#sell your plane

[planetadaa]

Aircraft Maintenance Importance

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[highperformanceaviationllc]

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[h8ani]

I should not be this chronically exhausted both physically and mentally at this age.

[madhabdi]

I talk smack in English in bangladesh as if they don't be teaching English medium here 😭🤡

[ilostyou]

don’t think i’m over not buying those 5sos tickets on tuesday though i was so close to having perfect seats and essentially screwed myself over by trying to be a good friend lol. i am not over that

[fagexe]

God! Fucking! Damn! It! what I wouldn't give to be back home right now instead of in fucking illinois! I would love some flash designed by him, and meeting him again would be cool too, but like mostly the flash would be so absolutely amazing. I've wanted a boozey one for so long and I bet it'll be one of the flash designs

[neuromantis]

i think people who sell pyrotechnics, especially to CHILDREN, should get a couple of their fingers blown off or AT THE LEAST develop a ptsd-like response to the sound of things blowing up around them.

[batboyblog]

Copy Right and Public Domain in 2024

Happy 2024 all! its also Public Domain Day! a magical holiday here in America where things enter the public domain. Works published in the year 1928 (or 95 years ago!) have entered the public domain, which means they belong to us, all of us, the public!

Mickey's Back!

Yes! I'm sure you've heard, but Mickey Mouse (and Minnie Mouse too) is entering the Public Domain today. This has been news for a few years and indeed Disney's lobbying in the late 1990s is why our copy right term is SO long. So what exactly is now public domain?

Most people know about Mickey's first appearance Steamboat Willie, but a second short film, Plane Crazy was also released in 1928 so will also be public domain. So what's public? well these two films first of all, you're allowed to play them, upload them to YouTube or whatever without paying Disney. In theory you'll be allowed to cut and sample them, have them playing in the background of your movie etc. Likewise in theory the image of Mickey and Minnie as they appear (thats important) in these films will be free to use as well as Mickey's character as he appears in these works will be free to use. Now Mickey's later and more famous appearance

will still be protected. Famously the Conan Doyle Estate claimed that Sherlock Holmes couldn't be nice, smile, or not hate women in works because they still held the copyright on the short stories where he first did those things even though 90% of Sherlock Holmes stories were public domain. It's very likely Disney will assert similar claims over Mickey, claiming much of his personality first appeared in works still copyrighted.

Finally there's copyright vs trademark. Copyright is total ownership of a piece of media and all the ideas that appear in it, copyright has a limited set term and expires. Trademark is more limited and only applies to things used to market and sell a product. You can have a Coke branded vending machine in your movie if you want, but it couldn't appear anywhere in the trailer for your movie as thats you marketing your movie.

Where trademark ends and copyright begins and how trademarked something in the public domain is allowed to be are all unsettled areas of law and clearly Disney in the last few years as been aggressively pushing its trademark not just to Mickey in general but Steamboat Willie Mickey in particular

Ultimately the legal rights and wrongs of this might not matter so much since few people have the money and legal resources of the Walt Disney corporation so they might manage to maintain a de facto copyright on Mickey through legal intimidation, but maybe not?

And Tigger Too!

All the talk about Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie has sadly overshadowed other MAJOR things entering the public domain today. Most people are aware Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, but they might not realize his beloved friend Tigger didn't. Thats because Tigger didn't appear till A. A. Milne's second (and last) book of Pooh short stories, The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.

Much like Mickey Mouse only what appears in The House at Pooh Corner is public domain so the orange bouncy boy from the 1960s Disney cartoon is still on lock down. But the A. A. Milne original as illustrated by E. H. Shepard is free for you to use in fiction or art. His friend Winnie the Pooh has made a number of appearances since being freed, most notably in a horror movie, but also a Mint Mobile commercial so maybe Tigger too will have a lot of luck in the public domain.

Other works:

Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

Peter Pan is a strange case, even though the play was first mounted in 1904, and the novelization (Peter and Wendy) was published in 1911, The script for the play was not published till 1928 (confusing!) meaning while the novel as been public domain for years the play (which came first) hasn't been, but now it is and people are welcome to mount productions of it.

Millions of Cats

The oldest picture book still in print, did you own a copy growing up? (I did)

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The iconic porn novel that was at the center of a number of groundbreaking obscenity cases in the 1960s and helped establish your right to free speech.

All Quiet on the Western Front and The Threepenny Opera in their original German (but you can translate them if you want), The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, and Orlando by Virginia Woolf will also be joining us in the public domain along with any and all plays, novels, and books published in 1928

for Films we have The Man Who Laughs who's iconic image inspired the Joker

Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, Should Married Men Go Home? the first Laurel and Hardy movie, Lights of New York the first "all talking" movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Wind, as well as The Last Command and Street Angel the first films to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively will all be entering public domain

For Musical Compositions (more on that in a moment) we've got

Mack the Knife by Bertolt Brecht, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) by Cole Porter, Sonny Boy by George Gard DeSylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, Empty Bed Blues by J. C. Johnson, and Makin’ Whoopee! by Gus Khan are some of the notables but any piece of music published in 1928 is covered

Any art work published in 1928, which might include works by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexej von Jawlensky, Edward Hopper, and André Kertész will enter the public domain, we are sure those that M. C. Escher's Tower of Babel will be in the public domain

Swan Song, Public Domain and recorded music

While most things are covered by the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, none of the copyright acts covered recordings you see when American copyright law was first written recordings did not exist and so through its many amendings no one fixed this problem, movies were treated like plays and artwork, but recorded sound wasn't covered by any federal law. So all sound recordings from before 1972 were governed by a confusing mess of state level laws making it basically impossible to say what was public and what was under copyright. In 2017 Congress managed to do something right and passed the Music Modernization Act. Under the act all recordings from 1922 and before would enter the public domain in 2022. After taking a break for 2023, all sound recordings made in 1923 have entered the public domain today on January 1st 2024, these include.

Charleston by James P. Johnson

Yes! We Have No Bananas (recorded by a lot artists that year)

Who’s Sorry Now by Lewis James

Down Hearted Blues by Bessie Smith

Lawdy, Lawdy Blues by Ida Cox

Southern Blues and Moonshine Blues by Ma Rainey

That American Boy of Mine and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra

Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring Louis Armstrong

Bambalina by Ray Miller Orchestra

Swingin’ Down the Lane by Isham Jones Orchestra

Enjoy your public domain works!

[traightor]

i think i'm developing carpal tunnel

[biteyoubiteme]

redlightdesign

fem!reader x hyunjin 

synopsis: you get tattooed by your favorite tattoo artist. 

warnings: !!!🔞!!! tattooartist!hyunjin, tattooing, needles, pain, oral (f!rec), use of teeth, overstim, multiple orgasms (f!rec), squirting, fingering, pussydrunkvibes, subspace kinda, prob forgot some sorry 

wc: 5.2k

an: I want a new tattoo </3 feedback appreciated! [m.list] not proof read sorry ;-;

You didn’t think you would ever get a consolation let alone an appointment with redlightdesign. For over three years you have been submitting a request anytime their books were open. You set timers for when the form dropped to make sure you were one of the first to be seen but everyone was doing the exact same thing. 

redlightdesign would make an announcement that the submissions were closed an hour later saying they were booked solid for the next three months. The process repeats itself and every time you pray you get a response. 

Thirteen forms later and you finally got an answer. Your dream tattoo will be underway in a matter of weeks. You made sure to keep the perfect space open for the piece. Not a single artist is the right fit to do your idea justice the way Redlightdesign could. 

Before you read the email you didn’t even think you would ever be picked, your thigh would just always be bare for the possibility that never would come to fruition. But sitting in a coffee shop on a Sunday morning avoiding finishing your homework for Monday's class you jump on the opportunity to check your phone when it dings. Post notifications for redlightdesign on since you started following them. Every time they announced open books or a dropped appointment you jumped to put yourself up for the running. You remember the magazine article Redlightdsign had been featured in that started your obsession. The anonymous tattoo artist is based in Seattle and New York, traveling across the states to get a wider audience. Not that they needed the help, they were globally known, with people submitting forms all around the world, purchasing plane tickets after they confirmed an appointment. 

It was stiff competition and the anonymity of the artist was sacred to each client. There was barely any information about Redlightdesign on the internet besides the finished product, and the address to their studios was only given out just before your appointment. Once the details of the New York studio had been doxxed online and redlightdesign had stopped working for a year, packing up and shutting down in well deserved retaliation. When they came back to their socials they made it clear the next time they wouldn't stop for a year but quit entirely. No one shared any information after, only stating that Redlightdesign was one of the nicest people they have ever been tattooed by and a photo of the beautiful work after. 

But there sipping on an almost empty drink avoiding work that needed to be done you felt your pulse race just like every other time you've submitted a form. Only this time your stomach bottomed out seeing the email that popped up in your inbox a few minutes later. 

h.rldesign/gmail.com Hi, I love your idea and sketches. I think this would transfer perfectly in my style. If we are to do the piece on the thigh at the size you want I think it's best we split the work into two appointments. My open slots for this would be January 9th and 10th. Let me know if these dates work for you and then I can get started on designing and cleaning up your idea. -redlightdesign 

even just knowing their email address was shocking enough, seeing a response could have sent you into a coma. If Redlightdesign needed you on the 9th and 10th you would do everything in your power to be right at their door. You didn't care if you had to call in sick, you would put on the most convincing fake cough known to man; you would sell out stadiums with the performance if need be. 

You couldn't type a response fast enough, needing to send in a confirmation just to know it was solidified. Within seconds you got a link for a deposit to hold the dates and a promise that Redlightdesign would be working on your piece asap. You were too excited to even think about your work anymore, sitting in the coffee shop staring down at your phone in disbelief. 

It was only a few days later when the first drafts of the tattoo you would be getting were sent over for you to approve. You could tell the work had been drawn in a sketchbook and scanned to send in an email, the charcoal lines and highlights showing the detailed work. It was everything you could have hoped for, redlightdesign taking the amateur rendering of your idea and turning it into the masterpiece sitting in your inbox. They promised to have perfected versions ready when you arrived early on the ninth, reminding you that they would transfer it into the stencil and use a pen to finish drawing the finishing touches to make sure it flowed with your body just right. Make sure to eat before the appointment and don't wear any lotions on the tattoo area. Take care to remember we can take as many breaks as you want you have the day booked up with me so no need to rush through just to get it over with. 

You made sure to dress appropriately. A pair of shorts you didn’t mind getting ink on in case any decided to ruin them. It was cold the morning of the ninth, a drizzle setting in as you made your way towards the address you had been sent before you had woken up. Even just seeing the street name and knowing this whole time you’ve been a fifteen-minute walk away from Redlights studio was bizarre. How many times have you driven by the building without ever knowing? 

The email with the address had said the door would be open and to take the stairs up to the loft. The separate space on the ground level was a bakery, the sign flipped to closed. But as you felt the first droplets of rain you pulled on the handle for the door only for it to not budge. You check the address again to make sure it is right, you can see the windows to the studio above but the curtains are pulled shut. You were running over the email you could send to redlightdesign, reading it over once more when someone reached past you making you jump. “holy shit you almost gave me a heart attack,” you breathe your phone pressed to your chest. 

The soft laugh of the person beside you is muffled behind the black medical mask they wear, long dark hair hanging on their brow leaving only smiling eyes glancing over you. “I'm sorry I was running late and didn't make it in time to beat you here,” they push their key into the lock twisting until it clicks, painted nails wrapping around the handle to hold the door open for you. 

You give a weak thanks stepping into the little hallway leading to the stairs waiting for them to step in and follow. 

You're trying hard not to make it seem like you're staring at them but it's almost impossible not to. Right in front of you is the person whose identity has been hidden from the public for years. You've tried to imagine what redlightdesign looked like since you read that magazine article. Now with the early morning mist still stuck to their hair you were seconds away from knowing exactly what they were like. Watching how their long fingers flipped over the keys looking for the one to unlock the loft door, how they used their shoulder to push open the door turning back to give you smiling eyes, waving you in. 

They moved around to pull open the long cream-colored curtains, the gray light pouring in revealing the space. The walls have tacked up charcoal drawings, painted landscapes, and oil pastel flowers. A worn brown leather couch pushed to one side, heavy white blanket pushed back like someone had taken a nap there against the throw pillows. Tattoo bed next to rows of inks and past designs. On another wall a cluster of polaroids, stepping closer you can see its every tattoo that redlightdesign has done here. You're excited to see ones they haven't posted on their socials, so distracted you don't hear a closet door opening and the wheeling of a cart behind you. “I wanted to be set up so we could get started right away but,” when you turn you see them shrug. The view outside of the waterfront off in the distance matches some of the paintings done during different times of the day. 

“It's okay I can wait, we're booked all day right?” 

“yes that's right,” they go through their bag pulling out a large sketchbook, “here take a seat and we can go over some of these together,” 

they sink into the couch pushing back the blanket to make room for you to follow. Your thighs touching before they hand over the sketchbook. You're amazed by the craftsmanship, and the detail put into each variety of the tattoo idea you have given them. No other artist has given you so many possibilities, maybe one of two but a whole spread dedicated to small details was never on the table. redlightdesign had taken time working through this with passion. “Wow,” you breathe not knowing where to look first. 

“do you like it? It's a big thing, a tattoo of this size, and I wanted to make sure it really had all the elements you wanted in it while also not being too chaotic and messy. You see this one has less shading and seems more open but this one is heavy-handed if you're into that kinda style. I see you have other work done on your arms and if you want to go that way style-wise I think this one would be perfect,” they point at the one you've been focused on knowing that it was exactly what you wanted. 

“It's amazing, they all are, I'm so impressed redli-“

“Hyunjin, you can call me Hyunjin,” they chuckle, “I should have introduced myself earlier but I was late and it slipped my mind I'm sorry,” 

“no, it's okay thank you hyunjin,” you try the name in your mouth, “I think this is exactly what I want, better than what I could have imagined,” 

“great I'm happy to impress let me get this printed in a stencil and we can add anything else after we find the right placement,” you watch as they stand moving to the corner with a desk, you can't see their face but know they've taken their mask off as they turn on the printer. “Do you live around here or was it a commute?” 

“oh I live right up the street, I was surprised to see how close it was to my place actually,” you say over the sound of the scanner. 

“that's good, sometimes I have people coming from all over it's fun to finally have a local visit,” 

“I would have come out to New York if that's where you would have been,” you admit. 

“I haven't been out there in a while, they are doing construction on the street the studio is on so I've been located here for a while now,” he states pulling out the stencil sheet. “I did a few different sizes to start with,” 

he turns around and you're shocked at how beautiful Hyunjin is. In all the time you've thought about redlightdesign never did it cross your mind to account for prettiness but if you did your scale would be broken. You're still seated when he comes over and kneels in front of you. 

“Can I?” he asks looking up at you, your hands in your lap covering your thighs.

“oh yeah sure,” you're flustered lifting your hands away. 

“left or right?” he asks, holding two of the stencils over each leg. 

“right,” your hands sinking into the couch as Hyunjin wipes his thumb over your bare thigh. He shows you the three different sizes and you decide on one before he asks you to stand in front of the mirror so he can place the stencil on. 

“Here,” he mutters, being gentle to get the placement right in the first go. “We can always print more if you don't like it here,” he blows cool air over the purple lines traced on to make sure it's dry enough for you to move. He slides his hand behind the pit of your knee tugging your leg. You reach out to steady yourself with his shoulders, the backs of your hands feeling the tickle of his long hair hanging past his ears. He lifts your leg enough so that your foot is resting on his thigh, his hands slipping over your skin checking it looks good. 

You love the way he's found the perfect spot on your thigh so that it flows with your body, “I think you got it first try,” 

“Look in the mirror first just to make sure,” he lets you go, pulling himself to stand behind you so that you can see yourself. 

“yes it's perfect,” and he nods, grabbing a purple pen. 

“finishing touches then,” he gets back down in front of you lifting your foot back to his knee so that he can steady you. The marker is cold on your skin as he draws, adding lines and shading in spots to make the work blend better. When he blows on the wet lines of ink you shiver especially when he draws on your inner thigh, your skin so sensitive you swear you could imagine his fingers tracing shapes instead of the pen. “Perfect,” he states, giving your knee a tap letting you know he's done. “Let me set up and if you need the bathroom before we start I'd go now. I have water and a kettle for coffee over under the desk, and we can stop for lunch around let's say twelve or one-ish?” 

You nod, taking your seat on the tattoo bed. He's set it up so that you're slightly leaned back but still sitting up. You watch him pull on black gloves and get all of the inks and needles ready, following a system you've seen done before. He clicks on a stereo the soft song playing in the background just loud enough for us to talk if we wanted to or just to listen. you adjust in your seat when you hear the sound of the tattoo gun whirring, hyunjins free hand stretching your skin in preparation, “The hard part will be around the knee so let's get that area out of the way,” 

you nod watching as he starts, the familiar burn of the needle digging in but not too painfully. He was right that it was worse than some of your other tattoos but not unbearable. What distracts you is how concentrated he looks leaning over your leg, hair pushed back behind his ears but one strand hangs across his forehead, the corner of his lip between his teeth. 

He starts to ask you small questions about yourself, the conversation leading to learning about him and how he got into tattooing. He talks about his art and the little things he likes. Both of you are so invested in one another that you don't even notice how far you've come in the day, lunch already rolling around before you know it. He's gotten through more than half the outline when he starts the loose wrap to keep it clean while you go out for lunch. The bakery is just downstairs offering lunch deals you can't refuse and when you get back upstairs both of you sit on the couch and continue your conversation. Giggling over nothing much but being comfortable in each other's company more than what you could have asked for. 

redlightdesign could have been a total dick but you were blessed enough to get someone so genuinely kind and talented. And when you got back in the chair to finish the day's session you were sad to know that tomorrow would be the last time you saw Hyunjin unless you somehow got another appointment. The idea in it of itself was making you dread leaving. 

“Could you tie my hair up?” he asks lifting his wrist up to you, a hair band waiting for you to take off. You lean over taking the tie from him and running your fingers through the dark strands. He hums as you brush the hair from his face gathering it all to tie into a ponytail. “thank you,” he nods letting the end bob up and down, a sweet smile teasing his lips before he goes back to the linework. 

When he finally declares you done for the day you sigh, his thumb smoothing over the ends of the tape he's put to hold the wrap he put over your thigh. His finger slips across your inner thigh making you jolt harder than when the needle was to your skin. “sensitive?” he asks and you nod, not wanting to think too much into it. You were definitely sensitive but not from the pain, watching his long fingers work over your skin didn't put the cleanest image in your head. 

He starts to break down his workstation, cleaning up and wiping everything to disinfect. While you put on your coat he asks, “Do you want to get dinner?” you turn to make sure he is not on the phone but he is in fact asking you, “I know this great spot a block over it's not that far a walk if you're up for it?” 

“Sure,” you nod and he rubs the back of his neck. 

“You know if you're not busy or anything I don't usually ask clients out for dinner but we were having a good chat and you know if you don't want to,” he drags on his ears pink, it was cute to watch him flustered. 

“I'd love to go to dinner with you hyunjin,” you smile following him out. 

You share an umbrella as you make your way to the small cafe-style restaurant, outdoor seating covered with a canopy so you won't get hit by any rain. Sitting across from one another, Hyunjin asks to see your other tattoos. You lay one arm down on the table, hyunjins fingertips ghosting over your skin as he traces the lines of all your other work. “I think I've seen this one before, did you get it from Felix? Or what's his username…”

“youg.ink?” you nod, “I actually got it because I saw you mentioned them before and it introduced me to their work. instantly fell in love with this when he offered it up,” 

hyunjins not even paying attention to the tattoos anymore as he lets his fingers glide over your smooth skin. Most times after a client was done for the day in his chair he walked them to the door, waved goodbye, and worked in the studio on the next person's design. Most times he had people who he didn't mind not seeing again but you and your laugh, your gentle conversation, made him want to break his own rules for once. He walks you home after dinner and promises to see you tomorrow at the same time. 

When you show up for your second session you're double fisting two iced coffees; the door is already unlocked as you make your way up the stairs. Hyunjin is sitting at the desk with headphones on sketching away before he sees the movement in the corner of his eye. He gives you a big smile, all teeth and is so cute. He tugs his headphones off letting them hang around his neck, “you got me a coffee?” 

“Maybe or maybe I have a caffeine addiction,” you joke, handing over his cup. You look over to see what he's working on and he leans back to give you a better view. 

“The next client wants their back done, it will be spaced out over the next four months. first sessions tomorrow,” 

“I wouldn't even know where to start on something that big,” 

“the same way I started yours,” he looks down at your legs, the wrap still in place only today you're wearing a skirt instead of shorts. The only other clothing item you felt would give him space to work today. Hyunjin looks back to his sketchbook, shutting it and standing. “let's get you up on the chair and get started,” 

you follow his instructions, sinking back into the chair and letting your skirt bunch between your legs to expose your thigh. Hyunjin starts to set up his station, pulling on his gloves after flipping to the sketch of your design to have to glance at while he works. “might hurt today with all the shading if you need any breaks let me know we can go as slow as you need,” he peels away the tape before cleaning your leg with a towel and watered down soap. “It already looks good,” he nods, pressing around the tattoo. 

“I think I can handle it,” 

“Okay, we can work the bottom to the top again today, get the area closest to the knee and get the most painful bit first,” 

and you think you can handle it and you can for the most part but the dragging of the needle over the still red outline from yesterday is painful today. Your hand bunching in your skirt as you remind yourself to breathe. You let your head roll back in the chair not able to watch anymore, focusing on the music playing, the dull hum of the tattoo gun usually comforting you but now a reminder that you're here for a while. 

hyunjin is trying to concentrate, he's great at what he does, but what's testing him is how you're flashing your panties at him. he was going to say something, bring up a conversation about anything but when he looked up, a simple glance he was face to face with the dark grey fabric, the outline of you silencing him. You didn't even notice, your neck exposed as your free hand not holding your skirt gripped the armrest. 

Tattooing people made nudity and almost nudity normal. It was why Hyunjin preferred his private studio so that he could make people feel comfortable, it was better than having someone who wanted a hip tattoo strip in a shop where anyone could watch. But with you sitting in front of him he forgot that he shouldn't look so close. Because instead of ignoring the view he was imagining ways that he could make your pain more bearable. Imagining how if he reached over and brushed where he knew your clit would be waiting you wouldn't be moaning in pain. 

It's not until lunch that your skirt is let go but it's done the work of keeping Hyunjin hard for the entirety of the progress he's made toward the tattoo. When he sprays the tattoo down with the soapy water beads roll back up your leg because of the way the chairs are angled. The cold water feels great against your hot skin and Hyunjin apologizes for the mess passing you a paper towel to wipe any that got too far. You slightly lift your leg to wipe your inner thighs, the movement flashing Hyunjin again only this time the droplets of water had dampened your panties. The gray fabric was dark where he had been fantasizing they would be. 

He doesn't even want to think about standing from his stool knowing that the second he does he will have to adjust himself only drawing attention to the fact he is very hard. He tries to make a list of things in his head as he wraps your thigh. To think about how it's almost over, that you will be gone in the next hour or two but that only makes it worse. You would be gone when he was this needy? He wanted to make an excuse to have you come back for another session. But it was quite obvious he would be dragging out the appointment when he only needed to do a small section when the two of you were done with lunch. He could have waited and finished, pushed your lunch back, and waved goodbye but no. 

He swiveled his chair away from you, taking a sip from his almost empty cup of coffee as you slid down the bed to stand. Hyunjin takes a breath and prays you don't notice but it's the first thing you see when he turns, the strained outline not very well hidden. You pretend to look out the window, feeling your cheeks get hot. All you can think about is if it was your noises that did it, all the whimpering wasn't usually how you handled tattoos but this one was the biggest piece you've gotten, and didn't know two sessions would make your usually composed self break so easily. it would explain the silence compared to yesterday. So you toy with the idea, how far would he go if you made yourself available? 

You grabbed lunch together, hyunjin putting a pillow over his lap to steady his plate of food but both of you knew that wasn't the real reason. And when you were back in the chair you intentionally let your skirt roll up this time. It doesn't help that he's now working on the part of the tattoo closest to your center, how he wraps his hand around your thigh, pushing your legs further apart to reach a spot on your inner thigh. Gloved fingers brushing over your panties for the smallest second, your hips sinking into the seat to keep yourself from moving. Hyunjin noticed but needed to get through the rest of the tattoo, if he stopped now he wouldn't know when he would start again. Your lip between your teeth he watched as you tried to close your legs again to block your exposed panties, now wet with your slick and nothing else. He could see the spot and almost ripped his gloves off as soon as he finished his work. But now he was teasing you. Cleaning the tattoo down and wiping it down. He doesn't even bother with the normal photos he would take right away instead putting on the second skin to protect the tattoo. As he smooths the thin film over your inner thigh he lets his fingers slip up brushing against your center to see your reaction. 

Your head rolls to your shoulder watching him through your lashes as he takes off his gloves and tosses them on the cart. He lifts the armrest on the tattoo chair before reaching behind your knees to pull you to the edge of the seat so your legs are dangling off the side. “how is it someone can make the prettiest sounds and sit so still for me?” he leans down and plants a kiss on your tattooless thigh, “because all I could think about was how I wanted to see your legs shaking for me while you whined like that,” 

you tried to draw your knees together but he was in the way, kissing up your inner thigh, nipping at your skin with his teeth. When he reached your skirt he flipped it up with a lazy hand giving you no time before his thumb was over your clit rubbing a harsh circle over the fabric. You felt the shock run up to your stomach, your voice breathy as you whimpered his name. He followed the wet line down the front of your panties before hooking his finger along the seam to pull them back. He wanted one taste, needed one taste but knew he wouldn't stop at just one, not when you looked this edible and ready for him. 

He ravages your clit, your hands shooting to his head burying your fingers in his hair as he sucks. He's careful of your tattoo but your other thigh is fair game for him to wrap his arm around and push you open, fingers bruising with how he spreads you. His free hand prodded your entrance, circling in your wetness before slipping in knuckle deep. “Hyunjin,” you whine, your hips rocking against his lips, feeling the build up of your orgasm. He curls his fingers pressing up into you enough to make your legs jerk from the new angle. 

You're seeing spot before too long, hips stuttering as he gives a final hard suck, fingers still as you clench around them. You're moaning so loud you're sure someone will hear but you don't even care. Hyunjin doesn't stop the flick of his tongue against your clit making you cry out, “I said I wanted to see them shake,” devilish smile covered in your slick before he latches on to your clit again. Fingers pumping in and out of you before he presses deeper into you. You can feel tears at the corners of your eyes, and when he pulls away slightly to let his teeth brush your clit you're done for, legs trembling as you cum. He is persistent and you have to tug his head away, a slight smile stuck on his wet lips as he watches your body shake from the overstimulation. “once more?” 

“I can't- I can't do it,” you shake your head but he drags his fingers out slowly before inching them back in, your hips jumping. 

“I know you can, you've been doing so good for me already, one more time won't hurt,” he hums, dipping his nose down to brush over your nub. Jolting at the feeling he turns his head to kiss your inner thigh, slowly building up speed with his fingers, “can't you do just one more?” it's the way he asks so softly, the heavy gaze under heavier eyelids that makes you nod. 

