I just got three bills in the mail over the course of a month for a single procedure. They haven’t said they’re done billing me yet, so I can’t assume the bill storm is over
Yeah… this isn’t a meme, it’s literally children being sold.
As I recall it, the family were facing eviction, and the kids were indeed sold, including the one she was pregnant with. A couple of them ended up basically being slaves on a farm somewhere.
I’ll laugh at plenty of things I probably shouldn’t but this isn’t one of them.
My grandfather was sold into what amounted to slavery during this time period under similar circumstances. Many of these children were treated with incredible cruelty, then grew up and were shipped off to war. Mostly voluntarily, given that war was actually a quality of life improvement where they got perks like socks and food.
Matter of fact, when you do get a raise you need to ask yourself if it’s truly a raise. Inflation decreases the purchasing power of your salary, so if you get a raise you might be getting what was your initial salary.
Why not just freeze prices then? I guess because you still have to purchase goods from abroad that wouldn’t freeze prices? Inflation sucks and I hate it.
You did a fantastic job, blew all your metrics out of the park. You were herr 6/7 days a week for the whole year and did the work of 3 people. We couldnt be more proud of you. So I went to bat for you, really fought like hell, and managed to get your raise increased from 3% to 5&!!!
Just remember that I stuck my neck out for you. We’ve got a lot work coming in and I’ll need you to pick up some of the slack. Who knows, maybe this time next year you could be a team leader and switch over to salary. It opens a lot of opportunities.
Paying a bank hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest is also robbery. what did the bank do? Were rich and did paperwork. Wow so irreplaceable and valuable. Think of all the poor people they swindled to get there! Amazing 😍
How is money created? Some is created by the state, but usually in a financial emergency. For instance, the crash gave rise to quantitative easing – money pumped directly into the economy by the government. The vast majority of money (97%) comes into being when a commercial bank extends a loan.
I think the answers to the question are generally isaying it isn’t as simple as ‘creatijg money out of nothing’. They may be creating money but that money is backed against assets which they do own.
because banks are government regulated and insured institutions, forced to back each loan with reserves, and regulated to have capital for each of those loans, they cannot really be said to make this private money out of nothing.
The context you left out there said right before that “in my opinion”. In any case though, before it was “backed” by a fraction of the loan. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t new money that did not yet exist. It just means if the bank folded there was something to go toward repaying those whom they owed. But in any case that fraction was reduced to zero in the US under trump. Something I learned in this thread. So really, now that backing doesn’t exist any longer.
How is money created? Some is created by the state, but usually in a financial emergency. For instance, the crash gave rise to quantitative easing – money pumped directly into the economy by the government. The vast majority of money (97%) comes into being when a commercial bank extends a loan.
I agree with you. And yeah it’s bizarre that loans are literally just a privilege that banks get…to create new money out of thin fucking air. I agree–Biggest scam in history.
Simply put, when enough people deposit money into their accounts, banks will simply take the money and lend it to someone else. It is not “their” money, but crunch enough numbers and do enough predictions and you might make it out.
That’s why “run on the bank” is such a feared things - if everyone starts withdrawing cash or sending it to a different bank, the bank can’t really do that because they don’t have the money.
What alternative would you propose for providing loans?
My controversial (for Lemmy) take is that loans are good for society. They provide an incentive to not hoard resources, but provide them to those who want to put them into action today for future benefit.
A good loan benefits both parties, ie. An auto loan that allows someone to buy a car to get to a job to earn an income that is above the cost of the loan. Without the loan that person couldn’t get to work and whatever service they were providing to society is lost.
All that said - that doesn’t mean the way loans work today is the best solution, but the same functionality of trading current and future resources needs to exist. You don’t have to call it a loan, and it doesn’t have to be performed by private for profit institutions, but if you want a thriving economy I believe you need this function carried out somehow.
The equivalent function in Communism is (or historically has been) a centrally planned resource allocation which very clearly is a horrible idea because of the incentives towards corruption. If you take a literal interpretation of communism (instead of historical) where “the workers own the means of production” trade unions could fulfill this current to future resource allocation function. I do not know if this would create the same corruption as single central authority, but my gut feels is that it would (based on the US labor union and organized crime affiliation of the past.
