#product owner salary

[adaptiveus]

Product Owner Salary in Paris: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction:

In the vibrant tech ecosystem of Paris, the role of a Product Owner has become increasingly crucial. As companies embrace Agile methodologies and Scrum frameworks, the demand for skilled Product Owners continues to rise. This article delves into the intricacies of Product Owner salaries in Paris, exploring various factors that influence compensation and providing insights into career growth opportunities within the French tech industry.

Key Takeaways:

Product Owner salaries in Paris range from €40,000 to €90,000+ annually

Experience, certifications, and industry sector significantly impact compensation

The role offers strong career growth potential in the Parisian tech ecosystem

Cost of living considerations are essential when evaluating salary packages

Table of Contents:

I. Introduction to Product Owner Role in Paris

II. Product Owner Salary Range in Paris

III. Comparison with Other IT Roles in Paris

IV. Factors Influencing Product Owner Salaries in Paris

V. Career Growth and Salary Progression

VI. Cost of Living Considerations in Paris

VII. Conclusion and Future Outlook for Product Owner Salaries in Paris

I. Introduction to Product Owner Role in Paris

The Product Owner role has become a cornerstone of Agile product management in Paris’s thriving tech scene. As the French capital continues to establish itself as a major European tech hub, the demand for skilled Product Owners has skyrocketed. These professionals play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between business stakeholders and development teams, ensuring that products meet market needs and deliver value to customers.

In the Parisian tech ecosystem, Product Owners are responsible for managing the product backlog, defining user stories, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver successful products. Their expertise in Agile methodologies, particularly the Scrum framework, makes them indispensable in driving innovation and maintaining competitiveness in the fast-paced tech industry.

II. Product Owner Salary Range in Paris

The salary range for Product Owners in Paris varies significantly based on experience, skills, and the company’s size and industry. Here’s a breakdown of the typical salary ranges:

A. Entry-level salary: €40,000 — €55,000 per year Fresh graduates or professionals transitioning into the Product Owner role can expect to earn between €40,000 and €55,000 annually. At this level, employers often look for candidates with a basic understanding of Agile principles and some exposure to product management concepts.

B. Mid-level salary: €55,000 — €75,000 per year Product Owners with 3–5 years of experience can command salaries ranging from €55,000 to €75,000 per year. At this stage, professionals typically have a strong grasp of Scrum practices, experience in managing complex product backlogs, and a track record of successful product launches.

C. Senior-level salary: €75,000 — €90,000+ per year Seasoned Product Owners with 7+ years of experience and a proven history of delivering high-impact products can earn €75,000 to €90,000 or more annually. Senior Product Owners often take on additional responsibilities, such as mentoring junior team members or contributing to strategic product decisions.

D. Factors affecting salary Several factors can influence a Product Owner’s salary in Paris:

Years of experience in product management and Agile environments

Industry expertise (e.g., fintech, e-commerce, healthcare)

Company size and type (startup vs. enterprise)

Educational background and relevant certifications

Technical skills and domain knowledge

III. Comparison with Other IT Roles in Paris

To provide context for Product Owner salaries in Paris, it’s helpful to compare them with other IT roles in the city:

A. Scrum Master salary Scrum Masters in Paris typically earn between €45,000 and €80,000 per year, depending on their experience and the organization’s size. While there is some overlap with Product Owner salaries, experienced Product Owners often command higher compensation due to their strategic product management responsibilities.

B. Project Manager salary Traditional Project Managers in Paris earn between €50,000 and €85,000 annually. As more organizations adopt Agile methodologies, the demand for Product Owners has increased, sometimes leading to higher salaries compared to traditional Project Managers.

C. Software Developer salary Software Developers in Paris can earn anywhere from €35,000 to €70,000+ per year, depending on their specialization and experience. While senior developers may earn salaries comparable to Product Owners, the Product Owner role often offers a faster track to higher compensation due to its strategic nature.

IV. Factors Influencing Product Owner Salaries in Paris

Several factors contribute to the variation in Product Owner salaries across Paris:

A. Demand for Agile professionals The increasing adoption of Agile methodologies in Paris has led to a surge in demand for skilled Product Owners. This high demand often translates to competitive salaries, especially for professionals with a strong track record in Agile product management.

B. Company size and type Startups and small businesses in Paris may offer lower base salaries but compensate with equity or performance-based bonuses. Large enterprises and multinational corporations typically offer higher base salaries and more comprehensive benefits packages.

C. Industry sector Certain industries in Paris, such as fintech, e-commerce, and healthcare technology, tend to offer higher salaries for Product Owners due to the complexity of their products and the need for specialized domain knowledge.

D. Educational background and certifications While not always a prerequisite, having a relevant educational background (e.g., business, computer science, or engineering) can positively impact salary negotiations. Additionally, certifications from recognized organizations like Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, or the Project Management Institute (PMI) can command higher salaries.

V. Career Growth and Salary Progression

Product Owners in Paris have numerous opportunities for career growth and salary advancement:

A. Skills development for higher compensation To increase their earning potential, Product Owners should focus on developing:

Strong leadership and communication skills

Data analysis and market research capabilities

Technical knowledge relevant to their industry

Strategic thinking and business acumen

B. Certifications that can boost salary Obtaining industry-recognized certifications can significantly impact a Product Owner’s earning potential:

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) from Scrum Alliance

Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) from Scrum.org

PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) from PMI

C. Transitioning to higher-paying roles Experienced Product Owners can progress to roles such as:

Senior Product Owner

Product Manager

Agile Coach

Director of Product Management

These positions often come with substantial salary increases and greater responsibilities within the organization.

VI. Cost of Living Considerations in Paris

When evaluating Product Owner salaries in Paris, it’s essential to consider the city’s cost of living:

A. Housing costs Rent in Paris can be expensive, with a one-bedroom apartment in the city center costing around €1,000 — €1,500 per month. Many professionals choose to live in the suburbs for more affordable housing options.

B. Transportation expenses Paris has an excellent public transportation system, with a monthly pass costing around €75. This makes it possible to live outside the city center without incurring significant commuting costs.

C. Lifestyle factors While Paris offers a high quality of life, expenses such as dining out, entertainment, and healthcare should be factored into overall cost of living calculations.

VII. Conclusion and Future Outlook for Product Owner Salaries in Paris

The role of Product Owner in Paris continues to evolve, with salaries reflecting the increasing importance of this position in the tech industry. As the French tech ecosystem grows and matures, the demand for skilled Product Owners is likely to increase, potentially driving salaries even higher.

For professionals considering a career as a Product Owner in Paris, the future looks promising. By continuously developing their skills, obtaining relevant certifications, and staying abreast of industry trends, Product Owners can position themselves for lucrative opportunities and rewarding careers in one of Europe’s most exciting tech hubs.

Call to Action: To learn more about salaries in related fields, check out our comprehensive guide on Business Analyst salaries at https://www.adaptiveus.com/blog/business-analyst-salary/

FAQs:

What is the average salary for a Product Owner in Paris? The average salary for a Product Owner in Paris ranges from €55,000 to €75,000 per year, depending on experience and other factors.

How does the cost of living in Paris affect Product Owner salaries? While salaries in Paris are generally higher than in other French cities, the high cost of living, particularly housing expenses, should be considered when evaluating compensation packages.

What certifications are most valuable for Product Owners in Paris? Certifications from Scrum Alliance (CSPO), Scrum.org (PSPO), and PMI (PMI-ACP) are highly valued in the Parisian job market.

How do Product Owner salaries compare to other IT roles in Paris? Product Owner salaries are generally competitive with, and sometimes higher than, those of Scrum Masters and Project Managers, especially at senior levels.

What industries offer the highest salaries for Product Owners in Paris? Industries such as fintech, e-commerce, and healthcare technology tend to offer higher salaries for Product Owners due to the complexity of their products and the need for specialized knowledge.

References:

Scrum Alliance: https://www.scrumalliance.org/

Scrum.org: https://www.scrum.org/

Project Management Institute: https://www.pmi.org/

For more information on business analysis and related topics, visit:

https://businessanalysts.site

https://businessanalysts.store

https://businessanalysts.us

https://businessanalysts.website

[emeraldeaa]

If you say that shit in his chat he's like "no you guys I'm rich. You're being stupid" he is very frank about it

remember when that ('communist'? idk, I never watched him) streamer Hasan bought a 1.5 million dollar house in the hollywood hills and there were a bunch of people going 'nooooo hes not rich thats just how much it costs to buy a family house in that area the cost of livingggg'? people whose conception of anticapitalist politics comes down to 'theres like 20 people who are Evil cronies and if we kill them everything becomes fine' get really really defensive when you imply they themselves might be rich

[mesetacadre]

Does socialist theory have any use for classes based on wealth/income? (rich/poor as opposed to bourgeoisie/proletariat)

Short answer: kinda but not really

Long answer: Classes in marxist theory are exclusively defined by the objective relationship of the subject to the property of the means of production and to the organization of labor, in capitalism it being mostly salary work. From these objective and economic relationships spring the classes of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the petit-bourgeoisie, the lumpen-proletariat, artisans...

Income, while highly correlated with one's position in class society, is not the defining trait of the subject, but the consequence's of the individual's conditions and specific relationship to their own work. Income itself is just the remuneration for a part of the labor-power that one exerts, or for the value created by others' labor-power that you exploit by virtue of having private ownership of the means of production. In neither of these cases is income the cause of one's class, but a consequence of it.

What a "class" analysis based on income gets you is the inability to actually strike at the core of what organizes class society. For example, the income-based analysis most radical liberals and social-democrats prefer to use (while still choosing to appropriate marxist terminology like "owning class") does not allow them to properly identify the exploitative nature of small businesses, thus, you'll see them rallying against Big Capital while their beloved family-owned small business commits labor law violations on the daily with 11 hour workdays for minimum wage. The income of the petit-bourgeoise is not that great, it's still higher than an average salary worker, but small enough that recessions or the mere existence of concentrated capital is enough to render the small property owner into a worker, a process known as proletariatization. See this really good explanation of what that dynamic means for the political implications of this economic fact.

An income-based analysis would place the small business owner and their 3 employees on the same side with, supposedly, the same interests, because they don't get a lot of money. I don't need to harp on any more to explain why that is nonsense, I hope.

Furthermore, within the working class, there are contrasts in income. There are workers who have a lavish salary, and there are workers who don't even make enough to support their basic needs. The objective fact of their exploitation is the same: they generate value with their labor-power, and sell it to a capitalist for a fraction of what they generate. Exploitation in the marxist sense is not a moral judgement. This is not about whether it's morally wrong or not to extract value from workers. Exploitation creates alienation and a class antagonism that can only ever be resolved one way, which is through the overthrow of the exploiter class by the exploited, history shows that this antagonism is what has propelled it forwards.

It is another question, and one that concerns us less, whether the salary, the price with which a capitalist buys a fraction of the worker's labor-power, is enough for the worker to lead a relatively accommodated life or not. If this was the question, which it is for, say, social-democrats, then the mere reform of capitalism (which, to be clear, is not possible to enact for all workers and all countries) to ensure a decent livelihood under the system of salary work would be enough.

With a lavish income, some might argue, a worker ceases to share the same interests with the rest of the working class who can't afford the first's lifestyle. But what this is omitting is that, in the cases of some workers with a really high salary, it becomes possible for the worker to join the ranks of the bourgeoisie by acquiring capital. Here, top-rated actors and athletes comes to mind. Actors and athletes are paid a salary in exchange for their labor-power, but the highest rated ones generate so much value that the capitalists pay them a really high salary, and then, most of the time, these highly-paid workers acquire some property and become a part of the bourgeoisie. In the US, for example, a bunch of high-rated workers of the entertainment industry such as Oprah, with more than 2,000 acres, have become large landlords in Hawai'i, taking advantage of the colonization of the island chain.

The break in common interests between highly-paid workers and the rest of their class comes from the change in economic class that their income allows for, not the income itself.

There is one instance when income becomes more relevant, and that is in the case of the labor aristocracy. Because of the international division of labor created by and protected by imperialism, the workers of the imperial core, as much as they are still exploited by capitalists and have revolutionary interests, benefit directly or indirectly from the even greater exploitation placed on the workers of the imperial periphery and global south, allowing for a generalized improvement in the quality of life for the imperial core workers.

Two conclusions can be made from this fact:

First, that the social-democratic welfare state depends on the exploitation of vast swaths of the world, and thus, it is not an applicable system in the majority of the world. Second, that the working class of the imperial core can, by the objective fact of the improvement of their material conditions by the spoils of imperialism, can act in the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Take as an example the SAG-AFTRA union, which decidedly supported the imperialist project of Israel after al-Aqsa Flood. This does mean that a greater effort is needed for most workers in the imperial core, the labor aristocracy, to achieve revolutionary-political consciousness. The spontaneous class consciousness that some people insist is enough to be revolutionary, is born of the daily class antagonisms one experiences, and also of the material conditions underlying one's existence, therefore, as we have seen a lot this past year, spontaneous consciousness can include attitudes that favor the bourgeoisie.

And still, even if the labor aristocracy is broadly defined by a higher income, it is still dependent on the relationship to the organization of labor. Even the most desperate and destitute homeless citizen of the imperial core benefits in a lot of ways from the system of imperialism. For example, they don't need to worry about the political instability most imperialized countries suffer, and to put a cruder example, they are never going to get shot by a 22-year-old USamerican soldier doing target practice.

[lasirenatarot]

💫🌟WHAT BLESSINGS ARE COMING YOUR WAY? 💫 timeless pick-a-card reading.

- SIDE NOTE: some days my intuition is craaaazy (today 23.07.2023 is one of those days😂), so I decided to do this very random reading. It may be disorganized and totally not resonating for some, but it may help others, as Im writing all that I get without a clear topic, so enjoyyy!!

Piles:

1->2

3->4

Photos: Magdalena Frackowiak for Harper’s Bazaar USA, september 2009

PILE 1

Okayy so possible blessings coming your way, those who chose pile 1:

Short term luck; possible salary raise/ bonus/ promotion; for some it may be a sum of money you didn’t have to work much for or somebody simply just gave to you, money you won from the lotery or gambling; giveaway wins; finding a banknote on the street; finding lost jewelry/items; for some it may be more sales of your products that certain month if you’re a business owner etc. - the main point is you will get sth bc of luck (money/present/item..), not much hard work.

More $€x, pl€asure, parties, celebrations (carefree times basically) coming your way.

