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#just saw a covid one on the news and it literally just had the equation for cellular respiration behind it
gayfrasier · 3 years
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the only good thing about taking chemistry is learning how to read chemical equations because now all those sciencey backgrounds are so funny
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Will Biden bust trusts?
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Despite the massive triumphs of the world's largest corporations and most rapacious billionaires during the covid crisis, neoliberalism is in ideological retreat: more people are more critical of the idea that "free markets" can solve big problems than at any time in my life.
The Democratic nomination race was a fight between the neoliberal wing of the party and the Democratic Socialists, with the candidates representing a spectrum between those two sides (and the odd outlier on either side).
Supposedly, the party grandees brokered peace between the two main factions, but the left is rightfully suspicious about whether Biden - and Republicans-who-sit-as-Dems like Joe Manchin - will deliver anything beyond symbolic gestures.
One bright spot: Bernie Sanders is finally chairing the Senate Budget Committee, giving him enormous power over muscular covid relief packages, Medicare expansion, and rolling back Trump and Bush tax-cuts on the super-rich.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/bernie-sanders-budget-committee.html
This is where Sanders' long experience in the Senate, and his virtuoso work using its procedures to advance his position, will serve him well. As we saw with McConnell, the ability to wield procedure is a powerful asset in getting stuff done.
Sanders knows all the dirty tricks that the Senate majority leaders used to sink his efforts, *and* he knows all the countermeasures that work against those tricks. He will be a force to be reckoned with.
Beyond key appointments, a key test for the Biden administration will be its posture on antitrust, the area of economic doctrine that has been most transformed by the debate over capitalism.
40 years ago, Reaganites managed to convert antitrust from a *political* doctrine to an *economic* one: rather than asking whether a monopoly would pervert good policy for workers, citizens, and institutions, antitrust narrowed to asking whether monopolies were raising prices.
Antitrust enforcers stopped listening to workers who'd been laid off or had their wages cut. They stopped listening to customers who got worse products and less choice. They stopped listening to entrepreneurs who were frozen out of the market by predatory monopolists.
The only people they'd hear from were duelling economists with impenetrable equations that supposedly represented the likelihood that a monopolist was hiking prices. Strangely, these models almost never showed that rising prices could be attributed to monopolies.
The GOP antitrust wreckers called themselves the "Chicago School" for the University of Chicago economics department that served as their cult headquarters. The Dems had "post-Chicago School" antitrust, who were effectively indistinguishable from the Chicago School.
When Obama ran for office in 2007, he promised real action on antitrust. Taking office in the midst of the Great Financial Crisis, Obama had the unprecedented opportunity to make good on those promises.
That's not what he did.
A new report from the American Economic Liberties Project, "The Courage to Learn: A Retrospective on Antitrust and Competition Policy During the Obama Administration and a Framework for a New, Structuralist Approach," is comprehensive on the Obama admin's failures.
https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Courage-to-Learn-Final.pdf
The Obama admin oversaw massive concentration in healthcare, transport, defense contracting, entertainment, media, tech, agribusiness, and other key US industries. At the time, officials boasted of their record.
Today, as public opinion (and lawmaker priorities) shift to trustbusting, these same officials are the ones decrying the bipartisan failures to grapple with monopolies. Many are on deck to serve in the Biden admin, alongside Big Tech lobbyists pushed to run antitrust (!).
Obama's antitrust enforcement record is terrible - he didn't just squander the opportunity of the Great Financial Crisis; his enforcers actually made things worse, leaving midterm to work for white-shoe firms that worked to secure mergers.
These enforcers saw themselves as "dealmakers," not cops. They allowed 90,297 mergers during Obama's terms, taking action on only 313 of them, accounting for 3% of the $11.67 *trillion* in merger activity 2008-16.
Those 3% of deals were almost all waved through, with some modest conditions binding the new conglomerates not to abuse their market power. These deals could be rescinded at the stroke of a pen by future administrations - which is exactly what the Trump admin did.
Obama's antitrust enforcers voluntarily announced that they would not use the most powerful tools their founding statutes afforded them. They closed investigations into Monsanto and Google.
Obama's monopolies were terrible for consumers: medical costs for insured families rose by $10,000 on their watch; airline prices skyrocketed, and the quality of both plummeted (literally, in the case of Boeing's 737 Max) on Obama's watch.
But Obama's antitrust enforcers did do *some* aggressive enforcement...against workers. His administration set records in punishing trade associations of independent contractors, from electricians to building superintendants to church organists.
This was a prelude to the signature labor policy of the Obama years: the misclassification of an ever-expanding pool of workers as "independent contractors" whose organizing activity could be punished under antitrust law as "price-fixing."
The other Obama signature policy - the ACA - encouraged health care monopoly mergers on the theory that this would provide coordinated care. Today, these monopolists provide price-gouging and a "medical assembly line" that cares only for shareholders' financial health.
Today's trustbusting revival was incited by Big Tech's massive concentration and naked greed .Obama's enforcers waved through every single Big Tech acquisition for eight years, without a single significant enforcement action.
If you want to know how Amazon could pile on billions in profits during an economy-slaughtering pandemic, that's how.
The Project's report closes with a long and comprehensive list of recommendations for the Biden admin (pp137-169).
But as the report reminds us, "personnel is policy." Who you hire matters as much as what you ask them to do.
The Biden admin must *not* be let off the hook if it hires back the same Obama apparatchiks who committed antitrust malfeasance for eight long years - especially not the ones who left for cushy jobs in law/lobbying representing monopolists.
And we need to pour on the pressure to make Rohit Chopra the next Chairman of the FTC. Chopra is fearless and tough, who has advocated that repeat corporate offenders face breakups, dismissal of top execs, and bonus clawbacks.
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-simple-thing-biden-can-do-to-reset
Chopra's (good) notorious for saying "FTC orders are not suggestions." Companies that treat them as such get the corporate death penalty.
Like Sanders, Chopra has shown that he knows how to work the system.
When he was at the Consumer Finance Protection Board, he used public pressure to get predatory student lenders to knuckle under, a tactic that alienated cozy swamp-monsters who were used to doing everything behind closed doors.
The Obama admin came to power in an unprecedented financial crisis and pissed away the opportunity to restructure the US economy so it worked for the people, not the elites.
Biden is inheriting a *much* worse crisis. We can't let him be "Obama's third term" - not if that means repeating the ghastly errors of his former boss.
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ingek73 · 4 years
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The Simon CASE: Throw Your Brother Under The Bus!
By Kristine Welby June 16, 2020 19 Comments
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The Simon Case
Pool/Samir Hussein
The Simon CASE: Simon Says…Throw Your Brother Under The Bus!
“When Someone betrays you, it is a reflection of their character not yours.”
Last summer as Harry and Meghan were being slammed by the press literally for every breath they took, came word that they had flown to France on a private jet. They were dubbed hypocrites for taking a private jet after talking about the environment. Harry never told anyone not to fly, and Meghan never spoke about the environment. But they were both excoriated in the press and on social media. Of course, no fake outrage would be complete without fake pundits on various talk shows lambasting Harry and Meghan for the destruction of the environment.