You're so sensitive that one lick has you shaking, your orgasm feeling so far and yet so close all at once. His tongue laps through your folds circling your clit. Hyunjin is obsessed with the taste of you, completely under the spell of your pussy and how it responds to his touch. He could go all night eating you out, watching as you fell apart again and again before him. Your cries are getting louder and before you know it your back is arching into him almost coming off the seat, your orgasm so intense you don't expect the clear fluid to squirt out of you until it has. 

You're breathing so labored you place a hand over your chest to try and calm yourself. hyunjins pleased grin is the only thing you see before he pulls his fingers out of you and sticks them in his mouth to clean them. Every once in a while your legs jerk from an aftershock, the delight in his eyes worth how tired you feel. Your thighs are sticking to the leather seat under you as Hyunjin pulls your underwear back into place leaning down to leave a ghost of a kiss over your clothed clit. “next time I want you to cry this pretty for my cock okay?”

[planetadaa]

Strategies for Making Informed Aircraft Acquisition Decisions

Efficiently select and purchase your next aircraft. Visit-https://planetadaa.com/aviation-aircraft-consultation

[badjokesbyjeff]

One day at the end of class, little Johnny's teacher asks the class to go home and think of a story to be concluded with the moral of that story. The following day the teacher asks for the first volunteer to tell their story. 

Little Suzy raises her hand. "My dad owns a farm and every Sunday we load the chicken eggs on the truck and drive into town to sell them at the market. Well, one Sunday we hit a big bump and all the eggs flew out of the basket and onto the road." When the teacher asked for the moral of the story, Suzy replied, "Don't keep all your eggs in one basket."

Little Lucy went next. "My dad owns a farm too. Every weekend we take the chicken eggs and put them in the incubator. Last weekend only eight of the 12 eggs hatched."; Again, the teacher asked for the moral of the story. Lucy replied, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."

Next up was little Johnny. "My uncle Ted fought in the Vietnam war, and his plane was shot down over enemy territory. He jumped out before it crashed but could only take a case of beer, a machine gun and a machete. On the way down, he drank the case of beer. Then he landed right in the middle of 100 Vietnamese soldiers. He shot 70 with his machine gun, but then he ran out of bullets! So he pulled out his machete and killed 20 more. Then the blade on his machete broke, so he killed the last ten with his bare hands." The teacher looked a little shocked.

After clearing her throat, she asked what possible moral there could be to this story. "Well," Johnny replied, "Don't fuck with Uncle Ted when he's been drinking."

[disgustingtwitches]

MDNI

141 as your drug dealer boyfriend

Ghost- Let's be real with ourselves, Ghost is not a good man. He doesn't care who he hurts, as long as he gets his. He will do anything to get what he wants and there is no stopping him. It's what made him a great soldier, and it's what makes him a great kingpin. He moves weight to put it lightly. There isn't a moment where an uncut key is unmoving; from a warehouse, to a plane (or car, or train), to a distributor, to a pusher, to up someone's nose. He'll try to do some damage control, make sure things aren't cut with fent, but that's only to make sure customers keep coming back. He likes to keep his hands clean, in the sense that he'll never be the one to pull the trigger on anyone that's out of line. Living up to his name, no one knows what he looks like. Hell, a lot of people don't even think he's real.

But when it comes to you, Simon's a different man. No talk about work, just you and him. Other than the multiple hidden guns around the house and Glock he sleeps with, life is normal with you. Holiday homes in the French countryside and Bahamas. Designer everything. Sports cars in all your favorite colors. You want for nothing. It's the life he wanted for you. After all those years of crying and hurt when he was away for weeks or months, you deserved the world. Want the new Hermès bag? You got it. Can't choose between the black or white louboutins? Get both. Stop eating you out because you can't feel your toes anymore? Sorry love, only thing he can't do for you.

Soap- Johnny is a small business owner. Weighs everything out by his own hand. Presses his own pills. Let's you help baggie everything up. A social butterfly, this man is at every concert, rave, or music festival. Sometimes he has a friend help push his stuff when he just wants to stay home with you, but for the most part he's his own salesman. And a damn good one. Never has overstock. No matter how much he brings with him, he'll always sellout.

Has a supernatural sense of being shorted. Can tell if a bag is even a few grams off just by holding it.

"Ye'r an idiot if ye think ye kin short me."

And when the other party denies, he always keeps a pocket scale on him, setting the parcel on it. And sure enough, he's always right.

He'll come home with a few grand, the only job you have is to sit there and look pretty. And roll his spliffs. Sitting in his lap, tucking the rolling paper into itself and licking it closed while he counts out a fat wad of cash. He hands you a fat stack,

"A've never bin good wi' money. Ye know how to spend it better than me."

He never touches the stuff he sells, no need to when all the dopamine he needs is right between your legs.

"Ten times better than any o tha' shite, anyways."

He pants in your ear while folding you in half, firm grip on your throat.

Gaz- When it comes to psychedelics, Kyle is your go-to man. He's a fucking genius, synthesizes his own DMT and LSD in a lab. It's a state of the art facility, clean with the latest and greatest equipment available. He supplies the whole Northeast. If it's a hallucinogen, it's most likely Gaz's product. And if it's good, it's definitely his. He has a cozy set up with some "organization" that he cooks for. Steers clear of actually selling to people, no need to when his clients line his pockets so well. Never brings work home, he even wears different clothes when he's in the lab.

He has a set schedule he has to adhere to but sometimes he's able to take vacations with you. And that's how you ended up bent over a balcony watching the sunset in Punta Cana,

"I work so hard to make you happy, now it's my turn yeah?"

A breeze sends a shiver up your spine while he kisses your shoulder,

"I know a private beach where you can even out those tan lines,"

Of course he doesn't give a shit about that, he just wants to fuck you silly on the seaside (and show off to anyone who might be watching.)

Price- Caring and nurturing, the man naturally has a green thumb. And alongside his prized heirloom tomatoes, he grows really, really good weed. Has a whole growroom in his basement, decked out with proper ventilation, ACs, UV lights, the works. The man grows medical grade weed that private clinics buy from him. He's legit. And of course he serves the public as well under the table, sells only to people he knows and established clients can refer others to him. He treats his plants like his babies, even going as far as to play music for them (according to him classical music helps them grow better???). You don't know where he finds the time, but he also made you rose garden for your anniversary. He brings up the idea of a family every so often. He'll finish as deep inside of you as possible,

"Let's replace that plant nursery for a real one, yeah love?"

Gonna write actual stories for each one if y'all like this ( . * 3 * . )/`

[rjalker]

I feel like a whole lot of people only learned the words "public domain" yesterday because there is a shit ton of misinformation and fearmongering being spread about Mickey Mouse now that he's public domain. And the only people being helped by this are Disney executives.

Yes, you can call him Mickey Mouse. The name Mickey Mouse is now Public Domain. He's literally named in the title card for Steamboat Willie and the other animations and promotional posters that are Public Domain.

Yes, you can give him gloves. There are multiple Public Domain versions of him wearing gloves.

Yes, you can draw him in color. First of all, there are Public Domain versions of him drawn in color. Second of all, the entire point of the Public Domain is that you are free to transform and update the subject. That means you can give Mickey Mouse any outfit or combinations of outfits you want as long as the ones you use aren't already copyrighted by Disney.