You may go on a holiday where you celebrate sth, have pl€asurable experiences. All this may be after time in which you have been waiting on for a loooong time. Prior to that you may have been « isolating » yourself a bit so you can work on yourself, your mental health, cleanse yourself spiritually from bad energy you’ve had in you from the past & heal from sth.

Tip for this pile: don’t go into excesses; do everything in moderation - drinking,partying, $£x, don’t take unnecessary risks, don’t be greedy or careless with your money; going against that may lead to an unpleasant a-ddiction of some sort.

PILE 2

Hope after tough time. You may get good news about a situation you’ve been worried about; You may find a solution to a problem, the truth about sth which may later lead you to the solution..

Someone might have lied to you/ did you wrong, bc of that you felt like your « life » was falling apart but it was actually a blessing; Learning who was a fake person in your life and who was actually faithful was the blessing;

You will have new beginnings in your life- might be a new job/new relationship/new friends/even new home or area where you live;

some may start new important friendships, change in social circle is sth prominent in this pile; you might feel way more valued and happy in this new social circle;

Some might have found out about infidelities /lots of lies, which may be the reason for all these changes; the situation may look bad at first sight but it will free you from a burden that was never yours ro carry in the first place.

Changes might happen very quickly;

You will get on a new journey to find your true happiness

PILE 3

Okay the first thing I got may not resonate for many but if you’ve been wishing for a child/pregnancy, or to start a family, it may be coming soon.

Those who are not looking to start a family it may mean that you may have some carefree days coming ahead, you will live your life like a baby, without that much responsibilities;

Some may get some sort of inheritance;

Money

Moving to a new house;

A lot of you may cut ties with their past, get rid of their past bad habits, toxic people and situations; you have to leave your past experience behind in order to live your ‘dream’

A dream of yours you tought was impossible to get may come into fruition during this time you’re reading this/near future. You just have to be strong and keep the faith.

Love for many of you!!!!

You may get help from a female figure or your intuition on sth that is bothering you;

PILE 4

Healing;

GOOD HEALTH ( for me that is the biggest blessing that’s why I wrote it in all caps )

Huuuuuuuge changes in your love life!!!! I cannot stress this enough, so many signs here in the cards.

If you’re single, the love interest you meet might be VERY masculine, career oriented, might look cold on the outside (won’t be true when you get to know that person tho, they seem like a sweetheart, u just have to get them out of their shell..); might be a foreigner or you may simply meet them away from home/abroads;

Your « cup » will be overflowing with love and emotions, but you don’t have to lose yourself completely. Boundaries and everything in moderation are important things to have in relationships😄

If you were mistreated in previous relationships - you will get your justice.

Those who are in a relationship might get proposed to or move in together; become official if you haven’t already, sth like that => getting to the next level.

Glow up, confidence boost; end of melancholy;

You will get things you’ve even have not let yourself dream about bc it seemed delusional at the time, what u get will exceed all your expectations;

Off topic but, Pile 4, be careful of envy, gossips&lies. Get rid of your subconcious limitations.

As always, leave a comment if resonated & follow for more.

- La Sirena.💋

[nothorses]

I think the word "power" tends to get kind of abstracted in conversations about oppression, and I think the scale of this also makes it difficult to get this idea across. So I'm gonna explain with a microcosm:

You start a small business with two friends.

When making decisions about the business, you all meet together.

Eventually, the business grows enough that you need more employees. You include all of them in the meetings, because all of them want a say in the decisions that impact them.

But as the business continues to grow, this gets a little out of hand.

You decide it's time to scale it back.

Now it's just you and your co-founders making decisions again. You still have all those people working for you, of course- you're just making decisions for them instead of with them.

When it comes time to adjust salaries, well... suddenly, there aren't twenty people advocating for a fair and even split. In fact, nobody else even knows what the budget is. You could just give yourselves more money than they get, and none of them would even know about it.

So that's exactly what you do.

One day, you and your friends have a falling-out... and you remember that while you're all co-founders, all the paperwork actually says that you're the owner. So you fire them.

You have to hire replacements, of course, but you don't know these people, and they don't need to know any more than the rest of the staff. You take the excess from their salaries that your friends were collecting, and add it to your own salary.

Now you're making double what you used to, and nobody can do anything about it- because nobody else is in the meeting room with you. Nobody else has any decision-making power.

The more staff you employ, the bigger the company grows, and the more money you make.

If you were to include anyone in that meeting room, you'd just be dividing up your power again- and probably your money, too. It's in your best interest to continue to exclude everyone you can.

Here's the thing: oppression is based around excluding people. Oppression literally cannot work with any kind of inclusive principles.

Inclusion means dividing power; not just money or whatever other resources, but the decision-making power that allows oppressors to maintain their status in the first place. It's in the best interest of the oppressor to exclude everyone they possibly can; which is why definitions of oppressor classes tend to be so narrow and hyper-conditional.

It's also why exclusionary movements within activist spaces are so counter-productive. People claim to be protecting vulnerable groups, but even with the best of intentions, this only ever perpetuates the overarching oppressive systems: they are recreating those oppressive systems, validating their logic, and leaving people who deserve a voice in the decisions that impact them out in the cold- and all it does is benefit the few who remain included. For now.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Vice surrenders

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in LA with Adam Conover at Vroman's, then on MONDAY in Seattle with Neal Stephenson, then Portland, Phoenix and more!

Vice died the way it lived: being suckered in by smarter predators, even as it trained its own predatory instincts on those more credulous than its own supremely gullible leadership. RIP, we hardly knew ye.

For those of you who don't know, Vice was a Canadian media success story. It was founded by a motley clique of hipsters, one of whom – founder of the Proud Boys – has since grown to be one of the world's great fascism influencers. Another perfected the art of getting young people to work "for exposure" even as he built a massive, highly lucrative media empire on their free labor:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/vice-oral-history/

Eventually, Vice transitioned to a string of progressively worsening corporate owners, each more dishonest, predatory – and gullible – than the last. The company was one of the most enthusiastic marks for Facebook's infamous "pivot to video" – in which Mark Zuckerberg destroyed half the media industry by tricking them into thinking that the public was clamoring for video content, based on fraudulent viewing numbers:

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

Vice went all-in on video, spending hundreds of millions to finance Zuckerberg's doomed attempt to conquer Youtube. But unlike other the rubes who got zucked, Vice found greater fools to scam, convincing giant, slow-moving meidia companies that the best way to get in on the Next Big Thing was to shower them with vast sums of string-free money:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viceland_(Canadian_TV_channel)

And yet, at every turn, through a succession of increasingly incompetent owners who bought the stumbling, declining Vice at fire-sale prices and then proceeded to hack away at the wages and tools its journalists depended on while paying executives salaries so high that they beggared the imagination, Vice's reporters continued to turn out stellar material.

This went on literally until the last moment. The memorial posted by 404 Media rounds up a selection of major stories Vice's beleaguered, precarious writers produced even as Vice's vulture capitalist leadership were pulling the rug out from under them:

https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-vices-legacy-and-the-idea-that-the-internet-is-forever/

True to form, those private equity scumbags locked all those workers out of the company's CMS without notice – and then forgot to lock down the podcasting back-end. That allowed a group of Vice veterans – Matthew Gault, Emily Lipstein, Anna Merlan, Tim Marchman and Mack Lamoureux – to gather for a totally unauthorized, tell-all session that they pushed out on an official Vice channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKT4OtDEJRA

It's a hell of a listen. Not only do these Vice veterans have lots of fascinating history to recount, but they also describe the conditions under which those blockbuster stories of Vice's final days were produced. As the "visionary leaders" of the company paid themselves millions, they halted payments to key suppliers, from Lexisnexis to the interview transcription service the writers depended on. Writers paid out of pocket to search PACER court records.

Not only did Vice's reporters do incredible work under terrible and worsening circumstances, but the Vice writers who got out ahead of the total collapse are also doing incredible work. 404 Media is a writer-owned investigative news publisher founded by four Vice escapees – Samantha Cole, Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg and Joseph Cox, which is both producing incredible work and sustaining the writers who founded it:

https://www.404media.co/

All of which leads to an inescapable conclusion: whatever problems Vice had, they didn't include "writers don't do productive work" and also didn't include "that work isn't economically viable*. Whatever problems Vice had, they weren't problems with Vice's workers – it was a problem with Vice's bosses.

Which makes Vice's final, ignominious punishment at the hands of those bosses even more brutal, stupid and inexcusable. According to the leaked memos emanating from the company's investors and their millionaire C-suite toadies, the business's new strategy is abandoning their website in order to publish on social media.

This is…I mean, this,..

This is…

Wow.

I mean, wow.

The thing is, the social media business model is a giant rug-pull. They're not even bothering to hide their playbook anymore. For social media, the game is to encourage media companies to become reliant on third parties to reach their audiences. Once that reliance is established, the companies turn down – or even halt – the ability of those media companies to reach their audience altogether. Then, they charge the media companies to reach their audiences:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

Now, this wasn't always quite so obvious. Back when Vice was falling for Facebook's "pivot to video," it wasn't completely obvious that the long con was to take your audience hostage and ransom them back to you. But deliberately organizing your business to be reliant on social media barons today? It's like trusting your money to Sam Bankman-Fried…in 2024.

If there was ever a moment when the obvious, catastrophic, imminent risk of trusting Big Tech intermediaries to sit between you and your customers or audience, it was now. This is not the moment to be "social first." This is the moment for POSSE (Post Own Site, Share Everywhere), a strategy that sees social media as a strategy for bringing readers to channels that you control:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/19/now-we-are-two/#two-much-posse

Predicting that a social media platform will rug the media companies that depend on it today doesn't take a Sun Tzu – as cunning strategies go, the hamfisted tactics of FB, Twitter and Tiktok make gambits like "Lucy and the football" look like von Clausewitz.

The most bonkers part of this strategy is that it's coming from private equity bosses, who laud themselves as the great strategists of the 21st century, whose claim on so much of our global capital and resources is derived from their brilliant insight, which allows them to buy "distressed assets" like Vice, "restructure" them to find "efficiencies" and sell them on.

The reality is that PE goons – like other financiers – are basically herding animals. Everyone's hit on the tactic of buying up beloved media companies – from the 150-year-old Popular Science to modern publications like CNet – and then filling them with spammy garbage in the hopes that Google will fail to notice and continue to award them pride-of-place on search results pages:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

The fact that these billionaire brain-geniuses can't figure out how to "turn around" a site whose workers a) produce brilliant, popular, successful work; and b) depart to found successful firms that commercialize that work tells you everything about their ability to spot "a good business opportunity."

PE – like other mafiosi – only have one business-plan, the "bust out," where you invade a business that produces useful things, force them to pay your chosen suppliers sky-high fees for things they don't need, extract massive fees for your "management" and then walk away from the collapse:

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/24/anti-posse/#when-you-absolutely-positively-dont-give-a-solitary-single-fuck

[crazy-pages]

The more I read economics literature about automation trends and globalization trends (the actual economics term, not the rabid racist term) and their economic impacts on developed economies, the more I realize that the fundamental picture we have been sold these things is a lie.

The general picture of automation revolutions is that they present some way of doing work more efficiently and/or to create a better product, and so market forces simply demand it. And we have to figure out how to deal with all of the lost jobs which are resulting from this. Because even in a socialist utopia, surely it would be absurd to continue forcing people to use old and outdated technology to do work less efficiently just so they could have work to do, right? Maybe the socialist utopia will take care of people displaced by this work better, but the displacement will still happen.

Except then I start reading about the actual history in the actual economics of automation revolutions (I recommend Blood In The Machine for a history of the Luddites and the automated textile revolution in Britain). And that's not what happens even a single time. These automated revolutions increase the cost per unit to create a good! They make the quality worse! And the existing workers get displaced, and replaced with oppressed or even outright enslaved labors who make nothing in worse conditions! They didn't even actually reduce the amount of labor involved significantly, they just started working orphan slaves 80-90 hours a week rather than artisan workers doing 30-35, to "reduce" the labor involved by reducing the number of laborers. It seems like no one benefits from this. So why is it happening!?

Well the answer is simple. The machine looms were less efficient, created lower quality products, and were worse for every single person in every sector of the economy ... except insofar as that they enabled a more unequal economy. The textile industry itself made less profit. The world itself had worse and less textiles. But the machine loom owners specifically made more money, because machine rooms enabled more control over workers in ways which could be used to relegate them to an even smaller share of the smaller profits. And they didn't outcompete others by being better, they did it through regulatory capture, illegal business practices, outright fraud, and by having a pre-existing place of power in their society.

The same applies to the classic story of Ford and his great automobile factory model. Sure it produced a lot of cars at low prices, but what the history doesn't tell you is that a bunch of other automobile companies which weren't using the factory model were putting out their own cars similar cost. Sure they weren't scaling up as fast, but everyone involved was making good money and the market kept on producing more companies to fill the gap. Ford made the decision to sell to a new lower cost car market sure, but he did not make a better profit margin per dollar of car purchases than his competitors did. He made significantly worse actually because he had such hideous turnover at his factories, and his cars were of lower quality than non-factory line cars aimed at the same market could be.

So why the hell did the entire automobile industry follow in his wake? Well, because he personally was making an insane amount of money. The factory line model let him simplify the production chain in a way which cut out a lot of people who previously been making good salaries, and it let him replace well paid laborers with dirt cheap labor. (Despite the hubbub about how good Ford's factory jobs paid, they only paid well relative to other no skill no training work available. They paid much worse than the skilled laborers he fired had made.)

And the people who controlled how the car manufacturing process worked were the people who would stand to make money by switching over.

The same is true for globalization. When a berry monopoly which controls 60% of all berry sales in the US does so by importing berries from South America, from varieties optimized for durability rather than flavor, that isn't cheaper than growing them at home. Not even with the higher cost of labor in the US. Not even if you actually paid farm hands a good wage rather than by abusing undocumented workers who can't fight back as effectively. The transport costs are too high.

All across the US food sector we have examples of food monopolies exporting produce production overseas in ways that make the final product more expensive for the customer, and lower quality at the same time. Why!?

Well because it allows them to access even more vulnerable labor markets. So even though the whole pie shrinks, the company owners get a bigger enough cut of the pie to make up for it.

The lie of automation and globalization of work and the damage it does to developed economies is just that, a lie. It is not economically predestined for this stuff to happen. Alternatives are not predestined to be competed out of the market. Unless, of course, ownership of profits is concentrated in only a few hands. Unless what's being competed for isn't net profit or net service provided or net quality of goods, but how much profit you can localize in capital owners.

