#mortgage ten reasons

[gremlingottoosilly]

Streamer!Reader X König who needs to stop donating money that could pay for multiple mortgages

It's not like you don't need money - you do, actually, you want it as much as any other person, but it's just...kinda weird. You're that rare type of streamer who gets concerned when people just send her random big amounts of money - you've been trying to talk to the guy, saying that you do appreciate the support and dedication, but he doesn't have to spend the budget of a small country just because he wants you to say his nickname ten times per stream - you like that he is willing to buy your amazon whishlist in one sitting, but you also kinda don't want your viewers to think they have to spend their incomes. Konig is elated when you confront him - his favorite streamer is talking to him!!willingly!! he didn't even send death threats to your doorstep yet, you must be super into him at this point...and then you're humble enough to ask him to stop sending money!! just how adorable you might be?? God, this is embarrassing at this point - he loves you too much, with everything you're doing for him(semi-regular streams that he is watching while waiting hours for a target to come) and now you're humble enough to ask him to stop sending so much money...well, your wish is his command - he is smiling widely as he brings you a screenshot of his bank account, probably having more than you'd earn in a year of working...now you know that you can provide for him, isn't that good?? Well, you blocked him. Hm. Konig can't accept this - you're too shy for your own good! You need his gifts, and if you won't accept his payments anymore, he might as well start leaving them on your doorstep. This way, he can buy you much more stuff, too! Vibrators, sex toys, hot lingerie...you don't put it on your wishlist, for obvious reasons, but he can send it to your regardless! Aren't you happy to have such dedicated fans?

[vaspider]

From 2007 - 2017, I worked in banking & mortgage. I went between multiple big-name banks & mortgage companies & what I saw there aged me a decade in a year. I used to get up and throw up right away from the stress. My wife and I reported illegal shit "anonymously," and were punitively transferred to shitty locations and then hounded out of our jobs. I saw how the sausage was made, and it was made with the flesh of the working class.

So I transferred to doing compliance, thinking that there at least I could protect people. I could make sure the laws were being followed and no one was being hurt.

Hah. No. They just fucking lie. I remember someone saying, "Hey, this is an improper amount you're withholding for escrow," and both of us realizing that management both knew that and were basically using escrow funds like a slush fund for running the company. We just kinda looked at each other after that meeting and went, "Who do we even report this to? Those were the people who'd be investigating this."*

I left finance in 2017, my body broken down, and my soul sick, to go make queer art bc I couldn't TAKE IT ANYMORE. I literally broke my body in that industry. I will never be able to work a 9-5 again. My body can't do it.

This song put me right back in the thick of it again. I want to scrub my skin until it bleeds, metaphorically speaking, and that is a compliment.

Fffffffuck.

* This is not an invitation for anyone to tell me who I should have reported things to ten years ago bc a) I've changed enough details of even that vague story that whatever you're about to say would be wrong; b) I'm not telling you what steps I actually took for a reason; and c) that's not the fucking point so let it go.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

The GOP’s 43-year tax-cuts-for-billionaires-while-we-ignore-the-needs-of-the-country grift has an analogy in condos and homes across America that might help voters understand how it works and how they’ve gotten away with it.

Fully 84 percent of all homes and apartments built and sold in 2022 came with a homeowner’s association (HOA), and an estimated 27 percent of all homeowners nationwide currently live in a property controlled by an HOA.

And many are very unhappy about the experience.

According to a survey by Rocket Mortgage, only 47 percent of HOA residents think their HOA has made their community better, only two-thirds (64%) believe their HOA “honestly handles its finances,” and one in ten people nationwide who have an HOA cite the HOA itself as their main reason for moving.

How and why is this?

Louise and I have lived in five communities with HOAs in two different states. Three (including where we now live) were well managed, kept up the community, and set aside money from the dues every month for the inevitable future maintenance. I was on the board of one of them. The other two ran, essentially, a shell game or reverse Ponzi scheme, which led us to eventually quit those communities and move.

READ: Deep-red 'Republican stronghold' thought to be 'easy win for Trump' is now a swing state

I remember attending a board meeting in one of those “shell game” HOA communities we’d lived in. There were multiple common-area maintenance issues needing attention, but a group who called themselves “low-tax conservatives” had run the board for over a twenty years.

There was almost nothing in reserves, so maintenance had been continuously postponed until things hit a crisis level. Then they’d hit us all with a series of “special one-time assessments” ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to pay for the upkeep. They refused to raise the monthly HOA fee, referring to it as a tax, because, they said, they were “low-tax conservatives”; in fact, they were just cheapskates.

That HOA board had been, in the past and the present, stealing from future homeowners.

They did it so they could enjoy the community during the first 30 or so years — when maintenance costs were minimal — without setting aside money for the future, when things would rot or wear out and need replacement or upgrade.

For the first three decades, they were able to coast with $200/month in dues and no assessments; by the time we arrived when the units were pushing 35 years old, though, the assessments were hitting $3000 to $9000 a year, and, when the buildings’ roofs need repair (soon) it’ll be twice that amount or more.

Fortunately, once we saw the handwriting on that particular wall we were able to sell our condo and move to a well-run community. Americans, though, don’t have that option: Republicans have been running this same shell game or reverse Ponzi scheme against all of us (except the very rich) across the entire country ever since Reagan successfully pitched trickle-down economics to the nation in 1981.

If you’ve ever lived in one of these shell game HOA’s, you now perfectly understand Reaganomics and why it seems that America has deteriorated so badly over the past 40 years.

You could call it the disaster of pothole economics: all across America, roads, bridges, water systems, schools, and other vital public infrastructure have been underfunded and neglected ever since Reagan popularized the idea of “austerity” among Republicans.

In order to pay for the second most massive tax cut for the morbidly rich in history (Reagan cut the top tax bracket from 74% down to 25%), his administration cut spending on education, housing, roads and bridges, and pretty much every other aspect of America’s infrastructure. George W. Bush did the same thing, and Donald Trump tripled down on the scheme.

The result was a $51 trillion transfer of wealth — over a mere forty-three years — from the homes, retirement accounts, and savings of average working families into the money bins of the extremely wealthy. Thirty-four trillion of that transfer show up as our national debt, which was a mere $800 billion ($0.8 trillion) when Reagan first came into office and started this scam.

President Joe Biden and his Vice President, Kamala Harris, ran the first administration of either party to significantly repudiate Reagan’s neoliberalism by injecting trillions into rebuilding our nation (over 35,000 projects) while raising taxes on rich people and corporations to pay for it.

The result was immediately visible, just like in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: we now have the best economy on planet Earth with unemployment lower than any time since the 1960s (and lower than any time in history for women, Blacks, and Hispanics). Inflation has been at or below 0% for the past two months and is annually running around 3% (Reagan never got inflation below 4.1% in his entire 8 years); all across America we’re putting our rural areas, towns, and cities back together.

