#taxpayer's bank account

[ivygorgon]

AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. CONGRESS

Hold Bank Execs Financially Accountable for Mismanagement! Pass the DEPOSIT Act.

274 so far! Help us get to 500 signers!

I am writing to urge you to pass the Deliver Executive Profits on Seized Institutions to Taxpayers (DEPOSIT) Act that was recently introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Reps Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Mike Levin (D-CA).

This important legislation would hold executives at failed banks financially responsible for their mismanagement and prevent them from selling off shares of stock, potentially profiting from their bank failure -- like Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker might have done when he sold $3.6 million of stock shortly before the collapse of SVB.

American taxpayers shouldn’t be left holding the bag and bailing out banks while their executives are walking away with multi-million dollar compensation and bonus packages. Please respond in writing and let me know you co-sponsored this bill. Thanks!

▶ Created on March 24, 2023 by Jess Craven

📱 Text SIGN PNFKGB to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409

[poppy5991]

You know WHAT??? It’s a cute and all, but now that I think about it:

How are you gonna tell me that Class 1A saved up for that suit? That shoulda been taxpayer dollars!!! This boy saved your country and you don’t even compensate him? Shame.

You’re telling me that the Japanese government didn’t get ANY money from seizing MLA/PLF assets???? You know they were rich!

That they didn’t seize AFO’s assets??? You KNOW that man had bank accounts in every country. He had YEARS to make money. He was wearing designer suits into battle.

You got NOTHING from the Yakuza when you did that raid????

TCH.

[tuttle-did-it]

FUCK. THE. TORIES.

They have refused to increase wages whilst forcing the cost of living to skyrocket so high that nearly all of us are counting pennies to pay bills. If we can pay them.

They intentionally and gleefully forced us into a horrible economic (and cultural) depression through Brexit, and not one of them had a single consequence for the constant lies they told to get it passed. This will only get worse.

They have intentionally dismantled the NHS by underfunding it to the point where the NHS staff are all burnt out (having nervous breakdowns, leaving the country for far- better paying jobs or just leaving the field completely) just so they could sell it off to privatised companies worth billions just so they can fill their own pockets. Oh, and the incredible capable staff (medical or support) who were all from Europe have been told they are no longer welcome here and they have returned home because Britain is a cesspool of bigotry and hate

They are dismantling the social care systems for the disabled and elderly, to try to force us back to work even though we are physically and/or mentally incapable of work by stripping away our incomes.

They're doing everything they can to keep us from living by making sure we cannot afford food, housing, utilities, water, and tax.

They are living on taxpayers whilst having millions, even billions in the bank for themselves.

The corrupt politicians fill their bank accounts and buy third and fourth houses across all Europe, another boat— whatever— and they have scandal after scandal with absolutely no consequence, and we can do absolutely nothing.

Their handling of COVID was criminal, and aside from wasting an incredible amount of money, they are responsible for many deaths by not acting fast enough and by forcing people back into the workplace when they knew it was not safe because they wanted to improve the economy they collapsed.

Oh, and don't forget all those lovely parties they had during COVID lockdowns when we were all in our houses and not allowed to see family members who were dying-- or even go to their funerals because of COVID restrictions.

They are intentionally fuelling the hate at queer people-- specifically trans people. This, I assure you, will get so much worse.

They keep sending money from taxpayers over to fund wars in other places-- including genocide-- with no way for us to fight back.

They keep making law after law making it more and more difficult for us to protest against everything they are doing.

Now the Tories expect you to do 12-18 months (+4 reserve years) of mandatory conscripted service in the military so you can go help countries commit war atrocities and genocide. And if you refuse, you are sanctioned. And they are making more and more laws restricting protest and free speech, so if we fight back, we're punished-- criminalised.

Do you understand what is happening right now?

Anyone who can still vote for the Tories after all of this, I have only a deep seeded concern for their sanity, and revulsion at their lack of morals.

FUCK EVERYONE WHO WILL OR HAS EVER VOTED FOR THESE MONSTERS.

FUCK.

THE.

TORIES.

FUCK.

THEM.

ALL.

[texasdreamer01]

Atlantis Expedition: Science Division Departments

"Many of the scientists on Atlantis are organised into departments, each with their own department head. Dr. Rodney McKay was head of the Science and Research Division which most likely meant he was in charge of all of the science departments. Dr. Radek Zelenka was also the head of his own department. The various science departments on Atlantis are:

> Physics

 » Astrophysics

> Biology

 » Microbiology

 » Astrobiology

> Oceanography

> Botany

> Medicine

> Anthropology

(SGA: "Remnants", "Grace Under Pressure", "Suspicion")"

From <https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Atlantis_expedition#Departments>

---

As I'm working my way through worldbuilding headcanons on the expedition, I figured I ought to start with the science division first. Above is my starting point: the canonical information at hand, to flesh out and give it some real-world reliability.

When I looked at it again, I realized it was, to put it politely, ill-thought-out crap that was only looked upon when the writers needed some random scientist around for episode material.

So, what considerations would an expedition like this actually need to take into account when hiring people?

At the very bare bones of it is "how many people can I fit through a wormhole in twenty or twenty-five minutes, plus supplies?". I went back and forth, prevaricated for a bit, and settled on 200 people if you really want to hoof it.

(Why 20-25 minutes? It's SGC's first stable-ish wormhole to another galaxy that's powered by a ZPM. They don't even know how much of a success that would be, or if they're just shoving people into a glorified shredder. Gotta pick and choose who you're maybe putting through the billion-dollar shredder. Y'know. Just in case.)

My initial rough estimations were about an even split between scientific and military personnel, which I kept on hand as napkin math to sanity check myself. This would be approximately 150 scientists.

What departments would there be, and how would it be divided? Who makes the priorities, and why?

The canon data is a mess, and as I worked through things, canon kept getting folded and refolded into different configurations because there's two competing priorities: the IOA/SGC, and Rodney's approach to pragmatism.

What was everyone expecting to see on the other side of that wormhole? Definitely not a city ship sunk into the ground of an ocean, and definitely not isolated from others (the Athosians were an unexpected godsend that kicked off the reason to have a plot in the first place). Whatever the IOA or SGC had in mind will quickly get thrown out the window, but needs must, and the departments were likely arranged long before the shipping manifest was decided.

I poked around the uniforms, because everyone is colour-coded, and there's five sections:

> Red (civilian, leader) - Worn by Dr. Elizabeth Weir, Teyla Emmagan, Colonel Samantha Carter and Richard Woolsey.

> Blue/dark blue or purple (scientist) - Worn by Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay and Dr. Radek Zelenka.

