#borrow equity

[1-ufo]

Have had a wet basement pretty much since I moved into this house it’s been a problem. A problem that was… quite downplayed by the sellers.

The north wall of my basement is bulging inward which concerns me and I have someone who is coming to look at it today.

I’m scared of the Implications

[fincrif]

Should You Take a Personal Loan for Crowdfunding Investments?

Crowdfunding has become a popular way to support new businesses, startups, and creative projects. Platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo have made it easier than ever for individuals to invest in exciting new ventures. However, one question that arises is whether taking a personal loan to invest in crowdfunding is a wise financial decision.

In this article, we will explore the risks and benefits of using a personal loan for crowdfunding investments, the potential returns, and whether it is a financially sound move for investors.

Understanding Crowdfunding Investments and Personal Loans

What Is a Personal Loan?

A personal loan is an unsecured loan that can be used for various purposes, including medical expenses, education, home improvements, and even investments. These loans typically come with fixed interest rates and repayment terms ranging from one to five years. Since they do not require collateral, they tend to have higher interest rates compared to secured loans.

What Is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a method of raising funds from a large group of people, typically through an online platform. There are different types of crowdfunding, including:

Reward-Based Crowdfunding: Investors receive a product or service in return for their contribution.

Equity Crowdfunding: Investors receive shares or equity in a company in exchange for their funding.

Debt Crowdfunding (Peer-to-Peer Lending): Investors lend money to businesses or individuals and earn interest on their loans.

Donation-Based Crowdfunding: People contribute money for charitable or personal causes with no expectation of financial returns.

Can You Use a Personal Loan for Crowdfunding Investments?

Technically, you can use a personal loan for crowdfunding investments, as most lenders do not restrict how you use the borrowed funds. However, whether you should do so depends on various factors, including the risks involved, potential returns, and your overall financial stability.

Risks of Taking a Personal Loan for Crowdfunding Investments

1. No Guaranteed Returns

Crowdfunding investments, especially equity and reward-based models, do not guarantee returns. Many startups fail, and if the project you invest in does not succeed, you may lose your entire investment while still being responsible for repaying the loan with interest.

2. Loan Interest Rates Add Financial Pressure

Most personal loans come with interest rates ranging from 10% to 24% per annum. If your crowdfunding investment does not generate profits, you could find yourself struggling to repay the loan.

3. Risk of Startup Failures

Statistics show that a significant percentage of startups fail within the first few years. Investing borrowed money in a high-risk startup increases the chances of financial loss.

4. No Control Over Investments

Unlike stock market investments, where you can actively trade or manage your portfolio, crowdfunding investments are often locked in for years. You have little control over the company’s success or failure.

5. Repayment Burden Regardless of Investment Outcome

Even if the crowdfunding project fails, you will still have to make monthly payments on your personal loan, which can strain your finances.

6. Impact on Credit Score

If you struggle to repay your personal loan due to investment losses, your credit score could suffer. A lower credit score affects your ability to borrow money in the future for essential needs.

When Does Using a Personal Loan for Crowdfunding Make Sense?

Although it is generally not advisable to use a personal loan for crowdfunding investments, there are certain situations where it might make sense:

You have a stable income to manage loan repayments even if the investment does not generate returns.

You are investing in a low-risk crowdfunding project with a high chance of success.

You have access to a low-interest personal loan, reducing the cost of borrowing.

You have a diversified investment portfolio, and crowdfunding is just a small portion of your overall strategy.

Alternatives to Personal Loans for Crowdfunding Investments

If you want to invest in crowdfunding without taking on the risks of a personal loan, consider these alternative funding methods:

1. Use Your Savings

Instead of borrowing, use your personal savings to invest in crowdfunding projects. This eliminates interest costs and financial stress.

2. Look for Government or Startup Grants

Some government programs and private organizations offer grants for startup investments. Research funding options that do not require repayment.

3. Invest Small Amounts Over Time

Rather than taking a lump-sum loan, invest smaller amounts over time using your disposable income. This reduces financial risk.

4. Use a Business Loan for Larger Investments

If you are looking to invest heavily in a startup through crowdfunding, consider a business loan, which may offer better terms than a personal loan.

5. Explore Peer-to-Peer Lending Platforms

Some crowdfunding models offer peer-to-peer lending, where you can earn interest by lending money to individuals or businesses instead of using borrowed funds.

Tips for Managing Risks If You Take a Personal Loan for Crowdfunding Investments

If you still decide to use a personal loan for crowdfunding investments, follow these risk management strategies:

1. Borrow Only What You Can Afford to Lose

Never borrow more than you can comfortably repay, even if the investment does not succeed.

2. Choose a Low-Interest Loan

Shop around for a personal loan with the lowest possible interest rate and flexible repayment terms.

3. Research the Crowdfunding Project Thoroughly

Before investing, conduct thorough research on the project, the company’s financial health, and the market potential.

4. Diversify Your Investments

Do not put all your borrowed money into a single crowdfunding project. Diversify across multiple projects to minimize risk.

5. Have a Backup Repayment Plan

Ensure you have other sources of income or savings to cover your loan repayments in case your investment does not generate expected returns.

Final Verdict: Should You Take a Personal Loan for Crowdfunding Investments?

Taking a personal loan for crowdfunding investments is a high-risk decision that requires careful consideration. While crowdfunding can offer lucrative returns, it also comes with uncertainties and no guaranteed profits. Borrowing money to invest in unpredictable ventures can lead to financial stress and debt accumulation.

Key Takeaways:

Crowdfunding investments do not guarantee returns, making personal loans risky.

Loan interest adds financial burden, especially if the investment fails.

Alternative funding options like savings, grants, or gradual investments reduce risk.

Thorough research and risk management strategies are essential if you choose to borrow.

Before using a personal loan for crowdfunding, assess your risk tolerance, financial stability, and investment knowledge. Consulting a financial advisor can also help you make an informed decision. Remember, investing with borrowed money can be a gamble that affects your long-term financial health.

[auto-title-loans]

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[reitmonero]

How to Avoid Common Pitfalls with Home Equity Lines of Credit

Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs) can be a useful financial tool, offering flexibility and potentially lower interest rates compared to other types of credit. However, they come with their own set of challenges and pitfalls that you should be aware of. Here’s a straightforward guide to help you navigate these issues and use your HELOC wisely.

Understanding a HELOC

A Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) is a revolving credit line secured by your home’s equity. Unlike a traditional loan with fixed payments, a HELOC allows you to borrow up to a certain limit and pay interest only on the amount you borrow.

Pitfall #1: Over-Borrowing

What It Is: It’s tempting to max out your HELOC, especially if you’re facing a significant expense or investment opportunity. However, borrowing more than you need can lead to financial strain.

How to Avoid It: Assess your financial situation carefully before borrowing. Create a budget and determine exactly how much you need. Avoid the temptation to use the full credit limit just because it’s available.

Pitfall #2: Variable Interest Rates

What It Is: Most HELOCs come with variable interest rates, meaning your payments can increase if interest rates rise. This can catch you off guard if you haven’t planned for potential rate hikes.

