#national wealth fund
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eaglesnick · 2 days ago
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“Rethinking capitalism means rethinking the role of the public sector, the role of the private sector, the role of finance, and the relationship between them all” -  Mariana Mazzucato
Yesterday I was arguing for the creation a REAL sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to replace the “Micky Mouse” national wealth fund (NWF) created by Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer.
90 countries from across the world have a SWF whereby governments set up a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets or in such enterprises as private equity funds or hedge funds. Any profits or income generated from these investments go toward the country’s economy and its citizens.
Britain does not have a SWF. Instead we give money to private enterprise, often in the form of tax breaks, in the hope they will provide jobs or tax revenue for the British economy.  This tax revenue may or may not be greater than payments made to business and industry by the British taxpayer. This is absolute madness!
Lets take the Rosebank gas and oil field as an example of this crazy situation.
In 2024 the Norwegian state-owned Equinor company made global pre-tax profits of £24billion. The year prior to this, Equinor was given a £400million tax break by the British government.
“The Norwegian state-owned oil giant behind controversial Rosebank plans has secured £400 million from a little-known tax break from the Treasury, new analysis has revealed.” (The Scotsman: 24/1024)
According to Equinor’s own  2024 Tax Contribution Report they only paid the British government $4million in taxes on their “extractive activities”.
$4million equals just over £3million, so we, the British taxpayer, gave Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned company, £400 million in tax exemptions while they paid us a mere £3 million. I think even a 6 year old could tell that was not a good deal!
Despite this Kemi Badenoch has no intension of creating a UK SWF, preferring instead to let foreign state-owned companies invest in Britain while at the same time advocating such funds are not taxed.
“UK drops plan to tax sovereign wealth funds The FT said business and trade minister Kemi Badenoch had urged the Treasury to drop the proposals out of concern that sovereign funds might pull out of projects in Britain.”  (zawya.com: 17/03/23)
The Labour government in the meantime has created a national wealth fund that is neither fowl nor beast. It is there to encourage private investment. When you visit the National Wealth Fund web site the first heading you see is “Private sector finance” and when you click on that link you find a set of operating principles, the forth of which is:
“Investment Principle 4: The investment is expected to crowd in significant private capital over time.” 
No hint of the British taxpayer owning shares, property assets, mineral rights or anything else that generates a profit for the taxpayer. Reeve’s NWF is just a disguise for maintaining the Tory policy of subsidising business and industry at the expense of the British taxpayer.
While other countries from around the world invest their taxpayer’s money in profitable business enterprises, we continue to give our tax revenues away, regarding them as a necessary cost for "growth". This strategy clearly hasn’t worked. Our governments need to rethink.
The payment of taxpayers money to private businesses and industries should be viewed not as a cost but as an investment, an investment that expects a return for its money. 
Margaret Thatcher is often quoted as saying: "We are all capitalist's now" . Let's make that true.
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notayesmanseconomics · 7 months ago
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The UK finds an economic growth spurt just in time to create a "Wealth Fund" minus the wealth bit
This morning has brought us up to date with the latest news on the UK economy and it remains pretty good. Monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have grown by 0.4% in May 2024 after showing no growth in April 2024 (unrevised from our last publication). Along the way it confirms that we were wise to look through the erratic nature of this series when April recorded a 0%. In the…
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ithilienns · 8 months ago
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watching fan commentary on the lotr filming process is so hard because every five seconds they make it so painfully obvious that the only thing they know about nz is that it's where lotr was filmed
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ryukisgod · 10 months ago
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It’s easier to say “I hate kids” than ‘I don’t enjoy the company of children’
The thing about people talking about how much they hate children is that I've never seen any correlation between "openly expressed loathing of children" and "support for policies that actively harm children."
In contrast, when people go out of their way to tell you how much they love children and want to protect children, it's at least a 50/50 chance that you are about to hear support for the most actively evil assault on children's rights and dignity that you can possibly imagine.
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ericartem · 25 days ago
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The Curious Case of Universal Debt
The Curious Case of Universal Debt #artem
Content 16+ A peculiar phenomenon has emerged that would befuddle even the most pragmatic of accountants: everyone owes everyone. The United States, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom—name a country, and chances are its national debt is not merely a small sum but a towering Everest of financial obligations. If everyone owes someone, who exactly is holding the IOUs? Let us journey into…
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ricisidro · 6 months ago
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Your health is the greatest wealth.
#HealthIsWealth #HealthInsurance #UniversalHealthCare #UHC #HealthForAll #Filipinos
The Supreme Court of the Philippines has required respondents House Speaker Martin Romualdez, Senate President Francis Escudero, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation President Emmanuel Ledesma, Jr. to comment on the petition against the transfer of P20 billion funds of the state insurer to the National Treasury.
SC spokesperson Atty. Camille Ting said the court en banc made its decision during its August 13 session.
Petitioners Sen. Koko Pimentel, Cielo Magno, Ma. Dominga Cecilia Padilla, Dante Gatmaytan, Ibarra Gutierrez as well as organizations Sentro ng Mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa, Inc., Public Services Labor Independent Confederation Foundation, Inc., and Philippine Medical Association have asked the Supreme Court to order the the return of the P20 billion PhilHealth funds “already taken away by the national government.”
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thirukochi · 8 months ago
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How Does NPS Investment Help Save Taxes?
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Securing your retirement is crucial, but did you know you can also save taxes while planning for it? The National Pension System (NPS) in India is designed not only to build a retirement corpus but also to offer substantial tax benefits to investors.
Understanding NPS
The National Pension System (NPS) is a voluntary retirement savings scheme where individuals can invest regularly during their working years to build a retirement fund. It is regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) and offers features tailored to promote long-term savings. If you wish to invest, reach out to professionals offering NPS investment services in Cochin.
Key Features of NPS
Subscriber Accounts: Each NPS subscriber receives a unique Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN), which remains with them throughout their career, providing portability across jobs and locations.
Investment Flexibility: Investors can choose from multiple Pension Fund Managers (PFMs) offering various investment strategies. This flexibility allows investors to select an asset allocation mix that aligns with their risk tolerance and financial goals.
Tier System: NPS operates through two tiers:
Tier I: This tier is the primary retirement savings account with restricted withdrawal options before retirement.
Tier II: A voluntary savings account with higher liquidity, allowing withdrawals akin to a regular savings account.
Government Contribution: Government employees benefit from an additional contribution of up to 14% of their salary from the Government of India towards their NPS corpus.
Auto-Choice Option: For investors who prefer a hands-off approach, NPS offers an auto-choice option. This feature automatically allocates investments across asset classes based on the investor's age.
Tax Benefits of NPS Investment
Investing in NPS offers significant tax advantages, making it a preferred choice for retirement planning:
Tax Deduction under Section 80C: Contributions towards Tier I NPS accounts qualify for a tax deduction of up to Rs. 1.5 lakh per year under the Section 80C of Income Tax Act.
Additional Tax Deduction under Section 80CCD(1B): Beyond the Section 80C limit, salaried individuals and self-employed can claim an additional deduction of up to Rs. 50,000 per year for contributions to NPS under Section 80CCD(1B). This increases the total potential deduction to Rs. 2 lakh per year.
How NPS Investments Help Save Taxes
By contributing to NPS:
Reduced Taxable Income: Contributions to NPS reduce your taxable income for the year in which they are made. This lowers your overall tax liability.
Enhanced Deductions: The combined deductions under Sections 80C and 80CCD(1B) allow you to optimize your tax savings, potentially reducing the amount of tax payable significantly.
Additional Considerations
Tax Implications on Withdrawal: While contributions to NPS offer tax benefits, a portion of the accumulated corpus withdrawn at retirement is taxable. However, the tax-efficient structure of NPS ensures that the benefits of tax deferral during the accumulation phase outweigh the tax implications at withdrawal.