If that's the actual competition, and of course it is because the people making decisions for companies also own those companies, only then does job automation and the presence of exploitable overseas labor devastate economies.

If laborers actually owned their places of business piecemeal, the motivation for these kinds of economic shocks would largely dry up. Like, sure, labor saving devices get invented sometimes and you need less people to do the same work. And sure, sometimes work can be done overseas for cheaper because standards of living at lower or because there's some comparative economic advantage. But that is not actually what is happening most of the time this stuff occurs.

If there's one thing I've learned studying this stuff, it's that genuine examples of net gain automation are less common than we think, and tend to be implemented on fairly slower timelines. Same for globalization of work. What is very common is ways in which already unequal systems of ownership and decision making and profit can be made more unequal. And the only fix I can imagine is fundamentally changing and democratizing how businesses operate, and how we handle concepts of ownership.

[aneenasevla]

Red Velvet - Chapter 9

MasterList / Akane’s profile / Last chapter here

Chapter 9 - New Year

And once again, they woke up together, but this time they weren't at her house. 

Akane sat up, stretching a little, before going back to bed, her head heavy; apparently the hangover from the other day hadn't gone away yet. 

All she remembered was that they spent Christmas at Kanami's house. Everyone got hungover too, but they all still drinked some more at the end of the day, chatting all the while. Kanami, who really came from a culture that valued Christmas a lot, even gave the girls small gifts: some delicate but cute earrings and necklaces, plated in gold. They were in her bag at the time, and Akane smiled when she remembered them. That Butch could be really cute, and she deserved that guy so much. She won the freaking lottery after so much bad luck in her love life during her teenage years and early adulthood, she supposed. 

Not as much as she did, but Akane deserved it because of karma, Kanami didn't. 

She sighed, hugging her current fuck-buddy a little, and found herself wondering when this momentary luck would end, and cursed herself internally for that thought. As she had decided before, she would make the most of it until he got tired of her. She had done what she could to help him, and she didn't need to teach him anything else that was really important; sex wasn't a difficult subject, and he already had experience. 

She sighed, got up and went to the bathroom. She was already undressed, so she didn't mind, just grabbing a towel and going straight to take a shower. 

The so-called shack of her current boyfriend was what one would expect from the home of a single, salaried man in his thirties. It was one of several residences in a lower-middle class apartment complex, in a suburb that was a little more presentable than the one where she lived. The apartment was small and quite messy, with clothes scattered around the living room and bedroom, a kitchen that had probably been tidy at some point, and a living room with a bookshelf, TV, coffee table, and a single sofa that urgently needed cleaning. It was pretty normal, except for the huge sandbag hanging from the ceiling in one corner, all worn out and showing clear signs of mistreatment, indicating that it had been used frequently by its owner.

He hadn't exaggerated when he said the place was a mess. Well, at least it didn't stink more than his natural smell, coming from his clothes. The small bathroom, which didn't even have a bathtub, was a little cleaner than the rest of the house, and there, his used clothes were at least kept in a basket. He didn't have much in the way of personal hygiene products: a toothbrush, a bar of soap, shaving cream with a razor and a bottle of aftershave... and a two-in-one shampoo. Holy shit. She grimaced, shaking her head. To a woman who cared a lot about her appearance, that was almost an insult, but hey, it was his body, not hers. And she didn't need to wash her hair yet, so she didn't need to wet her entire head; the soap bar was enough for now. She was going to teach him to buy cheap products that were worth more money, for sure... 

She paused for a moment, catching herself thinking about it. Who was she to say anything about how a guy should live his life? Yeah, he asked her how to make a woman go crazy in bed, but nothing else. She had no right to interfere in every aspect of his life... it wasn't like he smelled or was a sloppy guy... well, maybe his hair needed to be better treated because bleaching it could damage the fibers and the skin and he liked to keep it that way, but nothing more than that. Her chest sank, and she sighed, leaning her head against the wall. She didn't feel like crying, it was just... a nasty emptiness. Nothing unusual...

"Akane?" She heard his voice suddenly call, a little weak, and she could only imagine how much worse his hangover must be, considering he had drunk much more than her at the party. "Are you in there? Damn, I feel like a fuckin' wreck- wow!" He opens the door and is startled a little when he sees her under the shower. "Sorry! I thought you were still waiting for the water to heat up…"

He half-hides behind the open door, wearing only the sweatpants she had given him as a gift weeks ago. He was pale, with slight dark circles under his eyes, his face covered in stubble. But his green eyes were alert and tried, out of pure respect, not to stare at her. At least not too much.

She looks at him and smiles a little. Was he still trying to be a gentleman? After everything they've done in the last few months?

"Hey, you've seen me naked lots of times," She says, still smiling, using her hangover as an excuse for the defeated look she must have on her face now. "Forget it and come here. The water is still too cold for my liking...," she raises her arms, sticking her breasts out. "Come warm me up..."

He blushes a little, which was a welcome change from that unpleasant paleness that made him look sick. He opens the door wide and enters the bathroom, smiling excitedly, now staring at her breasts greedily and without any shame. "Yes ma'am! It's just that I didn't think you were in the mood, we came back from auntie's house with a hell of a hangover... but if you're up for it, I'll come over and warm you up." 

Up until two months ago, Rihito would have rushed to join her in the shower without even asking if he was welcome or not. But now, he felt he owed respect to the woman who had taught him how to be more pleasant and less inconvenient. He owed respect to everyone else in general. He really wanted to change, to improve, so waiting for an invitation didn't hurt. The way she made him wish to be better still left him very disconcerted, as he took off his pants and folded them on top of the basket. It was probably the item of clothing he took the most care of now.

She made room for him in the shower area so he could get wet, and she stared at him while his back was turned to her. In fact, she had seen many ups and downs in the beauty or sensuality department, and she concluded that he definetly was a handsome man. And yes, he was sexy, he had proven it to her in the best ways. But that buffoonish personality, his extremely happy and cheerful demeanor, and how affectionate he could be when they were together, was what really draw her to him. Even though he denied that, and even though they both threw barbs at each other, it was all affectionate teasing, in the end. Two beings with strong personalities…

"Hnnn…," He closes his eyes as he lets the water run down his body, a small smile forming on the corner of his lips, completely unaware of the line her thoughts were following. "Best thing in this cold weather, am I right?," He opens his eyes again, smiling at her, his eyelids drooping. "Do you want help washing up? I... uh... I just remembered that I only have one bar of soap, I don't know if you mind sharing..."

"I already used the soap…," She takes a step towards him. "And now I want your washing tank…," She runs her hand over his abdomen, to signal what she wanted to say.. "I feel a bit needy after all that cuteness, the hangover makes the envy quadruple…"

He shivers, his eyes getting narrower, his wet hair sticking to his forehead. "Hnn... what are you envious of, woman? Look how hot you are. And you can dance so well on top of that... I'm the lucky one...," He brings her closer with his hands on her hips, their wet bodies rubbing against each other; she felt him "waking up" really quickly where their groins touched. "Leave the cuteness to that bunch of sissies, while we have the best part all to ourselves..."

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey, but today I want something sweet to go with the spice," She hugs him by the shoulders, having to put on a little more effort because she's not wearing heels, but she manages to reach him for a kiss. "Everyone has a lazy day, right? Dancing in bed right next to you is good, even more so after a party like that one. We'll have an encore later...," She looks into his eyes. "Or have you already forgotten that you play fought those brutes twice, got drunk and danced your ass off?" 

He blushes even more after that, gritting his teeth a little. "Ugh, I was hoping that all that was just a weird dream I had...! Those bastards must have recorded everything, I'll never have peace in my life again...," He bends down to kiss her again, more passionately. "Now I'm going to have to make you forget about that whole mess...," And he places his hands on her hips, pushing her against the tiled wall and bending down to lick and kiss her breasts, sucking the nipples with his eyes closed.

"Ooh.. only- only if you do all the work, I'm feeling lazy today..."

"As you wish."

She hugs his shoulders for support, and gasps when he lifts her up to a good angle, making her instinctively hug him with her legs too. She moaned more sweetly this time, as she herself had said, but the heat between her legs remained the same.

He makes her rub herself against his cock, her wet lips opening as if to invite him in. She moves her hips so she can feel the friction, the tip touching her clit from time to time, and he smiles with a very particular pride when he feels her trembling in his arms, when he hears her low and oh, so stimulating moans.

"Hnnn... no foreplay again today? Such an insatiable panther, hehe..."

"I'd love some if we weren't in the shower, actually, but being like this in your arms is enough," she whispers as she lightly bites his shoulder. "I think you look hot no matter what...," And her nails do their job, tickling his skin.

"Fuck...," He growls against her neck, licking and nibbling her skin in return, his voice echoing a little in the bathroom, the arousal making it sound even more hoarse. "I'm gonna fuck you so, so hard, woman, you won't even be able to walk after I-"

"Rihito! Are you home?"

Rihito almost drops Akane in fright, even yelping a little. He quickly holds her against the wall, his eyes wide with shock, the color draining from his face again when he recognizes the voice calling for him, sounding a little distant, but still clear enough for them to hear it even over the sound of the running water.

"What the- what is Ivan doing here?!"

"Huh?," Her eyes widen while she stands up, cringing a little with the sudden fright. "Who's Ivan?," She whispers reflexively, full of adrenaline from the fear of getting caught.

"He's one of my coworkers.Why the hell did he come here? Why didn't he call me or something?!," He grunts, looking at the door with gritted teeth. "He's such a cockblocker! I'm sorry, Akane, but… argh, how the fuck am I supposed to answer the door like this?!," He points to his own erection with a desperation that would have been hilarious, if it weren't for the situation.

"Calm down and go answer it," She pushes him towards the door. "Just try thinking about some gross stuff... and at least wrap yourself on a towel!," She hisses in a low tone, mortified when he was about to leave the bathroom naked, just like that.

He drops the towel a couple of times before he manages to tie it around his waist, opening the bathroom door and looking at her over his shoulder. “I'll keep him there at the door until you get dressed. Sorry, he's not one to show up like that, out of the blue... oh, shit, did something bad happen at the fridge?” He asks himself, now worried, before running into the hall. She was still a little scared, but calmed down a bit when she saw that it was someone he knew. Rihito opens the door and Ivan, a very thin guy with pale blond hair, is waiting on the other side.

"Rihito! Blyat, you're alive," he exclaimed, the russian accent evident due to his relief. "You never miss a day of work without giving us a heads up, we were worried! And... oh," He notices his boss' clothing... or the lack of it. "Sorry for coming out of the blue, but I wouldn't bother if it wasn't important."

"Damn, Ivan, you scared the crap outta me! And... me missing a day...?," Rihito blinks, confused. "Bro, the fridge closes on the 25th! What are you talking about? Did Komada and you spend Christmas’ Eve drinking or...?"

"Dude, today is the 26th," He raises an almost non-existent eyebrow. "You’re the one who apparently had too much to drink, urod."

Rihito blinks, his expression blank for a second. And even Akane, who was further away, hears him shout, loud and clear, "TODAY IS THE 26TH?!"

Apparently, important dates were also something that his hungover brain was prone to confuse. Akane hissed a little; jeez, her boss was going to chew her ass, but at least today was a non-binding day… but apparently it wasn't for him.

She put on her clothes in a bit of a hurry; he would be busy soon, and she didn't want to give him trouble.

"Yep, it's two in the afternoon on the 26th," Ivan looks at his wristwatch. "We thought you were going to be late, but noon went by and you missed a shit ton of calls. Komada stayed behind to keep an eye on everything while I came to pick you up. I'm glad you're at least alive, I don't want to fight the Deva King to see who will take over your spot," He laughs a little.

"Damn...! Sorry, man, I completely lost track of time," He puts his hand on his face, groaning tiredly. "I drank my ass off yesterday, I'm still recovering... but seriously, sorry for making you guys worry. It's just gonna take a while to get ready and go with you you because...," He scratches the back of his head, now uncertain. "As I thought it was still the 25th, I kind of planned to spend the day at home and... I'm not alone, so..."

Ivan seemed to understand. "Oooh... shit, man, my bad. I arrived at a bad time," he scratches the back of his head. "Well, should I wait here or will it take too long? I even brought some papers for you to read, you are the only one who knows how to deal with this business shit, and... well, I don't sign other people's papers, y'know."

Rihito was about to say something when he hears a yelp from behind him and a dull thump of someone stumbling.

Akane had fumbled with her shoes and was now face down on the couch; she was already dressed, however.

"Ouch," She moans, standing up. "Damn…"

"Akane!," He shouts for her, without thinking, turning his back on a very surprised Ivan and running to help her, the towel almost slipping from his waist. "Are you okay there?"

"Uh... is she okay?," Ivan raises an eyebrow."

"Oh, don't- don't worry about me," She massages her ribs. "I tripped over my heels when I was getting dressed, that's all...," She groans softly, her hair now a multicolored mess. Ivan seemed a little surprised by her appearance, but he didn't comment on it. He just watched, ready to help if needed.

"Careful there, you could twist your ankle with those half-meter platforms," Rihito jokes while helping her sit on the sofa. And then he remembers that they had a visitor, quickly turning to Ivan, very disconcerted. And Ivan had known Rihito long enough to know that sleeping with random women and other people knowing about it never left him disconcerted. This was strange.

"Uh... Ivan, this is Agata Akane, a friend of mine. Akane, this is Ivan Karaev, one of my friends and a co-worker from the fridge...," He scratches the back of his head again, looking to the side. What a bizarre situation to be in for introductions…

"Nice to meet you, miss," Ivan bows a little, cordially, finding the whole situation strange, but keeping it to himself. "I'll wait for you outside, I don't wanna bother. As I said, I wouldn't come if it wasn't something serious."

"Yeah, I know… I'll be right back, I'm just gonna… yeah," And he darts into the apartment, grabbing the towel around his waist, and Ivan had the brief impression of seeing the tips of his ears turning red before he disappeared from the living room. They then heard the bedroom door slamming.

He drops the towel immediately, running to get some underwear and his work uniform from the closet, swearing under his breath as he does so. At least the scare he had received had served to make him go limp, but still… holy shit, how did he lose track of the days like that?! Had he really drunk that much? Or maybe it was that demonic sake that Himuro had brought, which apparently he could handle, but when mixed with that man-whore's cocktails, it was capable of knocking over even behemoths with high metabolisms like him.