When it was revealed that Sir Elton John had paid for the flight and paid to offset the carbon footprint, the conversation switched to “debunking the myth” of carbon offsets. Harry and Meghan were declared eco-hypocrites, despite the fact that William, in his efforts to outdo Harry, has spoken of the environment as much as Harry, and had even flown by private jet to Davos climate change forum. His attendance seemed nothing but grandstanding, since all he did was interview Sir David Attenborough. An interview which could have been done remotely, since environmental degradation is such a concern for him. This might sound trivial, but underscores the fundamental unfairness of the media’s attitude towards Harry. There is no shortage of perceived “hypocrisy” if one is determined to find it. But I guess it depends on where said hypocrisy needs to be found.
There was also the fact that William and his family had only just returned from their vacation on an exclusive private island, accessible only by private jet. And if that were not enough, we had the Queen’s favorite son flying hither and yon in private jets, in the midst of renewed outcry about his connection to convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew’s alleged sexual abuse of a trafficked minor. No private jet outrage there. Instead, when they were not attempting to equate Prince Andrew’s amoral actions to Harry and Meghan flying by private jet, they were ignoring Prince Andrew in favor of berating Harry and Meghan.
Then, just as it seemed the squall was reduced to a drizzle, along came pictures of the Cambridge clan boarding a commercial flight to Balmoral. £73 flight they declared, with pictures of the Cambridge family cosplaying ‘regular’ folks, with father and children carrying their own bags. It was a double whammy! William and Kate were not only heralded as frugal but of course environmentally conscious for flying commercial. That of course ignores the fact that Meghan and Harry’s personal travel is always privately funded and Sir Elton had paid for their trip; you can’t get more frugal than free.
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Rebecca English tweet
“Stunt, stunt, stunt,” cried the people. “Obvious,” said the blue check.
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William and Kate flight stunt
And it was, but wait there’s more. In the fanfare of the tabloids erecting a statue in honor of William the conqueror of duffel bags, came word from a real reporter with the Scotsman – There were two empty jets. The now defunct airline, Flybe had flown two empty planes, 500 hundred miles so they would be sure to have a commercial jet befitting the man waiting for his father and grandmother to pass…on the scepter. If Harry and Meghan’s small private jet was going to destroy the planet, then two empty commercial jets should spell the end of our galaxy. Harry clarified that flying private was for security reasons, which also apply to the rest of the royal family. Remember, this was not long after two men went to prison for plotting to kill Harry, because according to them, he was a “race traitor”, not to talk about the threats to his wife.
Of course, the people who seem to embrace their role as mouthpiece for KP, came out. Fully recovered from directing their fake outrage at Harry and Meghan taking a private jet, they were ready to switch to fake outrage in defense of William and his obvious stunt.
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Emily Andrews and Chris Ship flight pr stunt
As with the jet stunt, we saw the denials for what they were, “fake”.
And then nearly a year later, this happened. An article about Simon Case of Kensington Palace who is now off to support the non-elected ruler of Britain – Dominic Cummings.
The Spectator’s tweet of the article about his departure proudly proclaimed:
“Boris’s new man in No. 10 was behind Will and Kate’s budget flight to Balmoral – when Harry and Meghan were criticised for flying by private jet says Camilla Tominey”
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Simon behind Will and Kate’s budget flight
What the tweet should have said was: “It was a stunt.”
And a poorly thought out and executed stunt. By any objective measure, it was a failure. People immediately knew it was a stunt, and treated it with the ridicule it deserved. It did not affect change, except with the people desperate for any excuse to think William and Kate worthy of their privileged position. For those of us who think privilege should be earned not gifted, we saw William as a backstabbing, entitled, duplicitous craven bully. In the middle of a propaganda campaign against his brother and (post-partum) sister-in-law, William decided (or agreed) that it would be an excellent idea to do that, to attempt to embiggen himself.
If, as KP’s press minions originally claimed, the flight had been arranged months in advance, why did Flybe have to scramble( moving empty jets hundreds of miles) at the last minute to position a Flybe-branded plane on a route that was operated by their codeshare partner Loganair (eastern airways) in order to “maximize press coverage for the airline”? Was there a prior expectation that their royal passengers will be pictured on the flight and hence the need to “maximize press coverage”? Had the flights been arranged far in advance as the press mouthpieces insisted it was, the airline could have positioned the planes without costing themselves money by way of 2 EMPTY flights. And why is Camilla Tominey now making special mention of Case’s role in that fiasco? Was he in his role, KP’s reservation specialist? If not normally, why did he take interest in that particular flight?
We do know that the flights arrangements were made on the eve of their departure per the Scotsman. A flight that was obviously positioned to portray William and Kate as “better” and more “responsible” than Harry and Meghan. And why are we now receiving confirmation of what we suspected from the beginning? Is it a coincidence, that revised versions of old rumors (tights-gate, private jet, KP leak) are being trotted out now? Revisions we suspect are closer to, (but still not) the truth. All these revisions still manage to position William and Kate as the victims. Apparently, Kate was justified in claiming to have a temper tantrum because the bride got the final say for her own wedding party; or that the backstabbing of Harry and Meghan via media propaganda was engineered by someone else and William and Kate merely went along? I don’t know why they think either proposition makes them look good.
If Simon Case was the ‘mastermind’ behind the media war waged by the future-future King against his brother and sister-in-law, then Mr. Case is an unfeeling, amoral manipulator. After all it was under his watch that the (pregnant) Duchess of Sussex was subjected to a coordinated campaign of harassment by the British Media. It was under his watch, that Tim Shipman of the times wrote in his famous article, excerpts below.
“This sense of embattlement has been entrenched by William’s decision to reach out to senior figures in the media as he prepares for kingship and by the apparent decision of those same newspapers to side with the palace over Meghan and Harry by peddling the most negative coverage of the duchess’s relationship with her father, Thomas Markle. “Harry sees that as part of the headwinds against him,” a friend said.”
It is Case who was credited with encouraging William to attempt to sideline Harry and his popular wife, which led to rumors of exiling them to Africa.
“…the Duke of Cambridge has been encouraged by his private secretary, Simon Case, who says he believed that a period of separation between the two brothers would help them to define themselves better and also improve relations between them.”
“In some ways it would suit William to get his brother out of the country for a few years and Meghan as far away as possible,” said one friend of the brothers.
Sending the couple to Canada was “mooted, then booted” given that Meghan spent seven years living there and for some it was “too close to the US” and the inevitable tabloid magazine coverage that would ensue. Making Harry governor-general of Australia was discussed and dismissed. The problems were obvious. “The trouble is that you effectively set them up as king and queen of a whole separate country,” according to one source. “And 24-hour media means that Australia is not as far away as it used to be.”
