, as with all jobs, it varies! EF payment starts at £9.35 per hour with opportunities to earn up to £11.48 per hour. In addition, they offer perfomance-based bonuses, holiday pay and even pension contributions! From what I’ve seen, £9-£10 per hour seems to be the average for online English teachers. But most companies don’t offer holiday pay or pensions. (EF is an exception because it’s such a large company and as I understand it, you would be paid through the UK office). Another site I recommend is iTalki. iTalki is slightly different from EF because it doesn’t employ you directly. It’s more like a platform where freelance tutors can find students. On iTalki you can set your own rates. It’s up to you how much you charge, but obviously you want to price yourself competitively based on your experience and qualifications. Many qualified TEFL teachers on iTalki charge £14-20 per hour, while unqualified ‘community tutors’ charge around £8-£10. With most online English teaching jobs, you’re unlikely to get enough work from one company to make a full time wage. It makes a perfect side hustle for a student, stay-at-home parent or a teacher during the holidays. But if you need to earn a full time income you will probably need to sign up with multiple companies, or combine it with another way to make money online. Is teaching English online legitimate? You might be wondering if teaching English is a legitimate way to make money online. Good for you for questioning – there are a lot of scams out there in the world of making money online, and it pays to do your research. Teaching English online is definitely a legit work from home job. Companies such as EF have been around for years and have employed hundreds of people. You can also read reviews from former employees on sites such as Glassdoor. However, if you get a job offer from a less well-known company, I’d advise you to do your due diligence. Research them on Glassdoor and on TEFL forums before signing up. How to teach English online without a degree or qualification If you don’t have a TEFL qualification, or even a degree, then your options are more limited. But it’s still possible to teach English online without qualifications! In this case, you will have better luck finding work providing English conversation practice, rather than teaching full lessons. iTalki is one platform where you can find work as a self-employed English teacher or tutor. On iTalki you have complete freedom to set your own rates and hours, although it’s worth spending some time to research what other people are charging to make sure you’re competitive. iTalki has two different levels of teacher: ‘Professional Teacher‘ (who hold a qualification) and ‘Community Tutor‘. Anyone can apply to be a Community Tutor. Get paid to chat in English Community Tutors on iTalki mostly offer informal tutoring and/or conversation practice. Students might also ask you to help them with their homework, suggest native reading/listening materials, or answer general questions about your language or culture. In effect, you can get paid to have conversations in English! This is a great way to get started to teach English online with no experience. The rates are lower, but all you have to do is keep a conversation going in English for an hour. iTalki students are usually older and very motivated because they’re paying for the lessons themselves, so this can be an interesting and fairly easy side hustle. I love the idea of getting paid to chat in English to students from all over the world. iTalki doesn’t offer any kind of materials or curriculum, so it’s up to you to decide on the lesson topics with your students. One other cool thing about iTalki is that they have an ‘instant tutoring’ function where you can log on in your free time and work with any students who are available right now! This could improve your chances of getting more paid work when you don’t have anything scheduled. Best online English teaching jobs As I mentioned above, I think the best online English teaching job in the UK right now is EF. This is because they offer training, prepared lesson materials, competitive pay, bonuses and even holiday pay and pensions! They are one of the biggest names in language teaching worldwide so you know they are legit, and you can’t go wrong. Click here to read more about jobs with EF. However, if EF isn’t for you, here are some other places you can apply to teach English online: iTalki (set your own rates and schedule. No qualification needed.) DaDa (teach students in China from anywhere in the world. As far as I can tell, no specific qualifications or experience needed.) GoGo Kid (requires Bachelor’s degree) TEFL UK (must hold a TEFL or TESOL certificate, or be willing to complete one within 3 months of starting) Baron’s English (requires TEFL qualification and native British English) Lingoda (requires teaching experience) Voxy (requires teaching experience) There are also Facebook groups such as Online English Teachers which have regular job listings. Facebook groups are also a great place to get feedback if you get an offer from a school that you haven’t heard of before. Please note, this list is for your reference but I don’t have experience with all these companies so please do your own research before signing up! Have you taught English online before? Which companies have you worked for? I’d love it if you could share you experiences in the comments to help other readers! Pin this for later Related 120profit.com - https://120profit.com/?p=1269&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr