#lloyd knows he’s a criminal cause he saw him once on the news and was like oh yeah that’s my cousin he’s criminally insane

[sea-jello]

NO HELP YOUR TAGS ARE SO FUNNY

movie morro au where morro is literally a fucking criminal in juvie. it’s bad enough that lloyds the son of garmadon, his cousin is considered a mastermind escape artist who might be a high ranking gang member and has never gotten caught for a solid 3 years. no one knows how he does it. it’s like the air itself assists him in escaping

[goldenavenger02]

right where you left me

Lloyd doesn't want to be upset with the new Samurai X; he's seen how that plays out before. But constantly getting his butt saved by them is getting really annoying. Post Hands of Time, pre Sons of Garmadon, slight AU

•••

The first time it happened, Lloyd was grateful.

Granted, he was more focused on the fact that he was way too freaked out to regain control of his dragon and was plummeting to the ground way too fast when the metal hands scooped him up and put him back on the ground next to the Airjitzu temple.

He had even thanked them.

"Well, Samurai, whoever you are, thank you."

"Samurai, whoever you are?!" Nya screamed as they flew off, "stole my suit!"

"Yeah, and saved my life."

But as the team dissipated to search for Master Wu, leaving Lloyd by himself to fight the crime in Ninjago City, he got used to Samurai X being around more often.

The help was appreciated since the two of them had some sort of understanding for each other, even though the samurai only talked when necessary, but now that The Mechanic had gotten out of prison once again, that's when things started to get...annoying.

"Agh!" Lloyd yelled, throwing a blast towards the criminal, watching as he dodged out of the way. "You're seriously becoming a pain in the neck!"

"Likewise, ninja. So let's finish this once," the man stopped, and Lloyd nearly got burnt with his fire gun thing, falling to the ground instead, "and for all."

But before Lloyd could manage to get off the ground, that's when the rush of wind from the blasters hit him, and he watched as the Samurai trapped the mechanic in one of their nets before flying off with him, leaving Lloyd on the street by himself.

Lloyd pulled himself off the ground and lifted up his hood before wiping a hand across his face.

He couldn't bring himself to be angry at the new Samurai X, even though he was only nine when that whole thing happened, he remembered watching as the team grew bitter towards who they would later find out was Nya, and although majority of the whole "iron sharpens iron" thing had to be explained when he was saved from the snakes, he still remembered it vividly.

Mainly because that was also the same night he found out that he was the green ninja in the first place, and the idea of people targeting him without knowing who was under the mask was something he hated the idea of.

But after having his butt saved twice by this new Samurai… He had to get to the bottom of who this was.

"But first," he realized as his stomach growled and he pulled himself off of the street, "I've gotta find some food."

•••

Skylor couldn't even hide her happiness when the little bell on the door alerted her to Lloyd's arrival.

It had been a rough day, with four people insisting that their orders were wrong even though she knew that they were right and her newest hire quitting on her right before the dinner rush, so her aching body was excited.

"Hey, Lloyd," she smiled as he sat down at the counter, but her smile faded when she saw his frown, "rough night?"

"Yeah, can we talk?" He asked, finally looking up at her, "I need...a friend to talk to."

"Yeah, totally. You want your usual?" She asked, seeing his nod before turning her head to the second chef she had hired and yelled, "hey, Evan! I'm making a number six and then I'm taking my break!"

"You got it, boss!" His yell rang back to her and she threw the towel she had wiped the counter with over her shoulder before winking at the teen clad in green.

"Give me fifteen, tops."

•••

"-And I really don't want to be mad at them, cause who gets mad at someone who's saved them multiple times? But I-"

"Can take care of yourself?" Skylor supplied before bringing a spoonful to her lips, and Lloyd nodded, "have you considered asking them to team up with you?"

"They always leave before I can get a word out. They just...poof!" Lloyd groaned, running a hand through his hair, "I just wish that Nya was here, or Kai," he watched as her face fell, and he winced, "you haven't heard from him either, huh?"