Here we are today, Harry and Meghan have stepped down as working royals, and moved to the United States of America, home to the media capital of the world. The public knew the economy plane trip was a stunt. We knew the leaks were coming from inside the Palace. No one but trolls believed the tights (or is it skirt length?) story. William will be remembered as a twat who on a state visit told the world that the media was hyping up COVID-19, even though at the time, hundreds were dying daily. Yet the apparent architect of the clusterf*ck, Simon Case, is credited with turning William into a statesman(yes) and it was his “success” at KP that lead Britain’s bumbling prime minister to invite him back to No. 10 Downing St.
As it were, the latest Spectator article only seeks to confirm what every rational and logically thinking person suspected was a calculated move by William’s court to hurt is brother. One has to wonder when all these facts became known to Camilla Tominey. Also is she the only reporter who is privy to these facts? Why were some in the royal rota adamant that flight arrangements were made far in advance? Did they question the seeming improbable coincidence(ahem) of the Cambridges and their brood being pictured boarding a domestic flight, whose exact price(£73) they seemed to know even after the fact? Or were they just willing to give William & Kate the benefit of the doubt, which they never extend to Harry and Meghan? So many questions still to be answered. If I were a betting woman, I will bet my last penny that there are more Cases to be unveiled. Stay tuned.
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Dress For Where You're Going, Not For Where You've Been
Day 5:
I have my morning routine down. I used to think I didn't like routine. I equated routines with ruts. But, man I love a routine. I fall in to them pretty quickly. They give me some stability. I find value in doing the same thing for certain things every time. Other things, like driving to and from a place every day, i like to mix that up to chase away the monotony. I find my routine, it just comes naturally, I never force it. I might say, I need to add this or that, but it always works itself out and coalesces into my routine.
I've been drinking this Belizean coffee, Caye Coffee, since I got here. I like it. It's local, well roasted locally. I'm not sure if it's grown here somewhere. There is one coffee, called Gallon Jug, that is grown here, however. That is not the brand I have been drinking. I bought a small bag of the ground coffee to make at the condo, and that's what I have been drinking in the mornings. I also bought a bag of Belize Gourmet Coffee's whole bean coffee, that was grown in Guatemala, which is really just up the street, and a bag of Gallon Jug's whole bean. It will be interesting to see what it all tastes like.
I couldn't remember if we were going to look at condos today or tomorrow. I hit Natasha up, and she said we were doing that tomorrow. So I planned on taking the water taxi to Caye Caulker for the day. I got down to the boat at 1pm, and planned on staying on Caye Caulker until 6:15 when the last boat returning was coming back. Caulker is a little different than Ambergris. It's way smaller, way less people, quieter, way less golf carts, and less busy. Not that Ambergris, and San Pedro especially are "busy." But, San Pedro has more going on than Caye Caulker Village does. I walked a lot. My feet hurt from all the walking I've been doing, and I have a blister on my right foot, which is something that happens when I walk too much in flops that have seen better days, or don't fit right.
(I've been trying to find some new ones, but the size 12s they have here seem too small, and no one seems to have anything bigger)
I got off the boat and wanted to find a place to eat. I didn't want to go to the very first place I saw, so I went past the joint that was right there at the boat dock, and went south a ways. I found a place called Island Magic. They had a really cool seating set up. The table were suspended by ropes, like swings, and some of the seats were too. They had these upstairs tables that reminded me of a tree house. All in all the place was super cool in the atmosphere department. The menu was smaller than I would have liked, but Covid and it being an island, and lobster and avocados being out of season, and the server said they didn't have shrimp either made it that much smaller. I had chicken kebobs that were very good, and they had sinks by the restrooms that had seashells as spouts.
(I don't know if they intended them to look like vaginas or what, but the sure do look like vaginas)
I found this place that has hammocks out under some coconut trees. I need to be a customer to use them, so I go in. They have coffee drinks, and smoothie drinks, and coffee smoothie drinks. But they only take cash. And, I left my cash back at the condo. I didn't want to have to worry about it if I decided to go swimming. I can't grasp why I thought that was going to be a thing, now, but at the time that was my thinking. So, they sent me to an ATM. With some vague directions and just my credit card, because I lost my debit card the other day, I set out to fund a peanut butter coffee smoothie thing and a fucking hammock so I could just hang out somewhere and stay off my blistered foot.
(I already called my bank and stopped my card. The new one should be waiting for me when I get back, or at least soon after. I don't use it as much ass I used to, so it isn't a big deal to not have it, except when I need cash)
I decided to go the opposite direction the barista sent me. Mainly because I'm pretty sure my credit card isn't set up to get money out of an ATM. I seem to remember having an unsatisfying experience trying to do that once. Something about not knowing my P. I. N.
(Here's a bonus: how many people know what A. T. M. and P. I. N. stand for? Well, I'll tell ya. Automated Teller Machine, and Personal Identification Number. So, if you say ATM machine or PIN number, you are being redundant. You are really saying, Automated Teller Machine machine, and Personal Identification Number number. Same goes for a V. I. N. or Vehicle Identification Number, number)
I walk down to what's known as The Split. It is a place where Caye Caulker is divided in two. They used to connect, but apparently, according to legend, a famed 1961 hurricane, Hurricane Hattie hit the island and caused The Split. I find it odd that everything I've found on the subject so far says that people are unsure if that's what caused it of not. How are they not sure?
It's pretty neat in any event. I walked there, and walked around the end and then back up toward the hammocks and the peanut butter thing, only on the other side of the island. It was an interesting walk. Felt a lot more rural than San Pedro. After stopping at a couple of places I finally found the ATM. It was in a bank, and sure as shit, my credit card would not open the door to the little room where the machine was. And, the doors to the bank were locked. They were closed I guess. So, no hammock for birthday boy Stevie D!
I walked back up to the beach to find somewhere to just chill for the next three hours. I ended up back at that place I didn't eat at because it was the first place I saw. They had swing seats that looked out over the beach, such as it is. And, some chairs out on the beach. So, I ordered a virgin pina colada and laid down in the one lounger they had. I decided to get another drink, and maybe move up under the shady patio. This time I sat on one of the swing seats and drank another VPC and a soda water. It was about this time that I realized that I didn't have to wait another hour and a half for the 6:15 boat. I could take the earlier 5:15 boat back to San Pedro. I don't know why I was thinking I had to stay until 6:15.
These four women rolled up and sat at one of the picnic tables out front. They looked like they had been having a good time. They were drinking, not stupid drunk or anything. It became more apparent that some were drunker than others when one of them started freaking out because they only had three minutes to get to the boat to go back to, presumably Belize City. I thought it was funny because the boat pier was literally a 30 second walk from where we were. They could have thrown their mojito glass and hit it from there. This dude that works at this bar told them that the boat wasn't even there yet. As in fact you could look over and see that it wasn't. So they calmed down. I decided I was going to go back on the 5:15 boat. But, at 5:15 it wasn't there yet either.
Finally a boat shows up. The women get up and walk over to the pier. I swear I'm not the mask police, but I feel that if I have to wear one, so do you, and only one of them put theirs on, and they strolled right over to the boat. I finished my drinks and walked over there too. They seemed a little stressed. I'm not sure what was going on, but at least one of them was pretty worried that they were not going to get to where they wanted to go. I asked if this boat was going to San Pedro, and it was, so I gather that they were not going there. I left them and their unmasked faces there. To be fair, no one was saying shit to them about wearing a mask. I think people the world over are pretty much over this whole pandemic thing.