For the past forty years, Republicans and their administrations have focused almost entirely on taking cash away from working class people and handing it off to the billionaires who own and finance their party. At the top of the list of ways they did this was a series of five tax cuts for the morbidly rich and big corporations adding up to over $30 trillion since 1981.

But they’ve also been cutting spending to compensate for their tax breaks for the billionaire class: They blocked extending the child tax credit this year, throwing millions of American children back into poverty. They’ve fought lifting the cap on Social Security taxes so people making over $168,600 will begin paying on all of their income (millionaires and billionaires currently pay only a tiny fraction of the percentage to support Social Security that the rest of us do).

Fully 100% of congressional Republicans voted against Biden’s Build Back Better program that’s now putting America back together and his American Rescue Plan that lifted millions out of poverty and put millions more back to work. They successfully blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act that would have penalized employers for wage discrimination based on gender; they’ve refused to expand Medicaid in almost a dozen Red states; they even filibustered an attempt to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.

For the past forty-plus years, Republicans — just like these dysfunctional HOAs — have been stealing from America’s future; our infrastructure deficit alone is several trillion dollars, meaning Americans will be paying more in taxes to make up for all those decades of neglect.

Democrats want those tax increases to hit people earning over $400,000 a year; Republican tax proposals, on the other hand, mostly focus on increasing income taxes and fees on working class people while continuing or even expanding tax breaks for the very wealthy.

One of the “low tax” HOAs we used to live in, instead of raising their monthly fee or instituting an assessment, recently negotiated a million-dollar-plus 20-year loan with people’s properties as the collateral to fund painting and repairing serious rot on the buildings.

This should have been paid for with an increase in HOA fees twenty years ago, anticipating the future maintenance and upkeep needs.

But instead they kept the fee low, never built up a reserve, and are now borrowing from the bank. In other words, they’re continuing the all-too-common HOA board scam of requiring future generations to pay for current repairs, just like the GOP budget proposals we’ll see when they return from summer vacation in September will require future generations to pay for their past tax cuts.

It’s the equivalent of Reagan, Bush, and Trump jacking up the national debt to keep things glued together, forcing future generations to pay it off when the bill comes due, while their wealthy corporate funders rob us blind.

Homeowners across America are waking up to these toxic HOA boards, as social media sites for HOA members are forming and local homeowner uprisings are happening against boards, either replacing the board members or, in some cases, even suing them. Some states are even starting to require they build up reserves for future maintenance.

Hopefully, Americans will realize how successfully Republicans have inflicted this very same scam on voters and working class people over the past forty-plus years and vote the bums out this fall.

ALSO READ: Mike Johnson's now-deleted Trump social media post sparks controversy

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-Fi prompt from Isabelo:

Hi! I'm new to the workforce and now that I have some money I'm worried it's losing its value to inflation just sitting in my bank. I wanted to ask if you have ideas on how to counteract inflation, maybe through investing?

I've been putting this off for a long time because...

I am not a finance person. I am not an investments person. I actually kinda turned and ran from that whole sector of the business world, at first because I didn't understand it, and then once I did understand it, because I disagreed with much of it on a fundamental level.

But... I can describe some factors and options, and hope to get you started.

I AM NOT LEGALLY QUALIFIED TO GIVE FINANCIAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.

What is inflation, and what impacts it?

Inflation is the rate at which money loses value over time. It's the reason something that cost 50 cents in the 1840s costs $50 now.

A lot of things do impact inflation, like housing costs and wage increases and supply chains, but the big one that is relevant here is federal interest rates. The short version: if you borrow money from the government, you have to pay it back. The higher the interest rates on those loans, the lower inflation is. This is for... a lot of reasons that are complicated. The reason I bring it up is less so:

The government offers investments:

So yeah, the feds can impact inflation, but they also offer investment opportunities. There are three common types available to the average person: Bonds, Bills, and Notes. I'll link to an article on Investopedia again, but the summary is as follows: You buy a bill, bond, or note from the government. You have loaned them money, as if you are the bank. Then, they give it back, with interest.

Treasury Bills: shortest timeframe (four weeks to a year), and lowest return on investment. You buy it at a discount (let's say $475), and then the government returns the "full value" that the bond is, nominally (let's say $500). You don't earn twice-yearly interest, but you did earn $25 on the basis of Loaning The Government Some Cash.

Treasury Notes: 2-10 year timeframe. Very popular, very stable. Banks watch it to see how they should plan the interest rates for mortgages and other large loans. Also pretty high liquidity, which means you can sell it to someone else if you suddenly need the cash before your ten-year waiting period is up. You get interest payments twice a year.

Treasury Bonds: 20-30 years. This is like... the inverse of a house mortgage. It takes forever, but it does have the highest yield. You get interest payments twice a year.

Why invest money into the US Treasury department, whether through the above or a different government paper? (Savings bonds aren't on sold the set schedule that treasury bonds are, but they only come in 30-year terms.)

It is very, very low risk. It is pretty much the lowest risk investment a person can make, at least in the US. (I'm afraid I don't know if you're American, but if you're not, your country probably has something similar.)

Interest rates do change, often in reaction or in relation to inflation. If your primary concern is inflation, not getting a high return on investment, I would look into government papers as a way to ensure your money is not losing value on you.

This is the website that tells you the government's own data for current yield and sales, etc. You can find a schedule for upcoming auctions, as well.

High-yield bank accounts:

Savings accounts can come with a pretty unremarkable but steady return on investment; you just need to make sure you find one that suits you. Some of the higher-yield accounts require a minimum balance or a yearly fee... but if you've got a good enough chunk of cash to start with, that might be worth it for you.

They are almost as reliable as government bonds, and are insured by the government up to $250,000. Right now, they come with a lower ROI than most bonds/bills/notes (federal interest rates are pretty high at the moment, to combat inflation). Unlike government papers, though, you can deposit and withdraw money from a savings account pretty much any time.

Certificates of Deposit:

Okay, imagine you are loaning money to your bank, with the fixed term of "I will get this money back with interest, but only in ten years when the contract is up" like the Treasury Notes.

That's what this is.

Also, Investopedia updates near-daily with the highest rates of the moment, which is pretty cool.

Property:

Honestly, if you're coming to me for advice, you almost definitely cannot afford to treat real estate as an investment thing. You would be going to an actual financial professional. As such... IDK, people definitely do it, and it's a standby for a reason, but it's not... you don't want to be a victim of the housing bubble, you know? And me giving advice would probably make you one. So. Talk to a professional if this is the route you want to take.