"I haven't heard from any of them since Nya said she was going undercover in that village to see if the farmers were being forced to work."

"Yeah, me either," Lloyd sighed, trying to keep his longing at bay before looking back to the master of amber, "any ideas on what to do?"

"Besides continuing to put yourself in danger?" Lloyd tried to glare menacingly, but considering she couldn't hide her laugh, he knew it wasn't all that threatening, "if they want you to know who they are, they'll tell you. Until then, you know your uncle would tell you that iron sharpens iron and that this is good for you."

'I know he would, but he's probably…'

"Yeah, I know. I've heard the story many times," Lloyd smiled for a moment before standing, "thanks for dinner, Sky."

"Hey, you saved my butt on my dad's island, it's the least I could do," she insisted before setting her hand on his shoulder gently, "I miss them too, but if you need to talk again, I'm all ears."

Lloyd smiled a genuine smile before leaving the restaurant, a plan slowly coming together in his head as he started to make his way to the apartment that Borg was paying for him to live in.

'Time to bring out some good old Darkley's knowledge and trap a Samurai.'

•••

Lloyd hadn't picked up much from Darkley's; after all, he had been kicked out for "lacking the amoral ambition to become one of tomorrow's masterminds", but he was good at traps.

So setting up the Samurai trap was easy, but how to get them to where he was, that was the hard part. 'It's not like I can just release a criminal to attack me.'

But as he continued to work out the kinks with the trap, that's when it hit him. 'I don't need a Kryptarium level threat, I just need a bounty hunter.' He reached for the phone and dialed the number he had been given last month for the latest burner phone.

"Hey, Ronin. How much money do I have to pay you to attack me?"

"Lloyd, you can't bribe me to hurt you. You're a child, after all, and I could go to jail." Ronin insisted, but Lloyd had prepared for the fact that it seemed like everyone he knew that didn't hate him had a soft spot for him.

"Don't worry, it'll be fake. I'm just trying to figure out who the new Samurai X is."

"Now you're talking, greenie," Lloyd couldn't hold back his smile as he heard the enthusiasm in the bounty hunter's voice, "I'm busy tonight, finishing up my latest job, but after that, I'll take 160."

"Deal," Lloyd agreed without a second thought, "meet me outside the construction site where Darreth is building his karaoke club tomorrow afternoon. And be ready to cause a disturbance."

"Copy that, Garmadon jr."

Lloyd shook off the nickname quickly as he heard the dial tone before setting his phone down and continuing to finish the trap.

'Hopefully I can convince Mr. Borg to give me 160 tomorrow.'

•••

"I've got you now, green ninja!" Ronin shouted, shooting a grappling hook at Lloyd's foot, which he dodged with ease; Ronin was getting into character perfectly and he could already hear the woosh of the jets on the Samurai Mech approaching quickly.

He dodged another blast, seeing as the blue and grey mech touched down on the ground and started to go against Ronin with ease, giving Lloyd the chance to pull the rope under the mech's feet, pulling it upside down and a few feet in the air.

"Wow, that actually worked." Ronin admired as Lloyd approached, watching as the person inside rapidly clicked the buttons on the mech to no avail before finally looking Lloyd dead in the eyes.

"Let me down now." Their voice was obviously distorted, and Lloyd was not having it.

"Tell me who you are, now," He demanded, pulling his hood up so he could see clearly, "and I'll let you go."

The person inside sighed, clicking a button on the side of their helmet before responding with anger in their voice, but the voice shocked him to his core.

"Master Lloyd, this is highly illogical and I request that you let me out of here as soon as possible."

'Pix?'

Lloyd set to work on getting her down as Ronin piped up "wait, so we did that whole thing just for it to be your robot friend?" Lloyd rolled his eyes and helped her down.

PIXAL took off her helmet, no longer angry but she was visibly stressed as she turned to the two of them. "Not a word about this. Either of you."

"Look, I'm getting paid, I have no reason to tell anyone." Ronin insisted as he held out his hand towards Lloyd.