Long-term Commitment: NPS is designed for long-term savings and retirement planning. Withdrawal options are limited before retirement age, encouraging investors to stay committed to their retirement goals.
Conclusion
The National Pension System (NPS) not only serves as a robust retirement planning tool but also provides substantial tax benefits to investors. By leveraging the deductions available under Sections 80C and 80CCD(1B), individuals can effectively manage their tax liabilities while building a secure financial future through NPS. Thirukochi Financial Services can guide you through the best NPS investment plan in Kochi. However, it's essential to assess your financial goals, risk appetite, and retirement needs before committing to NPS, ensuring it aligns with your long-term financial strategy.
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swarajfinpro236 · 1 year ago
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Discover financial success with Swaraj FinPro, your trusted Mutual Fund Expert in Jabalpur. Our expert advisors in the heart of the city are dedicated to crafting personalized investment strategies that align with your goals. Let us guide you towards a prosperous financial future. Your journey to wealth starts here!
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nando161mando · 1 year ago
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‘Developing countries’ are trapped in a new debt crisis
Wealth flowing from poorest nations to the richest. World Bank and IMF must go!
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batboyblog · 7 months ago
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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #26
July 5-12 2024
The IRS announced it had managed to collect $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth tax cheats. The program focused on persons with more than $1 million in yearly income who owned more than $250,000 in unpaid taxes. Thanks to money in Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act the IRS is able to undertake more enforcement against rich tax cheats after years of Republicans cutting the agency's budget, which they hope to do again if they win power again.
The Biden administration announced a $244 million dollar investment in the federal government’s registered apprenticeship program. This marks the largest investment in the program's history with grants going out to 52 programs in 32 states. The President is focused on getting well paying blue collar opportunities to people and more people are taking part in the apprenticeship program than ever before. Republican pledge to cut it, even as employers struggle to find qualified workers.
The Department of Transportation announced the largest single project in the department's history, $11 billion dollars in grants for the The Hudson River Tunnel. Part of the $66 billion the Biden Administration has invested in our rail system the tunnel, the most complex Infrastructure project in the nation would link New York and New Jersey by rail under the Hudson. Once finished it's believed it'll impact 20% of the American economy by improving and speeding connection throughout the Northeast.
The Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion to save auto worker's jobs and convert factories to electronic vehicles. The Biden administration will used the money to save or reopen factories in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia and retool them to make electric cars. The project will save 15,000 skilled union worker jobs, and created 2,900 new high-quality jobs.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development reached a settlement with The Appraisal Foundation over racial discrimination. TAF is the organization responsible for setting standards and qualifications for real estate appraisers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics last year found that TAF was 94.7% White and 0.6% Black, making it the least racially diverse of the 800 occupations surveyed. Black and Latino home owners are far more likely to have their houses under valued than whites. Under the settlement with HUD TAF will have to take serious steps to increase diversity and remove structural barriers to diversity.
The Department of Justice disrupted an effort by the Russian government to influence public opinion through AI bots. The DoJ shut down nearly 1,000 twitter accounts that were linked to a Russian Bot farm. The bots used AI technology to not only generate tweets but also AI image faces for profile pictures. The effort seemed focused on boosting support for Russia's war against Ukraine and spread negative stories/impressions about Ukraine.
The Department of Transportation announces $1.5 billion to help local authorities buy made in America buses. 80% of the funding will go toward zero or low-emission technology, a part of the President's goal of reaching zero emissions by 2050. This is part of the $5 billion the DOT has spent over the last 3 years replacing aging buses with new cleaner technology.
President Biden with Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and Finnish President Alexander Stubb signed a new agreement on the arctic. The new trilateral agreement between the 3 NATO partners, known as the ICE Pact, will boost production of ice breaking ships, the 3 plan to build as many as 90 between them in the coming years. The alliance hopes to be a counter weight to China's current dominance in the ice breaker market and help western allies respond to Russia's aggressive push into the arctic waters.
The Department of Transportation announced $1.1 billion for greater rail safety. The program seeks to, where ever possible, eliminate rail crossings, thus removing the dangers and inconvenience to communities divided by rail lines. It will also help update and improve safety measures at rail crossings.
The Department of the Interior announced $120 million to help tribal communities prepare for climate disasters. This funding is part of half a billion dollars the Biden administration has spent to help tribes build climate resilience, which itself is part of a $50 billion dollar effort to build climate resilience across the nation. This funding will help support drought measures, wildland fire mitigation, community-driven relocation, managed retreat, protect-in-place efforts, and ocean and coastal management.
The USDA announced $100 million in additional funds to help feed low income kids over the summer. Known as "SUN Bucks" or "Summer EBT" the new Biden program grants the families of kids who qualify for free meals at school $120 dollars pre-child for groceries. This comes on top of the traditional SUN Meals program which offers school meals to qualifying children over the summer, as well as the new under President Biden SUN Meals To-Go program which is now offering delivery of meals to low-income children in rural areas. This grant is meant to help local governments build up the Infrastructure to support and distribute SUN Bucks. If fully implemented SUN Bucks could help 30 million kids, but many Republican governors have refused the funding.
USAID announced its giving $100 million to the UN World Food Program to deliver urgently needed food assistance in Gaza. This will bring the total humanitarian aid given by the US to the Palestinian people since the war started in October 2023 to $774 million, the single largest donor nation. President Biden at his press conference last night said that Israel and Hamas have agreed in principle to a ceasefire deal that will end the war and release the hostages. US negotiators are working to close the final gaps between the two sides and end the war.
The Senate confirmed Nancy Maldonado to serve as a Judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Maldonado is the 202nd federal Judge appointed by President Biden to be confirmed. She will the first Latino judge to ever serve on the 7th Circuit which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
Bonus: At the NATO summit in Washington DC President Biden joined 32 allies in the Ukraine compact. Allies from Japan to Iceland confirmed their support for Ukraine and deepening their commitments to building Ukraine's forces and keeping a free and Democratic Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. World leaders such as British Prime Minster Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, praised President Biden's experience and leadership during the NATO summit
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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 days ago
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MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools
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In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a "mirror world" of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine
For example, Qanon's obsession with "child trafficking" is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about "immigrants stealing jobs" is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about "decentralization" is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.
Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism "the socialism of fools." Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as "working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers."
The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:
https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/
Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they'd understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word "systemic"):
https://mamot.fr/@[email protected]/113943287435897828
This also explains why the "tropes" of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German "progressive" who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was "structurally antisemitic." Nonsense like this is why Klein's "mirror world" is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that "progressive" just means "defending anything the right hates."
Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674293601
In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the "multilevel marketing systems" that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-the-entrepreneurial-ethic/
MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel ("God rewards virtue with wealth"), atomization ("you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer"), and rabid anti-Communism ("solidarity is a trick to make you poorer").
The rise of the far right can't be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).
Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the "sure-fire" Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer's gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/amway-america/681479/?gift=j9r7avb6p-KY8zdjhsiSZxYkntna5M_rYEv4707Zqqs
Amway – and MLMs like it – don't just bleed out their members by convincing them to buy mountains of useless crap they're supposed to sell to their families, while enriching the people at the top of the pyramid who sell it to them. The "toxic positivity" of multi-level marketing cults forces members deep into debt to pay for seminars and retreats where they are supposed to learn how to repair the personal defects that keep them from being "successful entrepreneurs." The topline of the cult isn't just getting rich selling stuff – they're making bank by selling false hope, literally, in Hilton ballrooms and convention centers across the country, where hearing an MLM scammer berate you for being a "bad entrepreneur" costs thousands of dollars.