And more but my laptop is overheating. Feel free to add on more corrections to misinformation being spread.

Edit to add:

Yes, you can have him talk! Just because The versions in Steamboat Willie, The Galloping Gaucho and Plane Crazy don't talk doesn't mean that Disney is the only one allowed to make him talk. That's not how the public domain works. It just means you have to create your own voice for him.

Edit again to add:

Yes, you can sell art of him. Yes, you can put him on a shirt and sell it. Yes, you can sell paintings of him. As long as you are not using a design still protected by Disney's copyright, and are not deceiving people into thinking it's official Disney merch, you can sell it! That's the whole point of the Public Domain!

And no, people, for Pete's sake. It is not and never has been illegal to draw modern Mickey Mouse. That's fair use. You can draw anything you want. Copyright stops you from selling things. You have always been allowed to draw any Mickey Mouse you want. Disney will not appear out of thin air and arrest you and your family because you have "pie slices on the pupil". That is literally not how any of this works, especially not how the Public Domain works!

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

bakugo and reader meeting again after a long time like maybe katsu has been away on a mission and he just misses us so much 🥹

anon this is literally such an adorable request!! This has been sitting in my drafts for the longest time cus i could never rlly figure out what i wanted to do with this, but as soon as i got the inspo i got to it !! im so so sososuuupperr sorry for making you wait so long and if you’re still sticking around, I LUB YOU !! anyways, i tried honoring this lovely sweet request as best i could, if you’re reading, i truly hope you enjoy (and all of you ofc!!) <33

fem reader, jus pure fluffy fluff ! katsuki n reader watch selling sunsets bc my mom does lmfaoo this ones for you momma, kissing, biting (lol will i ever stop), lemme know if i missed sum else !

katsuki regrets planning this surprise.

it’s been one month. exactly 31 days since he’s last seen you. one month he had to survive off of late night phone calls and good morning messages.

katsuki had slowly but surely started climbing up the ranks as a hero ever since he’d gone independent and this mission was a huge steppingstone to victory.

except it involved him going abroad for a month.

you’d congratulated him when he’d told you. you hugged him hard and offered him your brightest sunshine smile, you’d made him dance around your little living room with you, celebrating his ‘rise to stardom’ as you’d called it and he remembers chuckling about it. you’d even gone out of your way and made his favorite to celebrate. but now katsuki understand you were probably doing that so as not to worry him.

he's known you for a long while and he knows you know he can tell when you’re lying, so he was sure you were happy for him. (you can’t fake anything from him and especially not the way you smile, he’s committed that to memory). and you truly looked happy for him, but he knows youwell enough to know that you were also devastated to find out he was leaving for so long. he’d seen the way your eyes widened and your shoulders dropped. but knowing you, you probably powered through it so as not to make him worry.

so stupid. you’re stupid. and he misses you so much.

despite you being in different time zones you make it work. he made sure to be updated daily and called you every time it was time for you to go to bed to make sure you got some well needed sleep and not staying up late mindlessly scrolling through your feed.

you send him pictures of everything happening throughout your day and you’d hound him about his, asking him if he’d eaten well and if he’d beat up any bad guys. and no matter how minuscule his actions were you’d always praise him. as somewhat childish as he knew it was katsuki still walked with his head up high for the rest of the day. if it was to impress you and make you proud, he’d be on the clock 24/7. but, knowing you, you’d get mad at him for overworking himself.

he misses you so much.

he’s on the plane. making his way back home to you a day before he’d told you he would be, his surprise. you’d been so excited, your squeals ringing through the phone, katsuki just couldn’t wipe the smile of his face and goddamnit he tried.

“ou, i can’t wait ! i missed you sooo much, katsu !” you chirped, he couldn’t wait to hear your voice in real life again instead of through his phone.

“yeah, missed you too sweets” he hums, packing up the last of his stuff.

“you better be ready cus when you get back, m’not gonna let you go for a whole month.” you tease, giggling. katsuki huffs out a laugh, looking down at his luggage ready to go as he’d fully finished packing up while you were on the phone.

“uhuh~?” he muses “better be ready for me when i get back. yer not goin’ anywhere either. no bathroom breaks when we're cuddling.”

“ew,” you snort “what am i supposed to do if i have to pee ?”

“that sounds like a you problem, sweetheart.”

you laugh and laugh and katsuki smiles, he couldn’t wait to be able to hear and see it again. expect not one phone call away, like he’d told you he always would be when you’d accompanied him to the airport all teary eyed, but in real life.

except now he’s starting to regret not just coming home on time.

don’t get him wrong, the sooner he gets to you the better. he’d meant it when he told you he wouldn’t let you go and as somewhat embarrassing as it is to him that he had gotten so clingy, being away from you for so long really did a number on him. distance makes the heart grow fonder his ass, he was more than fond of you when he was laying next to you every night instead of all alone in his hotel bed.

but right now he’s way too antsy. he wants to tell you about how he’ll be home soon to hear you squeal and giggle, but he sucks it up in favor of surprising you.

it’ll be worth it. at least that’s what he tried to convince himself when he finished packing up. and on his way to the airport. and on the plane..

who even thought of this stupid surprise idea anyway ?!

he can’t sit still. he has to stop himself from tapping his foot against the floor and shuffling around in his seat. the guy in front of him keeps reclining his seat back but it doesn’t bother him that much, because all he needs is to remember your smile and remember he’s coming home to you, and he feels his nerves settle. recliner-seat-guy be damned.

it’s pitch black by the time he’s off the plane and finally back home. when he checks his phone he sees it’s 2:09 am and you’re no doubt dead asleep by now, he smiles at his phone screen when he sees you smiling back at him.

his limbs suddenly feel heavier the higher the numbers show on the screen inside the elevator to his floor. his body buzzes with excitement but for some reason he can’t help feeling nervous. katsuki knows it’s stupid because you tell him every day how much you miss him and how excited you are to see him. all he wants right now is to see you.

he fumbles around a bit when he fits his keys into the door to walk into your tiny shared apartment and when he finally walks back inside, katsuki is reminded why he does this. why he’s been gone for exactly 31 days.

he kicks his shoes off quietly and sees yours left right by the door like they always are. like he always wants them to be. he wants to come home to your shoes by the door and to you smiling at him brightly and greeting him, or beckoning him over to the couch because you’ve been waiting all day to watch your favorite show with him. (he’s forbidden you from watching any episode of selling sunsets without him, the last time you did he got cranky at you for a good 2 hours.)

katsuki sneaks over to your room, socked feet padding over to the door quietly cracking it open. he’d managed to convince you to move in with him a few months ago, claiming it’d lower costs and yapping about how you practically lived here anyway. it was barely anything to get used to, it felt natural, like this was everything his life was leading up to. but he wants to give you everything you deserve and this cramped little apartment is definitely not it.

he wants to give you a cosy little house, or a penthouse or even a fucking mansion if that was what you wanted, as long as he could be there with you he didn’t care. he’d do whatever he could to get you everything you dreamed of at the flick of a wrist. and that’s why, as annoying and lonely as it was to be without you for so long, he’d pushed through.

katsuki needs to save people, and he wants to. but everything he does, he does with you in a little corner of his mind.

you’re fast asleep like he’d expected, katsuki huffs out a laugh, brushing at your cheek with his finger. his heart almost explodes when you try to lean into the faint touch and he can’t help it anymore. he sits down by your side and kisses your cheek. once, two times, three times and a little one on your nose. if he wasn’t feeling all mushy he’d be an asshole and bite you, but you look so cute he’ll put that off for now.

your nose scrunches up and your eyebrows furrow at the wet kiss onto your skin, you instinctively go to rub at your face with a whine, katsuki chuckles to himself when you open your eyes and the lack of distance between you both meaning your quite literally face to face with him.