Retirement accounts:

Pension accounts are a kind of savings account. You've heard of a 401(k)? It's that. Basically, you put your money in a savings account with a company that specializes in pensions, and they invest it in a variety of different fields and markets (you can generally choose some of this) in order to ensure that the money grows enough that you can hopefully retire on it in fifty years. The ROI is usually higher than inflation.

These kinds of accounts have a higher potential for returns than bonds or treasury notes, buuuuut they're less reliable and more sensitive to market fluctuations.

However, your employer may pay into it, matching your contribution. If they agree to match up to 4%, and you pay 4% of your paycheck into an pension fund, then they will pay that same amount and you are functionally getting 8% of your paycheck put into retirement while only paying for half of it yourself.

Mutual Funds:

I've definitely linked this article before, but the short version is:

An investment company buys 100 shares of stock: 10 shares each in 10 different "general" companies. You, who cannot afford a share of each of these companies, buy 1 singular share of that investment company. That share is then treated as one-tenth of a share of each of those 10 "general" companies. You are one of 100 people who has each bought "one stock" that is actually one tenth of ten different stocks.

Most retirement funds are actually a form of mutual fund that includes employer contributions.

Pros: It's more stable than investing directly in the stock market, because you can diversify without having to pay the full price of a share in each company you invest in.

Cons: The investment company does get a cut, and they are... often not great influences on the economy at large. Mutual funds are technically supposed to be more regulated than hedge funds (which are, you know, often venture capital/private equity), but a lot of mutual funds like insurance companies and pension funds will invest a portion of their own money into hedge funds, which is... technically their job. But, you know, capitalism.

Directly investing in the stock market:

Follow people who actually know what they're doing and are not Evil Finance Bros who only care about the bottom line. I haven't watched more than a few videos yet, but The Financial Diet has had good energy on this topic from what I've seen so far, and I enjoy the very general trends I hear about on Morning Brew.

That said, we are not talking about speculative capital gains. We are talking about making sure inflation doesn't screw with you.

DIVIDENDS are profit that the company shares to investors every quarter. Did the company make $2 billion after paying its mortgages, employees, energy bill, etc? Great, that $2 billion will be shared out among the hundreds of thousands of stocks. You'll probably only get a few cents back per stock (e.g. Walmart has been trading at $50-$60 for the past six months, and their dividends have been 57 cents and then 20.75 cents), but it adds up... sort of. The Walmart example is listed as having dividends that are lower than inflation, so you're actually losing money. It's part of why people rely on capital gains so much, rather than dividends, when it comes to building wealth.

Blue Chip Stocks: These are old, stable companies that you can expect to return on your investment at a steady rate. You probably aren't going to see your share jump from $5 to $50 in a year, but you also probably won't see it do the reverse. You will most likely get reliable, if not amazing, dividends.

Preferred Stocks: These are stock shares that have more reliable dividends, but no voting rights. Since you are, presumably, not a billionaire that can theoretically gain a controlling share, I can't imagine the voting rights in a given company are all that important anyway.

Anyway, hope this much-delayed Intro To Investing was, if not worth the wait, at least, a bit longer than you expected.

Hey! You got interest on the word count! It's topical! Ish.

[rederiswrites]

Hey not to point out the obvious but another reason generational discourse is trash is because the same economic and social issues affecting young people today do in fact effect older people too. Sometimes being older is advantageous because you managed to get work experience/buy a home/build a resume when things were a little better, but other times it just means you've got two kids in school and a mortgage, your fixed expenses are high as shit, and you're five times as fucked when your job bites it.

Speaking to our own situation, even though it was hard getting that first job out of college for my partner, it was ten times harder three years later, and hasn't gotten better, so I am grateful for what we did manage. But even as his wage has gone up, even with merit raises thrown in now and then, cost of living has gone up faster. We went from modestly middle class to nothing in the bank, pray to gods you don't believe in that the family car doesn't break, no hope of a vacation--and this is the fortunate end of the scale.

There are a lot of ways to judge a system, but one sure way to tell that the system sucks balls is when it sucks for the people it supposedly favors, too. It doesn't favor any of us--that's a lie. It only favors the people at the very top.

[legobiwan]