He definitely didn't have the mind or stomach to work, but he had no choice. He couldn't leave Ivan and Komada to handle everything on their own, it wasn't fair to them. Damn, just when he was planning to spend a lazy day with Akane, just eating, talking, watching some movies and having sex…

He then lifts his head, making a face. He couldn't let her go home alone like that, in that hellish cold, with just the clothes on her back... the thought of her getting sick or having an accident on the slippery streets made his stomach freeze and drop. Not to mention that he didn't want to say goodbye to her yet, damn it!

Akane, on the other hand, was already leaving. Was she embarrassed, looking like a roadside skank caught in the act? Yes, but if she stayed longer, she could get in the way…

"So he got busy with you," Ivan comments, his voice neutral, shaking his head. "I should've guessed. Sorry, but normally he never brings women to his place..."

Akane sighed, resigned, finally finishing adjusting her shoes and putting on her coat. "Yeah, I thought he was free today, but he's not, so... sorry for disturbing you," her voice was serious, as she walked through the door. "Good afternoon…"

"Akane!," They hear Rihito scream suddenly, coming back in a hurry, wearing the SF Cold Storage uniform and carrying his work boots in one hand. "Wait a minute! No- There’s no need to leave like that, we haven’t even eaten anything yet…" 

"Oh," She smiles at him. "It’s okay, Rihito, I’ll get back to you when I get home. I'm gonna take a cab, and you have important things to do. Sorry again for disturbing your work day, Mr. Karaev.

"Uh… no problem," Ivan mutters, embarrassed.

"So... yeah, I'm going now," she smiles a little at Rihito and leaves, now walking normally, like a proper lady. 

Ivan waited until she was far away to look at Rihito and comment:

"Was that… a Gyaru?," he crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow. "Damn, I've never seen one who wasn't a highschooler before... where's the street corner where you found her?"

"Don't give me that 'street corner' shit, man!," He snorts, still looking at the point where she had disappeared, a strange expression on his face. "She's a friend. Okubo's girlfriend introduced me to her... but yeah, she's a Gyaru. She has a lifetime commitment to the style, I guess..."

"Hey, calm down. I only asked because that's usually where you find girls like that. Sorry for jumping to conclusions. Well, here's the paperwork," He hands over a clipboard. "This is a boss thing, so there was no way we could send it off without your signature..."

"Thanks... and sorry freaking out, Ivan," He sighs after picking up the clipboard, a little embarrassed by his outburst. "I'm still hungover," He shakes his head. "I'm going to sign this thing and then we'll go to the fridge. Send a message to Komada in the meantime, he must be thinking that you went to the morgue to identify my corpse or something," He jokes as he goes to look for a pen.

And Akane couldn't get out of his head, even as he quickly signed the paperwork. He had seen how embarrassed she was by Ivan's presence. And considering Ivan's misinterpretation of the kind of relationship they had, he couldn't exactly blame her. Even self-assured girls would be uncomfortable being mistaken for hookers, wouldn't they? A strange guilt settled in his stomach, and as soon as he finished signing all the papers, he took out his phone and went straight to her contact number.

Himbo_King🦍: 

hey

sorry about that

I should've remembered that today was a work day

Boss_Bitch🍑: 

it's fine 

I mixed the dates too

not gonna be in your way when you have work 

I have to sort myself out, anyway

today's a non-binding day, but I'll have to go back to work tomorrow

I'm gonna take the opportunity to do snd go grocery shopping

so don't worry about me 💋

Himbo_King🦍: 

alright then

can we see each other on the weekend, if we're not busy?

I wanna make up for today

you left without even having breakfast

Boss_Bitch🍑:

fine by me 

but maybe after the holydays?

mr himuro said he would drink with you guys on new years

and he didn't say for you to bring a date 

so it will be a sausage party 🙈

we can go to that thrift store hunt afterwards

it's new years sale, so I'm gonna need an extra pair of hands

Himbo_King🦍:

oh right

our hunt for tacky stuff at a bargain price lol

ok we're all set

message me when you can so I know you got home safely 🙏

Boss_Bitch🍑:

I'm already on the cab

I'll be home in 10 min

Himbo_King🦍:

alright

kiss on ya tits 🍒

And he puts his phone in his pants pocket with another sigh. Only after New Year's... seemed like too long. Was she too busy or did she need some time away from him after the embarrassment? He felt his stomach turn unpleasantly again... but it could just be the hangover. He groans, rubbing his eyes.

"There you go, man. I'm gonna take some medicine and then we can be on our way... holy shit, I hope you spent Christmas being more responsible than I was..."

"Well, I did…," Ivan smiles. "Gina, my niece, came for a visit and gave me a Christmas present, it was really nice. I didn't do much, so being sober was easy. I'm not sure about Komada, but he also came to work in good health, apparently." 

"Really? Cool! How's Gina? She's getting prettier by the day, from the last pic you sent on our group chat...," Rihito smiles, and a few minutes later, Ivan and he were already on their way to the fridge, talking about pleasantries, the events from earlier an elephant in the room which neither of them wanted to look at. Ivan only knew that Rihito, at least the Rihito he knew, generally wouldn't have had that reaction to questions about a woman he had been secretly fucking.

But Ivan didn't feel the need to ask. He had no reason to worry about his boss' personal life, especially who he was sleeping with, and if he wanted to keep it a secret, well... he wouldn't be the first to tell either.

…

"It's nice that you managed to convince your family to let you spend New Year's here, man. I hope they didn't give you too much trouble..."

"No, no, it was our agreement. I agreed to exchange the New Year's visit for the Christmas visit because it was going to be the only family gathering my brother would be able to show up to. But now I'm free. And about those videos...," Kaneda opens a huge smile. "If I had known that Rihito was so good at ballroom dancing, I would've suggested adding it to his fighting style, to improve his dodging..."

"Holy shit. You're barely back in town and you're already gonna start roasting me? You fuckin' clown," Rihito grumbles as he pours a glass of sake into his mouth, ignoring how the others laughed at him.

"I told him the same during that snowball fight," Ohma adds, with his cocktail. He was in possession of his own plates of cold cuts and appetizers; the others knew him well, so they tried to get that sorted out before he devoured everyone else's. "Hnnn... this thing here is really spicy," He says without even changing his expression. "It's tasty. But this sand-like thing here is very dry," He points to a little bow, full of cassava flour. "It needs to be served with something with sauce, otherwise it's horrible..."

"That 'sand' was made to accompany the appetizers, man, not to be eaten separately. You're supposed to spread it on top of the food, like this...," Himuro demonstrates by picking up some cassava flour with a plastic spoon and sprinkling it on top of the meat appetizers on Ohma's plate. "Try it. Much better now, right?" 

He makes a face and tries it, and then his expression lights up. "Oh, indeed... so it's like a dry sauce," He nods. "Tastes good now."

"No, seriously, your idea of ​​spending New Year's Eve in this Brazilian bar was great," Kaneda comments, smiling, while choosing some pieces from the cold cuts. "The food is really good, very spicy. Do they serve Brazilian alcohol here too, Himuro?"

"Yep! I recommend the 51. It's a kind of schnapps and it's realy good, but it's also some strong stuff. Be careful," Himuro warns, to which Rihito says, "I'm in, but let's try not go crazy like during Christmas. My liver was kicking my ass for a couple of days afterwards."

"It was your fault. I warned you that that sake was strong enough to knock over an bull," Himuro snorts. "And anyway, the booze I mentioned is expensive…"

"I heard it's very popular there," Okubo nods. "And so isthe cocktail they make with it, the Kay-pi-ri-nya..."

"This one?," Ohma points to the said cocktail. "It's sweet, kinda like a lemonade. Pretty strong too."

"You really don’t waste time when it comes to food, huh," Okubo laughs.

"There's nothing else to do here. At least the food is good," Ohma shrugs. "But for those who like dancing I guess it's good. There's plenty of space."

"Caipirinha, Okubo. And yes, it's good, but again, go easy. It seems like weak stuff at first, but before you realize it, you'll see everything spinning like you're inside a washing machine," Himuro warns. "And yes, Ohma, there will be dancing. Later, a few minutes before midnight, they will call everyone to the middle of the dance floor, for the Silver Rain."

"Silver Rain?"

"Yeah. See that crack in the ceiling, right above the dance floor? The one that looks like the opening of a trapdoor," Himuro points to the ceiling. "When it hits midnight, it will open and a shower of silver shredded paper and confetti will fall from above, in celebration of the arrival of the New Year. And that's when the party will really take off. Loud music and dancing until dawn."!

"Holy crap... Brazilians really like these late-night parties, don't they?," Rihito asks, to which Kaneda laughs softly.

"It must be a Latin thing, haha. But we as a group are not that far behind."

"Definitely not, our Christmas was just like that, ahaha," Okubo smiles. "We spent the night playing horror games until the sun came up and a bit more after a few hours of sleep. Rihito and Akane left after ten o'clock at night, singing, holding onto each other's shoulders like two bros after a night out. Not gonna lie, I was proud of her," And there was a fit of laughter. "This fucker here found a demon chick on par with him."

"It’s a shame they didn’t stay to help clean up the mess…"

"We know, Ohma, but just us was enough, and we could rest and sober up enough to go home," Okubo eats some of the appetizers on his plate. "And yes, we're going to go easy today. I’m just gonna drink my passion fruit juice and enjoy the vibes…"

"Man, I was about to barf all over your girl’s carpet! If she was already mad that we almost broke a wall in the hallway during our fight, imagine if I covered her carpet with everything I ate during the party," Rihito makes a face, which Himuro and Kaneda imitate. "You guys would never let me forget."

"Wow, you really went overboard this Christmas, huh," Kaneda raises an eyebrow. "Good thing there was someone there to keep you under control, at least as far as possible…"

"Leave me be, bro! But yes, she helped me a lot...," He scratches the back of his head, smiling. "It was a great night, we even managed to tie with Himuro and his date on Just Dance! We drank like two sailors, and holy shit, she can drink like a man! And after that we went to my apartment... I don't even remember the way there, to be honest..."

"Wait. Did you take Miss Agata to your apartment?," Himuro blinks. Rihito stops smiling, looking away in embarrassment.

"Uh... it- it was closer to Miss Kanami's house than hers! And she wasn't sober either, I wasn't going to let her go home alone like that..."

"They were really drunk. He was even singing romantic songs at the top of his lungs as he walked down the street...," Ohma starts to sing, more in tune. "I’ll go wherever you will gooo..."

"She started singing first, I just followed her lead!," Rihito defends himself, a little indignant. "And why are you two looking at me like that? Did you lose something on my face?," He asks Himuro and Kaneda, annoyed, and they just look at each other.

"It's nothing. It's just... you've never brought a woman to your place before, as far as we know," Kaneda shrugs, and Himuro nods.

"Yeah. You said it was a matter of principle, that your place is a sacred temple to virility and that bringing a woman there would give her the completely wrong idea..."

"Fuck, can't I be a gentleman for once in my life? Should I have let her go home alone, drunk out of her ass, then?," Rihito gestures, somewhere between angry and embarrassed.

"You could've walked her to her place and then taken the train, I don’t know…"

"I barely saw where I was going, I don’t even know how we got home! If I were to take a train straight from that hood, I would probably end up somewhere near Yokohama, Kawasaki or some other random place in the district...," He mumbles, concentrating on his sake, his face slightly red.

"I think he just didn't want to take chicks to his apartment because the place it's a mess. But then Miss Agata comes from a similar area, so I guess it'd be fine," Okubo laughs, and when Rihito shoots daggers at him, he blinks. "What? Did I say something wrong? Or is that hood super safe, full of cute, retired old ladies like yours?"

"Hunf... There are some old ladies there, but they are as cute as a racoon with hydrophobia," Rihito rolls his eyes. "And she didn't complain about my place! At least I can't remember her doing so..."

"If she was drunk too, she probably wouldn’t have noticed. Lucky for you," Kaneda raises his cup as if pointing at him.

"Or maybe she had frequented many like yours," Ohma repeats the gesture that Kaneda made. "Or worse ones, like us."

"Likely. But anyway, after sobriety hit... did you have anything in that fridge besides beer and a few ramen cups? The poor woman must not have found anything to eat after waking up...," Himuro comments, and the way Rihito looked away in embarrassment was enough of an answer. "Yeah, that's what I tought. It must've been quite an adventure having to go to a convenience store to buy something even minimally edible…"

"That’s the thing," Rihito sighs. "There wasn’t even time for us to eat anything. We were in the shower, making out, and then, out of nowhere, Ivan showed up at the door."

"Ivan? Your employee from the fridge?," Kaneda asks, confused. "​​Did he wanted to give you a Christmas present or something?"

"Well…," Rihito makes a face. "When he showed up, it was the 26th…"

"The 26th? But don't you work on the 26th? ... Holy shit, Rihito," Himuro puts a hand on his face when Rihito blushes again.

"See? Dude was completely hammered," Okubo shakes his head. "Seriously, guys, let's go easy next time. Yeah, it's was fun as hell, and I've never laughed so much during a Just Dance battle, especially when I saw Himuro and Rihito lose to Ohma...

"By only two points, don’t exaggerate," Ohma rolls her eyes. "It was difficult to get that pie."

"And all over some stupid pie!," Okubo laughs.

"By only two points!," Rihito and Himuro exclaim at the same time, slamming their fists on the table indignantly, to which Kaneda covers his mouth to stifle a laugh.

"Who would've thought that Himuro would be detroned like that... I wouldn't have believed it if you hadn't sent me those videos."

"Shut up, Kaneda! He only won because he had food as a motivator! If the situation had been different, I would've kept my crown…"

"Like hell you would! Akane and I would have won in a tiebreaker!," Rihito states, lifting his chin.

"In your dreams! The synchronization between my partner and I was perfect!"

"Ours was much better!"

"Look at what you've done, Okubo...," Kaneda laughs more openly.

"Discord and chaos, I love it," Okubo takes another sip of his drink. "And what if the prize were a piece of meat, Ohma?"

"It depends…," Ohma nods, smiling mischievously.

"A juicy barbecue, last batch of the day."

"You wanted me to kill them or something?," Ohma asks with his signature poker face. "Then it wouldn't have happened, they would've known what they're getting into."

"No more bets involving food, damn it! Otherwise this spawn of Cthullu will become an unbeatable freak!," Rihito points to Ohma with a gesture of his hand, and Himuro nods.

"I agree. Next time we'll bet on something else," he grumbles, until Rihito opens his mouth to ask, "No, no money, no one here besides Egghead earns that well to take that risk."