“katsu..?” you mumble sleepily “ ‘m i dreamin’ ?”

katsuki chuckles, eyes soft “glad to know ya dream about me, but nah, this isn't a dream.”

you blink sleepily, and katsuki recognize those bright eyes he so loves gleaming the more you wake up “katsuki !” you squeal, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him straight against your collarbone, since he was practically nose to nose with you before he knocks against your chin but you both don’t care.

katsuki crawls into bed and wraps his arms around you tightly, snickering into your neck and you into his hair. you squeeze and squeeze him so hard he thinks you’ll suffocate him but he couldn’t care less, squeezing you like he’s trying to mold you to him.

you breathe him in and he flips you both over with you giggling uncontrollably. you topple over and land straight into his chest. you lift your head up with stars in your eyes like he’d hung up the moon for you and katsuki smirks back softly. because he would. he’d hang up the moon and the stars and more.

all for you.

“you’re back !” you chirp, kissing all over his face. katsuki feels his cheeks hurt, this is the hardest and longest he’d smiled in a month.

“how’d you figure that one out ?” you roll your eyes at his sarcastic remark, blowing lip bubbles against his cheeks as punishment. he playfully pushes your face away from him and you laugh.

“i thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow..” you quickly reach over to your nightstand to check your phone then throw it back down.

“it is tomorrow.” katsuki quips, already getting back to being a smart ass, you roll your eyes but you can’t wipe off the happy look on your face.

“you know what i mean, asshole” you jokingly narrow your eyes at his smug face and press a finger against his cheek “later tomorrow i mean. was gonna surprise you and you….out-surprised, me” you pout at your ruined plans.

he turns his face so he can sink his teeth into your pointer finger and you quietly squeal in disapproval, he smirks “was gonna, but couldn’t wait anymore. needed to see you.” he pulls you closer to run his nose against your pulse point “felt like i was gonna go fucking crazy if i stayed with those other bastards for a second longer.”

you giggle, placing your hands against his shoulders as he kisses up and down your shoulder and neck haphazardly “ don’t be mean.” you scold.

he lifts his head up to raise a brow at you, hands running up and down your sides “you mean to tell me you wanted me to stay away? didn’t miss me ?” he jokes, squeezing your hips harshly.

“of course i did. missed you so much i felt my heart would tear up sometimes..” you smiles sadly, running your fingers through his blond strands, he frowns "but i'm glad you're back now."

"yeah, and m'not leaving again for a damn long while." he squeezes you so hard he lifts you up in his lap a little bit and a surprised noise leak out of you. he lifts his head up from your chest to smirk at you in challenge "you're gonna have to get used to me and my big mouth all over again."

your heart squeezes, you feel like it'll bursts from happiness and katsuki wonders if he' supposed to feel this happy, if it's okay to be this content with one person. but only for a moment, because he's greedy, so so greedy for you. and he doesn't care if it's wrong because he gets to make you happy, to make you smile and laugh, to have you.

and katsuki does everything for you, so he gives himself to you without a second thought.

you hum, placing your hands against his soft cheeks to press your lips to his "got a month worth of your big mouth i need to catch up on." you whisper before finally closing the distance. you both immediately sigh in relief at the contact, being able to feel each other like this again. you smile into the kiss and katsuki thinks he's never felt more at peace.

after a month, exactly 31 days, katsuki's finally back.

bonus :

"hey." katsuki ask, you snuggle into his side and hum.

"did you watch any episodes of selling sunsets without me ?"

you stiffen.

"n-noooo..." the sheets shuffle and crinkle when katsuki looks down at you. you shrink into yourself.

"maybe one or two.." you squeak out meekly. immediately he's flipping you over and pouncing on you.

"fuckin' traitor." he growls.

"i'm sorry i couldn't help myself !" you wheeze when he starts tickling your sides, kicking at the sheets "it's been a month !" you screech trying to catch your breath.

"yeah i know that !" he exclaims, ignoring the way you're thrashing around as he mercilessly tickles you.

"i'm soooorryy !!"

[mostlysignssomeportents]

There’s no such thing as “shareholder supremacy”

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Here's a cheap trick: claim that your opponents' goals are so squishy and qualitative that no one will ever be able to say whether they've been succeeded or failed, and then declare that your goals can be evaluated using crisp, objective criteria.

This is the whole project of "economism," the idea that politics, with its emphasis on "fairness" and other intangibles, should be replaced with a mathematical form of economics, where every policy question can be reduced to an equation…and then "solved":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/28/imagine-a-horse/#perfectly-spherical-cows-of-uniform-density-on-a-frictionless-plane

Before the rise of economism, it was common to speak of its subjects as "political economy" or even "moral philosophy" (Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, considered himself a "moral philosopher"). "Political economy" implicitly recognizes that every policy has squishy, subjective, qualitative dimensions that don't readily boil down to math.

For example, if you're asking about whether people should have the "freedom" to enter into contracts, it might be useful to ask yourself how desperate your "free" subject might be, and whether the entity on the other side of that contract is very powerful. Otherwise you'll get "free contracts" like "I'll sell you my kidneys if you promise to evacuate my kid from the path of this wildfire."

The problem is that power is hard to represent faithfully in quantitative models. This may seem like a good reason to you to be skeptical of modeling, but for economism, it's a reason to pretend that the qualitative doesn't exist. The method is to incinerate those qualitative factors to produce a dubious quantitative residue and do math on that:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

Hence the famous Ely Devons quote: "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’"

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

The neoliberal revolution was a triumph for economism. Neoliberal theorists like Milton Friedman replaced "political economy" with "law and economics," the idea that we should turn every one of our complicated, nuanced, contingent qualitative goals into a crispy defined "objective" criteria. Friedman and his merry band of Chicago School economists replaced traditional antitrust (which sought to curtail the corrupting power of large corporations) with a theory called "consumer welfare" that used mathematics to decide which monopolies were "efficient" and therefore good (spoiler: monopolists who paid Friedman's pals to do this mathematical analysis always turned out to be running "efficient" monopolies):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

One of Friedman's signal achievements was the theory of "shareholder supremacy." In 1970, the New York Times published Friedman's editorial "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits":

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html

In it, Friedman argued that corporate managers had exactly one job: to increase profits for shareholders. All other considerations – improving the community, making workers' lives better, donating to worthy causes or sponsoring a little league team – were out of bounds. Managers who wanted to improve the world should fund their causes out of their paychecks, not the corporate treasury.