Amway destroyed so many lives that Richard Nixon's FTC decided to investigate it. The investigation wasn't going well for Amway, which was facing an existential crisis that they were rescued from by Nixon's resignation. You see, Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, was the former Congressman of Amway co-founder Jay Van Andel, who was also the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful business lobbyist in America.
At Ford's direction, the FTC exonerated Amway of all wrongdoing. But it's even worse than that: Ford's FTC actually crafted a rule that differentiated legal pyramid schemes from illegal ones, based on Amway's destructive business practices. Under this new rule, any pyramid scheme that had the same structure as Amway was presumptively legal. Every MLM operating in America today is built on the Amway model, taking advantage of the FTC's Amway rule to operate in the open, without fear of legal repercussions.
MLMs prey on the poor and desperate: women, people of color, people in dying small towns and decaying rustbelt cities. It's not just that these people are desperate – it's that they only survive through networks of mutual aid. Poor women rely on other poor women to help with child care, marginalized people rely on one another for help with home maintenance, small loans, a place to crash after an eviction, or a place to park the RV you're living out of.
In other words, people who lack monetary capital must rely on social capital for survival. That's why MLMs target these people: an MLM is a system for destructively transforming social capital into monetary capital. MLMs exhort their members to mine their social relationships for "leads" and "customers" and to use the language of social solidarity ("women helping women") to wheedle, guilt, and arm-twist people from your mutual aid network into buying things they don't need and can't afford.
But it's worse, because what MLMs really sell is MLMs. The real purpose of an MLM sales call is to convince the "customer" to become an MLM salesperson, who owes you a share of every sale they make and is incentivized to buy stock they don't need (from you) in order to make quotas. And of course, their real job is to sign up other salespeople to work under them, and so on.
An MLM isn't just a pathogen, in other words – it's a contagion. When someone in your social support network gets the MLM disease, they don't just burn all their social ties with you and the people you rely on – they convince more people in your social group to do the same.
Which brings me back to the mirror world, and Erik Baker's conversation with the Know Your Enemy podcast. Baker starts to talk about who gets big into Amway: "people who already effectively lead by the force of their charisma and personality many other people in their lives. Right? Because you're able to sell to those people, and you're able to recruit those people. What are we talking about? Well, they're effectively recruiting organizers, people who have a natural capacity for organizing and then sending them out in the world to organize on behalf of Christian capitalism."
Listening to this, I was thunderstruck: MLM recruiters are the mirror world version of union organizers. In her memoir of growing up in Amway, Andrea Pitzer talks about how her mom would approach strangers and try to lead them through a kind of structured discussion:
Everywhere we went—the mall, state parks, grocery stores—she’d ask people whether they could use a little more money each month. “I’d love to set up a time to talk to you about an exciting business opportunity.” The words should have seemed suspect. Yet people almost always gave her their number. Her confidence and professionalism were reassuring, and her enthusiasm was electric, even, at first, to me. “What would you do with $1 million?” she’d ask, spinning me around the kitchen.
This kind of person, having this kind of dialog, is exactly how union organizers work. In A Collective Bargain, Jane McAlevey's classic book on labor organizing, she describes how she would seek out the charismatic, outgoing workers in a job-site, the natural leaders, and recruit them to help bring the other workers onboard:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/
Organizer training focuses on how to have a "structured organizing conversation," which McAlevey described in a 2019 Jacobin article:
“If you had a magic wand and could change three things about life in America [or her town or city or school], what would you change?” The rest of your conversation needs to be anchored to her answers to that question.
https://jacobin.com/2019/11/thanksgiving-organizing-activism-friends-family-conversation-presidential-election
The MLM conversation and the union conversation have eerily similar structures, but the former is designed to commodify and destroy solidarity, and the latter is designed to reinforce and mobilize solidarity. Seen in this light, an MLM is a mirror world union, one that converts solidarity into misery and powerlessness instead of joy and strength.
The MLM movement doesn't just make men like Rich De Vos and Jay Van Andel into billionaires. MLM bosses are heavy funders of the right, a blank check for the Heritage Foundation. Trump is the MLM president, a grifter who grew up on the gospel of Norman Vincent Peale – a key figure in MLM cult dynamics – who tells his followers that wealth is a sign of virtue. Trump boasts about all the people he's ripped off, boasting about how getting away with cheating "makes me smart":
https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth
The corollary is that being cheated means you're stupid. Caveat emptor, the motto of the cryptocurrency industry ("not your wallet, not your coins") that spent hundreds of millions to get Trump elected.
Tech has its own mirror world. The people who used tech to find fellow weirdos and make delightful and wonderful things are mirrored by the people who used tech to find fellow weirdos and call for fascism, ethnic cleansing, and concentration camps.
In Picks and Shovels, my next novel (Feb 17), I introduce readers to a fictitious 1980s religious computer sales cult called Fidelity Computing, run by an orthodox rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Mormon rabbi:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
Fidelity is a faith scam, a pyramid scheme that is parasitic upon the bonds of faith and fellowship. Martin Hench, the hero of the story – a hard-fighting high tech forensic accountant – goes to work for a competing business, Computing Freedom, run by three Fidelity ex-employees who have left their faiths and their employers to pursue a vision of computers that is about liberation, rather than control.
The women of Computing Freedom – a queer orthodox woman who's been kicked out of her family, a Mormon woman who's renounced the LDS over its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and a nun who's left her order to throw in with the Liberation Theology movement – are all charismatic, energetic, inspirational organizers.
Because of course they are – that's why they were so good at selling computers for the Reverend Sirs who sit at the top of Fidelity Computing's pyramid scheme.
Hearing Baker's interview and reading Pitzer's memoir last week made it all click together for me. Not just that MLMs destroy social bonds, but that within every person who gets sucked into an MLM, there's a community organizer who could be building the bonds that MLMs destroy.
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eaglesnick · 7 months ago
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“Leverage is the reason some people become rich and others do not become rich” - Robert T Kiyosaki
The privatised water companies have been demanding price rises of between 24% and 91% over the next five years according to the Consumer Council for Water. The mainly foreign owned "English" water companies want to invest £96bn in water and sewage restructuring between now and 2030. New reservoirs, the first for over 30 years, will be built, leaks will be reduced and less sewage will be pumped into our waterways and seas.
Amen to that! But wait…
“English water firms have handed £57 billion to shareholders in the 30 years after privatisation.” (The London Economic: 28/10/21)
We, the consumer, having generously contributed to foreign share dividends for three decades to the tune of £2 billion per year, are now expected to part with even more money to pay for 30 years of private water company neglect. Meanwhile, the CEO’s of these private companies gave themselves a 20% pay rise for the year 2021-22, pocketing £24.8 million.
None of these facts are particularly new but what really irked me yesterday morning was an interview on BBC’s ��Today" programme with David Henderson, CEO of Water UK, the organisation that represents all of the privately owned water companies.
Stressing the country’s need for “economic growth", Henderson said this would not be possible unless the water companies were allowed to drastically raise the price of water to cover the cost of investment needed to upgrade our water infrastructure. Talking of the need to increase water supply he stated:
“We have not built a reservoir in 30 years, even though our population has risen by 20% in that time. And that’s because we have been blocked by regulators and by planning officials around the country.”
The cheek!
According to New Civil Engineer magazine (01/09/22)
“There is a seemingly direct link between the 1989 privatisation of water companies in the UK and the ceasing of new reservoirs being built. While there have been a number of flood alleviation reservoirs built by the Environment Agency in this time, the water companies have not invested in potable drinking reservoirs.”