"That's what you get for betting my pie. You can bet booze, if you want," Ohma suggests. "I won't give a shit in that case, and neither will Kanami. She doesn't drink anyway. "

"Hnn, maybe. We can all chip in and buy another Kotozakura," Okubo nods.

"How about competing just for the sake of competing, without betting anything?"

"Says the guy emptied a shit ton of wallets while betting at shogi!," Rihito snorts, to which Kaneda shakes his head.

"It wasn't a bet, I charged a fee. They could pay to play if they wanted, and if they beat me they could get the money back," He shrugs calmly. "But anyway... damn, now I'm a little upset about having exchanged the New Year's visit for the Christmas one. I missed a lot of things..."

"You also missed a Homeric snowball fight, man! We took off our sweaters in the middle of the street and showed off for the girls," Rihito smiles from ear to ear.

"You ruined my sweater," Ohma complains. "Tore the whole thing apart."

"Mine got stuck to the lamp post, so there was nothing to do but get out of it," Himuro shrugs.

"I thought you guys took it off to show off," Okubo was confused. "Was it just me and Rihito who did it for that reason?"

"Obviously. I don't need to be naked from the waist up to be able to impress a girl, get a grip," Himuro rolls his eyes, to which Rihito gives a mischievous laugh.

"But that did help, didn't it? You fucked after the party, didn't you?"

"Rihito!"

"What? I'm just asking!"

"Humph. As if you needed to...," Himuro raises an eyebrow, and Rihito laughs loudly while exchanging a high five with him. Kaneda just sighs, giving up.

"Atta boy! You too, right, Egghead? I'm aware that you don't like to go into details because it's your girl, but that stupid smile isn't fooling anyone..."

"Is there someone here who didn't?," Okubo looks at Ohma, an eyebrow raised.

"It's none of your business," Ohma makes a face. Everyone looks at him and he grunts, annoyed. "Argh, fine. Yes, after you guys left and we tidied everything up. We got in the mood. Happy now, you fuckers?"

There's a chorus of laughter, and Rihito playfully claps Ohma's shoulder, even shaking him a little before letting go. Kaneda shakes his head, a little disapprovingly, a little amused, to which Rihito jokes, "There's no need to get all sulky because you were the only one at the table who didn't get laid, man..."

"I was with my mom, my siblings and a grandfather who has gout problems. I didn't have time to think about these things, and I also didn't want to. But the videos you sent me were entertaining enough. Seriously, Ohma, that was amazing!," He turns his gaze to Ohma. "Was it some kind of technique? Your movements were too precise."

Ohma nods. "Yep. Kure. Copy Technique."

"Damn, dude takes these things way too seriously," Okubo makes a face, holding back a laugh.

"Kure? Holy shit, we should've guessed...," Himuro snorts, while Lihito grunts, "Damn, of course it was a technique from that fucking psycho's clan! Reminde me to never play Just Dance against any of them…"

"It's a nightmare, trust me," Ohma shakes his head. "They're all sore losers, and the prizes are always shitty. What the fuck would I need a SMG for?"

"Uh... I mean, we wouldn't use that shit for anything either, but it's a hell of a manly prize...," Rihito comments, thoughtfully, to which Kaneda says with a grimace, "I prefer the prizes from my grandfather's bingo, honestly... at least they're funny. But anyway, it's still impressive, Ohma! But tell me... was it that technique you used against Rólon, back in Purgatory?"

"Bullseye…"

"I knew it!"

"Damn... we didn't have the slightest chance then. So fucking unfair...," Himuro turns his sake cup into his mouth, and Rihito nods while pouting.

"I think this calls for the booze you mentioned, Himuro. For us to drown our sorrows and whatnot…"

"Wasn’t it you who were saying up until now that we should take it easy, because your liver rebelled against you? Get a grip, you drunkard..."

"You can drink, he can't," Okubo laughs. "We have someone to come home to," and he starts laughing at his friend's face.

"Stop talking nonsense, Chrome Dome Head! I have no one to go back to!," Rihito exclaims "I'm a single, free man, ya hear me?"

"I have it, Okubo. high five," Ohma claps Okubo's hand whit his on. "And I'm happy with that, unlike that 'invincible soldier' there."

"Now that I'm thinking about it, you're always beating our asses. To be able to take you down with a leg lock, it had to be a real Amazon, huh," - Okubo smiles. Ohma smiles even more. "She beat Karla fair and square. Do you think she's some kind of weakling? Hell no," He inflates his chest with pride. "I won't accept anything less than that."

"We told you, your girl could be a champion if the Kengan Association had a female division," Himuro says with a nod, to which Kaneda comments, "It seems that you all have a certain fascination with girls who are part of our world in some way, right? Miss Kanami is a fighter, Tomori is a martial arts fan…"

"Miss Agata is neither… except… does she know?," Okubo looks at Rihito.

"I didn't think about Miss Agata, actually. After all, she’s not Rihito’s 'girl', right?," Kaneda arches an eyebrow at Rihito, to which he frowns, putting another snack in his mouth, looking at Okubo in warning.

"And Kana is a fighter, but that's the thing, she doesn't fight to be stronger or to win," Ohma finishes with his snacks. "She fights to protect others. I thought it was nonsense at first, until she showed me what she was capable of," He nods. "If someone she cares about is threatened, she shows no mercy. Okubo had a taste of it himself."

"Ooh yeah...," Rihito, Himuro and Kaneda make almost identical faces, looking at their friend. "We didn't see the punch, but we saw the bruise afterwards. Looked ugly as fuck…"

"Yeah, I had a taste and deserved it, and if I weighed a few pounds less it would have knocked me down easily. Tokita's the one who's enough of a powerhouse to handle one of these."

"I told you, I won’t accept anything less than that…"

"Such a masochist freak…"

"Would you prefer a crazy woman who only sees you as breeding stalion?"

"Okay, when you put it like that...," Okubo nods, crossing his arms. "At least you had guaranteed sex- OKAY, FINE, I'LL STOP!," he flinches when Ohma punches his ribs. "I got it, I was just joking!"

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Ohma walks away, returning to his cocktail, his face very serious.

The other three laugh loudly, Rihito throwing his head back, before taking another sip of sake in his mouth. Kaneda then asks, "But back to that subject... Is Miss Agata really interested in watching one of your matches, Rihito?"

"She says she was curious. And that she would find it hot as fuck too," He smiles mischievously. "I'm seriously considering it. It will encourage me even more to win, because victory sex is the best kind of sex!"

"... You remember that she is a civilian, right?," Himuro asks, unimpressed. ​​"A normal woman, or as normal as a Gyaru like her can be. She knows nothing about this underworld of illegal fights."

"Eh, Kanami-san now knows, and so does Tomori…

"But they are Ohma and Okubo’s girls. They need to know if they want these relationships to have a future. Your case is different."

"Or is it?," Kaneda asks, sounding innocent. Rihito almost chokes on a slice of salami, which he had put in his mouth with a toothpick.

"Of course it’s different, dammit!," He quickly explains himself, shrugging with an irritated expression. "But if a friend wants to know my world in depth, what's the harm in introducing it to her?"

"The problem is when neither of them really wants to get involved with each other," Okubo crosses his arms, still grimacing from Ohma's punch. "I'm still a public league guy and Tomori can watch me there as much as she wants, but she discovered about the Kengan matches prematurely by putting me against the wall. In Ohma's case...," he looks at Ohma, who looks back at him with daggers in his eyes, and the bigger man gets cautious about what he was going to say. "They even share a house, and besides her having been dragged into this, she is discreet even with public displays of affection," He looks at Ohma again, who nods, remaining quiet again as Okubo continues, "But you..."

"What about me?," Rihito instigates, still a little annoyed. Himuro immediately responds, "Didn't you hear what he said? If you want nothing with her other than a friendship with benefits, there's no point in exposing her to something like that. It's safer for her if she continues without knowing. She's the type that attracts attention, and in a place full of underworld trash, many of them criminals with some nasty records..."

"What? You think I wouldn't be able to protect her?!"

"While you are in the middle of a fighting ring, focusing on your match? No."

This makes Rihito fall silent, the anger being replaced by a worried understanding.

"Kana accompanies Tomori whenever she goes to watch Okubo fighting without one of us," Ohma comments. "So maybe..."

"Yes, but she's going because Tomoh is one of her employees," Okubo shakes his head. "She doesn't want to risk it. And they won’t always watch me fight, precisely for that reason…"

"Anyway, we vote against it," Ohma agrees.

"Not to mention that this could end up having the opposite effect on you, Rihito," Kaneda puts his hands together on the table. "Now that you know the danger she could be in, you may become very unfocused in the middle of your matches, because you will be worried about her."

Rihito's eyes widened a little. "Holy shit, I hadn't thought of that…"

"Yeah. More than any of us, you can't afford to be distracted like this. You're a fighter-businessman, remember? You're risking the prosperity of your business when you fight. You have to consider these factors."

"And she's seen you fight," Okubo smiles a little. "Even if it was just play-fighting between us. She saw your strength when you lifted that huge block of ice..."

"I know... it's just that she seemed really curious. I thought it would be a cool idea for a date, I don't know...," He shrugs, a little sullenly, and takes a sip of sake again. "And it wasn't really a fight, anyway. It barely had any technique in it."

"On your part, because Okubo and I put on a show that left our dates all horny for us," Himuro laughs, and Okubo gives him a high-five.

"Mine got horny for me too, damn it, and I didn’t need to put that much of a show!"

"Mine was just really worried…," Ohma rolls his eyes, but with an affectionate smile.

"Anyway. It's better this way, Rihito, for her safety," Kaneda touches his shoulder. "She's your friend, isn't she? Friends are just as worth protecting as girlfriends."

"Yeah... I know...," He sighs a little. "But now I'm gonna have to say that I changed my mind and I think it's better she doesn't go watch one of my matches. It will seem like I'm breaking my promise..."

"Just say that your employer didn't allow it," Okubo shrugs. "You're the employer yourself, so it's not a lie."

"Or that Yamashitakazuo scolded you, he does that to me all the time," Ohma shrugs too. "I'll order another one of those... is this one good, Okubo?"

"Yes, and you're gonna like it 'cause it's kinda sweet. I'm going to drive all of you around today, so this one is non-alcoholic, but there is a spiked version."

"I’ll order both," he calls the waiter.

"And I want that 51 booze...," Rihito says, still sulking.

"You sure? It's not exactly cheap, y'know."

"Fuck, bro, it’s New Year’s Eve. If you have to choose an appropriate time to get shitfaced, then let it be this one," He sinks into the chair.

"Welp. It's your call," Himuro shrugs and calls the waiter too, when he approaches their table. "A bottle of 51 and two 'caipirinhas', please. Would you like to try it, Kaneda?"

"Of course! But just one, you know that I can't handle too much alcohol, haha."

"Also two passion fruit juices, one spiked and the other not," Okubo points to Ohma. "For this guy here. And maybe another two servings of cold cuts?"

Ohma nods. The waiter writes their orders down and leaves.

"Are you really going to stand there looking like you got something up your ass?," Himuro turns to Rihito with some impatience. "Were you that eager to show off to her?"

"Leave me alone! It's easy for you to give up something like that. You guys had girls cheering you on during your matches…"

"I never had something like this, at least not as far as I know," Kaneda shrugs. "Come on, Rihito, if it's women's attention you want, that dance floor will soon be full of them. Just the way you like it."

"In about ten minutes, actually," Okubo looks at his phone. "It’s a good thing we placed our orders beforehand, otherwise it would take forever…"

Rihito turns his gaze to the dance floor, his brow furrowed a little. The space was still empty, but there were several people standing around, talking to each other excitedly, looking forward to the moment when the countdown to midnight would begin. Many of them were women; all beautiful, as on the first night he came there.

The night he met Akane…

"Do we have to go to the dance floor to stay under this Silver Rain?," Kaneda asks from somewhere far away.

"I don’t know about you, but I will! It's really fun, everyone hugs each other and celebrate together, even if they don't know each other...," Himuro responded. "There are some patrons here who are actually Brazilian, I met a few who-"

"Here it is, gentlemen," The waiter arrives. "And this passion fruit juice here has already been paid for, sir."

"Huh?," Ohma blinks. "By who?"

"Those ladies over there," He points over his shoulder. There were two woman at the counter, who waved at him. Ohma blinks again.

"I don't know them…," He looks at the others. "Do you?"

"Wow, you're still a chick magnet, even with a girlfriend, huh," Okubo laughs, no longer bothered by it.

"This tactic is very common in bars, Ohma," Himuro says in a warning tone. "Buying a drink for someone you are interested in is a kind of flirt. If you accept it, it means their interest is mutual."

"Then give it back," He says immediately. "I'll pay for my own drink."

"I'll let them know that'll pay for ti, sir," He smiles.

"So you don’t need to return it?," Ohma looked at Himuro, an eyebrow raised.

"If you’re going to pay for it, no," He shakes his head in a negative gesture. "They will understand your refusal. Generally, girls accept a 'no' much better than guys, but I can't speak for every single one, so..."

"Then give it back!," He says even more seriously. "And bring me another one. I don't want to give them any ideas. Tell them I already have a girlfriend."

The waiter blinks dazedly and nods afterwards. "Oh... as you wish, sir," he sighs and takes both glasses. 

Okubo laughs out loud. "That's our Ohma for ya, completely unreachable. And now even more so."

"Leave me alone, I don't want that anymore," He seemed to have almost fallen into a trap and scraped his way out. If he were a cat, he would have his fur all standing up. "Thanks, Himuro."

Himuro laughs. "You’re welcome. If the girls had come with us, they wouldn't even try their luck..."

"Yes, but it's tradition to spend New Year's Eve with family," Kaneda comments. "I changed the dates and spent Christmas with mine. And you guys…"

"We’re each other’s family, man!," Rihito says suddenly, smiling a little. And then frowns when the others look at him in surprise. "What?"

"Dude... aren't you pissed?," Himuro asks, and Rihito becomes even more confused.

"Pissed about what? About not being able to take Akane to watch me fight? A little, but you guys have a point-"

"No, not with that. Two girls tried to flirt with Ohma. They bought him juice and everything," Kaneda points out, and Rihito blinks.

"Damn, really? I swear I didn't see it, I got distracted," He comments, and then looks at Ohma with a somewhat exasperated expression. "Seems like there's still lots of chicks wanting to play with that joystick, even if it has an owner, eh, Tokita. I swear to God..."

