#but it has to be automated bc its literally like 12 hours of this

[squeakadeeks]

i feel like my apartment is doing experiments on me bc every night they keep introducing new machines that are extremely loud and buzz at uneven intervals all night long. a few weeks ago there was this one that would buzz for 30 seconds and increase in pitch, then abruptly stop, stay off for about a minute, then start again non stop from about 10pm-6am, and last night there was a new one that didnt have any changing pitch but it was obscenely loud and would buzz for about a minute, then be off for a minute before starting up again all night long on repeat and i deadass barely slept because of it but im still just like..WHAT IS THE CAUSE D:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How the IMF loan-sharks the global south

When you take out a loan or get a credit card, the headline figure is the “APR” — the annual percentage rate of interest. But anyone who’s ever borrowed because they were poor and needed money has learned the hard way that APRs are pure fiction.

To get the true APR (what economists politely call the “effective” APR) you have to factor in the fees, penalties and other gotchas that turn reasonable seeming interest rates into perennial, inescapable debt-traps.

Take student debt. During the 2020 presidential campaign, we had a debate about student debt forgiveness, whose opponents frequently cited the “unfairness” of allowing people to “escape their responsibilities.”

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

In their telling, student debt forgiveness would reward fecklessness, allowing people who got the benefit of an expensive education to duck the costs.

Now, even if you ignore the farcical inflation in university tuition and expenses (for example, the 1000%+ hike in textbooks driven by ed-tech monopolists), that’s still a highly selective account of how student debt works.

Student debt is negotiated from a position of weakness and naiveté, which allows lenders to attack the poorest grads with incredible fees and penalties. “Chris” took out $79k in student loans in 1982. He’s paid back $190k. He still owes $236k.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/student-loan-horror-stories-borrowed

That’s not the magic of compound interest. It’s the magic of loan-sharking. If you’ve ever used a payday lender (aka a “fintech startup” AKA a “loan shark”), none of this will be the least bit surprising. This form of usury is as old as Christ casting out the money-changers.

The payday lending industry didn’t invent these tactics, but they refined, automated and industrialized them, then they spent millions at Trump hotels and (in a stunning coincidence) all those tactics were blessed by the US finance regulators.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-payday-lenders-spent-1-million-at-a-trump-resort-and-cashed-in

The normalization of loan-sharking sent the entire finance sector into a race to the bottom. America’s largest banks saw their profits soar during the pandemic due to record overdraft and other fees — in other words, collecting fines for being poor.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#usurers

The sums are jaw-dropping. In 2020, Jpmorganchase made $1.5b on overdraft fees, Bank of America made $1.1b and Wells Fargo made $1.3b. The biggest rake came from the worst months of the pandemic.

https://prospect.org/economy/big-banks-charged-billions-in-overdraft-fees-during-pandemic/

78.3% of all overdraft fees come from just 9.2% of bank customers. At $35 a pop, these fees turn the banks’ overdraft facilities into loans with an “effective APR” of 3,500%.

Three thousand.

Five hundred.

Percent.

These are the cold, bloodless numbers of the debt trap. They conceal a vicious cycle in which those with the least pay the most, a cycled that can’t even be outrun in death.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

Take a moment to (re)read Molly McGhee’s Paris Review essay from May 2021, “America’s Dead Souls,” about her mother’s death. McGhee’s mom made less than $10k/year and suffered “debilitating depression while caring for aging parents.”

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

Her mother was haunted by two warring clans of ghouls: debt collectors who harassed her through legal and illegal means, and con artists who located her through databases of struggling debtors and tried to sell her predatory consolidation loans.

48 hours after her mother’s death, these blood-suckers switched to harassing McGhee, as she grieved her loss. Unlike her mother, McGhee had the resiliency and wherewithal (a credit card) to hire a lawyer, whose boilerplate letter reduced the debt by 90%, over $250k, poof.

If you can afford a lawyer, your parents’ debts don’t become yours. If you can’t, you enter a cycle of intergenerational poverty, with each generation sinking deeper into debt.