While I have no doubt that some applications for new reservoirs have been refused by planning authorities the main reason for inadequate reservoir capacity is the reluctance of the privately owned water companies to spend money on investment. Despite what David Henderson said on the Today programme this is a headline from the Express:
“Water firms ‘sold off reservoirs that could have eased drought' - Profit ahead of supply" (10/08.22)
In defending the private water companies Henderson was merely doing his job - after all that is what he is paid to do - but unfortunately their behaviour is indefensible. The reason that our waterway infrastructure is near collapse is not because investment plans have been blocked by “regulators and planning officials" but because of greed.
When Margaret Thatcher privatised the previously publicly owned water companies she sold this national asset for a grand total of £7.6bn. In addition she gave the newly created privately owned water companies a “green dowry" of £1.5bn. At time of purchase the water companies were totally debt free.
Fast-forward and what do we find?
“Water firms’ debts since privatisation hit £54bn as Ofwat refuses to impose limits.” Guardian: 01/12.22)
The water companies have spent the last few decades borrowing money, not to improve the water supply and sewage disposal infrastructure, but to pay dividends to shareholders. According to Ofwat’s own figures the water companies have been running ratios of debt to capital value as high as 80%. Water company share holders (70% owned by foreign investors) have received £65.9bn in dividends and it is calculated that 20% of household water bills go towards paying for the debt that rewards these shareholders.
Rachel Reeves much heralded national wealth fund is supposed to be a central plank of the Labour governments “Green Prosperity Plan” but Labour’s earlier promise to nationalise the dysfunctional private water companies has now been abandoned.
David Henderson has issued what in effect is a blackmail ultimatum to the new Labour Government that without massive price rises in consumer water bills, the Labour Party can kiss their dreams of economic growth goodbye.
Today Ofwat, the water regulator, sanctioned an average increase in water bills of 21%, some companies charging as much as 44% more over a five year period. This is a third less than what the water companies demanded, but even a 21% rise over five years is an increase of 4% a year, twice the inflation rate target of the Bank of England.
An interesting case study will be that of Thames Water which has dire financial problems due to building up a debt of £14bn (while still paying out tens of millions in dividends to its shareholders). It remains to be seen if Thames Water will be allowed to go bust or whether the new Labour Government will step in and bail it out but maybe this headline gives us a clue:
“Labour abstain on bid to criminalize water companies for sewage pollution” (Canary: 17/05/24)
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alfedena · 9 months ago
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It pains me the way leftism in the US is framed as “the government is spending all their money on the military when they should be funding welfare for us :(” When in reality like maybe we shouldn’t be funding the military because it is responsible for the murder of millions worldwide and it is one of the key tools in maintaining US hegemony? It completely overlooks the fact the economic success of the US is dependent on extracting wealth from other countries and doing so through violence. Government funded programs and public infrastructure exist in any capacity thanks to the fact that the American government and all American industries (at this point in time) have amassed enormous amounts of capital off of the labor and resources of imperialized and colonized nations. This type of response to imperialism leaves the central problem of imperialism entirely unaddressed, instead focusing those who benefit from living in the imperial core. Like yes privatization in the US is especially severe amongst Western nations but… your life is possible thanks to the exploitation of people in the Global South. American leftism is just entirely lacking in internationalism. We must reject such nationalistic conclusions and impress the needs of the global working class.
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ravenkings · 3 months ago
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Bernie is wrong. He has always been wrong and is still wrong. The flaw in his theory is what he deems the “wealthy elite” versus what everyday Americans consider them to be. Voters don’t see all billionaires as the elites. They see college-educated liberals on the coasts, some of whom are billionaires, as elites.
Bernie-style populism didn’t land because billionaires figured out long ago they could undermine it by being socially right-wing, and the working class would forgive their wealth and privilege. That’s why this same demographic is willing to make it rain for grifters like Joel Osteen and Pat Robertson. That’s why they worship the wealthiest man on the planet like a God and consider him some real-life Tony Stark. People dismissed Donald Trump as a shameless attention-hungry New York oligarch until he called Mexicans rapists. Then he shot up to the top of the GOP primary polls. The working class didn’t think much of Elon Musk until he said “pronouns suck.” Then he became their hero. A scion of working-class Pennsylvania lost his US Senate seat last week to a hedge fund manager from Connecticut. West Virginia elected their richest man to the Senate after electing him governor – as a Democrat and later a Republican. Ohio tossed out their longtime Democratic senator, known for his strong support of labor rights, for – literally, no joke – a used-car salesman.
You can’t tell me the working class in America thinks being a billionaire alone is what makes one a “wealthy elite.” There are significant factors at play here Bernie is either oblivious to or purposely ignorant of.
In college, a professor once told me that Communism never succeeded in the United States because we are too religious and proud as a country. Religion, traditions, and culture were never widely discredited the way they were in Europe and Asia, where the clergy and nobility kept the bourgeoisie in figurative chains for centuries. The relative ease of social mobility made America unique compared to its Western counterparts. Historically, American progressivism has been focused on expanding social mobility – initially limited to only white men – to identity groups who had been denied it at the start: blacks, women, and immigrants. We have done it, with various amounts of success. While it may seem counterintuitive, Americans pride themselves in being the nation that pioneered the idea that wealth and status can be achieved through ingenuity and hard work and not just based on a lucky roll of the genetic dice, as it was in the Old World. It doesn’t mean we don’t have generational wealth in our country; we do, but since it isn’t the sole way to achieve wealth and power, we don’t care nearly as much about destroying all of it. Further, we will happily endorse it if the oligarchs and the aristocrats vow to promote and protect the social values we care about and the social hierarchy that benefits us.
It’s one of the reasons I believe Bernie could never beat Trump. If you ask working-class people what they want: an anti-immigrant, anti-intellectual billionaire or a Vermont socialist backed by kids from Harvard and UC Berkeley who hate our traditions and customs, the working class will always back the billionaire.
–Nick Rafter, "Bernie Sanders Can Take a Seat"
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fictionadventurer · 2 years ago
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I have to talk about Chester Arthur. His story makes me go crazy. A mediocre president from the 1880s who's completely forgotten today has one of the best redemption stories I've ever heard and I need to make people understand just how cool his story is.
So, like, he starts out as this idealist, okay? He's the son of an abolitionist minister and becomes famous as a New York lawyer who defends the North's version of Rosa Parks whose story desegregates New York City's trolley system.
Then he starts getting pulled into politics and becomes one of the grimiest pieces of the political machine. He wants money, power, prestige, and he gets it. He becomes the right-hand man of Roscoe Conkling, the most feared political boss in the nation, a guy who will throw his weight around and do the most ruthless things imaginable to keep his friends in power and destroy his enemies.
Because Arthur's this guy's top lackey, he gets to be Controller of the Port of New York--the best-paying political appointment in the country, because that port brings in, like, 70% of the federal government's funds in tariffs. He gets a huge salary plus a percentage of all the fines they levy on lawbreakers, and because he's not afraid to make up infractions to fine people over, he is absolutely raking in the dough. Making the rough equivalent of $1.3 million a year--absolutely insane amounts of money for a government position. He's spending ridiculous sums on clothes, buying huge amounts of alcohol and cigars to share with people as part of his job recruiting supporters to the party, going out nearly every night to wine and dine people as part of his work in the political machine. He's living the high life. Even when President Hayes pulls him from his position on suspicions of fraud, he's still living a great life of wealth, power, and prestige.
Then in 1880, his beloved wife dies. While he's out of town working for a political campaign. And he can't get back in time to say goodbye before she dies. Because he's a guy who has big emotions, it absolutely tears him up inside, especially because Nell resented how much his political work kept him away from home. He has huge regrets, but he just moves in with Roscoe Conkling and keeps working for the political machine.