How to Avoid It: Look for HELOCs with fixed-rate options or consider locking in a portion of your balance at a fixed rate. Regularly review your HELOC terms and stay informed about market interest rates.

Pitfall #3: Impact on Your Home

What It Is: Using your home as collateral means that if you fail to repay the HELOC, you risk foreclosure. This is a serious consequence and should be considered carefully.

How to Avoid It: Only use a HELOC for purposes that add value to your home or improve your financial situation in the long term. Make sure your repayment plan is realistic and fits within your budget.

Pitfall #4: Fees and Charges

What It Is: HELOCs can come with various fees, including annual fees, transaction fees, and early termination fees. These charges can add up and reduce the overall benefit of the line of credit.

How to Avoid It: Carefully review the terms and fees associated with your HELOC. Compare different lenders and choose one with reasonable fees. Keep track of all fees to avoid unexpected costs.

Pitfall #5: Not Having a Repayment Plan

What It Is: Some people use their HELOC without a clear repayment strategy, leading to debt accumulation and financial difficulties.

How to Avoid It: Develop a detailed repayment plan before you take out a HELOC. Factor in your income, expenses, and other debts to ensure you can manage the additional payments. Stick to your plan and adjust it as needed if your financial situation changes.

Pitfall #6: Using HELOC for Everyday Expenses

What It Is: HELOCs are best used for significant expenses or investments rather than everyday costs. Relying on a HELOC for routine expenses can lead to financial instability.

How to Avoid It: Use your HELOC for specific, planned expenses like home improvements or debt consolidation, not for daily living costs. Budget and manage your daily finances separately.

[car-collateral-loans]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Leveraged buyouts are not like mortgages

I'm coming to DEFCON! On FRIDAY (Aug 9), I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On SATURDAY (Aug 10), I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

Here's an open secret: the confusing jargon of finance is not the product of some inherent complexity that requires a whole new vocabulary. Rather, finance-talk is all obfuscation, because if we called finance tactics by their plain-language names, it would be obvious that the sector exists to defraud the public and loot the real economy.

Take "leveraged buyout," a polite name for stealing a whole goddamned company:

Identify a company that owns valuable assets that are required for its continued operation, such as the real-estate occupied by its outlets, or even its lines of credit with suppliers;

Approach lenders (usually banks) and ask for money to buy the company, offering the company itself (which you don't own!) as collateral on the loan;

Offer some of those loaned funds to shareholders of the company and convince a key block of those shareholders (for example, executives with large stock grants, or speculators who've acquired large positions in the company, or people who've inherited shares from early investors but are disengaged from the operation of the firm) to demand that the company be sold to the looters;

Call a vote on selling the company at the promised price, counting on the fact that many investors will not participate in that vote (for example, the big index funds like Vanguard almost never vote on motions like this), which means that a minority of shareholders can force the sale;

Once you own the company, start to strip-mine its assets: sell its real-estate, start stiffing suppliers, fire masses of workers, all in the name of "repaying the debts" that you took on to buy the company.

This process has its own euphemistic jargon, for example, "rightsizing" for layoffs, or "introducing efficiencies" for stiffing suppliers or selling key assets and leasing them back. The looters – usually organized as private equity funds or hedge funds – will extract all the liquid capital – and give it to themselves as a "special dividend." Increasingly, there's also a "divi recap," which is a euphemism for borrowing even more money backed by the company's assets and then handing it to the private equity fund:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/17/divi-recaps/#graebers-ghost

If you're a Sopranos fan, this will all sound familiar, because when the (comparatively honest) mafia does this to a business, it's called a "bust-out":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

The mafia destroys businesses on a onesy-twosey, retail scale; but private equity and hedge funds do their plunder wholesale.

It's how they killed Red Lobster:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

And it's what they did to hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

It's what happened to nursing homes, Armark, private prisons, funeral homes, pet groomers, nursing homes, Toys R Us, The Olive Garden and Pet Smart:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

It's what happened to the housing co-ops of Cooper Village, Texas energy giant TXU, Old Country Buffet, Harrah's and Caesar's:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals

And it's what's slated to happen to 2.9m Boomer-owned US businesses employing 32m people, whose owners are nearing retirement:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

Now, you can't demolish that much of the US productive economy without attracting some negative attention, so the looter spin-machine has perfected some talking points to hand-wave away the criticism that borrowing money using something you don't own as collateral in order to buy it and wreck it is obviously a dishonest (and potentially criminal) destructive practice.

The most common one is that borrowing money against an asset you don't own is just like getting a mortgage. This is such a badly flawed analogy that it is really a testament to the efficacy of the baffle-em-with-bullshit gambit to convince us all that we're too stupid to understand how finance works.

Sure: if I put an offer on your house, I will go to my credit union and ask the for a mortgage that uses your house as collateral. But the difference here is that you own your house, and the only way I can buy it – the only way I can actually get that mortgage – is if you agree to sell it to me.

Owner-occupied homes typically have uncomplicated ownership structures. Typically, they're owned by an individual or a couple. Sometimes they're the property of an estate that's divided up among multiple heirs, whose relationship is mediated by a will and a probate court. Title can be contested through a divorce, where disputes are settled by a divorce court. At the outer edge of complexity, you get things like polycules or lifelong roommates who've formed an LLC s they can own a house among several parties, but the LLC will have bylaws, and typically all those co-owners will be fully engaged in any sale process.

Leveraged buyouts don't target companies with simple ownership structures. They depend on firms whose equity is split among many parties, some of whom will be utterly disengaged from the firm's daily operations – say, the kids of an early employee who got a big stock grant but left before the company grew up. The looter needs to convince a few of these "owners" to force a vote on the acquisition, and then rely on the idea that many of the other shareholders will simply abstain from a vote. Asset managers are ubiquitous absentee owners who own large stakes in literally every major firm in the economy. The big funds – Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street – "buy the whole market" (a big share in every top-capitalized firm on a given stock exchange) and then seek to deliver returns equal to the overall performance of the market. If the market goes up by 5%, the index funds need to grow by 5%. If the market goes down by 5%, then so do those funds. The managers of those funds are trying to match the performance of the market, not improve on it (by voting on corporate governance decisions, say), or to beat it (by only buying stocks of companies they judge to be good bets):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/17/shareholder-socialism/#asset-manager-capitalism

Your family home is nothing like one of these companies. It doesn't have a bunch of minority shareholders who can force a vote, or a large block of disengaged "owners" who won't show up when that vote is called. There isn't a class of senior managers – Chief Kitchen Officer! – who have been granted large blocks of options that let them have a say in whether you will become homeless.

Now, there are homes that fit this description, and they're a fucking disaster. These are the "heirs property" homes, generally owned by the Black descendants of enslaved people who were given the proverbial 40 acres and a mule. Many prosperous majority Black settlements in the American South are composed of these kinds of lots.