(If there is some spike in Covid cases in Belize, it's because of drunk Americans. Pretty sure)
I get on the boat, they don't. I go sit up top. I am sitting with the muthafuckin' Captain and shit! It was different riding up there. A much better view. More wind tho. I get back, go to the condo, relax a bit, then head out for my birthday dinner. I went to this joint I've walked by tons called Elvie's. I ordered the street corn, and the Mayan Chicken, and a slice of key lime pie. It was awesome. I loved the Mayan spices and the coconut rice. I walked home and sat on the balcony and pondered another year on this planet.
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masterheartsxiii · 4 years
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Notes from mass 9/20/20
A note before I start. This was my first time at mass by myself, as a non-catholic. It was also my first time taking notes. I am looking to be challenged and hold discussion on my thoughts.
I grew up non-denominational, I didn’t know much about Catholicism other than that they worshiped Mary and stuff (things I found out were wrong later). Eventually I started spending time with my dear friend, who was catholic. She and I went back and forth as she brought forward points about catholic faith, and I would pose counter arguments. There was a point where she seemed close to snapping away towards a different denomination, closer to mine. But then, she suddenly snapped back. Her connection to her Catholic faith became like steel, forged in the heat of questioning. This fire fascinated me. I now know that she had an advisor who helped temper that steel into its current shape on this site, but that doesn’t change that she found something about Catholicism that resonated, or else no amount of advice would have caused it. So I had to know. I have to know. What about Catholicism draws one closer to God even when fought against with more Protestant views. For that reason, I have begun going to Catholic Mass, starting now due to covid, and long to have my answers about God and the universe answered.
Now the notes proper:
I arrived late due to traffic and going to a new church. Will have to prepare for that earlier. Due to this I had to sit in the back outside of the church proper.
Gospel was on the parable of the men who were hired at different times yet paid the same amount.
>An interesting parable. One that would easily reflect on any time period, and all have surely felt similar.
Homily begins:
Talking about vacation?
>Not really sure how this all connects
The priest went to Maine
>I get he’s trying to relate this, but talking about vacation as your connection seems odd during times where quarantine is supposed to be in place.
Got distracted on how to take notes
>I was trying to figure out how best to take notes by looking at the examples my dear friend has posted in the past. I resolved then to get a notebook and have since done so so that my notes can be taken and translated later.
The priest gets back to the parable
>Finally. I guess the connection was between lobster farmers and field workers, but that seems thin.
The fairness is what we focus on, but the point of the parable is gods love.
>Well that seems obvious. But it has an important point to make, and right as I thought that he continued
Christianity, like field work, can be back breaking.
>Living with an atheist, can agree.
We need to save all people no matter when in their life. (But what rewards are there besides the end?)
>So the parenthesis are the thoughts I had at the time that I felt needed to be jotted down. These carrots are post church reflections. But it is a common thought. How often have I gone to God and said “I’ve done all this for you. I’ve been here since I was a child? Why am I not getting benefits. Why don’t my wishes carry more weight? My god, my god, why have you forsaken me.”
We might harbor feelings that we’ve been unfairly treated (no rewards to be in early)
>precisely. We feel that just because someone “got on board late” they shouldn’t be given equal treatment. But that’s not right. We should want the best for everyone. To hold someone to a standard of when they became a follower, why do we assume that makes them lesser? Isn’t that judgement? There is only one Judge, and it isn’t any of us on Earth.
Why do we think that? Why do we feel it’s “better” that we wish we could have joined later.
>That brings up an interesting conundrum. Often times we think the best way, even as Christians is to fall into this trap. We say “well it’s alright if I break this rule as long as I ask forgiveness” but that could devolve into a whole tangent of what is right vs what feels good. I’d be happy to discuss that more in the comments or a dm.
Better to rejoice that we added more people to the kingdom of heaven.
>On this we can easily agree. It is a victory to add someone, but where does it end? Do we check in and make sure they’re actually living it out? Surely just getting them to confess isn’t the end. That gets into circle of control vs circle of influence. Something my therapist and I have been working through. But while my circle of control is small with a larger circle of influence, an interesting irony is that God’s circle of control is massive, but he chooses to only use his influence, less we become puppets. Idk. This is where my mind wanders to.
Started talking about donations? That felt out of place.
>Yeah I guess just because it’s nearing the end of the fiscal year, it’s time to bring in money. It was an unfortunate time for me to first visit as I’m sure it sounded more greedy than intended, but it did feel weird that they ended the homily with it. Is that normal. I have no comparative reference.
I left before communion as I don’t feel I can go to it yet as a non catholic (why so isolating?)
>Something I’ve always wrestled with. The requirement to be catholic before receiving communion. Jesus said “let the little children come into me”. He didn’t require them to vow to him first. Jesus dined with beggars, crooks, and tax collectors. He never required them to be a part of his church before then. And then of course there’s the fact that is in spirit the body and blood of Christ. I grew up with communion being symbolic, not a true transformation. For a long time I viewed that as a weird interpretation. But I’ve seen it. The times I went to mass with my dear friend in the past I saw the power that the reverence and respect the priest placed on it. The Meal is more than a symbol, but I believe that is only to those that believe it so. My literal brain has trouble seeing past the veil, but I did for one fleeting moment and it’s stuck with me.
I felt so alone. How does one connect to god at these things? He is held so far above. How can one reach.
>I’ve never gone to mass by myself. I’ve always had at least my dear friends long side me. Ins one ways that was a detriment. After all, if ones focus is torn between two places, can one truly grasp Heaven’s message for you? But on the other side, without anyone beside me at church, how am I to parse these feelings. I am a Stranger in a Strange Land, and without a spiritual guide, how am I to reach it. I fear my journey will be impossible alone. I will pray on this.
One final note: the priest says it feels like the devil has really had his way with this year. It has been a hard year for sure, but how much is this the work of devils and how much is the work of man. The age old question does the devil really exist: or is it just the Bible’s embodiment of man’s free will, given personification. May pursue this more.
>A thought I’ve had many times. One I’d love to discuss. The Bible has many allegories. Might the devil be one as well. After all humans with free will don’t need something bad influencing them. That’s actually the problem with some other denominations. The ones that make “Hell Houses” the prescribe everything to “demons” and that takes humanity’s free will out of the equation. The devil may not exist. There may instead just be humanity’s desire to turn away from blinding light. Thoughts?