And then he gets a chance to be vice president. The Republican Party has nominated James Garfield, a dark horse candidate who wants to reform the spoils system that has given Conking his power and gave Arthur his position as Port Controller. Conkling is pissed, and he controls New York, and since the party's not going to win the election without New York, they think that appointing Conkling's top lackey as vice-president will pacify him.
They're wrong--Conkling orders Arthur to refuse--but Arthur thinks this sounds like a great opportunity. The only political position he's ever held is Port Controller--a job he wasn't elected to and that he was pulled from in disgrace. Vice President is way more than he could ever have hoped for. It's a position with a lot of political pull and zero actual responsibilities. He'll get to spend four years living in up in Washington high society. It's the perfect job! Of course he accepts, and Conkling comes around when he figures out that he can use this to his advantage.
When Garfield becomes president, Arthur does everything he can to undermine him. He uses every dirty political trick he can think of to block everything that Garfield wants to do. He refuses to let the Senate elect a president pro tempore so he can stay there and influence every bill that comes through. He all but openly boasts of buying votes in the election. He's so much Conkling's lackey that he may as well be the henchman of a cartoon supervillain. On Conkling's orders, he drags one of Garfield's Cabinet members out of bed in the middle of the night--while the guy is ill--to drag him to Conkling's house so he can be forced to resign. He's just absolutely a thorn in the president's side, a henchman doing everything he can to maintain the corrupt spoils system.
Then in July 1881, when Arthur's in New York helping Conkling's campaign, the president gets shot. By a guy who shouts, "Now Arthur will be president!" just after he fires the gun. Arthur has just spent the past four months fighting the president tooth and nail. Everyone thinks he's behind the assassination. There are lynch mobs looking to take out him and Conkling. The papers are tearing him apart.
Arthur is absolutely distraught. He rushes to Washington to speak with the president and assure him of his innocence, but the doctors won't let him in the room. He gets choked up when talking to the First Lady. Reporters find him weeping in his house in Washington. Once again, death has torn his world apart and he's not getting a chance to make amends.
Arthur goes to New York while the president is getting medical treatment, and he refuses to come to Washington and take charge because he doesn't dare to give the impression that he's looking to take over. No one wants Arthur to be president and he doesn't want to be president, and the possibility that this corrupt political lackey is about to ascend to the highest office in the land is absolutely terrifying to everyone.
Then in August, when it's becoming clear that the president is unlikely to recover, he gets a letter. From a 31-year-old invalid from New York named Julia Sand. A woman from a very politically-minded family who has been following Arthur's career for years. And she writes him this astounding letter that takes him to task for his corrupt, conniving ways, and the obsession with worldly power and prestige that has brought him wealth and fame at the cost of his own soul--and she tells him that he can do better. In the midst of a nationwide press that's tearing him apart, this one woman writes to tell him that she believes he has the capacity to be a good president and a good man if he changes his ways.
And then he does. After Garfield dies, people come to Arthur's house and find servants who tell them that Arthur is in his room weeping like a child (I told you he had big emotions), but he takes the oath of office and ascends to the presidency. And he becomes a completely different man. His first speech as president mentions that one of his top priorities is reforming the spoils system so that people will be appointed based on merit rather than getting appointed as political favors with each change in the administration. Even though this system made him president. When Conkling comes to Arthur's office telling him to appoint his people to important government positions, Arthur calls his demands outrageous, throws him out, and keeps Garfield's appointees in the positions. "He's not Chet Arthur anymore," one of his former political friends laments. "He's the president."
He loses all his former political friends. He's never trusted by the other side. Yet he sticks to his guns and continues to support spoils system reform. He prosecutes a postal service corruption case that everyone thought he would drop. He's the one who signs into law the first civil service reform bill, even though presidents have been trying to do this for more than ten years, and he's the person who's gained all his power through the spoils system. He immediately takes action to enforce this bill when he could have just dropped it. He becomes a champion of this issue even though it's the last thing anyone would have expected of him.
He oversees naval reform. He oversees a renovation of the White House. He still prefers the social duties of the presidency, but he's respectable in a way that no one expected. Possibly because Julia Sand keeps sending him letters of encouragement and advice over the next two years. But also because he's dying.
Not long after ascending to the presidency, he learns he's suffering from a terminal kidney disease. And he tells no one. He keeps going about his daily life, fulfilling his duties as president, and keeps his health problems hidden. Once again, death is upending his life, and this time it's his own death. He's lived a life he's ashamed of, and he doesn't have much time left to change. He enters the presidency as an example of the absolute worst of the political system, and leaves it as a respectable man.
He makes a token effort to seek re-election, but because of his health problems, he doesn't mind at all when someone else gets the nomination. He dies a couple of years after leaving office. The day before his death, he orders most of his papers burned, because he's ashamed of his old life--but among the things that are saved are the letters from Julia Sand, the woman who encouraged him to change his ways.
This is an astounding story full of so many twists and turns and dramatic moments. A man who falls from idealism into the worst kind of corruption and then claws his way back up to decency because of a series of devastating personal losses and unexpected opportunities to do more than he could have ever hoped to do. I just go crazy thinking about it and I need you all to understand just how amazing this story is.
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trivia-yandere · 1 year ago
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your husband and you find yourself bankrupt and dead broke thanks to his gambling problem. his younger brother - successful businessman kim seokjin - offers a helping hand free of charge. unbeknownst to his brother, you would be the one paying seokjin for his charity. @momnomnom @darkuni63 @sweetempathprunetree @minshookie29
valentine’s day masterlist | part 2
word count: 5.509
warning: non-con/coercion, cmnf, smut, dub-con, degradation/humiliation, dominant jin, submissive reader, collaring, affair, unsolicited touching, impregnation kink, thigh riding, oral sex/deep throat, dirty talk, kissing, creampie,
“Your collar…” Jin murmurs, his eyes staring at the pink collar he has given you. It has diamonds wrapped around and in the middle, is a gold shaped heart. “...is so cute.”
“Thank you, sir.” you murmur, your thighs clenching together nervously underneath Jin’s intense gaze.
“Isn’t it sad that your husband is away?” Jin scoffs, a wicked smirk forming onto his lips - rosy and plump.
Kim Seokjin, tall with a slender build. Dark hair and even darker eyes. He’s beautiful - utterly gorgeous. His beauty is often compared to that of a God; ethereal. He carried himself as such, strutting into any room and completely holding the attention from everyone occupying it.
Kim Seokjin, wealthy - one of the richest men in the nation. He owned several businesses that thrived; all of which funded his life. He had enough generational wealth that his great-great grandchildren wouldn’t have to work - and he’d often boast about that fact. Kim Industries were one of the most well known and luxurious industries to be a part of - employees were even looked at as better off just for being apart of the business. 
Kim Seokjin, your brother-in-law. The very man who stood besides your husband, his elder brother, while you and he were wed. He gave a speech about the love you and your husband had was that of true love and raised his glass to give you a celebratory toast - “to my sister-in-law, Y/N. Welcome to the family.” 
Kim Seokjin, your brother-in-law, and the same man you are having an affair with. 
“It is sad, sir.”
Jin tilts his head a bit. “Then why don’t you look it?” he questions. “Maybe you’re happy to be with me instead of your good for nothing husband?”
You swallow at Jin’s harsh words, appearing physically ill at them. Jin doesn’t care, however, and openly berates his brother around you at any given moment.
It was 5 months prior when your husband came to you and confessed that he was completely broke - that you and he had not a dollar to your names. It came as a shock. No, your husband was not as wealthy as Jin - but he was nowhere near broke. Their father had helped start up a business before allowing them out in the world. While Jin branched out and became a big name in multiple industries, your husband was smaller. However, the Kim name had benefits. 