Lloyd dug into his pocket and pulled out the money, putting it in Ronin's hand and waiting till he left before finally turning to his friend, grasping for words. "How long have you…"

"Had a body again?" He nodded, "right before Acronix attacked Master Wu."

The two went silent as they got the mech down from the ropes before PIXAL spoke again. "I am sorry for not telling you, but I did it to protect you. All six of you."

Lloyd looked down at his hands, trying to work through his thoughts quickly so he could respond. 'Why didn't she trust us? How much does she know? How could she keep this from Zane? Did she know how alone I felt? How much I've needed someone since the others left?'

"I am positive that you have many questions, and I am willing to answer them whenever you are ready to ask."

"Why do you continue to stay in the computer?" He asked, still looking at his hands as his mouth went dry from forcing back a choke; that wasn't the first question he wanted to ask, but knowing the logistics, maybe that would make him feel a bit better about the whole situation.

"My new body doesn't have the same power source as my old one, and I have a limited amount of time I can use it before I have to recharge. I haven't spoken to my father about it yet, and as far as he knows, I am still located inside of Zane's head."

Lloyd nodded; he was all too familiar with withholding information from people, but something about being on the receiving end of it...it made his heart hurt. He finally mustered up the courage to ask the question that was weighing heavily on him.

"Do you know how alone I've felt? I don't know where my uncle is, if he's even alive, my mom went looking for him almost immediately after and I haven't heard from the others for months…" he stopped, finally looking at PIXAL's face, her green eyes reflecting similar emotions to his own, "how much I've needed someone to talk to?"

"You could have talked to me through the computer." She offered softly, her hand grazing over Lloyd's wrist, but he pulled away, trying to reel in his anger. "I was still there."

"It's not the same, PIXAL. I know you meant well, but...it's not the same," he rubbed a hand over his face before pulling fully away from her, looking off towards the storm clouds rolling in, "you should go recharge. I have to patrol."

"Very well then, Master Lloyd," PIXAL spoke, her voice seemingly void of all emotion, "I will see you back at the apartment."

And with that, the Mech was flying through the air and disappearing into the darkness, leaving Lloyd outside of the unfinished bar where he sat down on the pier, looking out towards the rows and rows of buildings.

For the first time in months, as the first strike of lightning hit, he allowed himself to curl up into a ball before tucking his head against his knees and letting the tears he had been holding back for so long out.

[berniesrevolution]

Ten years ago, on Saturday, September 13th, 2008, the world was about to end.

The New York Federal Reserve was a zoo. Imagine NASA headquarters on the day a giant asteroid careens into the atmosphere. That was the New York Fed: all hands on deck, peak human panic.

The crowd included future Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then-Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs CEO) Hank Paulson, the representatives of multiple regulatory offices, and the CEOs of virtually every major bank in New York, each toting armies of bean counters and bankers.

The asteroid metaphor fit. In the twin collapses of top-five investment bank Lehman Brothers and insurance giant AIG, Wall Street saw a civilization-imperiling ball of debt hurtling its way.

The legend of that meeting, as immortalized in hagiographic reconstructions like Andrew Ross Sorkin���s Too Big to Fail, is that the tough-minded bank honchos found a way to scrape up just enough cash to steer the debt-comet off course.

In Too Big To Fail, the “superstar” chief of Goldman, Lloyd Blankfein, along with “smart” Jamie Dimon of Chase, “fighter” John Mack of Morgan Stanley, and other titans brokered the deal of deals, just in time to stave off a Mad Max scenario for us all.

The plan included a federal bailout of incompetent AIG, along with key mergers – Bank of America buying Merrill, Barclays swallowing the sinking hull of Lehman, etc.

With respect to the fine actors in the film, the legend is bull.

There are more accurate chronicles of the crisis period, including the just-released Financial Exposure by Elise Bean of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, probably the most aggressive crew of financial detectives who sifted through the rubble over the past 10 years. Bean’s account of what went on at banks like Goldman, HSBC, UBS and Washington Mutual is terrifying to read even now.