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displacedcreativity · 3 years
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When I was little, I used to love Barney, like most kids in the early 90′s. At one point, I even had a stuffed Barney that was very close to the design of the toy in the show. I knew mine would never come to life, but the extra detail made it feel so magical and for a variety of reasons, it was very sentimental and I loved it dearly. I often played alone so obviously toys and stuffed animals played a big part in my imaginary adventures and this stuffed Barney was no exception.  And then while at preschool. In between arriving and naptime. Someone stole it. And I never saw it again. I was devastated, to say the least.  My grandmother got me a new one, but it wasn’t the same. Literally and figuratively. The new one was wearing a shirt for some odd reason, and it’s mouth was sewn shut and overall it looked very odd. There was no charm, no magic. By second grade, I loathed Barney. Between losing the stuffed toy and having one of the lessons I had learned from the show backfire in a painful way, I wanted nothing more to do with it.  I carried that hate for years, and eventually it turned into a neutral feeling to hardly ever thinking about it. Obviously, I knew all the words to the mean version of the ending song from the show...the “I hate you, you hate me, let’s team up and kill Barney.”  I think that’s still a thing that people start singing when they hit a certain age.  I sang it so much I actually forgot the words to the actual song. Regardless, Barney! Not something I’ve really put much thought into lately. And lately, I’ve been burned out - prior to Covid, though Covid definitely didn’t help. And while burned out I was crushed in all the worst ways possible and if I were the Doctor I would’ve died and struggled to regenerate.  Whatever spark or light I had been holding onto prior to recent events is snuffed out, gone, and it would take an impossible miracle to get it back or at least a similar spark back. Like. That person is *gone* I might as well change my name and face at this point.  Needless to say, my dreams have been various flavors of awful, and while that’s not unusual they’ve definitely ramped up in the awfulness more recently.  Last night was no exception, but the ending took a bit of a turn. I was at a school, like a mix of schools I’ve been to or seen and weird stuff was going on and I’m not sure how old everyone was? Like we were all kids, teenagers and adults all at the same time cause you know. dream logic. But then for a moment, Barney was there. Which is a first, I think. I genuinely don’t remember any dreams with Barney in it before. But. He was there! But then he wasn’t. Turns out the only people who could see him were people who still believed in the power of the Imagination. (Very Hook).  And of course, I stood there in disbelief that I couldn’t see him because  I write and draw characters all the time and imagine things, I love imagining stories and dreaming and this was even MY dream why could I NOT see him? I was kind of insulted and spent the rest of the dream trying to prove to myself and everyone that there was nothing wrong with my imagination.  Except that there was, or, is. As I was saying, that sparks been pretty much gone. The skill to create hasn’t vanished, and when I have the energy I can still make the art and write. But that spark that makes me enjoy what I made or gets the creative juices flowing. That’s gone. It’s all ash, there’s no re-igniting that flame. When I realized that in the dream I was instantly upset because it meant that I’ve failed my inner child, if I even still had one, and myself and everyone there because it meant that I couldn’t see Barney even though I knew he was there. I even went on a rant about how growing up doesn’t equate losing your imagination, losing that spark, and adults aren’t crazy for wanting to play with their imagination as a way to have fun and relax.  But everyone nodded and agreed with me, I hadn’t made any sort of realization I didn’t already know or at least, deeply understand. Like, I was right but it wasn’t what my subconscious was trying to process and deal with. And someone, I don’t know who, asked me if I loved my imagination. As it’s something that has actually plagued me many, many times and well I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve pretty much got 0 self love.  I think I said yes, or that I wanted it back, I’m not entirely sure. But it was this general acceptance that one of my strengths has always been the ability to see the magic in the mundane and to share that magic with others by creating something, be it art or a story or whatever I think is the best medium for the magic. I often squish this down in an attempt to fit in or to not look weird, but.  It doesn’t stop at stories, because I was also thinking how in general I see the potential in things, in people, in stories.  And yeah, that magic can often backfire, and it can hurt, and it can make you feel completely, totally alone when no one else see’s what you do. But that’s what I needed to say. That I can see the magic in the mundane and the potential in every person. Even though I’m burnt out and the spark is gone and I have no real creative juices and no real self love and honestly every year I survive is honestly a surprise and I still can’t promise I’ll make it to 34 for a variety of reasons, (my physical health is rubbish and yadda yadda tomorrow is never guaranteed) but. That’s part of who I am. I see the magic. I see the potential for good, and the potential for bad. And there will be people who will never see what I do, and there will be people who will! And there will be people who don’t see it, but they will believe me - some may see what I do eventually, and there will be those that will never see it even if it’s slapping them in the face and they will take that out on me in negative, awful ways and it will hurt every time. But that’s okay. And it’s okay to be hurt, and it’s okay to lose that spark because the spark is just an energy source. When the batteries die for good you don’t recharge them you throw them out and get new ones! Hell, even dead batteries that are kept in for too long can still explode acid everywhere and eat away at the insides.  So yeah, my batteries are dead, and have exploded acid everywhere, and it will take a long time to pry them out, clean up and repair the damage and get fresh batteries. And it’s always possible that I’ll never make it that far.  But when I realized this, in the dream. Magic from the mundane and the batteries...Barney popped up again. Though more of a strange dream version of Barney this time, and actually to be completely honest I couldn’t see the face because it was taller than me so all I could really see was a colorful torso but REGARDLESS.  I hugged the dream dino and for the first time in YEARS. I remembered the actual lyrics to the ending song from the show. “I love you, you love me. We’re a happy family. With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too!” What a thing to forget.  And I realized, that that’s generally my response to when something I love ends up hurting me in someway shape or form. Ever since I was a small child that’s how I learned to react to a lot of my trauma. The logic of...”It can’t hurt me if I hate it.”  Like I’ve known for a while that I’ll avoid something if there’s too much negativity attached to it, and obviously there are lines that will always need to be drawn but. Love won’t always make  you feel good, and that’s okay. But replacing love with hate isn’t always what you should do, and hate with always make you feel like crap.  Anyways, I’m kind of losing my train of thought but ultimately. I woke up feeling... lighter, in a way. There’s still a lot of bad and I’m stull hurting and broken, etc etc etc but I woke up with no hatred for Barney or sour neutrality and generally my feelings for the show (I’m assuming it’s still on) is that I think it’s a great show that encourages kids to be imaginative and to be loving.  And my inability to remember the original lyrics of the song has been replaced with me genuinely struggling to remember the mean lyrics, and I don’t even feel bothered to look them up, because why? Why waste energy I don’t have hating something for unintentionally hurting me, especially when it was something I loved so much and helped me get through other dark, traumatic events that I was exposed to at a very young age? I mean, I’m not about to go out and start buying a whole bunch of Barney merchandise and start watching show, but I can allow myself to enjoy my memories of it from when I was a kid and also forgive myself for hating something just because I was a kid in pain who wanted to protect themselves when no one else would.  This sort of thing is more complicated when it comes to people, but, baring exceptions, it’s okay to love the good memories. It’s okay to still love a place, or a thing, or a food you enjoyed alongside a toxic ex, and it’s okay if you can’t do that.  It’s okay to never want them in your life ever again, and it’s okay to hope that things can heal and mend and the two of you can reconnect in a healthy manner and the second time around is positive and healthy.  It’s okay to grieve a death for as long as you need to, and it’s okay to move on and find love again.