In short, the current function for trading current and future resources (ie. loans) is far from ideal, but I have not found an alternate that provides more benefits than deficits. I would love to learn about more alternatives, but just saying ‘loans R bad’ makes it sound like you’re advocating getting rid of them with nothing to handle their underlying function, which is a terrible idea.
What alternative would you propose for providing loans?
Making things affordable (or just priced within reason) if they are considered a necessity to live in society.
Yes, there are survival necessities ie. food, water, shelter. But in modern society, we can add Internet, phone, car (depending on where you live) or bus pass etc, and probably tuition for at least a bachelor’s degree.
If you want to buy a boat or some shit, then sure, you should have to take out a loan.
I think a better goal may be to make plans affordable. Loans are a valuable tool, if they’re at a decent rate, so restructure them. Interest never compounds. Rates have to be reasonable. Payments always come out of principle, with interest tacked on and paid at the end of the loan’s life. It’s also a reeeeeeally hard task to say just “make things affordable”
Love your optimism, but “making things affordable” is not a valid plan for managing resources. It provides a goal without a solution.
Are you suggesting price fixing? That has a lot of associated outcomes that typically cause worse situations than doing nothing.
You can introduce a guaranteed buyer at fixed price points which alleviate some of the negative consequences, but add others.
These are not simple problems. The reason these problems exist isn’t solely because “rich and powerful people are evil” as nice as that would be. These problems still exist because they’re complicated and ‘one size fits all’ solutions haven’t been found for them.
Again, love the lofty goal you’re setting, but you pretty blatantly don’t mention an alternative system. Easy to point out a problem, much harder to build a real solution.
The funny thing is, capitalism happened organically. It wasn’t a designed system. So dismantling capitalism without a solid replacement will likely just lead right back to capitalism.
The funny thing is, capitalism happened organically. It wasn’t a designed system. So dismantling capitalism without a solid replacement will likely just lead right back to capitalism.
March of history. When material conditions are right you transition from feudalism to capitalism. When material conditions build up further, you get the transition to socialism and then communism.
I don’t know that the loan concept is what’s broken as much as the idea of the bank itself. To me, the idea of credit unions makes a pretty good alternative to banks. At least every CU I’ve belonged to has been owned by the members, and the profits they made were used to subsidize interest rates for members needing a loan or, in some cases, a portion was paid out as a dividend at the end of the year to members.
Please read on the rent of the land by Smith, and anything by Henry George.
You appear to be advocating for anarchist concepts of free association and contract theory, but I’ve seen no specific citations. Are there any you’d reccomend?
I think a lot of folks have a fundamental misunderstanding of how loans work. The banks don’t get to just magically conjure up as much money as that want. It is backed by actual money/assets and federal regulations require a certain ratio between what the bank has loaned and the amount of money they have readily on hand.
I agree that it’s not a perfect system, and I definitely think “businesses” that offer those sketchy payday loan arrangements should be illegal, as they often price gouge the shit out of the interest rates (in fact, I believe many states have outlawed them). But I don’t know of a better solution that isn’t dependent on a utopian-esque idea.
You are incorrect. Banks do create money from nothing. And I don’t know if it’s unlimited but I’m not sure why it needs to be unlimited to feel weird and/or unfair.
That is not true. This is typically how bank loans work: You make an account at a bank and deposit, say, $1000. Before 2020, the Fed would require the bank to retain something like 10% of that $1000 (just using 10% in this example, I haven’t looked up what the ratio was pre-2020). So they’d deposit $100 of your cash to keep on hand and could then loan out the other $900 to those seeking a loan.
However, the Fed set that reserve ratio to 0% in 2020, which is idiotic in the long-term and also likely a main contributor several banks collapsed in 2022/2023 as the Fed started raising interest rates (I’m no economic expert by any means, so I could be wrong on the main contributing factor).
I think you’re mixing up regular banks with the federal reserve, who definitely can just print money out of thin air.
How is money created? Some is created by the state, but usually in a financial emergency. For instance, the crash gave rise to quantitative easing – money pumped directly into the economy by the government. The vast majority of money (97%) comes into being when a commercial bank extends a loan.
And I’m just curious. Why in the hell did you think you could tell me I am wrong when you clearly knew nothing about the topic? It’s kind of depressing that this thread is full of this shit. It is a backbone concept in our society, and instead of questioning yourselves, you fuckers are in here correcting people, spreading false information.