Given the historical context – illiterate ex-slaves getting property as reparations or as reward for fighting with the Union Army – the titles for these lands are often muddy, with informal transfers from parents to kids sorted out with handshakes and not memorialized by hiring lawyers to update the deeds. This has created an irresistible opportunity for a certain kind of scammer, who will pull the deeds, hire genealogists to map the family trees of the original owners, and locate distant descendants with homeopathically small claims on the property. These descendants don't even know they own these claims, don't even know about these ancestors, and when they're offered a few thousand bucks for their claim, they naturally take it.

Now, armed with a claim on the property, the heirs property scammers force an auction of it, keeping the process under wraps until the last instant. If they're really lucky, they're the only bidder and they can buy the entire property for pennies on the dollar and then evict the family that has lived on it since Reconstruction. Sometimes, the family will get wind of the scam and show up to bid against the scammer, but the scammer has deep capital reserves and can easily win the auction, with the same result:

https://www.propublica.org/series/dispossessed

A similar outrage has been playing out for years in Hawai'i, where indigenous familial claims on ancestral lands have been diffused through descendants who don't even know they're co-owner of a place where their distant cousins have lived since pre-colonial times. These descendants are offered small sums to part with their stakes, which allows the speculator to force a sale and kick the indigenous Hawai'ians off their family lands so they can be turned into condos or hotels. Mark Zuckerberg used this "quiet title and partition" scam to dispossess hundreds of Hawai'ian families:

https://archive.is/g1YZ4

Heirs property and quiet title and partition are a much better analogy to a leveraged buyout than a mortgage is, because they're ways of stealing something valuable from people who depend on it and maintain it, and smashing it and selling it off.

Strip away all the jargon, and private equity is just another scam, albeit one with pretensions to respectability. Its practitioners are ripoff artists. You know the notorious "carried interest loophole" that politicians periodically discover and decry? "Carried interest" has nothing to do with the interest on a loan. The "carried interest" rule dates back to 16th century sea-captains, and it refers to the "interest" they had in the cargo they "carried":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Private equity managers are like sea captains in exactly the same way that leveraged buyouts are like mortgages: not at all.

And it's not like private equity is good to its investors: scams like "continuation funds" allow PE looters to steal all the money they made from strip mining valuable companies, so they show no profits on paper when it comes time to pay their investors:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/20/continuation-fraud/#buyout-groups

Those investors are just as bamboozled as we are, which is why they keep giving more money to PE funds. Today, the "dry powder" (uninvested money) that PE holds has reached an all-time record high of $2.62 trillion – money from pension funds and rich people and sovereign wealth funds, stockpiled in anticipation of buying and destroying even more profitable, productive, useful businesses:

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2di1vzgjcmzovkcea8f0g/portfolio/private-equitys-dry-powder-mountain-reaches-record-height

The practices of PE are crooked as hell, and it's only the fact that they use euphemisms and deceptive analogies to home mortgages that keeps them from being shut down. The more we strip away the bullshit, the faster we'll be able to kill this cancer, and the more of the real economy we'll be able to preserve.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/05/rugged-individuals/#misleading-by-analogy

[rederiswrites]

could you tell me what Private Equity is and why it's a bad thing?

Oh man okay first of all I'm pretty sure that only MBAs truly understand private equity, and I'm so far from being an MBA that I don't even file my own taxes, but I'll try to give a really rough explanation.

At the most basic level, a private equity firm is just a business that buys up stock in companies that are not public (not on the stock exchange for people to buy public shares). In practice, these firms are massive, and in 2021 they managed close to 20% of corporate equity in the US. Importantly, that's a MUCH bigger share than it was ten years earlier, and private equity is a fast-growing part of the world market.

Why it's bad is that this sector of investing falls at the juncture of just a lot of loopholes and blind spots in government regulation, allowing these private equity firms to manage the companies they own in very predatory ways.

For example, private equity firm Golden Gate Capital killed Red Lobster. Basically, they bought the company and started stripping it for parts, because their only interest in the companies they buy is investment profit. They don't have any incentive to care about the company's long-term health. The biggest thing they did to Red Lobster was what's called a sale/leaseback. Basically, insofar as I understand it, they sold the real estate the company owned--i.e. the actual restaurants, took the profit from that, and then made Red Lobster pay them to lease the restaurants. Ultimately this proved crippling for Red Lobster, but through evil finance magic and careful corporate structuring, Golden Gate Capital gets the profit, while Red Lobster got all the debt.

Private equity firm KKR is what killed Toys R Us, again with sale/leaseback and other management methods that favor short term profit over long-term viability, like firing people until there isn't enough staff, pushing store credit cards, assorted other bullshit I barely understand.

Basically, private equity is companies that buy up businesses using leveraged funds (borrowed money) and then "strip and flip" them, squeezing as much profit out of them as possible and then dipping out to leave the company to deal with the fallout. A lot of recent major company bankruptcies besides the ones I mention above came on the heels of the company being managed by a private equity firm. JoAnn Fabrics is one of the most recent.

Yeah. That's the best I can do. Basically, it's a very fast-growing sector of vulture capitalism and it's making a small number of people very rich off killing otherwise viable companies that the rest of us plebes liked and wanted to keep.

[racefortheironthrone]

Please tell me more about neighbourhood PMCs in renaissance Italy

It would be my pleasure! (My research into this owes a lot to the excellent Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy by Lauro Martines.)

The first thing to note that, unlike the condottieri, these were not private military companies. Rather, the neighborhood military companies (in the sense of a military unit, rather than a profit-making entity) were self-defense organizations formed as part of a centuries-long political struggle for control over the urban commune between the signorile (the urban chivalry)/nobilita (the urban nobility) and the populo (the guilded middle class, who claimed to speak on behalf of "the people").

This conflict followed much the same logic that had given rise to the medieval commune in the first place. Legally, the communes had started as mutual defense pacts between the signorile and the cives (the free citizens of the city) against the rural feudal nobility, which had given these groups the military and political muscle to push out the marquises and viscounts and barons and claim exclusive authority over the tax system, the judicial system, and the military.

So it made sense that, once they had vanquished their enemies and established the commune as the sovereign, both sides would use the same tactic in their struggle over which of them would rule the commune that ruled the city. The signorile and nobilita formed themselves into consorteria or "tower societies," by which ancient families allied with one another (complete with dynastic marriage alliances!) to build and garrison the towers with the knights, squires, men-at-arms, and bravi of their households. These phallic castle substitutes were incredibly formidable within the context of urban warfare, as relatively small numbers of men with crossbows could rain down hell on besiegers from the upper windows and bridges between towers, even as the poor bastards on the ground tried to force the heavy doors down below.

To combat noble domination of communal government, achieve direct representation on the political councils, establish equity of taxation and regulate interest rates, and enforce legal equality between nobility and citizenry, the populo formed themselves into guilds to build alliances between merchants and artisans in the same industries. However, these amateur soldiers struggled to fight on even footing with fully-trained and well-equipped professional soldiers, and the guild militias were frequently defeated.