When you have nothing and owe everything, debt collectors know that they have to terrorize you into putting their bills ahead of the others. The cruelty is literally the point — without it, you might pay your rent ahead of your mother’s old credit-card bills.

To quote Umair Haque, “America is the the world’s first poor rich country.” an “advanced economy” where a sizable portion of the population lives in conditions typical of the global south.

https://eand.co/the-worlds-first-poor-rich-country-c411afc68539

Not for nothing. The same tactics that impoverish the vast American underclass also work to keep the world’s poorest countries — rich in resources and talent — poor. The loan shark here is far more powerful than a payday lender or even JP Morgan — it’s the IMF.

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research dissects the way the IMF uses fees and penalties to trap the poorest countries in the world in unbreakable cycles of debt — fees that drive up the IMF’s notional APR to dizzying, usurious heights.

https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMF-Surcharge-Report-2.pdf

Like any predatory loan, these “surcharges” are levied against the countries that have the least ability to repay. They target countries whose debt:GDP ratio passes an arbitrary line. For the poorest IMF debtors, surcharges account for 45% of all non-principle repayment.

These numbers add up. In Egypt, surcharges gobbled up $1.8b between 2019–24 — triple the cost of fully vaccinating the whole country. Small wonder that the world’s 64 poorest countries spend more on external debt payment than they do on their own health care.

In its defense, the IMF offers the same tissue-thin responses that any arm-breaker offers. The claim that penalties and fees are a way to “incentivize” debtor nations not to overborrow, and to seek their credit from the private finance sector.

But these countries are borrowing to pay off their debts — often debts that date back to colonial times, in which the rich (white) world mercilessly looted their resources and fomented destabilizing political divisions.

This undermined domestic resistance to imperialism and allowed kleptocratic, corrupt leaders to thrive — leaders who borrowed heavily to finance vanity projects, corrupt enrichment of domestic elites, and militarized suppression of opposition movements.

All of that was funded by debts, often from the IMF, who tied lending to the dismantling and sell-off of state enterprises, from power to water to sanitation — which is how the world’s poorest get gouged by the world’s richest to drink their own water.

These countries don’t borrow because they want to live outside their means — they borrow because they want to live. They don’t borrow from the IMF because they’re too lazy to ask a multinational bank for credit — they borrow because they can’t get credit elsewhere.

But the IMF has another excuse for this: they claim that the fees they extract allow them to originate more loans, creating a virtuous cycle. But as the report makes clear, this is absurd on its face.

The IMF went into the pandemic boasting about $1 trillion in “firepower” (that’s creepy-cutesey IMFspeak for “cash reserves”). Meanwhile, the annual revenues from these fees is $1b — that’s three orders of magnitude less than that “firepower.”

That means that the IMF could simply give up on these punitive fees, levied against the poorest people in the world, at an annual cost of 0.01% of its reserves. Literally, the cruelty is the point.

The point of all of this? The victims of usury are all in the same boat — in the USA and around the world. The same tactics, the same excuses, the same misery, from Cairo to the Caribbean to Cleveland.

Not all debt is created equal, of course. If you’re Elon Musk or Peter Thiel, you can get sweetheart loans and roll overs that let you avoid almost all taxation through the fiction that you earn no income, even as you amass hundreds of billions.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#eat-the-rich

And of course, if you’re a government with debts denominated in the currency you issue, it’s not really “debt” at all — the only way the US government can run out of dollars is by ordering its employees not to type more dollars into existence in a central bank spreadsheet.

Indeed, you couldn’t ask for a starker example of the difference between monetarily sovereign nations and postcolonial countries that owe debts in the currencies of their former conquerors. Venezuela can’t spend its way out of US dollar debt by creating bolivars.

Like McGhee’s mother, whose debts turned out to be fictions that disappeared as soon as a professional with credentials and access to the levers of power printed out a boilerplate letter, these countries’ debts are cruel fictions.