Friedman cloaked his hymn to sociopathic greed in the mantle of objectivism. For capitalism to work, corporations have to solve the "principal-agent" problem, the notoriously thorny dilemma created when one person (the principal) asks another person (the agent) to act on their behalf, given the fact that the agent might find a way to line their own pockets at the principal's expense (for example, a restaurant server might get a bigger tip by offering to discount diners' meals).

Any company that is owned by stockholders and managed by a CEO and other top brass has a huge principal-agent problem, and yet, the limited liability, joint-stock company had produced untold riches, and was considered the ideal organization for "capital formation" by Friedman et al. In true economismist form, Friedman treated all the qualitative questions about the duty of a company as noise and edited them out of the equation, leaving behind a single, elegant formulation: "a manager is doing their job if they are trying to make as much money as possible for their shareholders."

Friedman's formulation was a hit. The business community ran wild with it. Investors mistook an editorial in the New York Times for an SEC rulemaking and sued corporate managers on the theory that they had a "fiduciary duty" to "maximize shareholder value" – and what's more, the courts bought it. Slowly and piecemeal at first, but bit by bit, the idea that rapacious greed was a legal obligation turned into an edifice of legal precedent. Business schools taught it, movies were made about it, and even critics absorbed the message, insisting that we needed to "repeal the law" that said that corporations had to elevate profit over all other consideration (not realizing that no such law existed).

It's easy to see why shareholder supremacy was so attractive for investors and their C-suite Renfields: it created a kind of moral crumple-zone. Whenever people got angry at you for being a greedy asshole, you could shrug and say, "My hands are tied: the law requires me to run the business this way – if you don't believe me, just ask my critics, who insist that we must get rid of this law!"

In a long feature for The American Prospect, Adam M Lowenstein tells the story of how shareholder supremacy eventually came into such wide disrepute that the business lobby felt that it had to do something about it:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-17-ponzi-scheme-of-promises/

It starts in 2018, when Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett decried the short-term, quarterly thinking in corporate management as bad for business's long-term health. When Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein wrote a column agreeing with them and arguing that even moreso, businesses should think about equities other than shareholder returns, Jamie Dimon lost his shit and called Pearlstein to call it "the stupidest fucking column I’ve ever read":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/07/will-ending-quarterly-earnings-guidance-free-ceos-to-think-long-term/

But the dam had broken. In the months and years that followed, the Business Roundtable would adopt a series of statements that repudiated shareholder supremacy, though of course they didn't admit it. Rather, they insisted that they were clarifying that they'd always thought that sometimes not being a greedy asshole could be good for business, too. Though these statements were nonbinding, and though the CEOs who signed them did so in their personal capacity and not on behalf of their companies, capitalism's most rabid stans treated this as an existential crisis.

Lowenstein identifies this as the forerunner to today's panic over "woke corporations" and "DEI," and – just as with "woke capitalism" – the whole thing amounted to a a PR exercise. Lowenstein links to several studies that found that the CEOs who signed onto statements endorsing "stakeholder capitalism" were "more likely to lay off employees during COVID-19, were less inclined to contribute to pandemic relief efforts, had 'higher rates of environmental and labor-related compliance violations,”' emitted more carbon into the atmosphere, and spent more money on dividends and buybacks."

One researcher concluded that "signing this statement had zero positive effect":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/companies-stand-solidarity-are-licensing-themselves-discriminate/614947

So shareholder supremacy isn't a legal obligation, and statements repudiating shareholder supremacy don't make companies act any better.

But there's an even more fundamental flaw in the argument for the shareholder supremacy rule: it's impossible to know if the rule has been broken.

The shareholder supremacy rule is an unfalsifiable proposition. A CEO can cut wages and lay off workers and claim that it's good for profits because the retained earnings can be paid as a dividend. A CEO can raise wages and hire more people and claim it's good for profits because it will stop important employees from defecting and attract the talent needed to win market share and spin up new products.

A CEO can spend less on marketing and claim it's a cost-savings. A CEO can spend more on marketing and claim it's an investment. A CEO can eliminate products and call it a savings. A CEO can add products and claim they're expansions into new segments. A CEO can settle a lawsuit and claim they're saving money on court fees. A CEO can fight a lawsuit through to the final appeal and claim that they're doing it to scare vexatious litigants away by demonstrating their mettle.

CEOs can use cheaper, inferior materials and claim it's a savings. They can use premium materials and claim it's a competitive advantage that will produce new profits. Everything a company does can be colorably claimed as an attempt to save or make money, from sponsoring the local little league softball team to treating effluent to handing ownership of corporate landholdings to perpetual trusts that designate them as wildlife sanctuaries.

Bribes, campaign contributions, onshoring, offshoring, criminal conspiracies and conference sponsorships – there's a business case for all of these being in line with shareholder supremacy.

Take Boeing: when the company smashed its unions and relocated key production to scab plants in red states, when it forced out whistleblowers and senior engineers who cared about quality, when it outsourced design and production to shops around the world, it realized a savings. Today, between strikes, fines, lawsuits, and a mountain of self-inflicted reputational harm, the company is on the brink of ruin. Was Boeing good to its shareholders? Well, sure – the shareholders who cashed out before all the shit hit the fan made out well. Shareholders with a buy-and-hold posture (like the index funds that can't sell their Boeing holdings so long as the company is in the S&P500) got screwed.

Right wing economists criticize the left for caring too much about "how big a slice of the pie they're getting" rather than focusing on "growing the pie." But that's exactly what Boeing management did – while claiming to be slaves to Friedman's shareholder supremacy. They focused on getting a bigger slice of the pie, screwing their workers, suppliers and customers in the process, and, in so doing, they made the pie so much smaller that it's in danger of disappearing altogether.

Here's the principal-agent problem in action: Boeing management earned bonuses by engaging in corporate autophagia, devouring the company from within. Now, long-term shareholders are paying the price. Far from solving the principal-agent problem with a clean, bright-line rule about how managers should behave, shareholder supremacy is a charter for doing whatever the fuck a CEO feels like doing. It's the squishiest rule imaginable: if someone calls you cruel, you can blame the rule and say you had no choice. If someone calls you feckless, you can blame the rule and say you had no choice. It's an excuse for every season.

The idea that you can reduce complex political questions – like whether workers should get a raise or whether shareholders should get a dividend – to a mathematical rule is a cheap sleight of hand. The trick is an obvious one: the stuff I want to do is empirically justified, while the things you want are based in impossible-to-pin-down appeals to emotion and its handmaiden, ethics. Facts don't care about your feelings, man.

But it's feelings all the way down. Milton Friedman's idol-worshiping cult of shareholder supremacy was never about empiricism and objectivity. It's merely a gimmick to make greed seem scientifically optimal.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

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/2024/09/18/falsifiability/#figleaves-not-rubrics/a>