To solve their military dilemma, the populo engaged in political coalition-building with the oldest units of the urban commune: the neighborhoods. When the cities of medieval Italy were originally founded, they had been rather decentralized transplantations of the rural villages, where before people had any conception of a city-wide collective their primary allegiance was to their neighborhood. As can still be seen in the Palio di Siena to this day, these contrade built a strong identity based on local street gangs, the parish church, their traditional heraldry, and their traditional rivalries with the stronzi in the next contrade over. And whether they were maggiori, minori, or unguilded laborers, everyone in the city was a member of their contrade.

As Martines describes, the populo both recruited from (and borrowed the traditions of) the contrade to form their armed neighborhood companies into a force that would have the manpower, the discipline, and the morale to take on the consorteria:

"Every company had its distinctive banner and every house in the city was administratively under the sign of a company. A dragon, a whip, a serpent, a bull, a bounding horse, a lion, a ladder: these, in different colors and on contrasting fields, were some of the leitmotifs of the twenty different banners. They were emblazoned on individual shields and helmets. Rigorous regulations required guildsmen to keep their arms near at hand, above all in troubled times. The call to arms for the twenty companies was the ringing of a special bell, posted near the main public square. A standard-bearer, flanked by four lieutenants, was in command of each company."

To knit these companies organized by neighborhood into a single cohesive force, the lawyers' guilds within the populo created a state within a state, complete with written constitutions, guild charters, legal codes, legislative and executive councils. Under these constitutions, the populo's councils would elect a capitano del popolo, a professional soldier from outside the city who would serve as a politically-neutral commander, with a direct chain of command over the gonfaloniere and lieutenants of the neighborhood companies, to lead the populo against their noble would-be overlords.

And in commune after commune, the neighborhood companies made war against the consorteria, taking the towers one by one and turning them into fortresses of the populo. The victorious guilds turned their newly-won military might into political hegemony over the commune, stripping the nobilita of their power and privilege and forcing them either into submission or exile. Then they directed their veteran neighborhood companies outward to seize control of the rural hinterland from the feudal aristocracy, until the city had become city-state.

(Ironically, in the process, the populo gave birth to the condottieri, as the nobility who had lost their landed wealth and political power took their one remaining asset - their military training and equipment - and became professional mercenaries. But that's a story for another time...)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Smith at The Guardian:

A pitiless crackdown on on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions. The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun. With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down. “They are copying the path taken by other would-be dictators like Viktor Orbán,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut. “You have a move towards state-controlled media. You have a judiciary and law enforcement that seems poised to prioritise the prosecution of political opponents. You have the executive seizure of spending power so the leader and only the leader gets to dictate who gets money.” Orbán, who came to power in 2010, was once described as “Trump before Trump” by the US president’s former adviser Steve Bannon. His long-term dismantling of institutions and control of media in Hungary serves as a cautionary tale about how seemingly incremental changes can pave the way for authoritarianism. Orbán has described his country as “a petri dish for illiberalism”. His party used its two-thirds majority to rewrite the constitution, capture institutions and change electoral law. He reconfigured the judiciary and public universities to ensure long-term party loyalty.

The prime minister created a system of rewards and punishments, giving control of money and media to allies. An estimated 85% of media outlets are controlled by the Hungarian government, allowing Orbán to shape public opinion and marginalise dissent. Orbán has been also masterful at weaponising “family values” and anti-immigration rhetoric to mobilise his base. Orbán’s fans in the US include Vice-President JD Vance, the media personality Tucker Carlson and Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank, who once said: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.” The Heritage Foundation produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term. Orbán has addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and two months ago travelled to the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for talks with both Trump and Musk. He has claimed that “we have entered the policy writing system of President Donald Trump’s team” and “have deep involvement there”. But even Orbán might be taken aback – and somewhat envious – of the alacrity that Trump has shown since returning to power, attacking the foundations of democracy not with a chisel but a sledgehammer.

[...] Borrowing from Orbán’s playbook, Trump has mobilised the culture wars, issuing a series of executive orders and policy changes that target diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and education curricula. This week he signed an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports and directed the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to lead a taskforce on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government. He is also seeking to marginalise the mainstream media and supplant it with a rightwing ecosystem that includes armies of influencers and podcasters. A “new media” seat has been added to the White House press briefing room while Silicon Valley billionaires were prominent at his inauguration. Musk’s X is a powerful mouthpiece, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has abandoned factchecking and the Chinese-owned TikTok could become part-owned by the US. Trump has sued news organisations over stories or even interview edits; some have settled the cases. The Pentagon said it would “rotate” four major news outlets from their workspace and replace them with more Trump-friendly media. Jim Acosta, a former White House correspondent who often sparred with Trump, quit CNN while Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, was hired to host a new weekend show on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. But the most dramatic change has been the way in which Trump has brought disruption to the federal government on an unprecedented scale, firing at least 17 inspectors general, dismantling longstanding programmes, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation’s laws and pay its bills. Government workers are being pushed to resign, entire agencies are being shuttered and federal funding to states and non-profits was temporarily frozen. The most sensitive treasury department information of countless Americans was opened to Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team in a breach of privacy and protocol, raising concerns about potential misuse of federal funds. Musk’s allies orchestrated a physical takeover of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), locking out employees and vowing to shut it down, with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, stepping in as acting administrator. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on X. Musk’s team has also heavily influenced the office of personnel management (OPM), offering federal workers a “buyout” and installing loyalists into key positions. It is also pushing for a 50% budget cut and implementing “zero-based budgeting” at the General Services Administration (GSA), which controls federal properties and massive contracts.

[...] One guardrail is holding for now. Courts have temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship, cull the government workforce and freeze federal funding. Even so, commentators warn that the blatant disregard for congressional authority, erosion of civil service protections and concentration of power in the executive branch pose a grave threat.

The US is rapidly careening towards Orbánism.

[linguisticdiscovery]

Ways English borrowed words from Latin

Latin has been influencing English since before English existed!

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of ways that English got vocabulary from Latin:

early Latin influence on the Germanic tribes: The Germanic tribes borrowed words from the Romans while still in continental Europe, before coming to England.

camp, wall, pit, street, mile, cheap, mint, wine, cheese, pillow, cup, linen, line, pepper, butter, onion, chalk, copper, dragon, peacock, pipe, bishop

Roman occupation of England: The Celts borrowed words from the Romans when the Romans invaded England, and the Anglo-Saxons later borrowed those Latin words from the Celts.

port, tower, -chester / -caster / -cester (place name suffix), mount

Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons: Roman missionaries to England converted the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and brought Latin with them.

altar, angel, anthem, candle, disciple, litany, martyr, mass, noon, nun, offer, organ, palm, relic, rule, shrine, temple, tunic, cap, sock, purple, chest, mat, sack, school, master, fever, circle, talent

Norman Conquest: The Norman French invaded England in 1066 under William the Conqueror, making Norman French the language of the state. Many words were borrowed from French, which had evolved out of Latin.