But whenever possible, chose love. Because love will let you know when to change your batteries, hate will make you keep those dead batteries till they explode acid everywhere and corrode you from the inside out because you hate being alone, afraid, or whatever negative thing is eating away at you but I can garuntee it’s not love that’s making you keep the dead batteries, it’s the deep desire to avoid something negative you hate or are afraid of and that’s perfectly understandable and a reasonable response and everyone works at their own paces.  And if you think it will help, write a sticky note that says “change the batteries” or whatever and stick it somewhere you can look whenever you need a reminder. Start with small things! Or don’t! It’s completely up to you! Just whenever you can, remember to chose love, and look for the magic in the mundane and the potential in people. Love can take you everywhere, hate will get you nowhere. 
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Good Music, Good News 3.0
We continue to be touched and moved by the depth of sharing and Good News that is coming from the Cyber PR Music camp.  Nd we are not surprised.  Ariel and her team have sent us some of our favorite gems over the years. We are pleased to bring you part 3 of our 4 part series.
Please Follow the Spotify Playlist below to hear all of these amazing tracks.
[HERE]
Thanks to all of the artists who shared their music AND their good news.
Mara Measor | “Love Will Find You”
Is Now An Expectant Mother During A Global Pandemic
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I had a miscarriage back in February, right before the pandemic hit. Then was able to get pregnant again a few months later! We had another scare at our first ultrasound and was flagged with a higher risk of our baby having chromosomal abnormalities, but upon further tests the concerns were cleared. And I'm finally getting used to the idea of having a baby boy next year. It's been such a roller coaster, but I'm riding it. :)
John Ellis on behalf of Val Starr & The Blues Rockets | “Whether Blues (2020)”
Experienced Loss, Family Members With COVID & Made Music To Heal
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Our daughter-in-law came down with Covid and is still fighting it, and our granddaughter Ariella tested positive as well, but being eight years old, she didn't really exhibit any symptoms.  Lost a couple of friends to pneumonia and strokes, cancer in some other friends, car accidents wracked up a good friend, and then the election happened.  Life rolls on, faith in our Higher Power keeps us sane, and had a lot of time to work on recordings this year. Val Starr, my wife and bandmate, has written a great blues song that we'd like to share with you about all of us pulling it back together again.  Called "Whether Blues" , whether you're right, whether you're wrong, don't mean a thing till we get along"
Tabitha Chapman | “Celebrity Boyfriend”
Got A Publishing Deal
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I am immensely grateful to God that despite the hardship, sorrows, pains and restrictions that typified the year 2020, I was able to release 3 singles, and I also got myself a publisher.
Valerie Romanoff | “Pink Skies over Still Water”
Created An Online Music Festival About Mindfulness & Meditation
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Without the hustle of preparing and traveling for my live events with the Starlight Orchestra, I stayed home and developed a way to share the energy and messages in my Healing Music albums. I came up with an online show called "Groove Into Bliss: Musical Meditation & More" where my guests and I talked about the benefits of relaxing and releasing stress, the power of music to open the channels to well-being, and offered guided meditations.  We spoke of tips and tools for positive thinking, manifesting the life we desire, and the many ways we can use music to boost our joy! Through the online show I made many connections and was invited to be a guest on many high-vibe broadcasts and events, and I was invited to wrote a chapter in an upcoming book titled “The Wellness Universe Guide To Complete Self-Care: 25 Tools For Happiness.”
Apostrophe Music | “Keep the Hope Alive!”
Released Home-Recorded Music During The Pandemic
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I released whilst we were in the heart of the lockdown during the month of April. As India went into a historic lockdown with over 1 Billion people being asked to stay indoors, the air of anxiousness and uncertainty brought out this song called Keep The Hope Alive! The only feeling we all had at that moment in time. 
I felt like it was a message that needed to get out there and once we recorded it out of my home studio (no access to studios because of the curfew lockdown situation) I posted the song on to Youtube and Facebook with a video and subsequently after that we did an official audio release in July. So this is the story about this song I released as the whole world went into lockdown.
Len Seligman
Turned The Tragedy of Losing His Mother Into Beautiful Songwriting
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Like a lot of songwriters, I was moved to write a song about COVID-19. While neither my health nor economic situation suffered, the pandemic made it so that I could only visit my mother a couple of times in the last 6 months of her life, despite her living just 20 minutes away. She died in September at the age of 97.
When I looked inside to see what story I wanted to tell about the pandemic, I quickly knew that it would be about the beautiful ways people have shown up for one another. Yes, there's been enormous suffering, but it's also been extraordinary to see the tremendous upwelling of compassion that the suffering has brought out. That is what inspired this song.
Steve Andrews | “Where Does All The Plastic Go?”
Had A Successful Release That Led To Idea for Ocean Aid Concerts
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My song “Where Does All The Plastic Go?” is getting included on playlists on Spotify, getting great reviews, and opening doors for me in unexpected places. This is wonderful because I'm thinking big and also came up with the idea for Ocean Aid Concerts to raise awareness of threats to the oceans. I am leading the way with songs on the subject of plastic pollution and my song could be included in any concerts that happen.
Richard Strange | “Christmas of Hope”
Used Hopeful Christmas Anthem To Fundraise for Charity
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We (Musicians Together & Sweet Charity Choir) released Christmas of Hope, a single produced in aid of Help Musicians UK, last Friday December. We are donating the proceeds to Help Musicians UK, a charity that you may be aware of, specifically to their 3rd hardship fund. Some quotes from the charity's CEO, James Ainscough: “Music has been a unifying force that’s supported and entertained us all this year, more than ever before.” "But for tens of thousands of music creators across the UK the impact of lockdown and social distancing on their ability to earn, to create and to connect, has been disastrous for their finances and mental health.” "This 99-year-old charity has been in the privileged position of financially supporting over 21,000 musicians this year and we couldn’t have done it without the generous help of music lovers across the length and breadth of the country.”
Jody Whitesides | “A Perfect Man”
Created Deeper Relationships With Fans
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I have been changing my approach to music this year. In doing so it increased the response I got from people on social media and via email. The most powerful thing was having a female fan tell me that the song “A Perfect Man” had brought her to tears. The reason, she could feel the love of the person singing to his counterpart and how he didn’t want to be put on a pedestal to fail the love of his life. Which is the main theme of the song. It was great to hear it hit home with a fan.
Andrea Kremer (The Aeon Wanderers) | “Don’t Say Anything”
Formed A Musical Duo via Facebook Groups
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After 20 years promoting other people's music for a living, I partnered with a multi-instrumentalist/songwriter that I met in a Facebook music group, and we formed a musical duo called The Aeon Wanderers. My bandmate lives in Scotland and I live in Boston, so even before COVID-19, we were working remotely, collaborating on lyrics in a Google doc and doing videos "together" using green screens. We started by recording covers, but soon we were working on originals, and in August 2020 we released our debut album, "Fictional Histories." Being on the artist side of the equation rather than the marketing side has been eye-opening and fun!
Barbara J. | “Merry Christmas, Darling”
Has A Holiday Release Airing on World Indie Network Radio
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My Christmas cover single, "Merry Christmas, Darling," has been selected to air on World Indie Network Radio's (WNIR) Holiday Spectacular Radio Special! This song, a holiday classic from The Carpenters, also serves as the pre-release to my Carpenters cover album, which I plan to release early next year.