I swear there's a reason they're both being like this if I could FINISH THE FUCKING STORY...

~~~

“A light jog should pose no issue for a man your age. And no homo sapien is running a marathon in ten minutes. That is a biological impossibility within our own species,” Ford huffed, waspish, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Do refrain from hyperbole, Stanley.”

Refrain from hyperbole? Stan’s inner voice rose an octave. His brother had been in a pissy mood the whole day - the whole damned week - but this took the absolute cake. My ‘hyperbole’ paid your goddamn mortgage for thirty years.

[mariacallous]

“I am opposed to war, unless in self-defense.” This was the most-liked comment on Douyin—the Chinese counterpart to TikTok—in reaction to a speech delivered by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Jan. 9. In his address, Wang previewed China’s top diplomatic goals for 2024 and emphasized “the unwavering resolve of all 1.4 billion Chinese citizens to achieve reunification with Taiwan,” a statement made just days prior to the island’s general elections.

The broader reaction to Wang’s remarks likely wasn’t what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hoped for: Tens of thousands of Chinese social media users responded, many of them with grievances, sarcasm, and defiance, widely questioning the costs of a potential war.

One man from Shanghai complained, “Who is going to fight the war? If I die, who is going to pay my mortgage or my car loan?” Wang’s speech framed “national unification” as one of “China’s core interests,” but as one user from Hunan rebutted, “[China’s] core interests are that every Chinese can be treated equally and have access to elderly care and health care.” The pushback went beyond economic and social grievances. Some posters were even bolder, suggesting that Taiwan’s democracy may demonstrate a political alternative to mainland China: ��The fact that Taiwanese choose their own way of life,” said one commentator from Shandong, “might show that Chinese people can take a different route.”

The mood among social media users is a sharp departure from past elections. After almost every Taiwanese general election since 2016, a wave of pro-war fever has swept the Chinese internet. After Taiwan’s 2020 elections, for example, upbeat war enthusiasts in China produced oil paintings that illustrated wild fantasies of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) capturing Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen alive after landing in Taiwan and forcing her to sign an official surrender document onboard a Chinese aircraft carrier—a scene reminiscent of the 1945 Japanese surrender that ended World War II.

In 2021, one of the most popular songs to go viral on Chinese social media was “Take A Bullet Train to Taiwan in 2035.” Its allusion to a high-speed rail line connecting Beijing and Taipei was a dog whistle to nationalist masses who hoped that unification was on the horizon—by force, if necessary.

Absent from these fantasies, however, was the blood and violence that accompanies real war. At the time, China’s star was rising on the international stage, and public confidence was riding high on China’s success in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic within its borders. As such, the sentiments surrounding unification and the use of military force were quite romantic; many people believed that victory over Taiwan would be easy, that the Taiwanese would surrender voluntarily if the PLA simply blockaded the island.

In 2024, however, things have changed. The most recent Taiwanese presidential election—in which the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a repeat victory—served as an uncomfortable reminder to the Chinese public that neither Taiwanese politicians nor voters are interested in Beijing’s plans for political unification. Although the forceful unification narrative still exists, any push from nationalists to reignite war fever has now run into a wall of skepticism following the DPP victory.

“Wake up,” one Weibo user wrote in opposition to the broader online calls for forceful unification. “Stop dreaming,” another echoed. The defiant voices are becoming a common reaction to the suggested use of military force to an extent rarely seen, given the massive culture of censorship on Chinese social media.

A clear reason for this change is China’s economic slowdown. While Taiwan went to the polls in 2024, China was grappling with a youth unemployment rate above 20 percent, a housing market crisis with sales down by 45 percent, and a stock market in free fall that lost $6 trillion in just three years, the likes of which haven’t been seen in almost a decade. News about Taiwanese elections failed to arouse the same nationalistic reactions among the preoccupied Chinese public that had occurred in the previous two contests.

Instead, the 2024 elections triggered a flood of complaints: “Sort out our own economy, what a mess.” a Shanghai resident said angrily. “Look at our stock market,” an apparently frustrated investor from Hunan grieved, “It’d be better to keep the status quo, and leave Taiwanese alone.” The gloomy economy has made some commenters question the underlying justification for war: “With low-income people making less than 1,000 yuan a month ($140), and the national insurance tax going up, huge medical bills, and unaffordable apartments, why do you want forceful unification? I don’t get it.”

“It is the economy that really matters,” another person from Tianjin pointed out. “[Taiwan] being independent or not has nothing to do with ordinary people.”

The changing attitudes toward Taiwan’s elections reflect a broader shift in public sentiment in China’s online space. Discontent about the country’s poor economic reality has been growing louder, drowning out calls for a military takeover.

Ironically, the CCP’s own past propaganda efforts contributed to this cooling effect. Right before Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in August 2022, official and semiofficial rhetoric in mainland China was so belligerent that it led many Chinese to believe that the day of unification had finally arrived and that the military would shoot down her plane and launch its attack on Taiwan imminently.

This was the peak of forceful unification hysteria, but it only left its crusaders disappointed. In the end, there was not only no shootdown of Pelosi’s plane, but there also weren’t even military exercises conducted before she left Taiwan. Many Chinese, especially forceful unification advocates, felt betrayed and disillusioned by their government’s failure to follow through on its belligerent rhetoric, and the after-effects of this letdown are still being felt today.

During Taiwan’s 2024 elections, war enthusiasts were continuously reminded of Beijing’s military inaction following Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. “Have you guys forgotten Pelosi?” one said. One commonly repeated joke, observing the lack of military action, scoffed that the only thing that was fired up when Pelosi visited was the stove in her hotel. The kinds of threats that once resonated with nationalists now drew widespread ridicule online: “delusion,” “talking a big game,” “an unrealistic fantasy,” and “all hat, no cattle.”

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Chinese political spectrum, the 2024 election prompted the resurgence of the view among many liberals that Taiwan’s democracy represents a desirable political model. In the early 2010s, many Chinese saw Taiwan as a beacon of hope for Chinese society—a liberal, civic, and democratic alternative to the one-party state. The liberal Chinese writer Han Han coined a popular phrase—“The most beautiful scenery of Taiwan is its people.”—that encapsulated the view of how trustworthy and free a people can become under democracy.

But after the crackdown on liberal intellectuals and online speech under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the honeymoon did not last long and was gradually replaced by a climate of xenophobia, jingoism, war euphoria, and a longing for unification by force. Making matters worse, a growing nationalist mood in Taiwan led many to believe that Taiwanese looked down on mainlanders.

The 2024 elections, however, prompted a renewed interest from the Chinese public about their neighbor, home to the world’s only Chinese-speaking democracy. News about Taiwanese elections aroused great curiosity on Weibo about the nuts and bolts of the electoral process—what a ballot looks like, how many ballots one can cast, how votes are counted, and how candidates are selected. When a few Taiwanese Weibo users answered these questions, they were liked and retweeted by thousands of Chinese accounts, drawing genuine admiration and blessings from many.

“Are we going to see one day like this?” one user from Gansu wondered with a crying emoji. “Maybe this is accumulating experience for our own future: giving speeches, holding debates, and counting votes,” commented another, from Tianjin.