I mean I get doubting it. It’s insane. But use a damned search engine and question yourself.
You clearly didn’t read. After 20 seconds this page didn’t load, but doesn’t matter… It’s pretty obvious you don’t care about facts so I can’t imagine you understood or read it yourself
What if the bank decides to keep all $1.000 and loan out $10.000? While money wasn’t printed, phantom money was most definitely conjured out of thin air. And with the magic I don’t see how a bank couldn’t have, say, bought Disney with the phantom dollars
You’re misunderstanding the basics of banking like the other fellow I responded to. I provided a link by the IMF that explains the fundamentals in another reply. I’ll provide another one: investopedia.com/…/fractionalreservebanking.asp
Normal commercial banks cannot just print money, which is exactly what you’re implying with “phantom money.” The money has to come from somewhere and/or be backed by something. So no, a bank can’t just magically turn $1000 into $10,000 without something securing the additional money or the extra money coming from other funds. Only the Fed (or other countries’ central banks/governments) can print money on a whim.
I think the most generous interpretation of what they seem to be trying to explain is the “phantom plans” created from loaning loaned money.
A deposits 1k into bank Bank loans B 1k B loans C 500
There’s only 1k in circulation, 500 in B’s hands and 500 in C’s, but there is technically 1500 in total loans.
I could be off base that this is what they’re talking about, and I don’t necessarily think it’s all that relevant to the conversation, just spitballing.
From the very source you linked–which isn’t even a good source to begin with since very little of the actual responses there use their cited sources correctly, often quoting shit out of context or misinterpreting the source material:
The “out of nothing” aspect of your question is more complex. In my personal view, and I guess that’s only an opinion, is that because banks are government regulated and insured institutions, forced to back each loan with reserves, and regulated to have capital for each of those loans, they cannot really be said to make this private money out of nothing.
But again, that’s just one user’s response. Not a credible source. So here:
Creating money
Banks also create money. They do this because they must hold on reserve, and not lend out, some portion of their deposits—either in cash or in securities that can be quickly converted to cash. The amount of those reserves depends both on the bank’s assessment of its depositors’ need for cash and on the requirements of bank regulators, typically the central bank—a government institution that is at the center of a country’s monetary and banking system. Banks keep those required reserves on deposit with central banks, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, and the European Central Bank. Banks create money when they lend the rest of the money depositors give them. This money can be used to purchase goods and services and can find its way back into the banking system as a deposit in another bank, which then can lend a fraction of it. The process of relending can repeat itself a number of times in a phenomenon called the multiplier effect. The size of the multiplier—the amount of money created from an initial deposit—depends on the amount of money banks must keep on reserve.
Banks also lend and recycle excess money within the financial system and create, distribute, and trade securities.
Banks have several ways of making money besides pocketing the difference (or spread) between the interest they pay on deposits and borrowed money and the interest they collect from borrowers or securities they hold. They can earn money from
•income from securities they trade; and
•fees for customer services, such as checking accounts, financial and investment banking, loan servicing, and the origination, distribution, and sale of other financial products, such as insurance and mutual funds.
Banks earn on average between 1 and 2 percent of their assets (loans and securities). This is commonly referred to as a bank’s return on assets.
Which is a more detailed explanation of what I originally said. Yes, they create money. But it’s coming from somewhere and backed by something and not just magically imagined.
In the US, the Fed can just print money, and they have numerous times. But that’s because they’re legally allowed to. Banks don’t have the authority to straight up print new cash without something backing it up (e.g. reserves, assets, securities, transactions, etc.)
Wow, I thought they’d raised it back up after COVID “ended.” How ridiculous, you’d think that would be one of the first tools they’d use to address inflation outside of just raising interest rates.
I worked there in college. I had to straighten these all the time because people tried to reach up and take one… Instead of the nicely folded ones that were within arm’s reach.
honestly it’s replaced reddit for me in a good way, because it has just enough new content that I can check it before bed every day and scroll for a bit, but not enough to where I spend entire lunch breaks on it. sometimes I go days without even checking it. if anything it’s made my relationship with my browser / phone healthier than reddit.
100%, all I really want is something I can look at and perhaps sensibly chuckle at when I have a few minutes… Not a pasasitic brain worm that really wants me to pay attention to it.
a lot of servers are really weird about porn, ngl. its not that they just don’t allow it on their server (which, cool, thats fine), its that they go out of their way to block it. its a new wave of puritanism and i don’t really like it. although porn isn’t that hard to find if you are on a good server.