But history is written by the victors, and the banks that blew up the economy are somehow still winning the narrative. Persistent propaganda about what happened 10 years ago not only continues to warp news coverage, but contributed to a wide array of political consequences, including the election of Donald Trump.

The most persistent myths about 2008:

Myth#1: The crash was an accident

In the early days of the crash, reporters were told the crisis particulars were probably too complex for news audiences. But metaphors would do. And the operating metaphor for 2008 was a “thousand-year flood,” a rare and inexplicable accident – something that just sort of happened.

It was even implied that the meltdown was due in part to irrational panic, “hysteria,” a fear of fear itself. When Lehman Brothers failed, the theory held, investors overreacted by freezing all lending, causing more disruptions and more losses. The economy was basically healthy, but fear had caused it to founder on a lack of confidence.

In Too Big to Fail, William Hurt plays Treasury Secretary Paulson as a saddened, wearied Atlas. He quips, early in the mess: “This is a confidence game,” and if Lehman Brothers failed, “all the other banks are gonna drop like dominoes.”

Poor Cynthia Nixon, who plays Treasury spokesperson Michele Davis, is heard responding, “Congress won’t move until we’ve already hit the iceberg.”

The film flashes to Lehman’s Dick “The Gorilla“ Fuld (played by James Woods in kinetic perma-jerk mode), who contrasts their fears with his overconfident weather report:

“Real estate always comes back,” he snorts, smugly fixing his tux. “I’ve seen this before. CEOs panic and they sell out cheap… The street’s running around with its hair on fire, but the storm always passes.”

This colorful language – dominoes, a confidence game, an “iceberg,” a “storm” – artfully disguised reality. This wasn’t weather coming at them, but the consequences of years of untrammeled criminal fraud.

Banks like Lehman had lent billions to fly-by-night mortgage mills like Countrywide and New Century. Those firms in turn sent hordes of loan hustlers into lower-income neighborhoods offering magical deals to anyone who could “fog a mirror,” as former Countrywide executive Michael Winston once put it to me. The targets were frequently minorities and the elderly.

Tales of mortgage swindlers guzzling Red Bulls and handing out easy loans in all directions began showing up in news reports as early as 2005. “It was like a boiler room,” one agent told the Los Angeles Times. “You produce, you make a lot of money… There’s no real compassion or understanding of the position they’re putting their customers in.”

These mortgage mills dispensed with due diligence, rarely bothering to verify incomes, identification, even citizenship. The loans were designed to have short, fragile lives, like fruit flies. They had to stay viable just long enough to be sent back to Wall Street and resold to secondary buyers, who took the losses.

It was a classic Ponzi scheme. So long as new loans were created and sold faster than the old ones failed, the subprime market made everyone rich. But the minute the market started to swing back the other way, everyone knew they would all crash to earth, Wile E. Coyote-style.

Paulson knew as well as anyone. Treasury and the other regulators received ample warning. Take the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), a regulatory arm of Treasury that happened to oversee two of the worst basket-cases, Washington Mutual and AIG. According to Bean, the OTS observed and ignored more than 500 deficiencies in mortgage practices just at WaMu in the years before the crash.

Even the FBI – not exactly an on-the-ball financial regulator, certainly not to the degree that Treasury or the Fed is expected to be – had warned as far back as 2004 that so-called “liar’s loans” were “epidemic” and would cause a “financial crisis” if not addressed.

CNN told the public of the FBI warning of a “next S&L crisis,” going so far as to identify the top 10 “hot spots’ for mortgage fraud” in: Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado.

All places that would later be rocked by mass foreclosures.

It took longer to get a car wash than a home loan in those days. I had one mortgage broker in Florida tell me he used to look for customers on the way home from work at night, at the beer cooler at his neighborhood 7-Eleven. His pitch was, “Hey, buddy, you like where you’re living?”

The end of this party was no confidence game. This was gravity: what went way up, coming way down.