China’s shifting public sentiment is bound to have repercussions for cross-strait relations, but it would probably be a bridge too far to infer that the Chinese public will fiercely oppose a war in the Taiwan Strait. Ultimately, the nationalist base remains. At present, the euphoria about forceful unification is quieting down, mainly because the party’s over-the-top propaganda failed to meet the expectations of its most ardent supporters. But if aggressive rhetoric were followed by military action in the future, war fever could be easily fanned again.

Despite the prevalence of extreme nationalism, Chinese public opinion is more divided on Taiwan than it seems, and these divisions are only likely to increase. What concerns most ordinary Chinese are decent jobs, good income, accumulating savings for retirement, and getting affordable access to health care and housing.

So long as the economy is struggling and people’s livelihoods are threatened, there is no guarantee that the CCP’s attempts to exploit nationalism will work; quite the opposite, it could be faced with plenty of pushback.

[internetaccountabilitypartner]

Chase Glitch?

Yesterday, I logged onto TikTok for the first time in a few days. My feed was filled with people talking about this "chase glitch" trend. After a few videos, I was able to learn that some people had started posting online about how they found that if you write a check to yourself and cash it at a Chase ATM and it would give you that money regardless of if the money was in your account.

People my age and the primary demographic for TikTok were not afforded a universal chance to get financial education. Unfortunately, a number of people who participated in this did not understand that they would be on the hook for paying that check. These were not insignificant amounts, they were from what I've seen up to tens of thousands of dollars.

This amount of debt, particularly on a credit card or as an overdraft in a checking account is debilitating. This will impact not just this individual person's ability to achieve financial security throughout their life, but will likely also create significant disadvantages for their descendants. To add insult to injury, there is the possibility that those participating in this trend could be banned from future banking accounts or loan opportunities (such as student loans, car loans, or mortgages) or even face legal trouble.

I am not familiar with the law, but I've heard multiple reports x x x that this could be considered check fraud. And as this Forbes article notes this isn't the first time that a viral trend has preyed on people's lack of financial education. Part of the reason for this blog is because I recognize that I don't have the financial education or skills to feel comfortable and stable in my life. I welcome you to follow along as I learn more. Rules number one and two as many of the linked articles point out are that nothing is ever free and if it's too good to be true it usually isn't true.

[wispstalk]

read the first few chapters of Idle to the bf last night at his request 🫣 GOD it was embarrassing I stalled for like ten minutes before I read the first lines. I got over it, but I have drawn some very strict boundaries between this and "real life" (fake idea I know) and it was weird to cross them.

He likes it so far. Says it feels like any other fantasy novel, he's not totally lost and he can interpret the jargon. I did make some adjustments in the version I'm reading to him -- i.e. There was no clear description of martin as "a priest of Akatosh" in his introductory chapter, bc I wrote this for an audience who 1) knows akatosh is a god and 2) did not need Martin explained to them. But those edits have been fairly minor.

His takeaway from 5 chapters was: "What's holding you back from writing a novel? You have the skill you need" which was very nice to hear, but I told him that the reason I'm doing fanfic rn is because plotting is a huge weakness of mine. With TES fic, I don't have to build the plot out of whole cloth, but I have a lot of freedom within existing canon so I can use that to learn the mechanisms of plotting. I am genuinely putting my heart into this but it's just practice. People in the fanfic sphere have an aversion to this idea, but I think of my work as Posting™ not writing seriously, like this is just where I'm dumping my neurotic impulses and idea-vomit. I don't spend hours editing or seek out beta readers because I can't pay my mortgage with this. Eventually I will extract all I need from fanfic and move on.

[backgroundnoisewithaview]

Will: god! *Scrunches a sheet of paper into a ball throws it into the bin then slams his laptop shut*

Connor: erm.... You okay?

Will: Yeah... No. Goodwin sent me some stuff on debt relief for me to look into and this one looked really promising, and then I read the words "marriage must be no longer than a year in duration at time of application"

Connor: what?

Will: Yeah. They only help if you have a new spouse you don't want to pass the debt on to.

Connor: how much would they help?

Will: Practically forgive all student loans, med school, 70% on any other previously consolidated loans, and a discount on mortgage payments. I didn't gett that far but I think it would take me down from 8k a month to 2k.

Connor: That's pretty good. What's the catch? What's in it for them?

Will: I didn't get that far either. Probably want my soul, first born, that sort of the thing.

Connor: let me read

Will: Sure. You want a coffee?

Connor: Yeah go on.

-

Connor: There's one small catch and that's it.

Will: what is it?

Connor: it says whenever a testimony for promotional purposes is required, any couple helped by the scheme must take part for ten years

Will: That's it? They clear your debts to manageable amounts and all you have to do is be the poster boy for them?

Connor: Yeah I'm not seeing anything else in the terms and conditions.

Will: huh. Shame I can't use them

Connor; yeah.... How bad are you drowning?

Will: in all honesty, I'm not making ends meet.

Connor: rent?

Will: Second thing I pay after the insurance. Doesn't leave much for bills or food. Got nothing I can sell unless I resort to standing on a street corner.

Connor: ... Hmm. Are you affording food?

Will: ... I'm affording what the bakery and green grocers throw out at the end of the night

Connor: Are you dumspyer diving? Do you know how dangerous that can be?

Will: yeah, no. They know me, they give me it for free.

Connor: Right.... Ok I have an idea.

Will: If you say something crazy like sign up to a crazy date to marriage service I'm just going to walk out of here with the coffee I just made you

Connor; Marry me.

Will: What?.

Connor: Marry me. It would solve all of your probemms

Will: What? No!

Connor: it would! You won't take my money, you won't accept a loan. You're hardly eating, you're walking everywhere. Marry me, it fills their requirements and you get out of debt.

Will: we'd have to live together.

Connor: I moved into a two bedroom studio apartment, the closets are as big as bedrooms I think you'd make it work.

Will: I....

Connor: Stop trying to find reasons this won't work and just say yes.

Will: you'd really do this for me?

Connor: yes

Will: why? I can be such an asshole to you

Connor: eh, maybe I like that in a guy. Look I give as much as I get. Were friends now, right? And you know, you go home to a shitty apartment by yourself, I go home to a party good apartment also by myself. Why not just... Go home together and maybe it won't be so awful? And you'd save the same as you would now because I don't need you to pay rent or utilities.

Will: I would owe you so much if I said yes

Connor: or stop thinking in transactions and just accept the damn help

Will: ... Okay. Fuck. Jesus this is crazy. Yes okay

Connor: Great! We'll apply for the licence on our next day off, move you in and countdown to the day you can apply.

Will: you realise to sell this, we're gonna have to tell everyone, gonna have to convince them we've been dating a while. And neither of us will be able to date anyone for like, a whole year.

Connor: there's actually a five year divorce clause so, it'll be five. But i'm cool with that.

Will: You're cool with that. Five years stuck living with me and no girlfriends, and you're cool with that?

Connor; it's not like I was having much luck after Robin anyway and I think the break might do you good.

Will: I... Yeah, fair point.

Connor: So we're doing this?

Will: i guess so

Connor: Gotta be more confident than that man, you're marrying a Rhodes. It's yes or bust, sunshine

Will: God I already said yes. Yes again. Ok? Yes. We're doing this. We're going to get married. For debt relief reasons.

Connor: Marrying for debt relief reasons is a time honoured tradition.

Will: I'll take your word for it.

[sassyfrassboss]