noble, servant, messenger, feast, story, government, state, empire, royal, authority, tyrant, court, council, parliament, assembly, record, tax, subject, public, liberty, office, warden, peer, sir, madam, mistress, slave, religion, confession, prayer, lesson, novice, creator, saint, miracle, faith, temptation, charity, pity, obedience, justice, equity, judgment, plea, bill, panel, evidence, proof, sentence, award, fine, prison, punishment, plead, blame, arrest, judge, banish, property, arson, heir, defense, army, navy, peace, enemy, battle, combat, banner, havoc, fashion, robe, button, boots, luxury, blue, brown, jewel, crystal, taste, toast, cream, sugar, salad, lettuce, herb, mustard, cinnamon, nutmeg, roast, boil, stew, fry, curtain, couch, screen, lamp, blanket, dance, music, labor, fool, sculpture, beauty, color, image, tone, poet, romance, title, story, pen, chapter, medicine, pain, stomach, plague, poison

The Renaissance: The intense focus on writings from classical antiquity during the Renaissance led to the borrowing of numerous words directly from Latin.

atmosphere, disability, halo, agile, appropriate, expensive, external, habitual, impersonal, adapt, alienate, benefit, consolidate, disregard, erupt, exist, extinguish, harass, meditate

The Scientific Revolution: The need for new technical and scientific terms led to many neoclassical compounds formed from Classical Greek and Latin elements, or new uses of Latin prefixes.

automobile, transcontinental, transformer, prehistoric, preview, prequel, subtitle, deflate, component, data, experiment, formula, nucleus, ratio, structure

Not to mention most borrowings from other Romance languages, such as Spanish or Italian, which also evolved from Latin.

Further Reading: A history of the English language (Baugh & Cable)

[biblioflyer]

Genosha allegories: constructive reads and hot takes.

Anger is an appropriate response to Genosha, not hopelessness.

This is Part 2 in a 5 part essay on the implicit pessimism of X-Men as a setting.

Part 1 lays out the core assumptions of the setting.

I think X-Men ‘97 is the smartest Marvel offering since Captain America: Civil War brought us the debates over the Sokovia Accords. There are a lot of crappy discussions about the ethics of Magneto’s Blackout and the broader question of whether Xavier is as corrupt, infantile, and naive as he’s accused of both by other characters and the audience. 

However, people really do need to be mindful of the hard wired setting conceits that ensure that the X-Men’s world is one in which there is an unhappy median that wobbles back and forth from slightly better to a lot worse and this itself is not (I hope) the actual message of the setting.

There are some real life parallels that I see that may validate a pessimistic reading, but other metrics like the number and acceptability of interracial, interreligious, and same sex marriages in the United States have improved by staggering degrees. We have not achieved true equality or safety for people who have traditionally struggled for full acceptance, but if we don’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, we can see that positive change is possible.

Whether positive change is truly lasting and able to be expanded upon is a more nebulous question, I’m not one to buy into “end of history” narratives so I would never say that we cannot go backwards, I often worry we’re on the cusp of doing just that, history is often, to borrow a Dan Carlinism, like a stock ticker, but we’ve had a pretty good run of adding more freedoms for more people. 

Although obviously different groups of people are at different places in their struggle to achieve safety, acceptance, and equity and thus their gains are less entrenched and more subject to backsliding. 

Sprinkled in amongst the narrative of progress are setbacks and atrocities: Genosha could stand in for the likes of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, the Stonewall raid, the anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1880s in the Russian Empire, or the brutal suppression of Arab nationalists by European empires under the mandate system. 

Magneto surely would not want us to forget these things when he says the first priority of Mutants should be to look after their own and trust of Humans should come slowly, but probably never.

There again, I do think it is possible to hold multiple thoughts: that progress is often not uninterrupted or linear but it is possible and, at least in the United States context, significant progress has been made given how bleak conditions were for women, non-Europeans, queer people, and even the wrong kind of European at various points in history. 

Right or wrong, I think this is the history that Xavier is temperamentally oriented towards, but then it is easier for him as a child of privilege and someone who is not visibly a Mutant.

The next part will go into greater detail about the allegories behind X-Men and why the X-Men setting is hardwired for doom by intent.

[fincrif]

Can You Take a Personal Loan After Retirement?

Retirement is often seen as a time to relax, travel, and enjoy the golden years of life. However, financial needs do not disappear after retirement. Whether it’s medical expenses, home renovations, debt consolidation, or helping a family member, retirees may find themselves in need of extra funds. This leads to an important question—can you take a personal loan after retirement?

In this article, we will explore the eligibility criteria, benefits, risks, and alternatives to taking a personal loan after retirement. We will also provide financial tips to help retirees make the best borrowing decision.

Understanding a Personal Loan After Retirement

A personal loan is an unsecured loan that can be used for various financial needs. Unlike home or auto loans, a personal loan does not require collateral, making it an attractive option for retirees who may not want to risk their assets. However, since personal loans are unsecured, lenders evaluate a borrower’s repayment ability based on their income, credit score, and financial stability.

For retirees, income sources such as pension funds, Social Security benefits, rental income, annuities, or investments play a crucial role in determining loan eligibility. Lenders assess whether these income sources are stable enough to support loan repayments.

Can Retirees Qualify for a Personal Loan?

Yes, retirees can qualify for a personal loan, but approval depends on several factors:

1. Credit Score and History

A good credit score (typically above 700) improves loan approval chances and secures better interest rates.

A history of timely bill payments, low debt levels, and responsible credit usage enhances credibility.

2. Income Sources

Pension payments, Social Security, annuities, and other investments are considered as income.

Some lenders may require proof that these income sources will remain consistent for the loan term.

3. Debt-to-Income (DTI) Ratio

Lenders assess how much of a borrower’s income is already committed to existing debts.

A DTI ratio below 40% increases loan approval chances.

4. Loan Amount and Repayment Term

Smaller loan amounts with shorter repayment terms are easier to qualify for.

Retirees should ensure they can comfortably manage monthly repayments without financial strain.

Benefits of Taking a Personal Loan After Retirement

1. No Collateral Required

Since personal loans are unsecured, retirees do not need to put their home, car, or savings at risk.

2. Flexible Usage

Personal loans can be used for various expenses, including medical bills, home improvements, debt consolidation, or travel.

3. Fixed Interest Rates and Monthly Payments

Personal loans often come with fixed interest rates, making budgeting easier for retirees with fixed incomes.

4. Quick Access to Funds

Many personal loans are approved within days, providing quick access to necessary funds.

5. Helps Maintain Cash Reserves

Instead of depleting retirement savings, a personal loan can be used for unexpected expenses while keeping investments intact.

Risks of Taking a Personal Loan After Retirement

1. Impact on Fixed Income

Retirees often rely on fixed income sources. Adding a loan payment can create financial stress if not managed carefully.

2. Higher Interest Rates

Personal loans typically have higher interest rates compared to secured loans, especially for retirees with lower credit scores.

3. Potential Loan Denial

Without regular employment income, some lenders may hesitate to approve loans for retirees.

4. Increased Debt Burden

Taking on debt later in life can reduce financial security and limit future borrowing options.

5. Credit Score Impact

Missed payments on a personal loan can negatively impact credit scores, making it harder to secure future financing.