> Yellow (medical) - Worn by Dr. Carson Beckett and Dr. Jennifer Keller.

> Black (military) - Worn by Lt. Colonel John Sheppard and Major Evan Lorne.

> Green (technician) - Worn by Chuck and Amelia Banks.

This information is listed in both the "List of Atlantis personnel" and "Atlantis expedition uniform" pages on SGCommand.

Thus far that gets me two and a half departments in my hand: Scientist, Medical, and Technician (that's the half).

What would the SGC and IOA want the expedition to prioritize? Technology, and lots of it. This means that, probably, there's going to be more engineers than you can shake a stick at, and not a lot of pure sciences. Remember, it cost money to fire up the gate, and flinging people into another galaxy is an unfathomable amount of (international, at this point) taxpayer funds. You're going to want as much applied science as possible, and as much overlap in disciplines as possible.

(Unfortunately this does leave little room for error, so anyone that dies is capable of leaving a hole in potential research.)

Therefore, how would a top-down order of technological research look like? My assumption was this:

> Engineering of the city of Atlantis itself

 » ZPMs, auxiliary and/or complementary power sources

 » Materials and material manufacturing

 » Design specs of different technologies (jumpers, yes, but also anti-grav, shields, climate controls)

> Biological sciences

 » ATA gene therapies

 » Whatever the Ancients were working on regarding ascension

  ⇛ Helpful with the Ori once Atlantis is informed of that issue

To wit, neither addendum on the biological sciences bullet point is pertinent at the time of department formation, as Carson invented the ATA gene therapy after arriving in Atlantis, and the Ori weren't an issue for a similar reason.

Ergo, all non-biological engineering fields would have had higher billing, and thus more of them hired. The only exception would be medical, and I'm sure the SGC had the forethought to bully the IOA into its relevancy and make sure that department was as fully-stocked as they could manage.

Now what about practical considerations? Plans are nice and all, but rarely survive contact with reality, so some adjustment might be needed. This, I believe, the SGC considered, given their own history of needing to rapidly adjust on the fly.

Rodney, as Chief Science Officer (CSO), would be the one to not only make these kinds of decisions, but also to listen to the head of the expedition as to what needed to be prioritized. As the show has demonstrated, there can be a significant amount of shuffling around of employees based on the needs of a minute, and hour, a week, a month - for an indefinite amount of time? Basics are what gets the job done.

So what things would Rodney need to consider, or be directed to consider by Elizabeth?

> Oh shit this can sink

 » Rodney's main work - keeping the ZPM working and get as many new ones as possible

> Oh shit everything's so far away

 » Rodney's other main work - making sure the gate works as ordered

> Oh shit we're in another galaxy

 » Food

  ⇛ Getting, keeping, preserving, maybe the occasional growing

 » Utilities

  ⇛ Luckily they don't have to pay for it lol

  ⇛ But also oh shit lighting, water, sewage, air filtration, general life support

   ⟹ Rodney's third main work

   ⟹ This poor guy

 » Medicine

  ⇛ Rodney delegates the hell out of this

  ⇛ Good luck making potions, guys!

 » Bullets

  ⇛ Also other things the military needs

  ⇛ Fun times re-inventing the wheel I mean gunpowder

  ⇛ Good work for bored soldiers, and possibly also any scientist Rodney puts in time-out

 » Clothes

  ⇛ Ha, thread

  ⇛ Also needles

  ⇛ Experiments in sewing machine making

   ⟹ Watch the fingers

  ⇛ How to replace fabric?

  ⇛ Off-duty clothes

  ⇛ Also medical clothing (scrubs for staff, patients)

 » Miscellaneous

  ⇛ Entertainment, I guess

Internal monologue included because I think it's funny.

Anyway.

While Rodney's spending his days with Benny Hill music playing in the background trying to get all of those priorities done on top of actually delegating work and doing whatever else Elizabeth (and John) want him to do, other people actually need to have some work to get done. So what are they doing?

It depends on who already does what, frankly. So in the above combined interests (amount of people that can fit through an intergalactic wormhole, competing IOA/SGC interests, realities of living in Atlantis), I'm proposing this set-up (commentary included):

Medical Sciences Department

Head: Carson Beckett (later, Jennifer Keller, later, whomever)

Contains: Surgery, psychiatry, physical therapy

Function: Maintaining health of expedition members

Examples of function: surgeries, medical prescriptions, recuperation from injuries, mental stability

Personnel quantity: 1 (Head) + 10 (surgical team) + 5 (nurses) + 1 (psych) + 1 (phys. therapy) + 1 (anesthesiologist) = 19 total

A/N: Nurses have training in medications and physical therapy, surgical team also doubles as general practitioners.

Life Sciences Department

Head: OC

Contains: Earth biologists, bio- & biochemical engineers, astro/xeno-biologists, botany, environmental chemistry, zoology, microbiology

Function: Auxiliary to Medical Department needs

Examples of function: pharmaceutical synthesis, analysis of unknown species, biological database creation, gene therapies (pharmaceutical adjacent)

Personnel quantity: 1 (Head) + 2 (Earth biologists) + 2 (bioE & biochemE) + 1 (astro/xenobio) + 1 (botany) + 1 (envchem) + 1 (zoo) + 2 (microbio) = 11

A/N: Both biologists also have training/specialization in genetics/gene mapping (assists both Carson and Katie), some input in requesting gate missions based on in-house needs.

Field Sciences Department

Head: OC

Contains: Linguistics, historical geography, cartography, ethnography, sociology, oceanography, hydrology, atmospheric physics, planetary physics

Function: Research pool for gate teams and any assigned missions

Examples of function: Preservation of refugee cultures, scouting for trade planets, analysis of back-up sites for establishment

Personnel quantity: 1 (Head) + 3 (linguistics) + 1 (histgeo) + 1 (cart) + 1 (ethno) + 1 (socio) + 1 (oceano) + 1 (hydro) + 1 (atmophys) + 1 (planphys) = 12

A/N: SGC duplicate all shoved into one department, mostly ignored in-house but their brains are picked for background dossiers when it comes to mission planning. Linguists trained in xenolinguistics, from the SGC, can cover the various anthro fields if necessary, also various training in structural linguistics. Main scientist pulls for gate team assignments, if something critical isn't needed (i.e. Ancient technology).

Applied Sciences Department

Head: Rodney McKay (or perhaps Radek Zelenka?)