I think she spent a ton on PR. Millions most likely. I also would be willing to bet she spent millions on decorating that house. Their security also has to be pricey because it seems like they hire a ton of guards when they go out for events.

Glad to see you back, for however long we have you. sorry to hijack your inbox..

To your point Sassy, I would like to add/point out something... The luxury lifestyle (faux Royal) Lifestyle MM is trying to emulate is expensive as we have all said before. There is a reason celebrities don't spend the way MM does. And those that do, have money coming in by the tens of millions every year guaranteed, be it real estate, Investments, Own businesses, and stuff like that, the likes of Beyonce, Taylor swift, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Johnny Depp, Kim K and the rest. They can afford the 24hr high tech security because they can rely on their other incomes to generate revenue (Whilst they sleep they are still earning money) i.e Beyonce (doubt this will happen), she can balance it out by doing a concert in Dubai, for 23 million dollars. (there is a reason they were able to buy the most expensive home in California worth 200 million) or release and album and do a tour like other artists. People like Depp can do it because for their own health (drug/alcohol addiction) and they also amassed wealth to the point it wouldn't hurt them one bit to have said security. Lets not talk about Kim K.

There is a reason actors and A listers don't so security, except for specific events, its expensive, attracts attention, and literally screams look at me.

Buying a 14million dollar home, with a mortgage, property taxes, 24hr security, Household staff, Archewell staff, Private Jets, PR management, Lawyers retainer and fees for all the lawsuits they come up with. exclusive packages, Clothes, Interior design of the olive garden... All of this with no guarantee of returns. (because MM is lazy). I wonder which financial/Wealth manager advised them because... I would have fired them immediately. No wealth manager worth their salt would let their client hedge their bets on the spotify, random house and Netflix contracts that have yet to be fulfilled. They would tell you, let the money come in the bank accounts and then make those purchase... especially during the start of Covid.

As much as i don't like Todger at least he is working for his supper. Heart of Invictus, The South Africa doc (should he get someone good to direct it, it could be good), The Spare, and the interviews/promotion of the book i.e Gabor Mate, Job at Better Up.

Madam got 80M and thought that will be enough? What exactly has she done for that money? The bench? Archetypes?, 40 X40?,Pearl? all flops... her Ideas are not generating income of any kind.

The doc was both of them so credit goes to both.

Great points!

Thanks! I will try and stick around for a few days this time. I do lurk on here but tend to come back for the juicy stuff.

They are living a champagne lifestyle on a basic beer budget.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The NYTimes double standard on display, again

On Tuesday, the New York Times published a list of twenty-one questions that it would like Kamala Harris to answer about her policies. Ah, at last! The Times is covering substance! Good for the Times! I hurriedly scanned the Times for its twenty-one questions about policy that the Times would like Donald Trump to answer.

Of course, I searched in vain for a parallel set of questions that Times would like Trump to answer. No such list was to be found. Sad. Pathetic. Shameful.

Several readers commented on my post yesterday and urged me to stop criticizing the Times. Their reasons ranged from “Don’t give the Times more attention,” “I ignore those stories,” and “The stories aren’t as bad as the headlines.”

Here’s why the Times’ continued use of misleading headlines and unfair bias against Kamala Harris matter: The Times publishing empire is the world’s largest media outlet (combining all Times properties). What the Times emphasizes quickly spreads through social media and other mainstream media outlets. Rightly or wrongly, the Times has a disproportionate impact on the media narrative each day.

Tens (hundreds?) of millions who don’t read the Times are exposed to its headlines through secondary sources. When a guest essayist pens a bad-faith op-ed titled, “Trump can win on character,” tens of millions of people believe that the New York Times believes Trump's character is superior to Kamala Harris’s.

The fact that the Times’ misleading editorial practices do not fool some readers does not mean that millions of others are not misled by those same practices. The Times should be better—but it chooses not to be. It deserves the criticism that I and others heap upon it.

My criticisms of Tom Lowry’s article yesterday about Trump “winning on character” were mild compared to those leveled by other authors. I highly recommend Tom Nichols’ superb essay in The Atlantic, The conservatives who sold their souls for Trump.

Nichols uses Lowry’s “Trump can win on character” essay as a frame to explain how far the original “anti-Trump” conservatives have fallen. Nichols writes,

But principles are sometimes burdensome things; that’s part of what makes them principles. The behavior of the anti-anti-Trumpers continues to be an inexcusable betrayal of the values they once claimed to hold. Many of them spoke, even passionately, against Trump—and then they shuffled into line. And for what? One more federal judge? A few billion more dollars in the account of a donor?

It’s one thing to sell your soul cheaply. It’s another to keep taking out second and third mortgages on it until all that’s left is debt and shame.

I also recommend Jonathan V. Last’s brilliant essay The Bulwark, Why Did the New York Times Let Itself Be Used as a Mule?

Last writes, in part,

Lowry’s essay isn’t aimed at Times readers. He is not explaining reality. His op-ed does not add any value for the NYT audience. The piece is little more than a memo to the Trump campaign. Lowry thinks he has an insight into how Trump could attack Harris, but because no one at the campaign cares what Rich has to say, he convinced the Times op-ed page to mule his ideas directly to Trump. Why would America’s paper of record consent to be used like this by a conservative sad-sack?

So, the next time the Times gets the brilliant idea to publish twenty-one hard-hitting questions for Kamala Harris, will anyone on the newsroom or editorial staff have the self-awareness, humility, or integrity to say, “Why aren’t we subjecting Trump to the same scrutiny?” I doubt that will ever happen, but a person can dream.

Oh, and by the way, remember when the NYTimes published details of DNC emails stolen by Russian hackers? Well, the NYTimes has had possession of Trump campaign internal emails since August 11 (or thereabouts) but hasn’t published a single confidential detail. I believe that news organizations should not publish hacked or stolen materials. But wouldn’t it be nice if the NYTimes explained why it was appropriate to publish details of DNC hacked emails but not publish details from hacked emails from the Trump campaign?

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from royaltrashpanda:

Saw your answer about why car dealerships tend to be in the same geographic area of a city. In my childhood neighborhood, we had a street with like ten used car lots all in a row on five blocks, and I’ve always wondered how that worked. They were much smaller than a standard dealership, and not all of them had repair shops attached. (Unfortunately that area has majorly gentrified and there’s none left on the original five blocks.) Based on your dealership research, what would be your take on tiny used car lots all being on the same five blocks? Also kind of related but not really, have you run into anything in your research about the history of the giant statues of men in suits that used car lots tend to have? If you have, I’d very much like to commission another question later about that topic because I’m so curious and have had no luck researching it myself!

My guess would be that they have a higher profit margin since they can probably leverage purchasing in their favor when buying those secondhand cars (especially from things like police auctions), and they can have a fairly consistent and predictable level of demand (there's almost always a new crop of teenagers getting licenses, without the cash for a brand new model), while the clustering strategy probably works even better when your business model appeals directly to a secondhand market where you might have a wide variety within one lot.

But let's see what the research says.

According to website CarEdge, some secondhand dealerships can have average profit margins as in excess of $4k. Now, that's probably skewed by some secondhand cars being luxury vehicles; there's a reason Carvana is topping that list, and most people do seem Carvana's prices on newer, low-mileage models are actually too high. The others are more like 1.5-2k profit margins, which is still respectable.