Alternatives to Taking a Personal Loan After Retirement

Before taking a personal loan, retirees should consider alternative options:

1. Home Equity Loans or HELOCs

Homeowners can borrow against their home’s equity, often at lower interest rates than personal loans.

A Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) allows flexible withdrawals as needed.

2. Reverse Mortgage

Allows homeowners (62 years or older) to convert home equity into cash without monthly payments.

Loan is repaid when the home is sold or the borrower moves out permanently.

3. Retirement Account Withdrawals

Withdrawing funds from 401(k), IRA, or pension accounts may be an option, though tax implications should be considered.

4. Government Assistance Programs

Some retirees may qualify for government grants or low-interest financial aid programs for medical, housing, or essential expenses.

5. Borrowing from Life Insurance Policies

If a retiree has a whole life insurance policy, they may be able to borrow against its cash value at a lower interest rate.

6. Family Assistance

Asking family members for financial help might be an alternative to high-interest loans.

How to Choose the Right Personal Loan After Retirement

If a personal loan is necessary, retirees should follow these steps to find the best option:

1. Compare Interest Rates and Terms

Research different lenders to find the lowest interest rates and most favorable repayment terms.

2. Check Eligibility Requirements

Ensure you meet the lender’s income, credit score, and DTI requirements before applying.

3. Use Loan Calculators

Online loan calculators help estimate monthly payments and total loan costs.

4. Read the Fine Print

Understand loan terms, fees, prepayment penalties, and other conditions before signing an agreement.

5. Borrow Only What is Necessary

Avoid taking a larger loan than needed to minimize financial burden.

Final Verdict: Should Retirees Take a Personal Loan?

Taking a personal loan after retirement can be a smart financial move if managed responsibly. It can provide financial relief for necessary expenses without depleting retirement savings. However, it is crucial for retirees to assess their ability to repay the loan without straining their fixed income.

Key Takeaways:

Retirees can qualify for a personal loan if they have a good credit score and stable income sources.

Personal loans offer quick access to funds, but they come with higher interest rates and fixed repayment obligations.

Consider alternative financing options like home equity loans, reverse mortgages, and government aid before opting for a personal loan.

Always compare lenders, read loan terms carefully, and borrow responsibly.

Before making any financial decision, retirees should consult a financial advisor to ensure they choose the best option for their individual situation. Careful planning and informed borrowing can help retirees maintain financial security while meeting their needs.

[mariacallous]

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee fired off two dozen requests Wednesday morning pressing federal agency leaders for information about plans to install AI software throughout federal agencies amid the ongoing cuts to the government's workforce.

The barrage of inquiries follow recent reporting by WIRED and The Washington Post concerning efforts by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to automate tasks with a variety of proprietary AI tools and access sensitive data.

“The American people entrust the federal government with sensitive personal information related to their health, finances, and other biographical information on the basis that this information will not be disclosed or improperly used without their consent,” the requests read, “including through the use of an unapproved and unaccountable third-party AI software.”

The requests, first obtained by WIRED, are signed by Gerald Connolly, a Democratic congressman from Virginia.

The central purpose of the requests is to press the agencies into demonstrating that any potential use of AI is legal and that steps are being taken to safeguard Americans’ private data. The Democrats also want to know whether any use of AI will financially benefit Musk, who founded xAI and whose troubled electric car company, Tesla, is working to pivot toward robotics and AI. The Democrats are further concerned, Connolly says, that Musk could be using his access to sensitive government data for personal enrichment, leveraging the data to “supercharge” his own proprietary AI model, known as Grok.

In the requests, Connolly notes that federal agencies are “bound by multiple statutory requirements in their use of AI software,” pointing chiefly to the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, which works to standardize the government’s approach to cloud services and ensure AI-based tools are properly assessed for security risks. He also points to the Advancing American AI Act, which requires federal agencies to “prepare and maintain an inventory of the artificial intelligence use cases of the agency,” as well as “make agency inventories available to the public.”

Documents obtained by WIRED last week show that DOGE operatives have deployed a proprietary chatbot called GSAi to approximately 1,500 federal workers. The GSA oversees federal government properties and supplies information technology services to many agencies.

A memo obtained by WIRED reporters shows employees have been warned against feeding the software any controlled unclassified information. Other agencies, including the departments of Treasury and Health and Human Services, have considered using a chatbot, though not necessarily GSAi, according to documents viewed by WIRED.

WIRED has also reported that the United States Army is currently using software dubbed CamoGPT to scan its records systems for any references to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. An Army spokesperson confirmed the existence of the tool but declined to provide further information about how the Army plans to use it.

In the requests, Connolly writes that the Department of Education possesses personally identifiable information on more than 43 million people tied to federal student aid programs. “Due to the opaque and frenetic pace at which DOGE seems to be operating,” he writes, “I am deeply concerned that students’, parents’, spouses’, family members’ and all other borrowers’ sensitive information is being handled by secretive members of the DOGE team for unclear purposes and with no safeguards to prevent disclosure or improper, unethical use.” The Washington Post previously reported that DOGE had begun feeding sensitive federal data drawn from record systems at the Department of Education to analyze its spending.

Education secretary Linda McMahon said Tuesday that she was proceeding with plans to fire more than a thousand workers at the department, joining hundreds of others who accepted DOGE “buyouts” last month. The Education Department has lost nearly half of its workforce—the first step, McMahon says, in fully abolishing the agency.

“The use of AI to evaluate sensitive data is fraught with serious hazards beyond improper disclosure,” Connolly writes, warning that “inputs used and the parameters selected for analysis may be flawed, errors may be introduced through the design of the AI software, and staff may misinterpret AI recommendations, among other concerns.”

He adds: “Without clear purpose behind the use of AI, guardrails to ensure appropriate handling of data, and adequate oversight and transparency, the application of AI is dangerous and potentially violates federal law.”

[jgroffdaily]

JONATHAN GROFF SETS 2025 BROADWAY RETURN WITH ‘JUST IN TIME’

by Philip Boroff

EXCLUSIVE: Newly minted Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff will play the 1950s and ’60s crooner Bobby Darin in a staged reading next month, ahead of a planned Broadway opening in spring 2025, people familiar with the musical said.

The reading of Just in Time will be directed by Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge!). On Broadway, Tom Kirdahy and Robert Ahrens are set to produce the show, which tells the story of the short but eventful life of the popular performer, whose hits included “Mack the Knife,” “Dream Lover” and “Just in Time.”

Born Walden Robert Cassotto in East Harlem, Darin had rheumatic fever as a child that damaged his heart. He lived, he acknowledged, as if on borrowed time before his death at 37.

He led a new generation of swinging singers into the rock revolution of the 1960s. He also acted in movies, composed music, married the actress Sandra Dee and as an adult discovered that the woman he thought was his older sister was his mother.

“I went on YouTube,” Groff told reporter Elysa Gardner before a rehearsal of an early version of the show, presented as part of the 92nd Street Y ‘s “Lyrics and Lyricist” series in 2018. “I watched all these TV performances, from the beginning to the end of his career, and I was blown away by his versatility. The rock & roll and the standards, the dancing, the folk songs. The duets with George Burns and Judy Garland. His life was insane.”