The powerful and wealthy can indulge these fictions or ignore them, as they choose. For example, finance-friendly politicians can insist that the “debt ceiling” must not be raised, for political purposes.

When the US declines to do the trivial data-entry that would make the money to pay its sovereign “debts,” the consumption that the money would have funded still takes place — financed not by the democratic state, but rather by a loan-shark.

National financial “prudence” interrupts the normal and benign process of sovereign money-creation, opening space for usury — private borrowing from the vampires and ghouls whose 3,500% APRs are redeemed through terror.

The cruelty is the point.

Image: Sbw01f (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Developed_and_developing_countries.PNG

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

Image: А. Н. Миронов https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%98%D0%B7%D0%B3%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B3%D1%83%D1%8E%D1%89%D0%B8%D1%85_%D0%B8%D0%B7_%D1%85%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0._XXI_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BA.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[yourwhitinglawgroupme-blog]

Leading 10 The majority of Costly Vehicles In The World

10. Koenigsegg Regera - $1.9 million

Christian von Koenigsegg could be one of the most visionary privateer builder in the world today. His productions are deeply individual as well as unquestionably ground-breaking technologies. The numerous of the most pricey vehicles worldwide, the rate of the modifications to match the intricacy each customer's demands. The Regera is constructed around a 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8 that pumps out 1,100 horse power. The remainder of the drivetrain is a great separation from the standard: the Regera uses something called the Koenigsegg Direct Drive system, wherein a tiny, crank-mounted electric motor is linked to the engine with a hydraulic combining and acts as a launch motor.

Each of the back wheels is appointed its own electrical motor the push out around 700 horse power. Off the line, with the combining open, the Regera is a simply electrical drive. When the hydraulic combining closes, the smaller sized electric motor fills out all-time low of the torque curve. Couple of technologies in the auto have actually motivated as much envy as Koenigsegg's drive system, which represent simply a component of the excessively high price.

9. Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta-- $2.2 million

The Ferrari LaFerrari stood out when it wased initially introduced at the 2013 Geneva Vehicle Program, despite the fact that it needed to share the flooring with a new Lamborghini Veneno as well as McLaren P1. It has a full throttle of 217 miles per hour, crushed the track record at Maranello, and also goes from 0 to 60 in under 2 seconds.

Unveiled finally year's Paris Automobile Program, the Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta is the open-topped variation of the fastest production Ferrari ever before made. Actually meaning "open," the Aperta differs from the hard-top-- which was currently expensive when it was first offered in 2013 or $1 million apiece-- in a couple of critical ways.

The Aperta uses the same cutting edge drivetrain to create around 1,000 horsepower: the mid-rear mounted 6.3-liter Ferrari F140 V12 paired with its HY-KERS kinetic power recapture system cribbed from its Solution 1 auto. The lack of a roofing-- and a minor increase in weight-- has required some crucial changes to the automobile: the Aperta's has a more prominent front air-dam to enhance downforce, its radiators have actually been angled down to guide air circulation out along the underbody rather of over the hood, and an L-shaped wedge has been integrated to the top corner of each windscreen a-pillar to reduce compression on the rear of the cabin. What Ferrari calls "Butterfly" doors open at a slightly various angle. Look for changed wheel arches.

8. McLaren P1 GTR-- $2.59 million

Ok, so the McLaren P1 GTR isn't really on the marketplace any more, and it never ever actually was to begin with, given that McLaren marketed it out of the works, and just 35 were made. It's likewise a track-only automobile. You 'd believe these variables would take the GTR out of opinion. Not so! A track automobile is still an automobile, and also this set is an appeal. Constructed by McLaren works as a 20th anniversary event of McLaren's win at Le Mans and maintained by McLaren Special Workflow department, the P1 GTR was sold only in extra pounds for ₤ 1.9 million

The 1,000-horsepower P1 GTR is one of the most pricey automobiles on the planet since it is a McLaren, and also a really unique one at that. It features a crossbreed drive tweezed from the risky P1 roadway automobile, and however it differs in a selection of methods. Where the P1 has a range of driving programs (e-mode, regular, race, sport, as well as track, as well as a full-blown "increase" and Split second Power Assist System button), the GTR has actually a stripped down collection of alternatives. It has a set ride elevation on race-ready suspension, a set back wing qualified that could deploy a drag decrease system, and specially-designed exhaust system. It travels 225 mph at the high end and also goes from 0-60 in 2.4 seconds.