And he goes back to focusing on the cold cuts. Himuro and Kaneda exchange an astonished look, first with each other, and then with Okubo and Ohma.

"Well, thank fuck," Ohma says, smiling. "He doesn't care anymore!"

"I knew it! That she-devil has him grabbed by the balls! One more for the Fallen Soldiers Team!"

"I hate that term," Ohma complains. "It's worse than 'back-stabber.'

"Okay then… How about Soldiers of One Nation?"

"Much better," Ohma nods.

"It's nothing like that, damn it!," Rihito almost drops the cold cuts board, furiously red. "I wasn't pissed because now I can attract girls on my own, so I have no reason too!"

"So far you haven’t attracted any…"

"I'm here to have fun with you, aren't I? For fuck's sake, you guys complain when I chase skirts, and you also complain when I don't! You bastards just want me to fuck you but don't know how to ask for it!," He barks, even more irritated to see that he had only managed to get laughs from them. "And bite your tongue, Baldilocks! I won't join the Eunuch Team even if hell freezes over!"

Himuro and Kaneda just laugh when they see him fumbling with the cheese and salami, very disconcerted.

"Eunuch? Who?," Ohma looks around. "You?"

"Me? Hell no!," Okubo raises an eyebrow. 

"He called us eunuchs."

"Don't mind him, he's just being a dick." 

"And he still complains when we kick his ass during sparring sessions..."

"Uh… gentlemen?," The waiter comes back, looking embarrassed. "Here's yours drinks, including yours, sir..., He hands a glass to Ohma. "The ladies apologized for the inconvenience."

"Oh," Ohma blinks. "This is new. They never apologize to me," he smiles. He looks at the girls and gives them a thumbs up. "Thanks."

The girls seemed about to faint. Okubo laughs more, and even more so because the Rihito just snorted and rolled his eyes, now slightly annoyed.

"Oh, look, guys," Himuro looks at his phone while the others pick up their drinks. "There are just a few minutes left. Drink quickly or take your drink with you to the dance floor, so you can chug it in your mouth at midnight."

"I don't know if I want to be in the middle of a commotion, but if we all go together, I think it will be fun," Kaneda smiles, trying a sip of his drink, and then shaking with a grimace. "Ugh... wow, It's really strong, but it's not bad!"

"Told you so. In terms of booze, Brazilians are not far behind us," Himuro laughs a little, also taking a sip. He contains his reaction much better, as he was more used to it. Rihito, on the other hand, picks up and opens the bottle of 51 that the waiter handed him, grumbling as he pours some of the contents into the empty glass, his face still flushed.

Those dumbasses had become hopeless romantics after  finding girlfriends and that made him sick! He didn't want to be like that, trapped, suffocated, feeling like he owed someone satisfaction for everything he did. He was not born to live trapped in a cage, but to fly freely, light as a bird, one who could crawl into any nest...

Preferably into tacky and cozy nests, full of prints and fuzzy furniture, a monster pink sofa at the center of it all-

He almost chokes in a brief burst of panic, drinking all the drops in the glass at once, the liquid going down as if tearing his throat.

"And there he goes once again," Okubo rolls his eyes.

"I don't feel like going to the dance floor," Ohma crosses his arms. "You can go without me, I'll stay here guarding the table," He takes another cube of cheese from the board.

"Okay then," Okubo gets up. "I'm just gonna go a lil' crazy and I'll be right back, I don't need to waste time there."

"Let’s go together, Okubo! Are you coming, Kaneda?," Himuro asks. Kaneda twists his mouth a little, and then takes another sip of the caipirinha. He shudders again, takes a deep breath and stands up, saying, "Okay, I've mustered some courage! But only until the confetti stops falling!"

Laughing, Himuro follows Okubo, and Kaneda follows close behind. Rihito hesitates, still recovering from the first violent tipping of his glass.

"Are you going to stay here, Tokita? We'll be all together, no one will touch you or anything like that..."

"I don't enjoy this kind of stuff," Ohma takes his phone out of his pocket. "Food is more interesting. Unless you want to stay here and keep me company," He raises an eyebrow. “Besides, don't you want to be touched?"

Rihito opens his mouth, prepared to say yes, if it were by female hands... but then he hesitates. He and Ohma look at each other for about two seconds, a heavy silence hanging over them, until the lights in the establishment dim and the music suddenly stops. Ohma jumped out of his chair, startled, but when he heard people rejoicing, he calmed down.

"Shit, I thought I would have to start running," Ohma breathes, going back to looking at his phone. "I'm going to ask Kanami if I can go to her parents' house... after this, I don't feel like waiting for her at home."

Rihito allows himself a small laugh. Soon they could hear a voice echoing throughout the establishment, from the same announcer he had heard on his first trip to Brazuca’s. 

"Ladies and gentlemen!," The announcer’s powerful voice echoes through the open space. "It’s time for the most anticipated moment of the night! Get up and come to the dance floor, because in three minutes our countdown will begin! The Silver Rain is coming!"

And the entire bar vibrates with excited screams, while Rihito and Ohma watched Okubo, Himuro and Kaneda almost getting swallowed by the crowd.

"Aah! Oh, my goodness!," Kaneda clings to Himuro’s arm, who laughs loudly.

"Hahaha! Aren't you coming, Rihito?

"Come on, man!," Okubo calls for him, hugging the other two.

"It's your chance," Ohma says, glancing at him before returning to his phone.

"... Oooh, alright, them!," He leaves the bottle on the table, getting up and running to the dance floor. Himuro and Kaneda scream as he practically jumps on them, grabbing them and pulling them into his famous bear hug, laughing heartily. "Hell yeah! That’s what I call 'seeing the new year' in style! Who wants to be thrown into the air at midnight?"

"Fuck no!"

"Do that and I’ll break your nose!"

Rihito only laughs more, also pulling Okubo so that the four of them are glued together. This was the perfect opportunity for him to just focus on the present moment, on his friends, on the joy of being together like this... and to not think about leopard prints, fluffy fur, pink couches and blue/light brown eyes.

The countdown is on. "Threee, twooo, oooone!," And the trapdoor high above opens, a shower of confetti and colored paper falling on the passers-by, and everyone jumps with joy.

Okubo hugs the other three and shakes them too "YEAAAAH!!! Happy New Year, you bastards! I love you all!"

"FUCK YEAH!,"! Rihito roars, jumping up and down too, almost strangling Kaneda as he lifts him off the ground. "I love you guys too, damn it! For another year of us being awesome!"

"Rihito, you're strangling me...! But yes, Happy New Year, everyone!," Kaneda manages to gasp, and Himuro laughs loudly again, raising his arms up.

"Happy New Year! And I told you guys, didn't I? This feeling is so fucking awesome, hahaha!"

"Man, I love the energy in this place," hOkubo looks at Ohma, still at their table. "Are you thinking the same thing as me?"

"Of course, damn it! TOKITAAAA!," And Rihito and Okubo dart back to the table, arms open, Himuro and Kaneda hot on their heels, laughing when they realize what was coming.

Ohma's eyes widen when he sees the two gorillas running towards him and he tenses up, running away and tripping over the chair during the pursuit.

"AAARGH!," He practically jumped over the tables to run away from both of them. "Damn, what did I do?! Get off me, you freaks!"

"Come here, we want to give you a hug, dammit!," Okubo calls for him.

"Hell no! I’m sick of crazy freaks running after me all the time!"

"We want to wish you a Happy New Year, dumbass! Come more!," Rihito shouts, laughing loudly, the chase seeming to excite him even more.

At one point the crowd stops Ohma from moving forward and he is cornered. He prepares to fight until the two go after him and grab him, giving him a tight hug. Ohma looked like a strangled cat, kicking his legs, his eyes wide.

"Calm down, it’s just a hug," Okubo laughs at the his reaction.

"Yes! Happy New Year, Seaweed Head! And may a bunch more come!," Rihito almost lifts Ohma off the ground in his happiness. Himuro and Kaneda approached them, laughing at the scene.

"Hahaha, we’re going to say Happy New Year from here, Ohma," Himuro waves, and Kaneda nods.

"Yes, Happy New Year! And good luck getting out of there, hahaha!"

"Ugh…," He looked more resigned, but as soon as he calmed down, he sighed. "Happy New Year to you too, you idiots."

"Man, I've been wanting to do this ever since we celebrated your return," Okubo slowly lets them both go. "You never spend the end of the year with us, so this time I was able to do it."

"Heh, okay...," Ohma then looks at Rihito. "Hey... are you enjoying this, you weirdo?," He imitates Kanami's tone..

"Don't get the wrong idea! You never let us hug you, so let me enjoy the moment a little longer," Rihito snorts, squeezing him tighter, again lifting him off the ground... and then letting him go,smiling widely. "Oookay, now I'm satisfied, hahaha!"

"You guys are such idiots, hahaha... and okay, now there are other people who deserve to hear a Happy New Year from me," Himuro picks up his phone, and Kaneda nods, picking up his as well.

"Yes! I have a whole family to contact... oh man, my mom's calling! Excuse me, everyone...," And he leaves for a less noisy area of ​​the establishment.

"Yeah, I have to call Tomori," Okubo smiles stupidly. "My parents must be expecting a call too, so excuse me," and He leaves the scene.

"I was already halfway to sending a message to Kanami and Yamashitakazuo, but two gorillas got in my way,” Ohma takes out his phone and continued typing.

Rihito looks at his friends who are walking away, each one immersed in their phones, calling or sending messages to their friends and loved ones... and he just stays there, the adrenaline of the chase draining away, leaving only a strange feeling of loneliness.

He could send messages to Ivan and Komada, but they wouldn't see it until much later. And he could even send a message to his master if he had a phone, that old fucking hermit... who else was there besides that?

... And then he lifts his head, his stomach heating up, as if he had consumed all the booze the bar had available.

"Excuse me too...," He says quickly as he walks away, going to the table and picking up his coat and his bottle of 51. Then he enters that sea of ​​bodies that jumped, laughed, hugged and kissed, going towards the door.

The cold night welcomes him like the bite of a huge animal on his face, a stark contrast to the heat of Brazuca’s interior. He goes to the curb, leaning sideways against a lamppost, trying to ignore the friend groups and drunk couples who had the same idea as him and left the warmth of the bar to face the snow. He picks up his phone, at the same time he takes a sip from his bottle, the liquid warming him up inside. And then he presses the call button for a specific number, putting it close to his ear, waiting, his stomach doing little somersaults... 

"Hello?," It was her voice, sounding a bit slurred.

He smiles, the sound of her voice calming the turmoil in his stomach immediately, like the most potent antacid in the world.

"Happy New Year, Akane!"

"Huh?," She sighs, seeming to wake up. "Ooh... yeah... Happy New Year, Ichiro... I- I mean, Rihito," she sounded a little flustered. He hears a yawn on the other end of the line. "Sorry, I know you don't like people calling you by your real name..."

He shakes his head, leaning in a little and bringing the phone closer to his mouth. "No, it's okay, I don't mind when it's you."

... Fuck. Where the hell did that come from?! That Brazilian booze was a mixture made by Satan's master brewers!

"I- I mean...!," He stammers, his face burning, this time with no relation whatsoever to the cold. "I- I kind of got used to you calling me by my name and... anyway! Did I wake you up? Sorry…"

"No, it's okay...," he can hear a smile in her voice. "It was very welcome. I was already thinking that New Year's Even would pass me by... eh...," She also sounded uncertain. "I mean, nobody called me or anything, and I don't know if I would be in the mood to go out or something..."

"Wow... if I had known I would've called you!," He exclaims, once again feeling guilt hammering him hard in his chest. "I thought you were going to be at a friend's house, or with the crazy old ladies from the salon... but anyway, I- I'm here! I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year…"

“And I wanted to hear your voice too.”

He told his stupid brain to shut up, his heart missing a beat for a second.

"... and I also wanted to know if everything was ok. With you, I mean."

"I'm okay, don't worry… I was just going to sleep through the night. Thanks for calling me… Ichiro," Her voice was strangely tender, almost emotional.

"... You're welcome, Akane," He responds almost in a whisper, the tone of her voice sending funny sensations to his stomach... as if there was something, or several small things, flapping their wings in there. "You're one of the people to whom I couldn't help but say this, and there aren't many of them, hahaha."

"Wow… thanks…," He can hear her smiling a lot again. "I would also like to see you. Let's meet up in a few days, how about that? Well, good night. Take care..."

"Yeah, sounds good! Just send me a message and I'll be there in a beat," He promises. "The booze will serve as fuel, haha... good night."

And he lets her hang up, because he didn't know if he would be able to end the call on his own. He hears chuckling lowly.

"I… yeah… good night, Ichiro…," she hangs up. Did her voice sound a bit sad at the end or was it just him? But he noticed that she had appreciated his call.

That caused him a mixture of excitement and concern. He starts to dial her number again, wanting to know what was wrong... and then forces himself to stop, leaving her contact and putting his phone back in his pocket. Damn, he had promised himself he would stop being inconvenient and invasive! He needed to keep his promises like the man he was!

And... oh, come on, he had heard happiness in her tone. She was happy he'd called her... and he then wonders if she felt as lonely as he had felt seeing his friends rushing to make their own personal calls while he was left behind.

Sympathy took over him again, making him turn the bottle into his mouth once again to appease the sudden outbreak of faggotism. He wasn't there to feel sorry for her or himself. None of them needed it. She wasn't alone, anyway. She had friends in Tomori, Kanami and Hiro, she had those crazy old ladies from the salon... and she had him. The thought once again disconcerted him, and he quickly returned to the heat inside Brazuca’s. It must have been the cold mixed with the booze that was messing with his head like that.

He found the others already leaving the bar, waving at him.

"Hey man, let's get going?," Okubo dangles the car key on his finger.

"We decided to leave sooner. Okubo is going to give us a ride," Ohma points to the bald man.

"Huh... fuck, you took one confetti rain to the faces and decided that was enough excitement for the night? Bunch of weaklings!", Rihito snorts, wanting to sound annoyed, but not being able to. Himuro rolls his eyes.

"Things were about to get good on the dance floor, but this isn't Ohma and Kaneda's thing, and Okubo is now a committed man... it wouldn't be fun to party alone."

"I would keep you company!"

"No, you wouldn't. If you wanted to, you'd be inside, not out here, calling Miss Agata," He shakes his head, and Rihito almost drops the bottle.

"How did you...! Uugh, I'm surrounded by nosy-ass gangsters, I swear!," He complains, to which the others laugh. "Okay, let’s scram then, I’m not in the mood to party alone either."