The captain of the Titanic ignored one day’s worth of iceberg warnings and went down in history as an all-time schmuck for it. History commends him only for the honorable act of going down with his ship.

The titans of Wall Street ignored at least four years of warnings, escaped richer than ever, and in the end were lauded as heroes by the likes of Sorkin.

Myth #2: The crash was caused by greedy homeowners

Too Big To Fail shows Fuld on a rant:

“People act like we’re crack dealers,” Fuld (James Woods) gripes. “Nobody put a gun to anybody’s head and said, ‘Hey, nimrod, buy a house you can’t afford. And you know what? While you’re at it, put a line of credit on that baby and buy yourself a boat.”

This argument is the Wall Street equivalent of Reagan’s famous Cadillac-driving “welfare queen” spiel, which today is universally recognized as asinine race rhetoric.

Were there masses of people pre-2008 buying houses they couldn’t afford? Hell yes. Were some of them speculators or “flippers” who were trying to game the bubble for profit? Sure.

Most weren’t like that – most were ordinary working people, or, worse, elderly folks encouraged to refinance and use their houses as ATMs – but there were some flippers in there, sure.

People pointing the finger at homeowners are asking the wrong questions. The right question is, why didn’t the Fulds of the world care if those “nimrods” couldn’t afford their loans?

The answer is, the game had nothing to do with whether or not the homeowner could pay. The homeowner was not the real mark. The real suckers were institutional customers like pensions, hedge funds and insurance companies, who invested in these mortgages.

(Continue Reading)

[littalks-blog]

On October 16, 1854, one of the most iconic authors and gay icons was born. Oscar Wilde was born to William and Jane Wilde. He was their second son, a middle child, and he grew up in Dublin Ireland. His father was notorious for being a serial cheater; he had three kids with three other women, and three kids with his wife, Jane. Oscar’s mother was six feet tall, and regularly hosted parties in the parlor of their home. Oscar and his older brother were invited to sit in the room of the parties, however, they were not to talk to anyone. This is where Oscar learned to captivate an audience.

At the age of 9, Oscar was sent to Portora Royal School, a boarding school, with his brother. Later, he received a scholarship to Trinity College in Ireland, followed a few years later by a scholarship to Oxford, in England. During his time at Oxford, Oscar really came into his own. He was a six foot two, proud Irishman, who was obsessed with aesthetics. He told many people he wanted to become a work of art. He wore a lot of velvet and silk clothes and grew out his hair. In 1878, Oscar became well-known because he placed first in his finals. When asked what his next move would be, he told many people he would become a poet, writer, or playwright. He is also quoted saying, “I will become famous, if not famous, notorious.” Surprisingly, he achieved all of these things, in that order.

Oscar started writing poems when he was at Trinity College, and so, in 1881 Oscar published his first collection of Poems. The collection sold quite a bit, but many critics said the poetry was bland. It was during this time that Oscar was quoted saying, “There’s one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.” Many people were making fun of Oscar at this time. However, he went on tour in America with the play Patience, a play that was satirical of the aesthetic movement. During his tour, he was to speak to the audience about how the aesthetic movement was a good thing. By the time he returned to London, Oscar had become an international celebrity.

In 1883, Oscar moved to Paris and changed his aesthetic. He did this by adding a flower to his breast pocket. He started smoking gold-tipped cigarettes that he carried in a gold case. He also adorned a cane, for fashion. During his time in Paris, he wrote The Duchess of Padua. Soon after, he had many travels. He went to New York, London, and son back to Dublin. In Dublin, he ran into Constance Lloyd, a woman he had met in London in 1881. The two got married in 1884 and they had their first son in 1885 followed by their second a few months later. However, many people comment about how Oscar didn’t know he was gay when he was married. He was even heard making comments about his wife’s appearance. He said that he was disgusted with how she looked because her very slim body had become swollen with pregnancy. Many believe that this is because before she was pregnant, Constance resembled a male figure. Also, at age 32, Oscar became the editor of a magazine titled Lady’s World, later renamed, Woman’s World. Around the same time, Oscar began tutoring a boy named Robert Ross who was obsessed with Wilde’s poetry. It was at this time where Oscar began living a double life because Ross had seduced him.