Do you know of a good server for that? Because I tried to sign up with Lemmy n sfw they never activated my account, and it was like a month ago.
And yeah, I’m not sure why the sex positivity movement seems to have completely reversed itself. There is this idea that the idea of sexuality of any kind is somehow inherently wrong. Which is stupid. I need all the fetishes
Give yourself some grace, yes corporate social media is addictive and yes it is easy to get lost mindlessly scrolling but the important question to ask is why is your brain so exhausted and stressed that mindlessly scrolling is the only thing you really have the mental energy to do so much of the time?
Western society repeatedly slams through the narrative that social media addiction is the reason people are miserable and it is all a pathetic attempt to distract us from the fact that our lives suck because of actual horrible things like not being able to afford rent, being in endless debt, not being able to afford healthcare and any number of other awful stresses.
If you need to blob out and scroll after getting out of your shitty job that pays shit where you are treated like shit and sitting in shitty traffic on the way home for who knows how long that’s on society for only providing predatory options that abuse you.
For a lot of people the only thing they actually have the energy to do after work every night is mindlessly scroll, it is a grace that people at least have that to turn to even if it is predatory. It is a symptom not the core issue.
Also true. And there are plenty of worthwhile/educational things to be found on the apps that can help a bit more than they harm. But yeah, it being a symptom is spot on.
I just discovered Lemmy, and I’m so happy about it. Instagram replaced Reddit for me these last five months, and I can really feel how detrimental it is for me. It’s like an ADHD-machine. No community, no discussion, just this as quick and loud phase as possible vibe. You look through one recipe video and you get recipes for several days. People dancing and dancing with huge smiles and these creepy eyes. Honestly it’s all so dystopian.
So keeping on with Instagram is not an option, going back to reddit is not an option - and I was really considering becoming like this person who is never in his phone, really mentally healthy, but wildly uninformed about the world and the general discussion 😅
The feel of this place with the Sync app is just so * chefs kiss *. Feels like what reddit was.
Shit, now I’m thinking about it and you’d need something big like a flank steak or a brisket. I don’t think a pork-loin would work since it’s not broad enough. You’d still need to probably butterfly it, and then fringe the edge so you had strands to work into the braid. Best I can think of would be more like braided filled pastry than anything else. Not a terrible sway to do a stuffed roast or roulade I guess.
So when you do a French braid in hair, you start off with three small sections. Every time you fold over the outer sections, you incorporate more hair into those sections. This differs from a normal braid, which doesn’t increase the size of the three parts of the braid as you go along.
French braiding flesh would require a lot more flesh. Also it wouldn’t look nearly as tidy because the other ends of the flesh (those not in the braid) are not attached to anything (i.e. a scalp) so it would be a loose tangled mess.
There’s easier ways to make something grotesque and cursed.
Criminals aren’t going to be using services that comply anyways. They’ll have their own underground ones. This is just a violation of regular citizens rights.
Flattering angle, professional photographer trying to make him look good, beard hiding signs of aging vs. unflattering angle, paparazzi scum trying to make him look bad, no beard to hide aging.
The crop makes him look fat, too. In the original pictures, he literally looks like a relatively slim middle-aged man - which is exactly what is he when he isn’t training for a movie. Too many people forget that very few celebrities are consistently pumping iron to the extent that they have a perfect body throughout the year. Rob McElhenney goes into detail about this topic, I recommend everyone watch it when they get a chance
The people who expect celebrities (or anyone) to be at peak alll of the time can go screw off, though. I thought body shaming died off with those stupid gossip rags, (magazines). He is more than the value of his evternals. People love him because of his actions and choices, who he actually is. Him being epic in movies is just an added bonus.
My big ex left me for a rich guy customer she met at work selling high end watches, who dumped her a couple years later. She’s now fat and alone at 40.
Her once traumatic “you know this hurts me too” parting line puts a smile on my face now. Sometimes following your exes is fun.
Like, it’s not like she took a kid, or sullied my name, or took money, or ruined the life of anyone close to me. She just kinda deliberately and very dramatically broke my heart.