Contains: Electrical/technical engineering, nuclear physics, civil engineering, astrophysics, laser/optical, chemical engineering

Function: Study, synthesis, and adaptations of Ancient technology

Examples of function: ZPM analysis with intent to duplicate, experimental duplications of Ancient technology materials, study of gate physics and construction with intent to duplicate, study and experimental duplication of other Ancient technologies (i.e. hyperdrives, cloaks, weapons, etc)

Personnel quantity: 1 (Head) + 3 (electreng) + 6 (techeng/gate techs) + 1 (nucphys) + 1 (astrophy) + 1 (LZ/opt) +  3 (chemeng) = 16

A/N: The people Rodney are yelling at most often, because mistakes mean kablooey. Also a lot of the people running around in an emergency. 1 nuclear physicist because Rodney pulls a lot of intellectual weight, and same with the astrophysicist and laser/optical person (mostly they're there as on-paper hires and back-ups/assistants for him for his own research).

Gate Technicians

Head: ??? Joint custody

Contains: Gate technicians

Functions: Auxiliary to Applied Sciences Department, interacts with the gate and the gate only

Examples of function: dialing, searching database for addresses, maintaining mission logs and planets visited, basic repair and maintenance of the gate, technical drawings as required by others

Personnel quantity: Chuck, idk +5 for full shift overlaps = 6 total (listed in Applied Sciences department as techeng/gate techs)

A/N: Technically nerds but are active duty, probably loans from SGC (maybe also Russia because of the DHD debacle?).

Gate technicians are, although folded into the Applied Sciences department, listed separately in order to better articulate their duties (and the fact that they get the green shirts). Shout-out to @spurious for enabling the idea that gate techs would do technical drawings 😁

Sum Total of Science Division Personnel

Medical: 19

Life Sciences: 11

Field Sciences: 12

Applied Sciences: 16

Total total: 19 + 11 + 12 + 16 = 58

This isn't anywhere close to my initial estimate of 150, but I think it adequately covers all the preconceived and actual responsibilities that the science division would need to handle in the expedition. Possibly I might update these numbers as I develop this headcanon further, but that would end up in a new post.

Further elaboration on headcanons about each department will be in their own posts, with links updated here as they're posted for ease of reference.

Science Department Breakdown Posts

Medical Department (posted 14 May 2024)

Life Sciences Department (posted 29 May 2024)

Field Sciences Department (posted 30 May 2024)

Applied Sciences Department (posted 10 June 2024)

Chief Science Officer (posted 18 July 2024)

Chief Medical Officer (posted 20 July 2024)

Science Department Heads (posted 20 July 2024)