Granted, these are large dealership groups, rather than small, privately-owned businesses. Independent used car dealerships are looking at a gross profit margin of something like 10-20% depending on how well people bargain with the dealer, according to website ProfitableVenture. After the costs of owning and running the dealership (wages, mortgage, insurance, taxes, etc), there is about 2-3% left for the owner.

I actually want to quote this paragraph from them, as I feel like it's pretty informative on the issue:

The average amount of money that a car dealer makes per used car today is around $500 to $3,000 per car, with your typical run-of-the-mill used cars selling for about $2,500 to $5,000. Have in mind that profit margins on used cars are narrower than they have been in the past due to more information is available. Keeping profit margins a secret is what allows dealerships to take advantage of customers.

Now, that explains how they stay afloat, but the clustering?

...it really does come down to the same reasons as the regular car dealerships, but with the lens of anticipated costs. If you are a parent helping your teenager buy a used car, because they want your opinion and you're better at haggling than they are, then you want to make sure they get both the best possible deal, and the best/safest car possible... but also, you have work in the morning, and do not want to drive twenty minutes to each used car lot. You want to either be able to look up all the options on the internet, or hop from one lot to the next in the span of two minutes. Even with the internet, you want to do a test drive, no?

You also said that none of those dealerships exist anymore, which means they also predate the internet option. Being small means they had to sell fewer cars to stay open, but also that they didn't have the luxury of being a wide enough selection for people to do a cost-benefit analysis of coming to visit them with the expectation of finding a car when they might be able to see more options at that dealership that's only a block away from the other one. Without the internet, especially, their advertising would be limited to car commercials and newspaper ads.

(My thoughts go to Big Bill Hell's Cars and that Tobey Maguire Spidey scene where the used car from the newspaper is doing powerpoint transitions across the screen.)

So the clustering tactic is even more important, in that case. The only way to get your products in front of eyeballs is traditional media and in person, and it's a lot easier to make 'in person' happen if they're already headed to the neighbor.

[cleoselene]

my mother - who is 74 - walks a neighbor's dog twice a day to make some money. No it's not a difficult job, but still. She is 74 and had planned all her life to be very much retired right now , but she ended up with one very sick kid (me) and one shithead kid (my brother) who strained her finances -- me by her needing to help me with housing (she took out a mortgage on her place to help me get my condo. My roommates and I pay rent to her and never miss a payment but with HOA fees and insurance constantly going up in Hurricaneland, and both me and roommates on fixed Social Security incomes, the ends don't exactly meet) and my brother by being a fucking asshole loser who refused to have a fucking job.

The man has three kids, two who are still minors, and he REFUSES to work. This is one of many reasons he is divorced (of course, his ex-wife cheated on him literally hundreds of times, so there's that mess too, but that's another story), because my ex-SIL got sick of him never having a fucking job. Once the divorce was final and he didn't have his wife supporting him, he turned to the only other woman he could rely on to pay his way: his mother. My mom didn't want to pay his rent every fucking month for three years, but she loves her grandchildren, and she wanted them to have a father.

Because her children didn't have a father. My dad dipped out when I was ten because he was a drug addict. My mom lives with that guilt all the time, always apologizing to me for not giving me a better father -- as if that's her fucking fault! She was a rock star of a mom! A single parent, a social worker who didn't have much money but her work genuinely made the world a better place. But she feels awful that her kids' father ditched out on us. And my brother knows she feels awful about it. And he exploited that. For literally years. She went from comfortably retired to now having a lot of credit card debt because she paid his rent for 3 years.

When she finally put her foot down as his lease ended and she was no longer a cosigner, he moved in with his girlfriend in Manhattan. She is 23. He is 48. Yeah, it's disgusting. He is leeching off her now. He is also not talking to my mom since she's not paying his way anymore (I mean, she IS paying for his fucking iPhone, though, more on that in a moment).

So. Christmas. She hasn't heard a word from him. She hears some news from my ex-SIL that the kids are going to fly up to NYC to spend a few days with him, which, as much of an asshole as he is, she is glad for, because she wants her grandchildren to have a father. But he hasn't called to wish her a Merry Christmas

So I mentioned her part-time job. For the former congressman whose dog she walks. Lovely, sweet people. They gave her a couple of gifts and a $50 Christmas bonus. Mom sent that $50 to my brother as a gift. He did not acknowledge it or even say thank you.

I am OUTRAGED on her behalf, honestly. She has done nothing to deserve being treated this way by him. And I am depressed that I am stuck being a sick kid who is also a drain. I was supposed to get a PhD and take care of her! Failing being able to make it rain for mom I just wrote her a sappy long facebook message telling her how she's the best ever, but god. Why is my brother such an asshole?

She told me yesterday that when I visit next she wants to go through her will and redo it. She wants to give him a token amount, a few grand, and reassign the rest of what she would have given him in her estate to his kids. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. She deserves better. :/

[naymaasblog]

How racism impacted housing in portland 1940s-present

Leading social change

Blog #1

By: Naymaa Ahmed

A discriminatory practice known as "redlining" first appeared in the US in the early 20th century, and Portland, Oregon, was one of its locations. Based on the racial or cultural makeup of a community, it refers to the systematic denial of financial services including loans, insurance, and investment opportunities. Due to the designation of some regions as "high-risk" or "undesirable" for financing, this practice disproportionately impacted African American communities and restricted their access to housing and other financial resources. locations such as Vanport, Oregon. Determining what is and is not within the purview of this research is essential for a better understanding of the issue. In this case, the research's primary focus would be on the background of redlining in Portland, including its inception, application, and impacted communities. It would also cover the current redlining-related socioeconomic gaps as well as any ongoing initiatives to alleviate these problems. draw attention to the long-term effects of redlining, including the aggravation of racial segregation in the city, wealth inequality, and the continuation of poverty throughout generations. Highlighting the interdependence of these matters can facilitate a more comprehensive comprehension of the extensive consequences of redlining on the impacted neighborhoods and Portland's general socioeconomic structure. As we go on to Redlings, the Federal Housing Administration provided veterans with mortgage loans, enabling millions of families to buy homes. Unfortunately, these loans did not help the black community because the criteria used to determine who would receive home loans were overtly racist, making it hard for people of color to buy a home even in times of prosperity. segregating everyone and assigning each applicant a color based on where their property is located. Albina and downtown Portland are redlined. Where, by coincidence, there are the most Black residents(Gross,2020). Due to all of the unconstitutional bills and decisions that were passed at that time. Today, it has a significant impact on the black community. Resulting in a 32% difference between White and Black Portlanders who own homes. All of this is the outcome of 150 years of redlining, mismanagement, and unabashed prejudice. Starting with the flood that destroyed Vanport as a city. Forcing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes and move into a neighborhood where it was obvious they were not wanted. All of this was the start & result of how racism was built into our housing systems in the 1940s.Redlining in Portland is a problem with roots in social inequality and systematic racism, which is one reason it matters. In addition to being morally reprehensible, discrimination based on race subverts the ideals of justice and equality that our society ought to uphold. Our concern for this issue reflects our recognition of the need to right historical wrongs and build a society that is more just and inclusive. What leads us to believe that Portland is now socially fair if it wasn't before? How can you be certain that these maps and bills aren't concealed somewhere in your city?