Darin spawned many imitators, including Kevin Spacey, who played him in the biofilm Beyond the Sea. The ballad “Just in Time” was composed by Jule Styne with lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden for the musical Bells are Ringing. It became a hit for Dean Martin, among others, who was in the 1960 movie adaptation directed by Vincente Minnelli.

Besides Groff, casting wasn’t available. The reading isn’t affected by the monthlong Actors’ Equity strike intended to pressure the Broadway League to improve its Development Agreement with the union. Actors will be working under a contract negotiated with the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), an association of nonprofit theater companies.

Although the reading will be in New York, it’s under the aegis of Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, which is a LORT member.

In a charmed career, the 39-year-old Groff has performed in the Frozen films, the TV series Glee and three acclaimed Broadway blockbusters — Spring Awakening, Hamilton and most recently Merrily We Roll Along — each of which earned him a Tony nomination. (He won for Merrily.)

Groff was also the first Seymour in the hit off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, produced by Ahrens, Kirdahy and Hunter Arnold. Andrew Barth Feldman is currently playing the role.

In his moving acceptance speech at the Tony awards in June, Groff spoke about his love of the Broadway community and how “musical theater is still saving my soul.” Just in Time will aim for multigenerational appeal, as the young Broadway star sings 65-year-old standards.

Since the pandemic, older audiences have been slow to return to Broadway. If Just in Time is well received, Groff may be just the man to help bring them back.

**

Source: Philip Boroff in Broadway Journal.

Jonathan led a reading of the show on 15 March 2024 after rehearsing for a couple of weeks with the cast. Details below:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When private equity destroys your hospital

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in PHOENIX (Changing Hands, Feb 29) then Tucson (Mar 9-10), San Francisco (Mar 13), and more!

As someone who writes a lot of fiction about corporate crime, I naturally end up spending a lot of time being angry about corporate crime. It's pretty goddamned enraging. But the fiction writer in me is especially upset at how cartoonishly evil the perps are – routinely doing things that I couldn't ever get away with putting in a novel.

Beyond a doubt, the most cartoonishly evil characters are the private equity looters. And the most cartoonishly evil private equity looters are the ones who get involved in health care.

(Buckle up.)

Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tcacik details a national scandal: the collapse of PE-backed hospital chain Steward Health, a company that bought and looted hospitals up and down the country, starving them of everything from heart valves to prescription paper, ripping off suppliers, doctors and nurses, and callously exposing patients to deadly risk:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-02-27-scenes-from-bat-cave-steward-health-florida/

Steward occupies a very special place in the private equity looting cycle. Private equity companies arrange themselves on a continuum of indiscriminate depravity. At the start of the continuum are PE funds that buy productive and useful firms (everything from hospitals to car-washes) using "leveraged buyouts." That means that they borrow money to buy the company and use the company itself as collateral: it's like you getting a bank-loan to buy your neighbor's mortgage out from under them, and using your neighbor's house as collateral for that loan.

Once the buyout is done, the PE fund pays itself a "special dividend" (stealing money the business needs to survive) and then starts charging the business a "management fee" for the PE fund's expertise. To pay for all this, the PE bosses start to hack away at the company. Quality declines. So do wages. Prices go up. The company changes suppliers, opting for cheaper alternatives, often stiffing the old company. There are mass layoffs. The remaining employees end up doing three peoples' jobs, for lower wages, with fewer materials of lower quality.

Eventually, that top-feeding PE company finds a more desperate, more ham-fisted PE company to unload the business onto. That middle-feeding company also does a leveraged buyout, pays itself another special dividend, cuts wages, staffing and quality even further. They switch to even worse suppliers and stiff the last batch. Prices go up even higher.

Then – you guessed it – the middle-feeding PE company finds an even more awful PE bottom-feeder to unload the company onto. That bottom feeder does it all again, without even pretending to leave the business in condition to do its job. The company is a shambling zombie at this point, often producing literal garbage in place of the products that made its reputation. Employees' paychecks bounce, or don't show up at all. The company stops bothering to pay the lawyers that have been fending off its creditors. Those lawyers sue the company, too.

That's the kind of PE company Steward Health was, and, as the name suggests, Steward Health is in the business of stripping away the very last residue of value from community hospitals. As you might imagine, this gets pretty fucking ugly.

Steward owns 32 hospitals up and down the country, though its holdings are dwindling as the company walks away from its debt-burdened holdings, after years of neglect that have rendered them unfit for use as health facilities – or for any other purpose. Tcacik's piece offers a snapshot of one such hospital: Florida's Rockledge Regional Medical Center, just eight miles from Cape Canaveral.

Rockledge is a disaster. The fifth floor was, at one point, home to 5,000 bats.

Five.

Thousand.

Bats.

(Rockledge stiffed the exterminators.)

The bats were just the beginning. One of the internal sewage pipes ruptured. Whole sections of the hospital were literally full of shit, oozing out of the walls and ceiling, slopping over medical equipment.

That's an urgent situation for any hospital, but for Rockledge, it's catastrophic, because Rockledge is a hospital without any hospital supplies. Steward has stiffed the companies that supply "heart valves, urology lasers, Impella catheters, cardiac catheterization balloons, slings for lifting heavier patients, blood and urine test reagents, and most recently, prescription paper." Key medical equipment has been repossessed. So have the Pepsi machines. The hospital cafeteria had its supply of cold cuts repossessed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/1agc1j4/comment/kolicqo/

It's not just Steward's nonpayments that reek of impending doom. Its payments also bear the hallmarks of a scam artist on the brink of blowing off the con. The company recently paid off a vendor with five separate checks for $1m, each drawn on "a random hospital in Utah" (Steward recently walked away from its Utah hospitals; its partners there are suing it for stealing $18m on their way out the door).

This company – which owns 32 hospitals! – has resorted to gambits like sending photos of fake checks to doctors it hasn't paid in months as "proof" that the money was coming (the checks arrived 22 days later).

Steward owes so much money to its employees – $1.66m to just one doctors' group. But the medical staff keep doing their jobs, and are reluctant to speak on the record, thanks to Steward's reputation for vicious retaliation. Those health workers keep showing up to take care of patients, even as the hospital crumbles around them. One clinician told Tcacik: "I watched a bed collapse underneath a [patient] who had just undergone hip surgery."

Rockledge has nine elevators, but only five of them work – the other four have been broken for a year. The hospital's fourth floor has been converted to "a graveyard of broken beds." The sinks are clogged, or filled with foul gunk. There's black mold. Nurses have noted on the maintenance tags that the repair service refuses to attend the hospital until their overdue bills are paid. The fifteen-person on-site maintenance team was cut to just two workers.

Steward is just the latest looting owner of Rockledge. After the Great Financial Crisis, private equity consultants helped sell it to Health Management Associates. The hospital's CEO took home a $10m bonus for that sale and exited; Health Management Associates then quickly became embroiled in a Medicare fraud and kickback scandal. Soon after, Rockledge was passed on to Community Health Systems, who then sold it on to Rockledge.