I’m fine now; it definitely altered the course of my life and definitely caused a lot of pain, struggle, isolation, depression, humiliation, anxiety, etc. And a decade ago I was sure I hoped she’d face the same. Well she’ll face all of what she put me through… And way more… Under the threat of death.
It felt like finding out your hero is a fraud, if that makes sense. Like “Oh, this is actually not what I wanted at all. This is not cool. This sucks. And is actually pretty depressing.”
I agree that you should not wish harm on them, but don’t downplay how bad heartbreak can be. It affects both your physical and mental health, and I’m certain the latter of which can last a long time, not so sure if the physical health gets affected as permanently or not. Anyway, mental health damage alone can have terrible effects on your life.
Also, the other things you mentioned are bad too, but those usually happen in addition to heartbreak, so it’s easy to think that those are worse but heartbreak aside they have their own level of terribleness.
I once called police about a car theft on a property I managed. We had had footage of the theft, the thieves, their getaway car, their license plates, their entry and exit, their faces visible on every camera. It took the cops two weeks to drop by to collect the footage and take a report, and they looked so annoyed, and didn’t even pretend to care. They straight up told me nothing would come of it.
But if you’re a corporation, they’re all over that shit. Minor shop lifting? Cops are there in minutes. It’s become clear over the last few years who the police work for, and it’s not us, the little people who pay taxes.
Not to be a devil’s advocate but the little people aren’t paying taxes. The top 20% pay the taxes for the most part, the problem is the money in the first place giving too small of a group of people too much say in how everyone lives.
You do realize there are states where there is NO income tax, and everything is funded by regressive sales taxes that hit the poor and lower income brackets MUCH harder?
TX and WA for example.
The ‘little people’ as you so eloquently fucking put it, are paying WAY more taxes than they should, and the ‘fat greedy bastard’ people have accounting teams to prevent that for themselves. What an ignorant take. Fucking christ man stop licking boots and educate yourself.
And you’re getting your news from a guy who thinks that there being articles about it precludes what I’m saying in OP. I can’t see your posts from Hexbear, by the way 😁. Didn’t even realize this got voted up.
You both satisfy yourselves with knowing there were headlines, as if that’s what this post is about lmfao.
Yeah looks like Hexbear is having some serious federation issues. If you’re normally a Hexbear user, you might want to contact the admins about it and see if they can fix it. Happened to my instance a couple of weeks ago too. Something about other instances accidentally being marked as dead.
Yeah, I’m reminded of the Ohio chemical attack last year. CNN had a story about it… Underneath seven other stories about Taylor Swift’s new boyfriend or whatever.
There is a lid on the western mainstream media in a way it has NEVER been before. Today there is no "crack in the wall, 10% is empirically true, 20% is fake - narratives, 70%, and it is the most important part, is omitted news
They pretty much all say that South Africa presented a case in the Hague that argued that Israel has violated the 2nd article of the international genocide conventions and that Israel has acted with genocidal intent towards the people of Palestine. Or is there something else of note that isn’t being discussed? Like did a horse briefly get loose in the court and they had to stop proceedings to try and catch it?
No, it’s expensive but not “private plane” expensive. I rode first-class international once because I was recovering from covid and didn’t want to deal with the pain of coach (and the travel company that was responsible for my getting covid was paying some of the bill). I’m also 6’4" and don’t physically fit in coach. So like, yeah, I’m being physically forced out of coach cause it’s too small and I have to pay out the ass to just exist on a plane without physical pain. Must mean I have my own jet, and not that I’m getting fucked.
While I am not super tall, I am heavy. The one time I got to fly international first class was the first and only time I could sleep on a plane. I got a nice large bourbon, fluffy comforter, pillow, and burrito-ed myself in that pod. It was utterly glorious. I was glad that I wasn’t paying for it… Was something around 4k for a 5-6 hour flight.
If the flight is international and sufficiently long, getting better seats is worth it. Better food. Free booze. Lounge access (it depends…). More space. If the price is right, get first.
It was the most comfortable plane flight in my life. It wasn’t super comfortable, the sleeper pod things are made for smaller people obviously, but there wasn’t pain and there were positions I could move through if one got a little too uncomfy. It was so nice compared to every other flight in my life.
This isn’t true at all… My wife and I fly first class and are no where near being able to afford flying private 🤣 the no babies part would be fantastic though.
memes
Top
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.