Gross, Terry. “A 'Forgotten History' of How the U.S. Government Segregated America.” NPR, NPR, 3 May 2017, https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america

[mariacallous]

Liz Truss is the most disastrous and unpopular leader in modern British history. Mortgage holders and small businesses still loathe her for sending interest rates through the roof. Her short, catastrophic premiership is routinely compared unfavourably to the shelf life of a lettuce. (A comparison first made by the bright leader writers at the Economist to give credit where it is due.)

When Labour wins the next election, its triumph will be in part the result of the public’s reaction against her vast and dogmatic economic folly.

If you were Liz Truss, you might retire from public life. At the very least you would apologize and hang your head in shame.

If readers expect contrition, however, they have yet to learn that being on the radical right means never having to say you are sorry.

Truss’s demotion from national leader to national joke has not embarrassed her in the slightest but pushed deep into paranoid conspiracism.

Her autobiography, bizarrely titled Ten Years to Save the West, as if the fate of liberal democracy depended on the advice of an epic failure,  shows that, despite all she did to this country, her eyes still shine with a bright, self-righteous fanaticism, as if the sockets are backlit by an idiot’s lantern,

Chutzpah used to be defined as murdering both your parents and asking the court for clemency because you are an orphan. In Truss’s case it is using the power of the prime minister to crash the economy and then claiming she was a powerless victim of the liberal elite.

Her writing is as lacking in self-awareness as it is powered by self-righteousness.

At one point she says in all innocence that, when Boris Johnson resigned in the summer of 2022, her agent encouraged her to join the race to be prime minister, as the campaign might be good for her profile.

But she reports that he then wisely added “it would be for the best if I came second”.

Later she informs us that during the leadership campaign she “frankly lost trust in many of my erstwhile ministerial colleagues who were supporting my opponent [Rishi Sunak].

“They had spent the last six weeks not just attacking me but seeking to undermine my plans, saying my agenda was unworkable."

Truss never stops to think that the few people who will finish this book will believe that her agent was right, and it would clearly have been for the best if she had never been prime minister.

Nor does she contemplate the possibility that her agenda was indeed “unworkable”, and was proved to be unworkable when her unfunded tax cuts and fuel subsidies sent the price of gilts shooting up, the value of the pound crashing down, and caused a crisis in the pension industry for good measure.

And yet, and yet…Mock her as much as you like. Please don’t hold back on my account. But you cannot dismiss her.

There are two reasons why Truss is still dangerous. The first lies in the strength of the right-wing clique that brought her to power.

It is true that Liz Truss did not become prime minister by winning over Conservative MPs. As with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party, Truss’s career illustrates the danger of expecting leaders who do not have the support of a plurality of their colleagues to function in a Parliamentary democracy.

But she still beat Rishi Sunak with the votes of 57 percent of Tory members.

And with the honourable exception of the Times, the Tory press was all for her. “In Liz We Trust”, said the Express “Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Woman”, cried the Mail. “Liz Puts Her Foot on the Gas”, cheered the Sun.

Kwasi Kwarteng set off a market panic as he put Truss’s ideas into practice in the mini budget of September 2022. The reaction of right-wing papers was not one of alarm, however, but of adoration.

“At last”, gushed the Daily Mail, “a True Tory Budget”. A Daily Telegraph commentator said it was “the best Budget I have ever heard a British Chancellor deliver”.

Meanwhile the Truss premiership allowed the voodoo economics of the US-influenced (and in all probability US-financed) think tanks to finally impose itself on this luckless country.  The Centre for Policy Studies welcomed the mini-budget saying it was “exactly what we would have hoped for”. The Taxpayers’ Alliance called it “the most taxpayer-friendly budget in recent memory”.

Robert Saunders of Queen Mary University made the unarguable point that Truss was not an aberration or some alien figure that had appeared from nowhere to take over the Conservative party.

Follow  the money that cascaded in from party donors, he said, and “the Truss premiership begins to look less like the personal failure of a flawed individual, and more like a systemic disaster for which the party bears collective responsibility”.

Those forces will dominate the Conservative party after its defeat and drive it to the radical right. Indeed, in opposition the members, the think tanks, the  press and the ideologue donors will become more important, for they will be all the party has.

In a sign of things to come, Truss is already allying with Nigel Farage, and even Rishi Sunak says he will not ban Farage from joining Conservative party.

Despite her failure, Truss remains a potent figure on the radical right because of her championing of revanchism, which is now its dominant emotion.

This isn't a book. It’s a 300-page wail of resentment at a world that will not do as it is told.

I have no problem with conservatives complaining about woke policies taking over institutions. Only a fool or liar maintains that progressive biases among supposedly impartial organisations are an invention of the right,

But the woke conspiracy Truss invokes is of a wholly different order. It is utterly fantastical.

To recap, Truss's unfunded subsidies and tax cuts panicked the bond markets.  They would not lend to a country whose leaders lacked plausible means of meeting its debts. Or if they did lend they would demand an additional yield on government bonds, which  became known in plain-speaking financial markets as the “moron premium”: the extra cost that comes with lending to a nation run by idiots.

In her apologia Truss, who still poses as a Thatcherite, no longer sees markets as an expression of the wisdom of crowds, but as a conspiracy to do her down.

 “I came to realise there is no such thing as ‘the market’ in this sense. Rather, there are groups of influential individuals in the financial establishment, all of whom know and speak to one another in a closed feedback loop. The Treasury, the Bank of England, and the OBR are deeply embedded in these social networks and share the same beliefs in the established economic orthodoxy."

The markets were at fault for not seeing her financial genius. Financial traders were the world’s unlikeliest lefties. Even though she and Kwarteng fired the permanent secretary at the Treasury and cut out the Bank of England and Office for Budget Responsibility from policy making, they were still, somehow, responsible for Tory failure.

“The powerful vested interests there pushed back, made my life very difficult and ultimately got me fired,” Truss concludes.

Older readers may remember a time when Conservatives insisted on personal responsibility. You were not allowed to blame crime on poverty or your failings on a bad childhood. You were accountable.

But the case of Liz Truss proves that these morality tales were only ever for the poor. In her mind, the economy collapsed not because of decisions she made but because of “a sustained whispering campaign by the economic establishment, encouraged and fueled by my political opponents in the Conservative Party who refused to accept my mandate to lead”.

Trumpism is the end point of such conspiracism and revanchism, and Truss goes all the way down the line to the terminus.

She mutters about the “deep state” a Trumpian phrase she uses without irony or self-knowledge.

And even though her support for Ukraine was her redeeming feature during her time as foreign secretary and prime minister, she is now supporting the pro-Putin Trump and his allies in Congress who are denying aid to Kyiv.

Truss is finished. But the resentment born of failure and the fury at modernity ensures Trump is still very much with us. 

If he delights Putin and wins in November, the UK and Europe will learn the hard way that the real threat to Western civilisation comes from  Liz Truss and her friends.