In 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in Lippincott’s Magazine. The Picture of Dorian Gray was seen and scandalous and was highly criticized. Many people called the work ‘unclean.’ In 1891, at age 36, Oscar fell in love with an Oxford student named Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Alfred was the encompassment of Dorian Gray with blonde hair and overall, gorgeous. However, Alfred was sixteen years younger than Wilde, making him twenty years old. Truthfully, the two were perfect for each other, and Oscar gave Alfred many gifts and they spent a lot of time together. Oscar even went as far as telling his wife that he spent time in hotels because he needed privacy for writing, however, he was staying in hotels with Alfred. Wilde even wrote many plays with titles that alluded to his secret life. For example, “An Ideal Husband” and “A Woman of No Importance.” Oscar caused himself to go into debt because the more money he made the more money he spent. He was spending the modern equivalent of $10,000 a week.

Alfred and Oscar were lovers in many settings, however, they spent a lot of time together ‘hunting’ for other lovers for themselves, or for the other. It is said that Wilde got ‘addicted’ to the danger of the homosexual underworld in London. The homosexual underworld, meaning gay prostitutes. Also, Oscar did not have a lot of time for his wife and children. However, he never tried too hard to hide his secret life. He essentially hid it in plain sight. Oscar essentially lived life thinking that if he didn’t say anything about his secrets, then there was nothing going on, even though many people saw Oscar engaging in suspicious acts.

Soon, Alfred’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, grew suspicious of the relationship between his son and Oscar. He confronted them many times but did not find out much. In 1894, Queensberry met with Wilde on Tite Street and made his feelings clear to Wilde. “I do not say that you are it, but you look it, and pose it. Which is just as bad. If I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant, I will thrash you.” Wilde only responded to this with, “I do not know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight.”  

In February 1895, Alfred’s father left his calling card at Wilde’s club. It said, “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite.” Wilde, who was encouraged by his lover, initiated a private prosecution against Queensberry since the note was a public accusation that Wilde had committed the crime of sodomy. Queensberry was arrested for criminal libel. He could only avoid conviction for libel only if he could present evidence that his accusation was true, and also that there was public benefit to having the accusation made openly. Thus, Queensberry’s lawyers hired private detectives to find evidence of Wilde’s homosexual activities. During their investigation, the private detectives leaked information about Oscar’s private affairs to the press. At the end of the trial, Queensberry was found not guilty and the court found that his accusation was justified. Thus, the end of the trial rendered Wilde legally liable for the expenses Queensberry had incurred and left Wilde bankrupt.

On April 6, 1895, Wilde was arrested for gross indecency under section 11 of the criminal law amendment act of 1885. This act referred to homosexual acts not amounting to buggery. Wilde’s prosecution opened on April 26, 1895. He pleaded not guilty, but the trial ended with a hung jury. Wilde, then, was able to post bail, and then went into hiding. The trial was, essentially, reopened and on May 25, 1895, Oscar and Alfred were convicted of gross indecency and were sentenced to two years’ hard labor. Wilde was incarcerated from 25 May 1895 to 18 May 1897. Once released from prison, Wilde immediately fled to Paris and never returned to the UK. Wilde spent his last years impoverished and in exile. Alfred and Oscar reunited in Naples, during this time. Also, Constance offered Oscar 150 pounds a year to stop seeing Alfred. She had also moved herself and their children to Switzerland. Alfred and Oscar soon had to stop seeing each other because of the fear of having truly, nothing. Constance took away the money from Oscar and then died four months later. There also was no chance of Oscar ever seeing his children again.

In November 1900, Oscar died of cerebral meningitis at the age of 46.

In his life, Oscar faced quite a bit of prejudice, yet he somehow stayed true to himself. He achieved all of his goals and is one of the most iconic authors of all time.