7. Bugatti Chiron-- $2.6 million.

When, as tale has it, former VW czar Ferdinand Piech required that Bugatti make the fastest car in the world, the masterminds in Mulsanne conjured the Veyron, an insectile instance of aerospace hitting automobile design that took a trip a laughable 268 mph. Its W-16, 1,001-horsepower engine raised the price to $1.5 million, and also the four turbo wastegates were louder compared to a lot of contemporary engines.

Currently, the Veyron-- when among the most expensive vehicles on the planet-- is gone. In its location, the Bugatti Chiron, a much more expensive Bugatti. Additionally faster, advanced, and also much more effective compared to the Veyron, the Chiron boasts a similar quad-turbocharged W-16 8.0-liter engine, but it has actually dabbled as well as futzed till the result is currently 1,500 horse power-- 300 more than also the Super Sport, the fastest design of the Veyron. The Chiron's full throttle has been restricted to just 261 mph when driving; its real full throttle has supposedly not yet been checked. Yet the wealthy as well as wiling are aligning to establish the mark.

What makes the Chiron one of one of the most pricey automobiles in the world? It's a Bugatti, it's handmade in an atelier, as well as no person can concur how to pronounce its name.

6. Pagani Huayra BC-- $2.8 million

For those among you that didn't believe it might get more severe that the Pagani Huayra, we give you the Huayra BC, the most expensive Pagani ever before made. The BC stands for Benny Caiola, an Italian capitalist that may have possessed among the very best collections of Ferraris worldwide. Caiola was just one of Horacio Pagani's earliest pals as well as advisors, and this car takes Pagani's compulsive approach to detail to even more psychological degrees.

The BC looks and sounds like the "base" Huayra: The engine is still sourced from AMG, as well as continues to be a 6.0-liter V-12 bi-turbo that's been tuned by Pagani's demonic shop gnomes to bring you 790 horsepower and 811 lb-ft of torque. All of this sorcery is gone through tripod drive shafts established via Le Mans model program to the rear wheels by way of a seven-speed Xtrac transmission. Got that? The transmission itself is regulated by electro-hydraulic actuation and also carbon-fiber synchronizers. Pagani, ever hungry for carbon fiber.

Right here's simply one of lots of ways in which the BC takes flight from the planet Huarya: Each shift in this vibrant transmission has actually been tuned from the conventional Huayra 150 milliseconds to the BC's 75. That's taking a fast shift time as well as reducing it in half.

5. Ferrari Pininfarina Sergio-- $3 million

Just 6 of these preposterous Ferraris were ever before made. The extremely pricey Ferrari Pininfarina Sergio was developed in homage to the renowned boy of the owner of Pininfarina the year that he passed away. It was originally presented as a concept cars and truck in 2013, the Sergio grew on Ferrari simply sufficient to for them to green-light a six-car production run based upon the Ferrari 458 Spider.

Thanks to an all-carbon-fiber framework, the hand-made Sergio is a complete 330 pounds lighter compared to the currently waif-like 458. Prepared in a two-seat configuration, it takes the outdoor principle even better. Where the Ferrari 458 Crawler has no roofing, the Sergio has no roofing, no side home windows, as well as windscreen. That makes the pressure of this naturally-aspirated 4.5-liter F136F V-8 engine-- the exact same one used the 458 Crawler-- even more powerful.

4. Aston Martin Valkyrie-- $3 million

There is no revealed rate for the Aston Martin Valkyrie yet. A trustworthy resource claimed that if we placed $3 million, we would certainly be around. This cars and truck, until recently known as the Aston Martin-Red Bull AM-RB 001, is an end result of type of Aston Martin's visionary brand-new president, Andy Palmer, who has brought in Aston Martin right into a brand-new age of solvency as well as relevance with a collection of awesome automobiles. The Valkrie is the most killer automobile of all.