Steward, meanwhile, was at that time owned by an even bigger private equity giant, Cerberus, which then sold Steward off. That deal was performatively complex and hid all kinds of mischief. Prior to Cerberus's sell-off of Steward, they sold off Steward's real-estate. The buyer was Medical Properties Trust, who gave Cerberus $1.25b for the real-estate: three hospitals in Florida and three more in Ohio. Steward then contracted to operate these hospitals on MPT's behalf, and pay MPT rent for the real-estate.

This complex arrangement was key to siphoning value out of the hospital and to keeping angry creditors at bay – if you can't figure out who owes you money, it's a lot harder to collect on the debt. The scheme was masterminded by Steward founder/CEO Ralph de la Torre. De la Torre is notorious for taking a massive dividend out of the company while it owed $1.4b to its creditors. He bought a $40m yacht with the money.

De la Torre was once feted as a business genius who would "disrupt" healthcare. But as Steward's private jet hops around "Corfu, Santorini, St. Maarten and Antigua" as its hospitals literally crumble, he's becoming less popular. In Massachusetts, politicians have railed against Steward and de la Torre (Governor Healey wants the company to leave the state "as soon as possible").

Florida, by contrast, is much more friendly to Steward. The state Health and Human Services Committee chair Randy Fine is an ardent admirer of hospital privatization and is currently campaigning to sell off the last community hospital in Brevard County. The state inspectors are likewise remarkably tolerant of Steward's little peccadillos. The quasi-governmental agency that inspects hospitals has awarded this shit-and-bat-filled, elevator-free, understaffed rotting hulk "A" grades for quality.

These inspectors jointly represent a mismatched assortment of private and public agencies, dominated by a nonprofit called Leapfrog, the brainchild of Harvard public-health prof Lucian Leape, who founded it in 2000. Leapfrog likes to tout its "transparent" assessment criteria, and Steward are experts at hitting those criteria, spending the exact minimum to tick every box that Leapfrog inspectors use as proxies for overall quality and safety.

This is a pretty great example of Goodhart's Law: "every measurement eventually becomes a target, whereupon it ceases to be a good measurement":

https://xkcd.com/2899/

But despite Steward's increasingly furious creditors and its decaying facilities, the company remains bullish on its ability to continue operations. Medical Properties Trust – the real estate investment trust that is nominally a separate company from Steward – recently hosted a conference call to reassure Wall Street investors that it would be a going concern. When a Bank of America analyst asked MPT's CFO how this could possibly be, given the facility's dire condition and Steward's degraded state, the CFO blithely assured him that the company would get bailouts: "We own hospitals no one wants to see closed."

That's the thing about PE and health-care. The looters who buy out every health-care facility in a region understand that this makes them too big to fail: no matter how dangerous the companies they drain become, local governments will continue to prop them up. Look at dialysis, a market that's been cornered by private equity rollups. Today, if you need this lifesaving therapy, there's a good chance that every accessible facility is owned by a private equity fund that has fired all its qualified staff and ceased sterilizing its needles. Otherwise healthy people who visit these clinics sometimes die due to operator error. But they chug along, because no dialysis clinics is worse that "dialysis clinics where unqualified sadists sometimes kill you with dirty needles":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-dirty-business-of-clean-blood

The bad news is that private equity has thoroughly colonized the entire medical system. They took hospitals, fired the doctors, then took over the doctors' groups that provided outsource staff to the hospital:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets

It's illegal for private equity companies to own doctors' practices (doctors have to own these), but they obfuscated the crime with a paper-thin pretext that they got away with despite its obvious bullshittery:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted

The financier who decides whether you live or die depends on an algorithm that literally sets a tolerable level of preventable deaths for the patients trapped in the practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca

Private equity also took over emergency rooms and boobytrapped them with "surprise billing" – junk fees that ran to thousands of dollars that you had to pay even if the hospital was in network with your insurer. They made billions from this, and spent a many millions from that booty keeping the scam alive with scare ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/21/all-in-it-together/#doctor-patient-unity

The whole health stack is colonized by private equity-backed monopolies. Even your hospital bed!

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international

Then there's residential care. Private equity cornered many regional markets on nursing homes and turned them into slaughterhouses, places where you go to die, not live:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

The palliative care sector is also captured by private equity. PE bosses hire vast teams of fast-talking salespeople who con vulnerable older people into entering an end-of-life system before they are ready to die. Thanks to loose regulation, the nation is filled with fake hospices that can rake in millions from Medicare while denying all care to their patients (hospice patients don't get life-extending medication or procedures, by definition):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

If you survive this long enough, Medicare eventually tells the hospice that you're clearly not dying and you get kicked off their rolls. Now you have to go through the lengthy bureaucratic nightmare of convincing the system – which was previously informed that you were at death's door – that you are actually viable and need to start getting care again (good luck with that).

If that kills you, guess what? Private equity has rolled up funeral homes up and down the country, and they will scam your survivors just as hard as the medical system that killed you did:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/09/high-cost-of-dying/#memento-mori

The PE sector spent more than a trillion dollars over the past decade buying up healthcare companies, and it has trillions more in "dry powder" allocated for further medical acquisitions. Why not? As the CFO of Medical Properties Trust told that Bank of America analyst last week, when you "own hospitals no one wants to see closed." you literally can't fail, no matter how many people you murder.

The PE sector is a reminder that the crimes people commit for money far outstrip the crimes they commit for ideology. Even the most ideological killers are horrified by the murders their profit-motivated colleagues commit.

Last year, Tkacic wrote about the history of IG Farben, the German company that built Monowitz, a private slave-labor camp up the road from Auschwitz to make the materiel it was gouging Hitler's Wehrmacht on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Farben bought the cheapest possible slaves from Auschwitz, preferentially sourcing women and children. These slaves were worked to death at a rate that put Auschwitz's wholesale murder in the shade. Farben's slaves died an average of just three months after starting work at Monowitz. The situation was so abominable, so unconscionable, that the SS officers who provided outsource guard-labor to Monowitz actually wrote to Berlin to complain about the cruelty.

The Nuremberg trials are famous for the Nazi officers who insisted that they were "just following order" but were nonetheless executed for their crimes. 24 Farben executives were also tried at Nuremberg, where they offered a very different defense: "We had a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to maximize our profits." 19 of the 24 were acquitted on that basis.

PE is committed to an ideology that is far worse than any form of racial animus or other bias. As a sector, it is committed to profit above all other values. As a result, its brutality knows no bounds, no decency, no compassion. Even the worst crimes we commit for hate are nothing compared to the crimes we commit for greed.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/retaliation#charnel-house

[milfstalin]

if you want to call yourself a communist you should read this very basic faq by engels, the guy who was life partners with marx, about the basic premises of communism.

hint: communism has nothing to do with notions of fairness or equity in the abstract (that is to say, detached from concrete reality) nor does it mean "everyone shares one toothbrush and one bed" nor does it have anything to do with music subcultures which only emerged in the late 20th century