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Just a heads up. There’s a possibility of a texting scam floating about. My partner recently received a text message from apparently the CRA saying that they have about 648.00$ in Climate Incentives. Here’s where it gets weird, the text claims that it sent it via e-transfer with a link to click on to finish the transaction. Now, we all know as taxpayers that we get whatever the government gives back is automatically sent to our bank accounts and not through e-transfer. I had my partner delete the text immediately. So stay vilgiant and don’t fall for it.

~~~~

[robertreich]

The Dark Side of Sports Stadiums

Billionaires have found one more way to funnel our tax dollars into their bank accounts: sports stadiums. And if we don’t play ball, they’ll take our favorite teams away.

Ever notice how there never seems to be enough money to build public infrastructure like mass transit lines and better schools? And yet, when a multi-billion-dollar sports team demands a new stadium, our local governments are happy to oblige.

A good example of this billionaire boondoggle is the host of the 2023 Super Bowl: State Farm Stadium.

That's where the Arizona Cardinals have played since 2006. It was finally built after billionaire team owner Michael Bidwill and his family spent years hinting that they would move the Cards out of Arizona if the team didn't get a new stadium. Their blitz eventually worked, with Arizona taxpayers and the city of Glendale paying over two thirds of the $455 million construction tab.

And State Farm Stadium is not unique. It’s part of a well established playbook.

Here’s how stadiums stick the public with the bill.

Step 1: Billionaire buys a sports team.

Just about every NFL franchise owner has a net worth of over a billion dollars — except for the Green Bay Packers, who are publicly owned by half a million cheeseheads.

The same goes for many franchise owners in other sports. Their fortunes don’t just help them buy teams, but also give them clout — which they cash-in when they want to get a great deal on new digs for their team.

Step 2: Billionaire pressures local government.

Since 1990, franchises in major North American sports leagues have intercepted upwards of $30 billion worth of taxpayer funds from state and local governments to build stadiums.  

And the funding itself is just the beginning of these sweetheart deals.

Sports teams often get big property tax breaks and reimbursements on operating expenses, like utilities and security on game days. Most deals also let the owners keep the revenue from naming rights, luxury box seats, and concessions — like the Atlanta Braves’ $150 hamburger.

Even worse, these deals often put taxpayers on the hook for stadium maintenance and repairs.

We taxpayers are essentially paying for the homes of our favorite sports teams, but we don’t really own those homes, we don’t get to rent them out, and we still have to buy expensive tickets to visit them.

Whenever these billionaire owners try to sell us on a shiny new stadium, they claim it will spur economic growth from which we’ll all benefit.  But numerous studies have shown that this is false.

As a University of Chicago economist aptly put it, "If you want to inject money into the local economy, it would be better to drop it from a helicopter than invest it in a new ballpark."

But what makes sports teams special is they are one of the few realms of collective identity we have left.

Billionaires prey on the love that millions of fans have for their favorite teams.

This brings us to the final step in the playbook: Threaten to move the team.

Obscenely rich owners threaten to — or actually do — rip teams out of their communities if they don’t get the subsidies they demand.

Just look at the Seattle Supersonics. Starbucks’ founder Howard Schultz owned the NBA franchise but failed to secure public funding to build a new stadium. So the coffee magnate sold the team to another wealthy businessman who moved it to Oklahoma.

The most egregious part of how the system currently works is that every dollar we spend building stadiums is a dollar we aren’t using for hospitals or housing or schools.

We are underfunding public necessities in order to funnel money to billionaires for something they could feasibly afford.

So, instead of spending billions on extravagant stadiums, we should be investing taxpayer money in things that improve the lives of everyone — not just the bottom lines of profitable sports teams and their owners.  

Because when it comes to stadium deals, the only winners are billionaires.

[darkmaga-returns]

Efficiency in the Imperial City? Elon and Vivek will start out as the two most unpopular guys in DC, and it’ll be all downhill from there. Will anyone even take them seriously? Well, there’s a twist to this story that could lead to some serious results. But first:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency ('DOGE")….

Nov 12, 2024, 6:46 PM

What will they do with the “IRA”? The very title, Inflation Reduction Act, is a cynical political joke, but the question is, could the stuff of this act end up hitting a fan operated by Elon and Vivek?

A Looming Political Earthquake City Journal ^ | 4 Nov 2024 | Mark Mills

If it weren’t for the election season swamping news coverage, odds are more people would be talking about the revelation that, to quote a Bloomberg headline, “The World Bank Somehow Lost Track of at Least $24 Billion.” In fact, that may understate the reality: the World Bank’s “accounting gap” could be as big as $41 billion. The missing funds in question were for “climate finance” projects, “financed by taxpayer dollars from its member countries, the biggest being the US.”

According to the Oxfam report that was the source for the Bloomberg story, “There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible.” It is possible that much, maybe even most, of the missing money went to the intended people and purposes. But only the hopelessly naïve would dismiss the probability of rampant waste, malfeasance, graft, and outright theft as explanations for that “gap.” Spending of such magnitude and velocity with sloppy oversight is an invitation to thieves.

But the oversight scandal at the World Bank is chump change compared with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its massive planned “climate finance” program. The misnamed IRA is, in the words of its advocates, the “largest climate policy in US history.” [emphasis added] The law’s ambitions dwarf those of the World Bank. By various estimates, the IRA will lead to some $3 trillion in direct spending on grants, subsidies, and the like, plus another $3 trillion in related spending induced by mandates and rules. For perspective, that’s far more than the cost of Obamacare, and even more than the $4 trillion the U.S. spent (inflation adjusted) to fight World War II.

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org …

Chicago alderman Paddy Bauler famously said, “Chicago ain’t ready for reform yet.” That was on the occasion of the election of Richard J. “Boss” Daley in 1955. He was right, of course, and nothing has changed. Same goes for the Imperial City on the Potomac. But there could be an exception when it comes to the IRA. If I were in the shoes of Elon or Vivek my idea would be to ignore most of the institutional graft and corruption to focus on the IRA, which should offer a wealth of targets. The reason this strategy could work is because they just might get the backing of the party that controls all the levers of power and has a lot to gain:

[eretzyisrael]

BY: KAREN BEKKER

In complete contravention of journalistic standards, CNN continues to advocate for US sanctions on Israel in a televised segment by Katie Polglase that aired on The Amanpour Hour on July 13 and in a nearly 4000-word written article posted online. (“The US held off sanctioning this Israeli army unit despite evidence of abuses. Now its forces are shaping the fight in Gaza,” July 13, 2024. The byline of the written article said that it was “by CNN’s International Investigations team,” but Polglase is listed as the investigative reporter.) Moreover, the segment that aired included a baseless claim that echoes the medieval stereotype of Jewish bloodlust.

The Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics states that advocacy and commentary should be labelled. Neither the online article nor the segment that aired are labelled as commentary, and the segment appears to be a news report. Yet, it’s obvious in both that an agenda is being pursued.

The televised segment was ostensibly about Israel, yet it included seven references to supposed U.S. inaction:

Katie Polglase: This is the Netzah Yehuda battalion, an Israeli army unit showcasing their military might in a promotional personal training video. But the unit has a decades-long history of abusing Palestinians in the West Bank. And the Americans know it. A state department investigation found they had committed gross human rights violations but this finding never led to U.S. sanctions. Even media reports of possible sanctions outraged Israel…. Polglase: So despite their track record, the Netzah Yehuda battalion is still receiving American arms and is now operating in Gaza…. Charles Blaha, Former U.S. State Department Official: That is very bad news. That shows first of all, that Israel, that the government of Israel has no intention of holding the Netzah Yehuda battalion accountable. Polglase: He says the U.S. is not following their own laws by sending them weapons. Blaha: Of course, we treat Israel differently and that really undermines our human rights advocacy and the rest of the world. The law that Congress passed and our taxpayer-funded assistance is going to Israeli units that have committed gross violations of human rights. Polglase: This assistance, despite the growing evidence of abuse. CNN exclusively obtained the names of three more Israeli units found by U.S. officials to have committed gross human rights violations prior to October 7th. All are still operating, including the Yamam, seen here in Gaza in an operation that rescued four Israeli hostages, but left nearly 300 Palestinians dead, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military dispute that the toll was so high. As the death and destruction mounts, it is U.S. weaponry supporting these units, begging the question for how much longer will Israel’s greatest ally choose to turn a blind eye.

(Emphasis added.)

The segment seems to be less about Israel and more about U.S. support for Israel. And Polglase does not present anyone advocating the contrary point of view, who might point out, for example, that Israel is fighting a defensive and existential war, one that it did not start and did not want, and it needs the support of its allies now. The segment crosses the line from journalism into advocacy.

But that’s not the only problem with the televised report. Polglase relies on an anonymous source and presents his opinions and speculation with no pushback. The anonymous soldier tells Polglase, “There were some kids throwing rocks in a small village. That normally isn’t a big deal. But the company commander decided, let’s throw them a party. So they took the emergency response team and 20 soldiers. They walk door to door, throwing flash-bangs and gas grenades into people’s homes as a punishment for the kids throwing rocks.” 

“Isn’t a big deal,” seems an odd way to describe the large stones frequently thrown at both soldiers and civilians in the West Bank, as they have the potential to be lethal – unlike the stun grenades that the soldier seems to think are, in fact, a big deal.

Polglase then prompts him with a leading question, “Collective punishment?” He obliges her, “Yes. Collective punishment.” This is not the first time we’ve seen Polglase use this type of leading question to elicit a response to condemn Israel. But “collective punishment” is a defined term in international law, and this is not what the term means. Nor does either Polglase or her anonymous source know whether the commander had other reasons for his decision to which the low-level soldier was not privy.

Polglase then admits that CNN has used facial recognition technology to essentially spy on an IDF officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nitai Okashi. She describes an incident that happened under his command in ominous terms, complete with grim background music to set the tone – but on close inspection, she hasn’t revealed anything that Okashi himself did wrong. By Polglase’s own account two Palestinian men were “arrested for assisting the killer of two … Netzah Yehuda soldiers.” The two were beaten by the soldiers on the way to the police station. Obviously this should never have happened, and according Polglase, the soldiers involved received jail time. But she doesn’t even claim that Okashi was present when the incident occurred. Even more disturbingly, in the written article online, Polglase doesn’t even mention the reason the two Palestinian men were arrested.

[beguines]

The steel industry was distinguished from other industries by a number of factors. The first, of course, was the large size of its plants and the sizable amount of capital invested in each location, something by which virtually every commentator has been struck. As Horace Davis notes, "American steel makers have astonished the world not only by the size of their furnaces and mills but by the way they scrapped an old plant before it was worn out, in order to build a bigger one". In addition, the industry, especially compared with wood, coal, and textiles, was distinguished by the concentration of ownership, which can be seen from Table 4.3. The top ten producers accounted for 84% of the steel capacity in the United States. While U.S. Steel was clearly the dominant firm in the industry, its sway was most important in western Pennsylvania and the Midwest. On the East Coast, it was Bethlehem that had the largest share of production. This horizontal combination was not based exclusively on the technical requirements of the industry. As Davis notes, even relatively smaller producers were sufficiently large and well capitalized to be at the vanguard of technical innovation and productivity in their plants. Rather, it was the need to control the market, prices, and ultimately profits that led to the increased concentration of ownership. The push for this concentration came from the banks and financiers who quite literally controlled the industry. Because of the need for large amounts of investment capital, Morgan financial interests not only controlled U.S. Steel, but had important interests in Bethlehem and other companies. Mellon interests had a major influence on many independents, while Mark Hanna's banking empire had important control over Republic Steel; also in evidence were the fingerprints of financier Cyrus Eaton, who by 1927 had become the major shareholder in the newly reorganized Republic Steel.

There was also little worry that the federal government would find any of these relations a violation of federal anti-trust laws. Some have suggested that capitalist influence on governments in capitalist societies is indirect, a result of societal "logic," not direct or, as they would say pejoratively, "instrumental." Such criticisms are mostly unfounded when one looks at the influence of the steel bourgeoisie: much of the federal government does indeed appear to be, in Marx's words, their "executive committee." Davis examines these ties in detail and they are indeed rather lurid. Philander C. Knox, the U.S. attorney general when U.S. Steel was formed in 1901, was the former chief council for Carnegie Steel Corporation and an intimate of Henry Clay Frick, a prominent USS director. When Knox was replaced (to become secretary of state), it was by George W. Wickersham, previously USS's attorney. Another former attorney for USS, Elihu Root, had preceded Knox as secretary of state. Secretary of the Navy was a position also filled by several former USS officials. When U.S. Steel received a tax rebate of 96 million dollars, it was Pittsburgh steel financier Andrew Mellon who was secretary of the treasury, who okayed the deal, supposedly guarding Americans' taxpayer dollars. These connections are just a titillating sampler. Of course, it is perhaps arguable that these connections were really secondary, and the welfare of USS was just part of the accepted ethos of ruling class America. Such is a legitimate conclusion that one might have drawn when the Supreme Court, in what Davis calls a "coat of judicial whitewash," exonerated USS for anti-​trust violations, the imprimatur being given by the highly liberal judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose bleeding heart went out to USS.

The bigger employers controlled a large percentage of the raw material and related product industries. U.S. Steel, for example, dominated most of the Great Lakes ore in the 1930s and more than 10% of the coal resources in the entire country. Certain major companies had their own steel mills, including International Harvester, which owned Wisconsin Steel in Chicago, and Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, which even recycled old automobile parts as scrap in making steel. Thus, the fate of literally millions of workers was controlled by decisions made by banking officials and top managers in steel and steel-​related industries. These companies and officials had the ability to mobilize enormous resources against any challenges to the absolute control of their labor forces.

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[topazadine]

One of my tiny pet peeves is fellow Americans whining about having to do their taxes themselves instead of the government sending them a bill.

The reason you have to do this is because of the existence of sole proprietorships and LLCs; ie, freelancers and small business owners like myself. A sole proprietorship isn't required to have an Employee Identification Number (EIN) that fully separates its finances from that of the individual taxpayer. You can, if you have a large business with a lot of expenses, but it's not required.

Because I have an LLC, I pay my business taxes on my own, normal tax return, and this isn't that unusual. I don't have any employees other than myself, and all my income/expenses is coming from my bank accounts, not a business bank account. A business bank account/credit card requires me to sign up for an EIN, an expense and hassle I don't need because I don't have employees other than me. I have a Tax Identification Number (TIN) which is ... just my Social Security number.

I get multiple 1040s and royalty statements that I input together before taking out my deductions. The government does not keep track of how many 1040s I get, or how much I make in royalties; that's my responsibility to manage.