“How are we broke?” you asked with wide eyes, not believing your ears. “We have a few  hundred thousands saved up for a rainy day.”
Your husband had confided in you that the money was gone - everything that was saved has since been wiped away. 
The home you and he bought had to be sold, along with the cars. You were homeless, and the only way your husband was willing to turn was his younger brother.
Seokjin had welcomed you two with open arms and gave his brother a job at one of the many businesses he owned - it was an ego killer. Your husband was the older brother, but yet, the younger one was more successful and thriving. You and your husband moved into Seokjin’s home (even if he did have enough money to lend you a vacation home) and allowed you to borrow his cars whenever needed.
The hours your husband worked were always long, working from sun up to sun down. He came home exhausted and didn’t want to do anything but rest - and you understood. You contemplated asking Jin if there were any available openings in his business for you to work, but your husband shot you down. “I’m the man, Y/N. I have to be the one providing for you.”
As much as you appreciated the efforts your husband set in place, you wanted nothing more than to tell him the truth - that you trusting him got you nowhere. You were homeless, staying in a (large mansion, yes) with his brother, becoming a complete burden on him. 
Your feelings were never stated aloud, but it showed in your actions. You loved your husband to death truly, but you didn’t want to be around him. You soon got your own room in the mansion and to keep yourself busy, decided to take on chores. You cleaned from top to bottom and cooked constantly. As much as you were annoyed with your husband, you always assured he had three meals a day that you cooked personally.
“I am happy to be with you.” you murmur to Jin, understanding that it’s what he wants to hear. Despite being highly successful and wealthy, hearing that he was better than his elder brother brought satisfaction over Kim Seokjin.
“I know you are.” Jin brings a hand up to touch your cheek softly. “Isn’t this why you allow me to do whatever I want to you? Because my good for nothing brother puts his lovely wife…” Jin trails his hand down to your collared neck. “...in the hands of another man.”
You swallow the lump in your throat nervously. 
“Nothing in this world is free, Y/N-ah.” you recall Jin speaking those very words to you for the first time. You had just gotten out of the shower, strolling into your bedroom in nothing but a robe to find the man on your bed. He sits poshly, waiting for you. “I give my brother a job, a place to stay and in return…” Jin trailed off, having since pushed himself from your bed to come to you and without a warning, hands dipped between your robe.
Jin never forgot to remind you that you lived in his home - that you husband (though his  brother) worked right under him and if he truly desired, could fire him at any given moment just because. 
Maybe that’s why you never told Jin no - that you allowed him to touch you. In the beginning, it was only that; touching. He would come up behind you while you washed the dishes and press himself firmly against you, his hands gripping your waist before they rub up your sides - but then he’d leave you be. 
But of course, with you never stopping him - it escalated. Jin was no longer satisfied with just touching you because what was the fun in that? Your husband's work load became longer until he had no days off - and he never went against it. That only meant that you were alone with Jin more often. 
“You keep clenching your legs together.” Jin notes. “Are you rubbing them together because you want some type of friction?” he then shakes his head with a scoff. “Just like a whore would.”
Jin turns away from you and ventures into the bedroom - his bedroom. You swallow, now remembering that you and he were just in the hallway of the large mansion. “Come.”
And you do, following him into his bedroom. You never been inside his room before - he always came to yours. But it’s large and as luxurious as the rest of his home. His bed is large - possibly a California king - and it sits right in the middle of the room and behind it is a large window that takes up nearly the whole wall. It’s snowing, the trees outside are covered in beautiful white snow and the amount of it covers the ground completely. You are in awe at the view that Seokin has just outside his window that has such beautiful natural light that there wasn’t any need for one inside the room to be on.
Your eyes scan over the rest of the room and it’s then you notice just how it’s covered in mirrors - even on the ceiling. You wonder if this is a room Seokjin sleeps in, or just takes whatever flings he has.  
“Come.” Jin repeats, venturing towards the left of his room to a cushioned seat - it’s gray and matches his bed perfectly. He takes a seat, eyebrows lifting for you to come to him. “I’m glad you wore the lingerie I bought for you. Pink is so cute on your skin.”
Jin’s complement causes your body to flush with heat. You could never grow accustomed to it - maybe it’s the way he speaks. He’s always so smooth and his words come out so natural.
“Sit.” Jin commands and you venture over to him. His eyes lower to your crotch, satisfied with himself that he got crotchless lingerie for you to wear. As much as he enjoyed your naked figure, there was something about the pink hue against your skin that he loves to stare at.
“On my thigh.” Jin commands once more and you know where he’s getting at. You swallow once more, seating yourself on his clothed thigh.
Jin loved when you were naked - or nearly - and he was fully clothed. There was something about getting you out of your clothes that drove him crazy, even if he was able to mask it perfectly - and you never fought him about it, either. You were the perfect submissive woman he needed - and the fact that you weren’t his woman made it better.
“Don’t just sit there shy, Y/N.” Jin speaks. He widens his legs, manspreading to get comfortable on the chair. “Go ahead and rub yourself on my thigh. It has to feel better than squeezing your legs together.”
You don’t fight Jin - you never do. Your hips begin to buckle. You never liked when Jin’s eyes were on you - they were so dark and voyeuristic; always watching you whenever he saw fit. However, there’s nothing you could ever say to him about it - he made sure to remind you just who signs your husbands paychecks.
Every Time you do this with Jin - cheat on your husband with his brother - it always ends with you regretting it. But, in the moment, you don’t allow yourself to ever deny him - you tell yourself because your life depends on him, but there was another side of you. The reality of it all that you were enjoying this - secretly enjoying the affair and how scandalous it was. You enjoyed the way Jin would touch you, sometimes even sneaking touches when his brother was around.
“You’re so wet, Y/N. You’re ruining my suit pants. It’s expensive - far more than anything your husband can afford.”
You think Jin enjoys talking down to his brother but cannot understand why. Your husband never does, you note, and when they’re around one another they appear to be close; often laughing and sharing stories of their childhood.
Jin places a hand on your thigh to squeeze it. “Go faster.”
You do as you’re told, a low groan releasing from your lips. You bite your lips to hold back another, but Jin slaps your thigh. “Stop hiding your moans. I want to hear you.” 
You moan a little louder, the friction against your clit feeling just right. You begin to rock your hips in circles, whining at how good it truly felt - and how pathetic you were for allowing this to happen.  
Jin’s eyes darken and he licks his plump lips. There was nothing like a woman - someone like you exactly - grinding against his thigh and chasing her own orgasm. You were considered off-limits - not only a married woman, but a woman who is married to his brother. You were like a forbidden fruit, something so tempting but he shouldn’t have; out of his reach.
But, you weren’t that. Nothing was out of Kim Seokjin’s reach - not even you. You wore the collar that he gave you willingly, along with the lingerie and now, your pussy is drenched and staining his suit pants. “Go ahead and cum for me, Y/N. I know you want to.” Jin says, squeezing your thigh even harder in encouragement. 
Your pussy is so warm and wet; it drenches through Jin’s suit pants and he can feel just how excited you are on his own thigh. 
Jin loves to watch you - loves to watch you come undone just for him. You grind against his thigh harder, whimpering freely as your eyes begin to roll in the back of your head.
Jin slides two fingers beneath your grinding pussy to have a feel of your wet clit and it takes everything in him to not groan at the juices that coat his fingers. “How slutty.” Jin’s voice is raspy as he responds to you.
Your body shudders with goosebumps with how deep Seokjin’s voice becomes. You’re now grinding against Jin’s fingers and you cum almost instantly, a shrill cry releasing from your throat.
Jin places his fingers into his mouth and hums. “How sweet you are, Y/N, cumming all over the place.” he pops his fingers from his mouth. “I let you cum, Y/N. I want you to do the same.”