Raphaela Gilla | “Michael’s Mantra”
Guided A Troubled Fan Through Meditation And Towards Healing
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One of my fans wrote me a message that she was not feeling well and asked me if I could help her. I felt that the really needed help and gave my phone number immediately. In our conversation she told me that it was hard for her to breathe, and she felt a lot of fear. I could hear her breathing heavily.
I guided her into a meditation – I guided her to consider her breathing as an angel's feather. This opened her breath tracks to the earth and to the sky. I noticed how she slowly began to relax and began to breathe deeper. She cried out of relief, thanked me and asked me about my fee. I told her that this is a gift from me to her. It was a very touching moment.
We stayed in contact. Since then, she grows and feels better.
John Mueller | “I’m Doing Fine”
Brought Joy With His Latest Release
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My fave moment of this challenging year was when a complete stranger wrote to me that they heard my new track "I'm doing fine" and how it was uplifting to them and brought some joy. I appreciated they took the time to notify me and to bring joy with my music is my ultimate goal. Getting this release out there and the entire album "You are Here" its included on during this year made a positive note for 2020.  
Nia Ocean | “This Christmas”
Channeled A Christmas Song To Help Us All Shine Our Inner Light
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About two weeks ago, I saw an insta story from a dear friend of mine which literally “woke me up”! I got so inspired that the next day I had written a whole song, a Christmas song that is. The song is called “This Christmas'' and I made it really to remind us that WE make Christmas what it is.. our spirit, our love, our cheer, it’s OUR light that gives it all meaning. So even though 2020 has been a tough year, we can still choose how to end it. It’s easy to expect and allow for Christmas 2020 not be special because it will be so different due to quarantine, limited travel and lost loved ones, but this song is a ray of light in these times of darkness and difficulty, reminding us of what matters most and that we all have a light within us to shine and share with our ourselves , our dearest ones, and the world...especially this Holiday Season.
Stay tuned… There’s more Good News Coming!
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violetsystems · 3 years
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personal
I’ve been able to sleep until six the last few days.  I’ve been on this miserable eight to four sleep schedule.  I ordered a silent vortex coffee grinder specifically to be less annoying in this regard.   Even if I could literally just grind the coffee the night before.  I also bought a rug cleaner for the first time in my life.  It’s amazing the things you don’t realize you need for a home let alone an office.  Last night I received an email from LinkedIn asking me to weigh in on a conversation about higher education.  The only public facing social networking site I really use actively I pay for.  They bought a service called Linda.com years ago.  It was probably the most important site to me for instructional videos.  These days it is included on the platform so I spend a fair amount of time keeping my job skills plausible.  I learned pretty hard the last six months that my professional network had all but evaporated.  A hard thing to face when you worked with your friends for over twenty years.  But people have to move on.  I sometimes make decisions that seem smarter in retrospect.  You could even mistake it for premonition but I just call it good judgement.  I made the decision to start the process of becoming a LLC.  It was pretty easy to do once you paid the four hundred dollars.  There’s services out there online that will do the legal part for you.  I chose VS consulting as the name which becomes real around mid December if the Secretary of State accepts it.  They asked me to cut the ribbon virtually.  I congratulated myself in silence but this is pretty much the first place I’ve shared the news with.  My mom didn’t quite understand what I had done and my dad is an accountant.  I haven’t told him yet either.  I got the idea seeing some of the people who still work at my old job starting their own side businesses.  Crazy to see people still employed having extra jobs in this economy.  But for the most part I don’t really compare my experience to anyone’s anymore.  So I just look forward.  There are a lot of ways I generate income.  Some of them aren’t very lucrative.  I released another ep Monday.  Three of my friends from across the world I never really talk to bought it immediately.  It makes sense because my music is how they know me.  So that’s how they keep up with me.  From there, Bandcamp revenue share Friday passed with little or no fanfare.  It still doesn’t change the fact I owe taxes on the income above a certain amount if I report it.  We all know how the rich hate paying those taxes.  And the whole world now knows that I work for a LLC on the premier professional social networking site.  It’s a win win for me because I can still look for a job but I appear employed.  It’s also a nice buffer in these times for your resume.  In retrospect, every article I read says the end of December is a perfect time to start your own business.  Mostly because January 1st allows you to start with a fresh balance sheet and good accounting.  So if anything my New Year’s resolution is to be cleaner and more concise about everything.  Even if the rest of society’s ethics and accountability gets muddier as COVID-19 and the election process drags on.  The only things I really have to worry about this next year are documenting my spending, opening up a business checking account, and deducting business expenses.  Sounds like a job to me.
There are tools you need for a job.  I bought a year long subscription to Creative Cloud.  I had it for free for years.  I worked in a visual communications department for ten years.  I saw the most amazing work every morning hung up outside my office.  It inspired me to learn about print making and screen printing.  I even owned Adobe stock at one point because I realized Microsoft Office wasn’t doing my resume much justice.  I shudder to think how many jokes were cracked by the Workday staff over my Chanel submission.  Truth is nobody called back for interviews at any of the places I applied.  And this doesn’t really stop me from keeping my eyes out for a position anywhere.  But if we are talking about generating income, I can do that all by myself.  I can also hire people and deduct more business expenses if I felt that was an option.  Which starts to get into the meat of why the job market and economy is so fucked up in America.  A lot of people didn’t fall in line on a balance sheet when COVID-19 came crashing down last February.  And when the fiscal year came time to start fresh, they thinned their liabilities.  Companies are now thinking in quarters rather than years at this point.  And small businesses like myself also have to think the same because I now owe the IRS money every three months.  The accounting side of it doesn’t really bore me.  I’ve done every IT role in the business pretty much over twenty years.  I guess that’s why LinkedIn calls on me to offer an opinion.  I’ve never had to be this hardcore about the finances.  Another great reason why I spend so much time in spreadsheets aside from writing on the internet.  It’s much easier to approach a professional consultant with twenty years of experience with an invoice than it is to tether them to your payroll with benefits.  I’m always having to think six months ahead myself.  This has an advantage to it insofar that I don’t often look back.  You pay your taxes and you move on.  There are many things I could do to generate income.  I could make a zine and sell it quarterly on bandcamp along with shirts.  I could post flyers around the neighborhood offering after christmas tech support.  I could scour the net for opportunities to audit galvanized IT departments.  I could do all this with more confidence if I could say I am employed.  I could also hire someone to help me.  But I could do none of this and deduct expenses without applying for a sole proprietorship.  And truth be told I already have to claim this for the New York Stock Exchange.  So if you had to put a label on what I do now it isn’t really that much different from any other business.  The state’s richest men started as LLCs.  They’re also the biggest pricks who pay the least taxes.  Trickle down economics is a funny concept.  Businesses offer jobs they deduct from their income therefore paying less to the pool.  This would be fine for small income generating businesses.  But Ken Griffin would say otherwise as he and other rich people benefit from this structure.  They say the American Dream is owning your own business.  So welcome to my personal nightmare.  I hope you don’t mind me taking the itemized deductions after how I’ve been treated.