And businesses take out a lot of deductions for business expenses like marketing, equipment, travel, etc. Any marketing, including Facebook ads or Tumblr ads? I can deduct them. I can deduct writing guides, computers, headphones, cover artists, editors, and so on. This then lowers the amount of money I have to pay back, because I don't get tax withholding like other people.

No, it doesn't cover everything, it's not like I just get these things for free. I just don't have to pay quite so much in taxes. In a good year I can shave about $1,500 off from my bill. (Again, I'm a very small business owner. Others can deduct thousands more than this.)

The government isn't keeping track of my expenses for me, either. How could they? It would be absolutely insane. Maybe they'll create an accounting tool someday that lets businesses track expenses and transmits this to the IRS on tax day, but for fuck's sake we haven't even rolled out a tax return system for all of the US yet, it's not going to happen.

So the government doesn't know how much of my money is coming in through my LLC. They also don't know how much I've spent on my business that I can deduct. I have to tell them all of this so that they can calculate how much I need to pay them because, again, I don't get withholding from any of my clients. And because I have an LLC that is inextricably tied to my own, individual tax return, it would be impossible for the government to tell me how much I owe versus how much my business owes.

Because not everyone gets witholding, and because there are millions of LLCs that do individual tax returns like I do, the IRS just has everyone do their own taxes. It's easier for people to start businesses through LLCs, which improves business activity in the country, and in return, the everyday non business owner just needs to copy their W2 into a form.

(Which you can do for free, btw, through places likes FreeTaxUSA. They even do my weird convoluted taxes with my millions of expenses for free. Stop paying for TurboTax. I promise you don't need it if you're a wage/salary worker.)

And no, the IRS is almost certainly never going to get rid of LLCs. It's not going to force them to do one individual tax return and one LLC tax return because that would be a stupid high amount of paperwork just for the individual tax return to have absolutely nothing on it, and the LLC to have everything.

I promise that you probably pay way less taxes than I do and you likely get a refund at the end of the year instead of having to calculate how much you'll have to pay throughout the year, put that in a savings account, and manage your expenses around tax day. It takes you maybe an hour tops to do your taxes. Me? It takes me a good half of the day.

So please stop complaining about having to take one hour out of your year to send in your taxes. You have to do this because of the many small businesses that make your food, sell you cute artwork, write stuff for you, and do a million other things that you enjoy. Just be grateful that your company does almost all of it for you and you just have to input the numbers they print on your W2.

[beardedmrbean]

Prosecutors in California say the Romanian mafia has given a new look to an old scam — debit card skimming — by placing devices to steal personal information on self-checkout machines in grocery stores.

Debit card skimmers have long been problematic at gas stations and ATMs. Now a highly organized network of crooks is branching out. 

"They’ll have people sitting outside a Walmart or a Target, and it looks like they’re panhandling," prosecutors told Fox News Digital. "Sometimes they’ll have a couple of kids. And they are actually using Bluetooth technology that’s connected to the skimmers inside the stores. So it's like a two for one, getting cash that people give them and stealing the numbers off the skimmers."

Surveillance video obtained by the El Cajon Police Department shows suspects can place a skimmer over the checkout's credit card swipe in just seconds — and they look almost exactly like the real thing.

Police recommend tugging on a credit card swipe before inserting your card. If it wobbles or comes off, it's fake.

Authorities say they've already busted dozens of suspects, most of them with ties to organized crime in Romania.

And despite large busts in December and January of dozens of suspects in the U.S., Europe and Mexico, where they are teaming up with cartels in tourist hot spots like Tulum, the thefts are increasing as thieves double down on their efforts, authorities said. 

They could be raking in up to $9 million a month — much of it at taxpayers' expense.

The skimmers, which can target EBT card users as well, have allegedly drained accounts the moment that the state releases monthly payments, according to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer's office, which announced a major crackdown on such crimes earlier this year. As a result, more than $100 million worth of thefts robbed taxpayer-funded welfare programs and their recipients.

"The victims are single mothers struggling to put a roof over their children's heads and food on the table and hardworking people who need a helping hand who find themselves standing at the checkout line with bags full of groceries only to be humiliated when they find that they have no money in their account because a thief has surreptitiously taken everything," Spitzer said in a statement. "Meanwhile, the thieves are using this money to fund organized crime, to buy luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and to lead a life of luxury that the true recipients can only dream about."

On top of that, the porous southern border gives the mobsters a steady supply of new muscle, while a combination of lax bail policies and incomplete criminal records allow members to cut off their ankle monitors and flee justice if they get arrested.

"Thousands of criminals suspected to be tied to organized Romanian crime have been identified to be in the United States, with a large portion of them entering the United States illegally, mainly through the southern border," Kimberly Edds, the director of public affairs for Spitzer's office, told Fox News Digital. "A smaller portion of this population is entering as asylum seekers."

A group of Southern California counties, including Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, has seen about 15% of the Romanian mob's activity within the US., she said.

In addition to sending stolen money back to Romania to fund luxe lifestyles and European sports cars, the crooks are also trading in food stamps for baby formula and energy drinks, which are then resold in Mexico in an alliance with local cartels.

Many of them even flaunt their ill-gotten gains on TikTok, including a 14-year-old suspect who police captured driving a $250,000 sports car and wearing a Rolex.

One of the men implicated in the plot was already on Romania's most wanted list — Florin Duduianu.

The 39-year-old was convicted in January after police watched him make multiple withdrawals using different cards from the same ATM in Placentia, about 30 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. They caught him with four Visa gift cards that had been reprogrammed into clones of four different victims' debit cards.

Duduianu is expected to get 30 years in federal prison at his sentencing later this week, according to the Justice Department.

In December, the FBI announced it was partnering with Romanian police to raid dozens of locations in the European country connected to the California skimming thefts.

The joint operation resulted in 48 arrests and the recovery of more than $1 million and 11 luxury vehicles.

Many of the suspects arrested in Romania also had ties to Mexico's Riviera Maya gang, which itself is blamed for millions of dollars in skimming thefts in tourist hot spots that are popular with Americans, including Tulum and Cancun in Quintana Roo.

The gang's leader, Florian Tudor, is awaiting trial on fraud charges in Mexico and is wanted for attempted murder in Romania, as well.

[misfitwashere]

Autocracy and Poverty

Trump and Vance bring them together

Timothy Snyder

Oct 06, 2024

When I am on media, television hosts ask how democracy is relevant to people who are voting on kitchen-table issues.  That’s easy. 

When Trump destroys our democracy, he will also destroy our economy. 

Autocracy will bring poverty.

Think about the politicians Trump idolizes, Vladimir Putin in Russia and Viktor Orbán in Hungary.  The first undid a democracy through fake emergencies, the second through persistent constitutional abuse.  It is not hard to see why Trump likes them. 

Now consider the Russian and Hungarian economies.  Russia sits on hugely valuable natural resources, and yet is a poor country.  The profits from its oil and gas are in the hands of a few oligarchs.  Hungary sits in the middle of the European Union, the most successful trade project of all time.  And yet Hungarians are poorer than their neighbors, in part because the Orbán regime corruptly channels EU resources to friendly oligarchs.

The lesson is clear.  Democracy is a method of checking corrupt rulers.  When there is no functioning democracy, corruption is unchecked. 

And democracy is an element of a more fundamental guarantor of prosperity, the rule of law.  In Hungary and Russia, the rule of law has been bent and broken, to the benefit of the few, and to the detriment of the many. 

Ending the rule of law is the Trump-Vance platform. 

Trump is running as a candidate who has attempted a coup against constitutional rule. Vance has already said, multiple times, that law does not govern who leads the country, and that he would have supported Trump’s coup attempt.