“Yes, sir-”
Jin is already pushing you off of him and forcing you to your knees. Your eyes open instantly when your knees hit the cold floor, but you don’t protest. 
Jin shakes his head while a smirk forms onto his lips. “You’re so obedient, Y/N. You do everything I tell you to do without question.” he then places a hand against your cheek. “Isn’t that right?”
You nod your head. “That’s right, sir.” you respond. 
Jin hums, his eyes zoning in on your face. His thumb traces your lips softly for a bit, and you’re confused as to what he’s doing and what the hold up was. “I was thinking about giving your husband a raise. He’s been doing such a good job lately.”
There’s malice in Jin’s tone as he speaks; spite. He scoffs a bit after he says it and you swallow at what he’s about to say next in anticipation. “Depends on how well you treat me, Y/N.”
And there it was - you’ve known as much. Jin wasn’t doing anything out of the pure kindness of his heart; he was sleeping with his brother's wife after all. This was nothing but a game to him - whatever issues he had with his brother, you’d never know. 
There’s nothing for you to say in response to Jin. You only nod your head, your hands tangling with his suit pants to take him out. Jin watches you with fierce eyes, never leaving you once. 
Your hands are trembling under his gaze, but this isn’t something that you need to mess up.
It’s sad - and you cannot be upset with anyone but yourself. You’ve allowed Jin to grow comfortable with disrespecting your marriage - you allowed him to talk down about your husband to the point that he does it constantly, even in moments such as this. There’s a part of you that hates yourself for allowing yourself to be used by this man.
But then the other part of you is attempting to give yourself grace. The other side of you wanted to blame your husband for losing everything in the marriage; so much so that you felt like you needed to do this with Jin so the man wouldn’t grow spiteful - so you could remain in his home while your husband continued to work in his brother's company. 
Jin notices your internal dialogue as you begin to remove his cock from his underwear, but he doesn’t bring himself to care much. After all, he never heard a no from you - you gave him what he wanted without a fight.  
Jin was no monster - but you weren’t a saint either. You moaned for him loudly when he was inside of you. You begged for more when you were drunk off of pure pleasure. Your fingernails scarred his back and your juices would stain his clothing.
You wanted this just as badly as Jin did - you were just a married woman who, at the end of it all, had to look herself in the mirror. He didn’t have a wife he had to look at after fucking you - and he could care less about looking his brother in the face.
“You’re doing this for your husband.” Jin says to you, your hand wrapped firmly around his erect cock. His plump lips offer you a smile - that looks more like a smudged smirk - but all he wants to do is make you more comfortable. 
Your lips wrap around Jin’s tip, tongue swirling as if it was a lollipop. There’s pre-cum on it, your tastebuds swallowing the salty substance. 
‘You’re doing this for your husband’ Jin’s words ring through your ears as you do, your hands pumping the shaft of his cock. You couldn’t be so sure you were doing this for him anymore - as selfish as it sounds.
 Losing everything in a blink of an eye has you constantly fearing going through it once more and the selfish side of you was enjoying the attention you weren’t getting from your husband, but from his brother. You were enjoying the expensive gifts that he’d give and the random money he would wire into your account - even if it did eat away at you to accept them.
You continued to suck harder, taking Jin deeper into your mouth. He winces, his hands clenching slightly. Licking his lips, Jin tilts his head at you. “There’s my Y/N.” he moans, hooded eyes watching how purely whorish you appeared taking him fully. “There’s my girl coming out.”
His Y/N - Jin told you time and time again that a part of you - the side that accepted the affair - would come out. This was the side that would moan freely, would hug him closer and the side that would beg for more. This was his Y/N - the Y/N that was determined to make him cum by any means necessary; that would fuck him like her life depended on it (and of course it did).
Your eyes glance up at him and for a moment Jin is stuck. His cheeks flush at you - and it wasn’t something he needed you noticing; he had to have the ultimate control at all times.
The solution? Forcing your head down, taking him even deeper. Your nose hits the cleanly groom patch of hair on his pelvis, his cock hitting the back of your throat. You gag - but it only edges on Jin further. 
“Don’t do it for your husband, Y/N. Do it for yourself.” Jin says, his head firmly on the back of your head to keep you in place. “Maybe that would make you act a little better.”
Your tongue lays flat as you suck, your head managing to lean back so only the tip is in your mouth, and quickly before Jin could react, you take him back into your throat, sucking with all your might.
Jin hisses, his toes curling inside his dress shoes. The noises that echo off of his room are filthy - his moans mixed with your slurping and gagging.
“How selfish my Y/N truly is. You like having a cock in your throat as long as the cock is providing for you, huh?” Jin squeezes his hand into your hair to keep you firmly in place, panting at just how good you were taking him. “I guess I’ll have to spoil you after this, huh? Not like your husband could.”
Your eyes begin to water, but you refuse to stop your sucking. Jin’s hips are moving a bit, and he’s cursing low to himself. He wants to tear his eyes away from you - but he’s mesmerized. There’s drool running down your chin and your eyes are watery and to him you look absolutely beautiful -  how could he not want to wire you thousands of dollars after this?
You pop off of Jin’s cock with a loud ‘pop’ing sound, saliva connecting your lips to his cock. Your hands immediately wrap around his length to jerk him vigorously, your tongue twirling on the tip for him to cum.
“Oh, fuck.” Jin groans, right as your eyes and his connect. You were jerking his cock with need - as if you were the one that was cumming. He begins to whimper, his thighs trembling. The familiar bubbling in his abdomen is returning - like it did time and time again when he was with you. “So good for me, baby.”
Jin’s praises shouldn’t be getting to you, but they do. They always do. He could be demanding while you and he were intimate, as well as degrading. However, there were times in which he did speak to you nicely; complimenting you at how good you were to and for him. He’d often call you beautiful and assured that you would always be taken care of regardless of the situation you were in - in the end of it all, you took it as nothing but pillow talk. 
However, you were now in the moment just as Seokjin was and you were determined to make the man cum. You bring the tip of his cock back into your mouth and you continue to suck, your palm jerking him to cum. Doing this, Jin begins to pant, his speech cut off. His head hangs back and his eyes are rolling with pleasure - such a beautiful sight, you think. Even when convulsing in pleasure did Kim Seokjin look beautiful.
Jin groans -  a groan that comes from deep in his throat. He wants to praise you and tell you just how good you’re doing; but maybe that was the side of him that likes you. That, of course, he can’t. He’s unable to form any words and all he can focus on is the pleasure that runs through his body entirely. It was as if his brain was shutting down and fuck did it feel amazing.
Jin’s thighs are quivering and he’s cumming, his breathing coming out in hushed stutters. He cums so much, thick white robes painting the inside of your mouth. It’s so much that it surprises you that it begins to seep out of your mouth, but you assure yourself to swallow as much as you could.
You release Jin’s cock and heave, the air hitting your throat refreshing. You’re sure you looked a mess; tear stained cheeks, blurry and red eyes and drool (and cum) mixed on your lips. But you don’t dwell on the fact - it wasn’t anything Seokjin wasn’t accustomed to seeing already.
It takes a few moments for Jin to compose himself. His eyes are closed and his thighs gently tremble until they stop completely. His mind is flooding with just what he has gotten himself into with you - an act he does each time you manage to make him cum.
“Sir?”
Jin snaps his eyes open and looks at you. You’re on your knees - where you belonged - and looked at him with a tilted head.
Jin leans forward, licking his plump lips. “You’re so obedient.” he murmurs to you, the Jin you knew coming back like a full circle. “The collar suits you.”