"Told you so," Ohma shrugs, looking at the other three. "He was going to stay with me at the table."

"I wasn't! I was going to check the perimeter, see if there weren't any single babes seeking company..."

"And you were going to give up the moment you saw one, because you would still be thinking about the phone call with Miss Agata," Kaneda concludes, and bends down when an angry Rihito threatens to throw the half-filled bottle in his direction.

"The fuck I would! In just wished a friend a happty new year, no big deal, I would do it for any of you-"

"Did you send a message to Ivan and Komada too?"

"... I haven't had the chance yet."

"Forget it, Rihito. Any argument you could have had, the booze has already stolen it from you," Himuro smiles. "Come on, it's freezing cold and I need the heater in Egghead's car."

"Well, I'm crazy about my personal heater too," Okubo laughs, opening the car for everyone.

"Well said," Ohma gets in the back seat. Being part of the middleweight troupe, it was better for Rihito to hop on the front seat, anyway.

Rihito still wanted to argue, but gave up when he saw that the others would just ignore him. Fucking bastards... when would they understand that he wasn't like them in that way? He would never be, never!

... He couldn't do it anyway. He couldn't imagine how good-for-nothing womanizers like him could be redeemed. And how could they be worthy of something like that.

He opens the passenger door, sitting down with a grunt, the neck of the 51 bottle ending up in his mouth again. The others also sit down as Okubo locks the doors and turns on the heater, the welcoming warmth envelops them like a hug. Kaneda rubs his hands and blows on them while Himuro comments, smiling, "I don't know about you, but I'd do it again next year!"

"Heh... yeah, I think I agree too," Rihito says, his voice a little slurred. Despite some inconveniences, the night with friends was a lot of fun. The coming New Year certainly deserves to be spent like this…

And at the next one, if everything went well until then, he hoped to have Akane's company, sitting right next to him. Because neither she nor he deserved a lonely New Year.

Next chapter here

[alientitty]

What are your thoughts on class the way it's seen OUTSIDE of the U.S.? In most countries, your class has to do with your surname/family (like a respectable European family name with a history of achievers), religion, social network, cultural capital, education etc. meaning for example, you can be a broke liberal arts student but because your grandfather was a successful buisness owner with a good surname and you have a good social and cultural capital, you are considered middle class even if you have 1$ to your name. And a rapper with a billion dollars or someone like Kylie Jenner or the Kardashains are still seen as trashy regardless of their income. Thoughts on that class system?

the dialectical materialist framework (developed by marx, foundational) can be used to analyze any society, so i'll try to do that here or at least point you in the right direction.

i've been specifying the us because i understand our liberal misconceptions the best, but defining class as your relationship to the means of production applies just as well in europe. one difference is that the ruling class there often still contains elements of the old feudal aristocracy. marx understood class (like everything else) as dynamic, always in the process of changing from one form to another. marx and engels actually start off the communist manifesto explaining this:

..in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs...almost all of these classes, [were arranged into] subordinate gradations...Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

basically, the old feudal classes find themselves increasingly becoming part of either the business-owning class or the workers. so the cultural attitude of someone having prestige from their family name is just the cultural reflection of this economic arrangement. perhaps their once-aristocratic family continued to be part of the ruling class by joining the bourgeoisie as it took power (ex.: that lord guy who writes downton abbey), or maybe this "family of achievers" refers to a bourgeois relative who invested smartly a couple hundred years ago and their descendants reap the benefits--in which case it's pretty much the same as being a kennedy in the usa.

in terms of the "broke liberal arts student" example, there's a couple things that could be going on here. one is the process of "proletarianization," where a person (or group) of a higher class like the bourgeoisie is pushed out of that class into the proletariat. however, what's much more common is a situation where someone bourgeois temporarily does not have enough of their assets in a liquid (spendable) form (and are experiencing for the first time what people in lower economic positions deal with all their lives...). you have $1 to your name today, but what other assets are available to you? if you hocked all of it or are disowned and cut off, and have no choice but to sell your labor for wages for the rest of your life, you've been proletarianized. if you still have access to the assets (which is what the terms "social and cultural capital" imply to me) then this is more a case of a bourgeois family mismanaging its funds. hardship or no, the amount of money in your checking account alone does not determine your class position. jeff bezos famously takes home a comparatively small salary because most of his net worth is in investments, but he is most certainly still part of the haute bourgoisie.

i don't know of any billionaire rappers, but i think it's good to break down celebrity here. first of all, europeans see rap as "trashy" mainly for the same reason as americans--racism. (the karjenner clan is also probably seen as "trashy" mainly because their brand is built from appropriating black american culture.) fame doesn't necessarily correlate to power over society--in fact, many say celebrity culture is a distraction from who's really pulling the strings. kylie jenner invests her capital (which she gets from her bourgeois family) into a business that generates more wealth for her, but that doesn't mean she has anywhere near the power and influence of someone like the koch family--who are actual billionaires. they are both bourgeois, both capitalists, and they share more interests with each other than with workers, but one is a much more powerful member of that class with much more capital. having disdain for the karjenner clan doesn't mean they're now proletarian wage laborers.

i don't necessarily think it's completely useless to think about society in terms of income tax brackets either, just that liberal analysis muddies the waters. the attitudes and prestige you're talking about are the result of underlying economic class relations, not the cause of them (technical term: base and superstructure). we need to get a handle on basic marxist concepts like class if we want to have useful conversations and accurate plans of attack.

some suggested readings to get a handle on things:

principles of communism by engels (brief summary, more direct than the manifesto). i also like wage labor & capital

marx for beginners (graphic/illustrated, from the 70s but gives a good overview)

curriculum of the basic principles of marxism-leninism, part 1 (translation of vietnamese gen ed college textbook, also available as a paperback. has wonderful in-depth footnotes and discussions on basic tenets of dialetical materialism--i'm still working through it all! the translator talked about some basics in her youtube vids as well)

introductory videos:

second thought actually has a video about "middle class" (his channel is 101-level and here he encourages the petty bourgeoisie to side with the proletariat)

for more rigor/book recs i like hakim

the marxist project has helped me understand some basic ideas as well

and of course david harvey is here to help you get through capital (one day i'll read it all, i swear...)

[memecucker]

Try and guess what famous 20th century English writer wrote this if you weren’t already aware. Answer under the Read More

Nationalization. One can ‘nationalize’ industry by the stroke of a pen, but the actual process is slow and complicated. What is needed is that the ownership of all major industry shall be formally vested in the State, representing the common people. Once that is done it becomes possible to eliminate the class of mere owners who live not by virtue of anything they produce but by the possession of title-deeds and share certificates. State-ownership implies, therefore, that nobody shall live without working. How sudden a change in the conduct of industry it implies is less certain. In a country like England we cannot rip down the whole structure and build again from the bottom, least of all in time of war. Inevitably the majority of industrial concerns will continue with much the same personnel as before, the one-time owners or managing directors carrying on with their jobs as State employees. There is reason to think that many of the smaller capitalists would actually welcome some such arrangement. The resistance will come from the big capitalists, the bankers, the landlords and the idle rich, roughly speaking the class with over £2,000 a year – and even if one counts in all their dependants there are not more than half a million of these people in England. Nationalization of agricultural land implies cutting out the landlord and the tithe drawer, but not necessarily interfering with the farmer. It is difficult to imagine any reorganization of English agriculture that would not retain most of the existing farms as units, at any rate at the beginning. The farmer, when he is competent, will continue as a salaried manager. He is virtually that already, with the added disadvantage of having to make a profit and being permanently in debt to the bank. With certain kinds of petty trading, and even the small-scale ownership of land, the State will probably not interfere at all. It would be a great mistake to start by victimizing the smallholder class, for instance. These people are necessary, on the whole they are competent, and the amount of work they do depends on the feeling that they are ‘their own masters’. But the State will certainly impose an upward limit to the ownership of land (probably fifteen acres at the very most), and will never permit any ownership of land in town areas.

From the moment that all productive goods have been declared the property of the State, the common people will feel, as they cannot feel now, that the State is themselves. They will be ready then to endure the sacrifices that are ahead of us, war or no war. And even if the face of England hardly seems to change, on the day that our main industries are formally nationalized the dominance of a single class will have been broken. From then onwards the emphasis will be shifted from ownership to management, from privilege to competence. It is quite possible that State-ownership will in itself bring about less social change than will be forced upon us by the common hardships of war. But it is the necessary first step without any real reconstruction is impossible.

- George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

[diakamu]

can you guys sign up to this so i can continue to draw? basically?

so the japanese government came up with this shit idea that they basically can tax the tax exempt small businesses anyways.

that tax is going to be 10% of our entire income. so we the small creators and the individual shop owners etc. are forced to make our products cost 10% more without any benefit coming into our pockets. either that or maintain the pricing and suffer the income shortage.

and ofc if all the small business owners are forced to make that choice, nearly everything is gonna cost more.

on the other hand the Japanese government does tax exempt those big corporations for paying salary to their part time employees. evil. Ikr.

so basically whats gonna happen is that a whole bunch of small business owners quit their local jobs and their passion projects to join big corporations as non-regular employees. not only that, the ppl who are already working there as regular employees are gonna be fired and re-hired this time as non-regular employees with no real work welfare what-so-ever.

for you guys living outside of Japan and love Japanese contents tho let me let you know that the majorities of Japanese gaming companies and the anime companies are categorised as small/tax exempt(that is no more tax exempt) so you guys suffer a bit with us

while we the lower class citizens of Japan are gonna be facing price increase of literally everything. and also a bunch of our entertainments and creative medias ripped out from our society.

8 million small business owners and small creators are either forced to quit their jobs or suffer thru all this

could you please help us raise our voice thanks

[lt-alara-kitan]

Screen Wrecked || A Seth MacFarlane AU

Chapter One: Decisions & Diatribe Romantic Pairing: Seth x OFC Tags: Awkward flirting, power dynamics (nothing too intense for the first chapter) Summary: [Alternate Universe] She's a writer down on her luck looking for a big break. He's the powerful CEO of a giant production studio and he wants her as his very personal assistant. Notes: This is an RPF but also an alternate universe. It gives me more room to play around with the idea I had. Not much is different about this universe when it comes to Seth other than he's the owner and CEO of a powerful production company. Seems like a logical step for someone like him anyway. Disclaimer: Absolutely nothing in this story is meant to reflect Seth in real life. That's why it's an alternate-universe setting, of course. The main character is just an original character I created.

"I didn't actually think I would be hired to write for the show let alone become full time staff. I don't fit in here. Nothing about this is working." She sighed as she watched the bathroom door. The last thing she needed was for someone to walk in on her talking about this job in such a bad way.

"You wanted your foot in the door this is your foot in the door. Whatever it takes, remember?"

"I remember but when they figure out I'm kind of a fraud I'm going to be out of here anyway."

"Fake it as long as you can to find the right person to take you to the next level. You have the talent now you just need the opportunity."

"Fine. Fine. I just want it on record that I already said this was a bad idea." She ended the call and slipped her phone into her back pocket. As argumentative as she could be, she also knew that Clare was right. Maybe what she was doing now wasn't the most exciting job in the world but she was working for a TV studio on a huge lot. A lot that also made movies and saw various celebrities and producers coming in and out all the time.

Unfortunately she'd now wasted fifteen minutes of her lunch break which meant she only had fifteen minutes more. That left her with precious little time to hurry out of there to get to the cafeteria to hopefully grab a sandwich and a soda to make it back to her desk in time. She was supposed to have the latest draft for the newest episode complete by the end of the day and she didn't want to have to work late again.

Hurrying down the hall and towards the elevator she ignored the vibrations from her phone as they continued to go off since she figured they were probably just from Clare sending her messages of encouragement. By the time she'd gotten to the elevator and pushed the button the notifications had gotten annoying enough that she had to take the damn thing out of her pocket to at least put it on do not disturb.

There was a ding as the elevator arrived and she took a step forward not looking up from her phone as she did. Which turned out to be a big mistake because she ran right into *him*. This made his coffee spill from the cup he was holding and splash all over his white shirt. Some designer looking fashion that would have cost her a month of her salary if not more.

"Oh my god I am so sorry." She breathed wanting to attempt to make eye contact but also being afraid of it. She knew who this was. Everyone knew who this was. He owned the entire studio. No one could go anywhere around there without hearing about Seth MacFarlane .

"It's okay," he laughed, "I didn't really like this shirt anyway and the stain kind of looks like Elvis, well, maybe if he was melting." She blinked a few times trying to process what was going on. He wasn't mad? Why? Shouldn't he be calling for security to have her escorted off of the lot?

"Yeah I guess it does but still I um...let me make it up to you." She offered. The doors closed behind them and she turned to press the button to open them again. "Were you getting off here?"

"No I was going down." He nodded, "And you?"

"Yeah me too. Guess we'll be getting off together." She paused then laughed nervously realizing what she said and how it sounded. "I mean like on the same floor not uh...the other thing."

"Other thing?"

She couldn't tell if he honestly didn't know what she meant by that or was just trying to pull her leg and get her to stick her foot in her mouth even more. It was hard not to gaze at him in complete awe. Before he'd become the studio owner he'd also been a writer, actor, director, producer, pretty much everything she'd always wanted to be. The only difference was that he was stunningly gorgeous and she didn't feel like she'd ever been much to look at.

"Never mind." She whispered and pushed back some of the hair that had fallen out of the clip she'd used to put it up in the bathroom.

"Do you really want to make it up to me?" He asked, leaning against the wall to the elevator.

"Yes because I'm so sorry and it will never happen again. I swear." She sighed, "I'm just so...it's not your problem really so never mind all of that."

"You're having problems here?"

"No, I mean, yes but not with anyone specifically everyone has been super nice I just don't think I'm the right person for the job on the show that I've been writing for." She tried to explain without getting into all of the details. He kind of motioned in her direction and she blinked a few times trying to figure out what he was indicating. That was when she realized she hadn't even pushed the button for the ground floor. "Oh fuck sorry...I mean...not fuck..."

"It's okay." He laughed. "Deep breaths you're doing fine." With a nod she reached out and pressed the button for the ground floor. The elevator started to move then there was a rusty screeching sound. The lights above them flickered then shut off as the elevator came to a halt.

"Fu-n." She managed to correct herself at the last moment.

"Do you really think I don't know what you were going to say?" He chuckled again and seconds later the orange glow of the emergency lights flickered on. At least they weren't in pitch black anymore. He stepped forward and pressed the emergency call button, though it didn't seem to do anything either. "What was your name again?"