Palmer and Red Bull RAcing's Adrian Newey and also Christian Horner accepted build the cars and truck over a pint at a bar (real tale). Thus the collaboration was birthed in between Aston and also Red Bull Competing's Newey, the aerodynamicist whose work is mostly responsible for Red Bull's multi-year supremacy in Solution One. Newey and Aston Martin invented a wind resistant system for the Valkyrie that channels air with the framework and also develops downforce without the aid of a wings.

The engine will be a 6.5-liter, naturally-aspirated V-12 customized to the frame by Cosworth, and was made to attain the wonderful 1:1 power-to-weight proportion.

The Valkyrie is not an automobile for laid-back buyers of supercars. Marek Reichman, Aston Martin's developer, claimed the car-- which has a Rimac-built hybrid battery system mounted in addition to the engine-- will certainly make about 1,000 horsepower.

3. Lamborghini Veneno Roadster-- $3.3 million

The Veneno Roadster is the most expensive production Lamborghini when driving today. It's really $500,000 extra pricey than the coupe variation of the Veneno. That's a great deal of money for a little much less roof covering over your head.

Just how can you describe a price well north of $3 million? Check out the build of this open-top two-seater. The monoque is lifted from the LP700-4 Aventador, other than this set is made from carbon-fiber. Atop this is bolted a 740-hp, 6.5-liter V-12 with a seven-speed single-clutch ISR automated manual transmission-- the same one found in the Veneno sports car. It's a complicated transmission, and also one that gets a lot of heat among aficionados. The transmission would certainly be the area if there's space for enhancement in an automobile that costs more compared to a private jet share. The sprung section of the Veneno is placed atop a pushrod-actuated suspension, or even though it's owned by a full all-wheel-drive system, the complete completely dry weight of this carbon-fiber gem is simply 3,285 extra pounds.

2. Lykan HyperSport-- $3.4 million

Developed by W Motors, the Lykan HyperPport is legitimately the initial Arab supercar. We know this due to the fact that W Motors is based in Lebanon, but also due to the fact that the HyperSport is thought to be the first vehicle to have headlights with ingrained gems. There are titanium LED blades that have a total amount of 420 15-karat diamonds. Nonetheless, according to Lykan, purchasers have likewise selected rubies, diamonds, yellow diamonds, and sapphires.

The remainder of the cars and truck? Fine. It's powered by a mid-rear placed, twin-turbo 3.8-liter flat-six fighter that discharges about 780 horse power through the back wheels. It 0-62 in 2.8 secs and has a blistering top speed of 240 mph.

Really: The headlights are made with 240 15-karat diamonds. And that's just what makes this set of the most pricey autos worldwide.

1. McLaren P1 LM-- $3.7 million

The McLaren P1 LM is the most expensive cars and truck worldwide in 2017. Go ahead as well as contest it, because you can. Initially, consider the cautions: McLaren really did not really construct this car. They built the original P1, which was after that acquired by Lanzante Motorsports, which fastidiously reconstructed the P1, transforming a near-perfect supercar into a conclusive masterpiece that will certainly eventually be remembered as a masterpiece of all mankind.

It takes cues from the McLaren P1 GTR [see above] as well as the fabled McLaren F1 roadway auto. Like the F1, the LM has gold plating in the engine bay. As well as the engine which the gold borders is a 3.8-liter twin-turbo V-8. Integrated with the 3 electric motors dispersed between the engine and the rear wheels, the P1 LM generates a heroic 1000 horse power.

These details may not differentiate an auto on this list, which has high power requirements. The Lanzante differentiates itself is in exactly how smart it is. The aerodynamics come to life on track. A customized rear wing as well as enlarged front splitter collaborate with dive airplanes that produce an impressive 40 percent increase in downforce over the P1 GTR