You yelp when Jin snatches said collar and yanks it harshly. His lips meet yours in a rushed kiss - an action he’s never done. You and Seokjin don’t kiss; it’s an act far too intimate for two people having an affair. He never initiated it before, and neither have you. Yet, kissing Jin felt right and there's electricity running through your veins. His lips are warm and soft to the touch and though you never initiated a kiss with the man before, you don’t find yourself pushing away from it.
Jin is amused (and satisfied) when you softly protest when he pushes you away from him. “You look like a kick puppy, Y/N. When was the last time you kissed your husband?”
Jin snickers when you glance away - you did because even you didn’t know. Jin kept his hours long (intentionally, now you know) and there was never any time for you and him to ever be alone. And even though you loved your husband for wanting to be better and get out of the financial bind he put the two of you in, there's a sinister side to you that still despises him for putting you in that situation to begin with.
“Come.”
Jin yanks at your collar and has you standing to your feet along with him. He pushes you towards his bed and you fall back with a low yelp. 
“Open your legs.” Jin demands and instantly, you comply. “Good girl.” he murmurs.
Between your legs was Jin’s favorite place to be - being inside you or his tongue buried in your pussy. Your pussy is always wet for him; warm and inviting. You gave it up to him so willingly and each time he took it with gratitude. 
Jin couldn’t get enough of you - and it had to be a deeper reason. You weren’t his woman to have, but he took you selfishly. He buries his tongue deep against your clit, not taking another second away. He laps against your pussy eagerly, eyes glancing up to see your shocked (yet satisfied) face - brows knitted and mouth agape as a moan draws out.
Jin’s hands place themselves on your outer thigh, allowing you to slightly cage him in between them - because that could never stop him from having his taste of you. He has no choice but to bury his face deeper into your pussy, suckling even harder against your swollen clit.
“F-Feels so good, sir.” you wail and Jin knows this. His eyes never leave your face as his tongue continues to lap. “G-Gonna cum already.”
Jin snickers - you were always so quick to cum when he had you like this. Like the perfect little whore you were, he thinks. He knows his brother could never please you the same way he does - you always walked around so uptight and shy. Your legs clenched together for whatever friction because his brother was far too busy to pleasure you.
 Now, you had that glow to you. Jin assured that you’d cum each and every time you and him were together - just like now.
Jin slams your legs open, pinning them against your shoulder. The position is as lewd as his actions, but that doesn’t stop him. He devours your pussy entirely, tongue ravishing your clit so loudly that his suckling is dancing off of the walls.
“S-Sir, slow down-”
Jin didn’t want to hear anything you were about to say. You didn’t tell him what to do - he was Kim Seokjin. If he wanted to lick your clit until you were squirting against him he would - because he was Kim Seokjin. 
Jin’s hands hold your thighs apart even tighter to assure you have no way to escape him, his tongue sliding against your clit entirely and entering in and out of you. Your eyes snap shut, squeezing so tightly. You were being swallowed up by the black hole of pleasure. There’s whimpering coming from you as well as the familiar moisture at the corner of your eyes. 
Jin shoves you away hastily. “I’m going to fuck a baby into you, Y/N.” Jin says suddenly - an act that is just as shocking as him kissing you.
You don’t get time to protest before Jin is flipping you onto your stomach and forcing your ass into the air. He’s behind you, positioning himself at your entrance.
Jin enters you without hesitation, needing no time to prep you because of how wet you are. He starts off rough, cock so deep that it brings back the familiar black hole of pleasure. 
Jin is brutal as he fucks you - but he was a man on a mission. He’s clouded by his own lust and selfish desire that he doesn’t hold back any of his own thoughts. 
“You’d want that, wouldn’t you?” Jin asks harshly, pulling both of your hands behind your back to hoist you up. “For me to fuck a baby into you?”
“Y-Yes, sir!” you wail, far too gone in pleasure that you don’t completely take in what Jin is saying. 
“You’re so drunk off of dick that you’ll say anything. There’s my Y/N.” Jin cracks his hips deeper and deeper into you, hitting your sweet spot with each thrust. Your juices are leaking down your thigh and staining his bedsheets, but he would never care. “I’m going to get you pregnant and watch my pathetic brother raise the child as his.” he laughs gleefully, his plan completely insane. 
You’re pushed away from Jin and you fall completely against the mattress. Jin hikes a leg up so he can go deeper into you.
“But don’t worry, Y/N. I’ll make sure our child has the best of the best.” Jin groans, eyes focused on the way your ass bounces against him. “And when they’re of age, I’ll tell them the truth. That the pathetic father they thought they had was not really their father.” Jin leans down, both hands firmly against the mattress for support. “And they’ll inherit millions from me. It’s better than having nothing like my pathetic brother.”
“Feels so good!” you moan into the mattress and all Jin could do is laugh - because you were far too gone to notice anything he was saying; and just how real his plans for you are.
“Yeah?” Jin manages to flip you again and now on your back, he allows you to wrap your legs around him. “So good for me, Y/N. Such an obedient little whore.”
Jin connects his lips to yours again and instantly, you wrap your arms around him. You were determined not to let him go this time - and he allowed it. Kissing you felt right; even when it was wrong. Not only because you weren’t his woman (because he was well aware of such and didn’t give a fuck) but because it was a sign of affection.
“Want you to fuck me all night.” you plead against his lips, holding him so close that you coild feel his own heartbeat. 
So dick drink, Jin thinks, but he doesn’t respond. He’s unable to, far too focused on giving you exactly what you want. 
Jin ponders how his brother wasn’t fighting him to have more time off of work. Your pussy is amazing - carved from the Gods. You’re gripping him so tight with a pussy that’s so wet that if he was in his brothers position, he wouldn’t be at work now - no, he’d be fucking you into the mattress.
But Jin wasn’t your husband and he was doing exactly what he should be doing to you.
“Squeezing me so tight, Y/N. Gonna cum already?” Jin taunts, but even he was ready to cum inside of you.
 The thought of getting you pregnant is stuck deep in Jin’s mind; watching you grow heavy and round with his seed. He would have a deep bond with the child, assuring that he would be loved far more than his brother would be with the child. He would be impressed with how large your breast would be as you grew with his child and how beautiful you’d look pregnant.
“Shit,” Jin’s forehead presses against yours. He plunges his cock inside of you with need now - the need to impregnate immediately - and to do this as many times as it takes for you to conceive.
Warmth floods deep inside of you just as you’re reaching your high. You squeeze Jin, hugging him closer to your exhausted and convulsing body and never wanting to let the man go.
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You and Jin fucked for hours in various positions you’ve never been in. You had awoken suddenly, body exhausted in a bedroom that didn’t belong to you. Jin wasn’t there, you noticed, and that was your cue to take your leave.
Doing the walk of shame back to your bedroom was something you’d have to look yourself in the mirror about later. Your body was aching and all you truly wanted to do was have a soothing bath and then go right back to sleep.
You opened the door to your bedroom and stopped in your tracks. Your eyes scanned the room entirely.
Balloons littered the ceiling entirely - all red, white and pink. Your bed - king-sized that sat in the middle of the room, sat rose petals shaped neatly into a large heart. In the middle of it sat a small envelope, but that was the least of your concerns. 
Flower bouquets are surrounding your bed - all roses of different colors - and there’s dozens of gift bags waiting to be opened.
You enter your bedroom and close your door behind you. You ponder did your husband do all of this for you - and if he did, just how did he manage to do so without wondering where you were at the entire time?
Your heart sinks at the thought of your husband doing this for you and you were cheating on him with his brother.
You grasp the small envelope on your bed and open it. It’s a card - something simple written inside of it but it causes your heart to swell with realization.
My Y/N.
Happy Valentine’s Day
-Seokjin
part 2 | teaser to part 2
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