The rule of law begins from the principle that we are all equally subject to to it. Trump promises to weaponize the law to immunize himself and his supporters and to pursue his political opponents.  Those who worked with him in the White House believe him. 

Laws are executed by trained civil servants. Trump and Vance back a plan to fire the forty thousand federal employees who now execute the law and replace them with forty thousand loyalist hacks.  That is Project 2025.

It doesn't take much imagination to see where this leads.  Here are five quick examples.

1.  The very rich will not be taxed, but you will be taxed more. The hardest thing the IRS does is to tax the wealthy.  In an atmosphere of lawlessness and favoritism, this will become impossible.  Insofar as the federal government runs at all, it will be by taxing the middle class.

2.  The banks can collapse.  As we saw in 2008, our financial system is held together by a very thin tissue of regulation.  Unless laws are enforced, as they won't be under a Trump-Vance administration, the overadventurous will very likely draw us all into another financial disaster.  The bailout will be paid for by the average taxpayer because the rich won’t be taxed (see number 1).

3.  Americans will be at risk of losing their benefits.  Social Security and all the rest depend upon a functioning federal bureaucracy, which is exactly what Project 2025 guarantees that we will not have.  Americans take for granted federal institutions, from VA Hospitals to the insurance of bank accounts (see number 2). 

4.  The stock market can crash.  It depends upon the laws that prevent insider trading and other abuses.  If these laws are applied selectively, and if the people who used to enforce them have been fired, then corrupt investors will win while others lose out.  After a time, the stock market loses its prestige, investors go elsewhere, and everyone loses. (And those who were treating their investments as cushioning to their retirement benefits are now poor: see number 3).

5.  Businesses will get stuck.  Doing business depends upon all sorts of interactions with the federal government.  When the federal government loses its civil servants, much of this will stop happening.  Or, worse, companies with personal connections will be able to continue functioning without following any rules, while others will grind to a halt.  This means millions of people losing their jobs. (And it is now hard for businesses to raise money: see number 4).

This list could go on.  The collapse of the economy is not a bug of autocracy, but a feature. 

There is an autocratic logic to economic failure. When nothing works, when law does not matter, when elections are irrelevant, the only way Americans will be able to get anything done is by appealing to those who have power.  We will have to give bribes to the corrupt and hope for favors from the top. 

Once we behave like this, we get used to the idea that only the leader can fix things, which is of course what Trump likes to say.  And so the circle closes and the new regime is installed.

The new autocracy is confirmed by our new poverty. That is, in any event, the Trump-Vance plan.

They are talented politicians, and they have an alternative to democracy and prosperity, which is autocracy and poverty. Whether they bring America this new regime is up to us.

(Please share this post with anyone you think could be helped by its message.)

[ingek73]

The Observer

Monarchy

King and Prince William’s estates ‘making millions from charities and public services’

Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster likely to make at least £50m from leasing land to services such as NHS and schools, according to investigation

Richard Palmer

Sat 2 Nov 2024 20.50 CET

King Charles and Prince William’s property empires are taking millions of pounds from cash-strapped charities and public services including the NHS, state schools and prisons, according to a new investigation.

The reports claim the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, which are exempt from business taxes and used to fund the royals’ lifestyles and philanthropic work, are set to make at least £50m from leasing land to public services. The two duchies hold a total of more than 5,400 leases.

One 15-year deal will see Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS hospital trust in London pay £11.4m to store its fleet of electric ambulances in a warehouse owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, the monarch’s 750-year-old estate.

The king will also make at least £28m from windfarms because the Duchy of Lancaster retains a feudal right to charge for cables crossing the foreshore, according to an investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Sunday Times.

William’s Duchy of Cornwall, the hereditary estate of the heir to the throne, has signed a £37m deal to lease Dartmoor prison for 25 years to the Ministry of Justice, which is liable for all repairs despite paying £1.5m a head for a jail empty of prisoners because of high levels of radon gas.

His estate also owns Camelford House, a 1960s tower block on the banks of the Thames, which has brought in at least £22m since 2005 from rents paid by charities and other tenants. Two cancer charities, Marie Curie and Macmillan – of which the king is a longstanding patron – have both recently moved out to smaller premises.

The Duchy of Cornwall has charged the Royal Navy more than £1m to build and use jetties and moor warships. It also charges the army to train on Dartmoor but the Ministry of Defence refused a Freedom of Information Act request asking how much it costs. The duchy also made more than £600,000 from the construction of a fire station and stands to get nearly £600,000 from rental agreements with six state schools.

In spite of the king and Prince William’s speeches and interventions on environmental issues, many residential properties let out by the royal estates are in breach of basic government energy efficiency standards.

InvestigatorsThe investigation found 14% of homes leased by the Duchy of Cornwall and 13% by the Duchy of Lancaster have an energy performance rating of F or G. Since 2020, it has been against the law for landlords to rent out properties that are rated below an E under the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards regulations.

The Duchy of Lancaster said: “Over 87% of all duchy-let properties are rated E or above. The remainder are either awaiting scheduled improvement works or are exempted under UK legislation.”

The royal estates also have deals with mining and quarrying companies.

The investigation has prompted calls for a parliamentary investigation and for the two empires to be folded into the crown estate, which sends its profits to the government. The king and Prince William pay income tax on profits from the estates after business expenses have been deducted, but both now refuse to say how much.

Critics say the estates, the income from which have been used by successive governments to keep the headline cost of the monarchy to the taxpayer down, enjoy a commercial advantage over rivals because they are exempt from corporation tax and capital gains tax.

Baroness Margaret Hodge, a former chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said the duchies should at least pay corporation tax. “This would be a brilliant time for the monarch to say, I’m going to be open, and I want to be treated as fairly as anybody,” she said.

Both duchies said they were commercial operations that complied with statutory requirements to disclose information. They also emphasised their efforts to become greener.

The Duchy of Lancaster said: “His majesty the king voluntarily pays tax on all income received from the duchy.”

-

&

Over the last two decades the royals have made £22m from the rental of office space in "Charity Towers" at commercial rates to organisations such as Marie Curie, MacMillan Cancer Support and Comic Relief. The King is the patron of Marie Curie and MacMillan

(from someone who is not a sycophant)

Disgusting

And they are already getting half a billion every year

[athena5898]

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/Economy/-israel--paying-heavy-price-for-its-widening-aggression--cnn

In late September, as "Israel's" almost year-long genocide in Gaza spread and its credit rating was reduced once more, Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, claimed that, while under stress, the economy remained robust.

"Israel's economy bears the burden of the longest and most expensive war in the country's history," Smotrich said on September 28.

Karnit Flug, a former governor of "Israel’s" central bank, told CNN that a more intense war will "take a heavier toll on economic activity and growth."

The war has drastically deteriorated the situation in Gaza, driving it into an economic and humanitarian disaster long ago, while the West Bank is "undergoing a rapid and alarming economic decline," according to a UN study released last month.

The Lebanese economy, meanwhile, might shrink by much to 5% this year as a result of cross-border strikes between the Lebanese Resistance - Hezbollah - and "Israel", according to BMI, a market research organization owned by Fitch Solutions.

According to a worst-case scenario developed by Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, "Israel's" economy might contract much worse.