"Lisa." She said, "Lisa Brixton."

"Ah the new hire for Quantum Echoes." He nodded. She arched a brow, surprised that he'd know anything about that. She guessed it mad some kind of sense but her low level compared to his much higher level position denoted that he wouldn't be bothered with that. "I read the spec script."

"You did? No one told me-"

"It's one of my favorite projects on this lot. Those scripts go through me from time to time. Especially when we need a new writer. I liked it. What makes you think you're not a good fit?"

"Oh well I'm much more into horror than sci-fi, hence the plot of my spec script being relatively horrific. I feel like the sci-fi part was understated for the actual content of the show and I'm really not great at writing science fiction. I just love Siara and wanted to give her some special redemption episode."

"She's a great character. Probably my favorite other than Captain Miller." He nodded then took a sip of what happened to be left in the coffee cup she had spilled. "Horror huh? You have any other spec scripts?"

"No, just actual screenplays and pilots I'm trying to get out there."

"About what?"

For a moment she was rendered speechless since she didn't think she'd get this far in the conversation or that he'd be interested. Probably had they not been stuck in an elevator like this then he wouldn't have but what else were they supposed to do other than talk until help came?

"Oh one of them is kind of a dark comedy horror thing about demons and demon hunters. I have another one that's just a mafia crime drama but I guess there's plenty of dark humor in that as well. Big fan of dark humor." She nodded glad that the orange of the lights in there hid how much she had to be blushing as she forced herself to talk about this to the most powerful guy in the studio.

"You know if you really don't feel like you fit with Quantum Echoes I may have a better position for you. It just opened up."

"Mmm okay what would that be?"

"Personal assistant."

She clenched her jaw as she had kind of been hoping that maybe, just maybe, he was going to offer her something else. However, she also knew that she really couldn't expect an immediate movie deal from him based off of what she had said and her minimal experience there. Being his person assistant would be a step up. She'd get to know him a lot more intimately and it would certainly open up the doors she'd been trying to open for years. She'd never do that as just a staff writer for a show she enjoyed but shouldn't have been writing for in the first place.

"Yeah I mean I'd love too if you think that's a good idea."

"You have any experience with it?"

"Way more than being a staff writer for an actual TV show. It's how I started my career out here."

"Smart move." He chuckled and leaned passed her to press the emergency button again. "The position I'm considering you for will probably be different than what you were doing previously, though."

"Oh? Well I'm a fast learner and I can adapt like that." She snapped her fingers on the last word. "I can send you my resume and recommendations if-"

"That won't be necessary." He said. "Be in my office tomorrow morning at eight and we'll get you started."

"What about my-"

"Don't worry I'm sure I can find them another writer to replace you if things work out." She grinned. Just as he was about to press the emergency button again there was static on the intercom then a voice informing them that things should be up and running in five minutes or so.

"Thank you, sir. I promise that I won't let you down."

"Don't start making promises until you know the details of the position." He said looking her right in the eyes as he spoke. Then he took another sip of his coffee.

"Details..."

"Nothing to be discussed here. You'll have to sign an NDA first."

"What kind of..." before she could finish the lights came back on and the elevator shuddered back to life. It started to descend to the ground floor once again. She looked at him her mind swirling with thoughts about what he could possibly be talking about when it came to this position as his assistant. Her mind went to sex, of course, probably something perverted or kinky.

*Whatever it takes. *

The mantra echoed through her head. She knew what she was doing here and no doubt he knew what this was as well. It couldn't have been any more obvious with him bringing this up right after she explained to him what she really wanted to do with her writing career. Still, there were worse things she could be doing to climb her way to the top. Worse people too. The doors opened and he stepped out in front of her before pausing and turning.

"You were right about us getting off together you know." He laughed and without another word he headed for the men's room probably in an intent to clean up his shirt. She felt her face heat up like crazy as she flushed with arousal and embarrassment. She wasn't sure why he'd be so interested in her but it didn't really matter. If this was her way into the life that she always wanted to have, she was going to take it.

*******

She didn't know how she was supposed to dress for this meeting but she chose to go with a business professional look. Something that she'd modeled after the other personal assistants she had seen around. Even if she had this job before it hadn't been for anyone nearly as high profile as Seth. She guessed she would find out soon enough.

When she arrived there was a secretary in the waiting area. A very annoyed looking woman with overfilled lips and an obvious boob job. She was filing her nails and seemed put out by having to actually do her job and tell Seth that someone was there for an appointment. She took a seat to wait for him but he was fairly punctual. It was a good thing since she hadn't wanted to wait long enough for the panic to set in and convince her to leave.

"Come on in, Lisa." He said and motioned for her to join him in his office. She'd never been in there before but it was huge and luxurious. At the same time it was cozy and warm. Not sterile and cold like she somehow expected it to be. "Have a seat." She looked at the chairs across from his desk and sat down.

"Thank you for seeing me, sir."

"Don't be so humble I don't like that. Besides I asked you here so the pleasure is all mine." He smirked and then opened the top drawer of his desk with a key. He removed two stacks of paper from in there and set them on the desk facing her. He slid the one on the right forward first. "There are two contracts for you to look over."

"I'm not really the best at legal speak unless you want me to take a few hours to really comprehend what's in here." She laughed softly.

"You can certainly take all the time you want but I can summarize it. I guess it's up to you to believe it or not." He said. She nodded and picked up the papers that he'd slid towards her first.

The first page was standard stuff. Mostly about privacy and a non disclosure agreement for being his assistant. On the next few pages were details of what was expected from her in this position and then a general dress code. All of it was familiar to her and things she'd done before.

"You can summarize this if you want but it's like every other contract I've signed for this job so I don't think you're trying to screw me or anything." She laughed.

"Ah don't speak too soon." He smirked and looked her over. She blinked a few times wondering what that was supposed to mean. "The standard contract which you are free to accept will pay 150 thousand a year with car allowance and-"

"I'm sorry what?"

"That's pretty much the going rate for good personal assistants, isn't it?"

"Well 100k and um not a car allowance so..."

"Anyone ever tell you that you're too honest for your own good? Look if you want a decent place to live here and a car that works you need the salary. I also can't have my assistant driving...what is it you drive?"

"A 2016 Toyota." She said. It was old and had a lot of miles but still worked. Mostly. It probably wouldn't be that way for long.

"Yeah so that's not going to be reliable or flashy and I can't have people thinking someone who works for me has that car. No offense." He sighed. "Look I'm really not this narcissistic it's the business you know? Appearances and all that."

"I understand sir. Please continue." She said knowing that she was making half what he just offered as a staff writer and was living with roommates. The new salary would allow her to get her own place and in a better part of town.

"It also includes medical and dental and paid vacation time. Oh also a Christmas bonus depending on how well the studio does this year. Any questions?"

"Not about this." She looked up and motioned to the other stack of papers which was obviously another contract she just couldn't read it from where it was on the desk.

"This is another contract for a very personal assistant." He said. "Don't freak out. I'm offering, sure, but you can say no and still keep the regular job it won't come up again." He said. "No pressure."

"Very personal assistant?" She knew this had to be a sex thing but she was way more intrigue than repulsed. Also confused. Why her? "No offense sir but can't you have any woman on the planet?"

"Most of them yes but that's not what this is about." He chuckled. "This is about a power dynamic."

"I see." She said and sat up a bit more to try to get a glimpse of what the contract said but he put his hand over it quickly.

"Interested?"

"I can't say I'm not but I also can't say yes or no at this time. Can I at least think about it first?"

"Alright you have one week then the offer is off the table and I find someone else. For that job. As I said you can keep the normal one." He said. She nodded looking down at his hand then back up to his eyes. This wasn't going to be an easy decision.

"But if I'm your special personal assistant wouldn't that mean another person would-"

"No. You'd still be my personal assistant just with more benefits." He said. "And that's all you get to know...for now."

"How am I supposed to know if I want to agree to this if I don't know what else is in the contract."

"Life is about risks. The greater the risk the greater the reward. Up to you to decide. Not me." He said. "So if you are starting today there's a whole list of things I need you to get to by day's end." He grabbed a planner from his desk and held it out to her along with a pen. She took it and signed the first contract quickly not wanting that to be taken off the table for a second.

"I'll get right on it, sir and you'll have my answer within the week. Maybe less."

"Good to know." He said and turned to look at his computer. She watched him for a moment before heading out of there to start taking care of her list. The first task was a Starbucks run. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. A new car. A new place to live and a job she was better suited for, even if it wasn't exactly the dream option. Yet try as she might, she couldn't get the idea of the second contract out of her head. She was positive it would torment her the rest of the day too.

[mesetacadre]

are these groups part of the proletariat?

farmers

priests/nuns

retail salesmen

strippers

people who invest in stock

taco truck owner

actors and singers

Priests, salesmen, sex workers, and actors/singers are all workers. Priests sell their labor-power to the church they're a part of, traditionally for extremely low wages as well. Salesperson is just one function a worker can have within a retail workplace, sex workers sell their labor-power to a capitalist as well. Actors and singers, and more generally people in the entertainment industry sell their labor-power in exchange for a salary. As I explained in the post I assume you're asking about, in some cases that salary is so high that it enables some workers to acquire private property and become part of the bourgeoisie themselves. In any case, the basic economic relationship is still that of a proletariat's

"Taco truck owner" has it in the name, they own a small amount of private property, and sometimes 1 or 2 workers. Investing in stock requires capital, and stock itself is also capital.

As for farmers, it depends on what exactly you mean. Historically, although nowadays it is practically extinct, the peasantry as a class were a holdover from feudal production, an exploited class distinct from the proletariat. Their production was individualized, as opposed to socialized in the case of proletarian production. They often produced only for themselves and some type of lord who owned the land. They were largely adjacent to the proletariat, but some aspects of their economic relations also sometimes placed them closer to the petty-bourgeoisie.

Most farmers nowadays are large landowners who own large amounts of machinery and employ specialized workers, while others (in the imperial core) are still landowners but they instead rely on cheap labor by migrant workers, sometimes undocumented ones, allowing for practically slavery conditions. These agricultural workers are proletarian, distinct from their historical ancestors of feudalism, in that they only earn a salary, and don't own their tools nor their land. Their production is also almost exclusively geared towards the national and international market, it's not individualized production. This is even more marked in the imperialist relations that govern the monoculture plantations of the global south.

[rekrootinginc]

Employee growth beyond financial compensation helps companies to attract and more importantly retain employees. Ensuring the well-being, drive, and challenge of your employees is an investment that benefits the whole business. Managers and business owners will receive more productive, committed, and driven employees. You may still invest in your employees even if you might not be able to match the salary that larger companies provide. Read the article about employee growth and financial compensation in detail. You can find the link of the article in the comments section below.

#employeegrowth #employeedevelopment #careergrowth #employeeengagement #workplaceculturematters #nonfinancialrewards #employeeretention

[juni-ravenhall]

"they're a company, they have to make money!" this has always been a ridiculous argument. companies dont HAVE TO make money. companies WANT TO make money.

some companies absolutely shouldnt be making money - at least not in the ways that they are making money, or are aiming to make money. some companies should be illegal and the people in power of them should be behind bars. im not talking about any specific company, just about why this argument is irrational.

most companies are unethical and not compatible with a healthy society, and exploiting both employees and customers with the goal to make more money for the CEOs and shareholders etc. not all companies, but most of them! almost every single shop is somehow relying on sweatshops or other slavery, and on unsafe materials or production methods, for part of their products, or relying on staff overworking themselves, or on staff not having decent pay or decent rights to live a healthy fulfilling life, and on misleading customers (selling low quality products presented as worth a higher price than they are). or using up water (for cooling servers, or massive scale farming, for example!) while other people on the planet dont have water to drink or to clean themselves.

defending "making money" as a need rather than as a want when we're talking about companies (not individuals needing to survive!) is not great. you have to stop personifying or humanising companies. yes, the employees do need money to live. no, that doesnt excuse a single thing that the company does (on behalf of its leaders and owners), even if its paying for the staff's salaries.

[storz24]

luxury private jet for sale usa

Luxury Private Jets for Sale in the USA 👈

In recent years, the demand for luxury private jets has surged in the United States. As business travel becomes more frequent and personal travel becomes a priority for affluent individuals, owning a private jet has transformed into a status symbol that offers unmatched convenience, privacy, and comfort.

The Appeal of Private Jet Ownership

ConvenienceOwning a luxury private jet allows individuals to bypass the hassle of commercial airlines. Passengers can fly on their schedules, access remote destinations, and avoid long security lines. This freedom significantly enhances productivity for business executives.Privacy and ComfortA private jet provides an exclusive space tailored to the owner's needs. From onboard conferencing facilities to luxurious lounges, a private jet offers an environment conducive to both work and relaxation.Status SymbolIn addition to its practical advantages, a luxury private jet serves as a symbol of success and prestige. For many, it represents the culmination of years of hard work and achievement.

Options for Luxury Jets in the USA

When considering the purchase of a luxury private jet, potential buyers can choose from a variety of models, each offering unique features and capabilities. Below is a table highlighting some popular options available in the marketplace:Jet ModelPassenger CapacityRange (miles)Average PriceBombardier Global 7500147,700$73 millionGulfstream G700197,500$75 millionDassault Falcon 8X146,450$60 millionEmbraer Legacy 650E133,900$36 millionCessna Citation Longitude123,500$26 million

The Buying Process

Acquiring a luxury private jet is a significant investment and requires careful consideration. The buying process typically involves the following steps:

Research and SelectionBuyers should evaluate the types of aircraft that meet their requirements in terms of range, passenger capacity, and onboard amenities.

BudgetingAside from the purchase price, potential owners must consider operational costs, maintenance, insurance, and crew salaries.

Engaging ExpertsConsulting with aviation experts, brokers, and legal advisors can provide insight and guidance throughout the purchasing process.

Inspection and Test FlightsBefore finalizing the purchase, it's crucial to conduct a thorough inspection and experience a test flight to ensure the jet meets all expectations.

Finalizing the SaleOnce satisfied with the inspection and negotiations, buyers can proceed with legal documentation to complete the purchase.

Conclusion

The allure of luxury private jets is undeniable, offering a combination of convenience, privacy, and prestige that is hard to match. As the aviation market continues to expand, the United States remains a hub for those seeking to acquire these magnificent flying machines.For prospective buyers, understanding the intricacies of ownership and the available options is key to making an informed investment. With careful planning and expert guidance, the dream of owning a private jet can soon become a reality.