Prior to the war on Gaza, the International Monetary Fund predicted the GDP of "Israel" would increase by 3.4% this year in contrast to the current predictions of 1% to 1.9%.

In addition, "Israel's" central bank cannot decrease interest rates to revive the economy since inflation is growing, fueled by rising salaries and ballooning government expenditure to support the war.

Related News

The Bank of Israel estimated in May that war costs could total $66 billion, including military outlays and civilian expenses, such as housing for thousands of Israeli settlers evacuated from the north. This is roughly 12% of "Israel's" GDP.

While Smotrich claimed that the economy will bounce back, economists are concerned the damage will far outlast the war.

Flug, the former Bank of Israel governor, says there is a risk the Israeli government will cut investment to free up resources for war, reducing the growth moving forward.

Researchers at the Institute for National Security Studies say a potential full withdrawal from Gaza and Lebanon would have "Israel" in a weaker position than before October 7, 2023.

“Israel is expected to suffer long-term economic damage regardless of the outcome,” they wrote.

High-income taxpayers leaving the occupation en masse would also make things worse. The occupation government has postponed releasing a budget for next year due to competing demands that make it difficult to balance the accounts.

The battle has doubled "Israel's" budget deficit — the gap between government expenditure and income, primarily from taxes — to 8% of GDP, up from 4% before the war.

Government borrowing has increased and become more costly, as investors seek greater returns on Israeli bonds and other assets. Multiple downgrades to "Israel's" credit ratings by Fitch, Moody's, and S&P are expected to hike the country's borrowing costs even higher.

In late August, the Institute for National Security Studies estimated that just one month of "high-intensity warfare" in Lebanon against Hezbollah combined with "intensive attacks" in the opposite direction that damage Israeli infrastructure could cause "Israel's" budget deficit to rise to 15% and its GDP to contract by up to 10% this year.

The Israeli government faces a growing fiscal crisis, unable to rely on stable tax revenues as many businesses collapse amid the ongoing war. Coface BDi estimates that 60,000 Israeli firms will shut down this year, significantly higher than the average of 40,000.

Avi Hasson, CEO of Startup Nation Central, warned that the Israeli tech sector will not sustain the blows and the government's “destructive” economic policies. The war has led many tech companies to register overseas despite local tax incentives, exacerbating an existing trend.

Other sectors like agriculture and construction are also suffering, struggling with labor shortages and rising prices. Tourism has seen a sharp decline, resulting in an estimated loss of 18.7 billion shekels ($4.9 billion) in revenue since the war began.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from DeSmog Blog:

With its unparalleled purchasing power and exacting demands, fast food has long shaped agricultural systems in the United States, Europe, and China. But as major American fast food brands, like KFC, expand into so-called “frontier markets,” taxpayer-funded development banks have made their global expansion possible by underwriting the factory farms that supply them with chicken, a DeSmog investigation has found. 

In all, the investigation identified five factory-scale poultry companies in as many countries that have received financial support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank Group), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), or both since 2003, and that supply chicken to KFC. A sixth company has benefited from IFC advisory services but has not received financing. 

A review of press accounts, financial disclosures, and the companies’ websites shows this support aided these firms’ KFC-linked operations in up to 13 countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. 

In Kazakhstan, both banks helped a Soviet-era poultry factory become a KFC supplier. In 2011, the IFC lent poultry company Ust-Kamenogorsk Poultry (UKPF) invested $2 million in refurbishing housing for chickens, among other projects. In 2016, the EBRD made a $20 million equity investment in the company’s parent, Aitas, to finance the construction of a new facility to raise and process poultry. In 2018, two years after announcing the financing deal, UKPF revealed it had become a supplier to KFC in Kazakhstan. The EBRD sold its stake in the company in 2019. 

In South Africa, the IFC helped one KFC supplier bolster its operations across the region. In 2013, the bank loaned Country Bird Holdings $25 million to expand existing operations in South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia. Country Bird supplies KFC in all three countries, as well as Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Three years later, in 2016, Country Bird also became KFC’s sole franchisee in Zambia.

In Jordan, the EBRD’s technical support and a 2015 loan worth up to $21 million helped poultry company Al Jazeera Agricultural Company upgrade its facilities and expand its retail presence. Al Jazeera claims to produce half the country’s restaurant-sold chicken. It includes the local franchisees of KFC and Texas Chicken (known by its original name, Church’s Chicken, in the U.S.) as clients. 

With this Global North-financed fast-food expansion comes a host of environmental, social, and health concerns in regions often unprepared to field them.

“It’s so clear that these investments are not consistent with any coherent notion of sustainable development,” Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director for the food and agriculture program at Friends of the Earth US, told DeSmog. 

Providing Financial Security for Fast Food Suppliers 

Both the IFC and the EBRD are financed primarily by the governments of developed countries for the benefit of developing countries. The IFC was founded in 1956 under the umbrella of the World Bank Group to stimulate developing economies by lending directly to businesses. Founded in 1991, the EBRD was formed to support Eastern Europe’s transition to a market economy. Since then, it has extended its geographic reach to include other regions. 

Development banks often finance companies and projects in regions that more risk-averse commercial banks tend to avoid. The idea is to help grow a company’s operations and lower the risk for private sector investors. 

Both of these development banks’ investments cover a range of sectors, including manufacturing, education, agribusiness, energy, and tourism. Because large agro-processors, such as poultry companies, can transform bushel upon bushel of local crops into more valuable products, like meat, they make especially attractive clients. 

The world’s largest restaurant company, U.S.-based Yum! Brands, owns KFC, and calls the fried chicken powerhouse, which oversees more than 30,000 locations across the globe, a “major growth engine.” 

[saintmeghanmarkle]

WHO Really Reimbursed The Sovereign Grant for Frogmore Cottage Renovation? The Harkles or Pa? by u/MolVol

WHO Really Reimbursed The Sovereign Grant for Frogmore Cottage Renovation? The Harkles or Pa? Another Clip in D.Mail today about Frogmore Cottage...Makes one wonder, is it soon going to be disclosed that Harry did NOT reimburse the Sovereign Grant for the Renovation costs - as he widely claimed to?Did, in other words, "Pa" actually write the £2.4million cheque as most suspect? Did King Charles (then Prince Charles) wire money into a Palace-controlled bank account in HazBEEN's name and then get wrired again to the Sovereign Grant so that KC provided his ne'er-do-well now-estranged son the ability to claim credit for this reimbursement — so to save face, and appear to me an upstanding adult?And if Harry really did reimburse the Sovereign Grant, why hasn't he gotten most of that renovation money returned to him post-eviction?Finally, is this strong hint that K.C. wrote the £2.4million cheque as an attempt to softly start easing into the truth? (read: will this tidbit be disclosed soon - making this clip an effort to remove some of the sting from again-lying Harry?)Frogmore Cottage , on the Windsor estate, was renovated —initially at the taxpayer's expense— after the Harry and Meghan were given use of the property by the late Queen in 2018 from D.Mail column:'In historian Robert Lacey's book "~Battle of the Brothers"~, which was published in 2020, it was revealed why refunding the public money was crucial to the coupleMr Lacey wrote: 'It was crucial that they should pay off —and should clearly be seen to pay off— the £2.4million that had become a persecutory refrain in almost every story about their base at Windsor.'He added: 'As they would later explain via sussexroyal.com, the website that they developed during their Vancouver sabbatical, coming off the Sovereign Grant —the royal payroll financed by the British taxpayer— would "remove the tabloids'" justification in having access to their lives.'King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, had been 'quite sympathetic' when Harry discussed the cost of the renovation with him, according to Mr Lacey, and is said to have offered to help contribute.'  post link: https://ift.tt/cks30I7 author: MolVol submitted: August 04, 2024 at 01:18AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.