I don’t actually know how it’s going to work out.  I just know I don’t want to appear unemployed while corporate America expects me to wink and make them more money.  There are investments that have worked out for me as volatile as they might be.  One Chinese company I invested in has made the CEO twelve times richer.  I own four hundred and twenty shares of that company in a brokerage.  My intent is to hold on to them for the long term possibly making someone richer at my own risk.  I could short the entire next year to my heart’s content.  My credit scores have gone through the roof.  Nobody has had any answers for me on what to do.  Nobody has coached me.  I read.  I think.  I come up with solutions to my problems.  And I put money in the right places.  That doesn’t mean anything is a sure thing.  Especially when my government finds it more advantageous to punish other countries while forgetting about it’s own people.  I am absolutely in the dark about everything.  Everything except running my own business in America.  I already have income I have to report over the next three years due the CARES act.  So that is income I will deduct.  This is how it works here in America.  You seize the means of production and you go to work.  If it seems backward for me, you wouldn’t know the half.  My life is so fucked up in terms of how hazy and confusing other people have made it.  People invaded my life on pretenses that I can’t even begin to explain.  And part of being a strong, responsible adult is engineering your way out of these problems.  And for the most part, I’ve engineered myself into a fort that overlooks the CTA train.  And a small portion of that fort can be written off as an office.  Which in some ways if you do the math makes rent and utilities cheaper in the long run.  I don’t make the rules.  This is how America works.  A LLC gets a tax id number.  It allows you better options for retirement savings with a SEP IRA.  You can apply for business accounts and waive taxes on business purchases.  Even the family dollar around the corner has a sign in the window reminding me I can apply for tax free status.  Maybe they’re mostly to blame for planting the idea in my head.  I’m the one who made the call to apply.  Nobody held my hand.  You could also get audited by the IRS.  And I’m sure the IRS would have to figure out how I got into this situation in the first place.  Maybe they’d offer me a job. There’s other fantasies in my life I could imagine happening more than that waking nightmare.  Like actually having money to retire.  I could be travelling around the world cleaning up the mess mark to market accounting has left on big business.  The scars on economies the rich have pock marked on the middle class.  Or I could just keep generating income and be my own boss here in my kitchen.  The one thing I do know is that is sexier to be confident enough to move ahead with your own plan slowly than to short a bunch of stocks disruptively and brag about it on the internet.  You could call it my three year plan.  Don’t ask me how bonds factor in that equation.  I’m not a spy.  What I am is a guy that is trying to be the solution and not the victim.  And that guy doesn’t ever want to be a burden on the people I love.  So that guy is going to keep doing what he does.  And I’m not going to lie that you inspire me to do so.  As sexy and confident as I’m born to be.  <3 Tim
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nickgerlich · 3 years
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Just Walk Out
If COVID has reinforced anything, it is the need for more frictionless transactions. To that end, home delivery services have risen like no one could have ever expected. E-commerce is a shooting star. And when it comes to retail, the less human contact we can have, the better. Think self-check lanes everywhere.
And now comes news that Amazon, long a proponent of this kind of thing even before COVID, is going to transform two of its 500+ Whole Foods stores into cashier-less groceries using its Just Walk Out software and technologies. It’s an easy proposition if you are already an Amazon member, because you just tap an app upon entering and then upon leaving, and literally just walk out with your stuff.
Amazon is also selling its software to other stores, making it possible to “just walk out” in a growing number of establishments. If I were thinking about pursuing a career as a cashier, I’d be worried, because this is going to take off.
Like at the Hudson Nonstop store at Dallas Love Field, which opened 22 February 2021. I recently saw it in action, and I’ll just say that my jaw dropped for a few minutes. Tap or insert your card, follow the one-way path, grab what you want, and then keep on walking. It completely eliminates the human aspect, other than the one employee stationed near the entry to handle questions and so forth. I had five hours to kill, so this was my entertainment.
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The use of automation is spilling over into other areas as well. Dallas restaurant La Duni is among a growing number of venues deploying robots to serve as hosts and runners. With staffing problems plaguing nearly every aspect of retail, it signals a tidal shift in the labor part of the equation.
As I have long said, robots and other automated processes do not call in sick, don’t make errors, provide consistent service all day every day, and don’t join labor unions.
I realize that people ranging from social critics to Luddites will blanch at the idea of more jobs being lost to automation, but this is nothing new. Remember that the next time you pump your own gas, use an ATM or online banking, or book your reservations with an app. If you want to get picky about it, we could go back to the early-1900s and moan about bicycle shops and farriers losing out to the car.
We have more than a century of automation completely redefining every aspect of our economy, and if you won’t get with the trend, you will be left behind. Many of the jobs being deleted by technology are low-wage or minimum-wage positions, which means the poorest among us will be hurt the most. The burden will now be placed, rightly or wrongly, on them to figure out how to gain a few marketable job skills.
Meanwhile, I applaud these efforts to streamline business such that it benefits the company as well as the shopper. I am thinking of the Walmart on the northwest side of Amarillo that must be serving as a test site for using nearly 100% self-check stands. There are (if memory serves) two staffed stations on each end, and at least two dozen self-check stands in the middle.
Hey, if it solves the problem of Walmart seemingly never having enough lines open, I’m all for it. Besides, I’d rather do this myself.
And just walk out.
Dr “Back To The Future Now“ Gerlich
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An Amazing Guy
Sunday Evening Thoughts
May 3, 2020
Dear Paul and Rachel,
                                               An Amazing Guy
As a father has compassion for his children, the LORD has compassion for those who fear him. Psalm 103:13
I write this last Sunday Evening Thoughts in mid-March alone at the Tidewater Appalachian Trail Club cabin on a beautiful, early, spring night. Hard life, I know!
There is a serious pandemic starting with the Covid-19 virus and the noise about the virus in the news is driving me crazy, plus Trump disgusts me. Any person who would mimic a handicap person is not just crude, but disgusting. 
As I said last time, S.E.T. began only as a quick note to two of you. A few of your friends saw it and asked to be linked and whenever I met any of your roommates or friends I asked them if they wanted to join. They all said yes. At one point I had about 50-70 college kids reading it — a real “feel-good “ moment for me.
In this last S.E.T. I want to talk again about Daddy Jack, your grandfather, whom I mentioned in many early Thoughts. He is the best man I’ve ever known. An amazing guy. 
Daddy Jack was a great man, though he had little education. At age 15 he quit school in the 8th grade and joined the Navy. He lied about his age. My grandfather had just died a few months before (perhaps of the Flu Epidemic of 1918?). They had become poor, and his aunt signed the permission slip as my grandmother, knowing her sister would not prosecute. I don’t think Mama Miano minded deep down, after all her husband, Papa Miano, left Taormina, Siciy in 1877 by himself as a 16-year-old. I’ve recently come to realize that is also why it was no big deal when I left home at age 14, only to return intermittently. 
He told me, whether the story is apocryphal or literal I don’t know, that when he joined the Navy he immediately left for a trip to South America, and as was typical in 1918 whenever you crossed the equator for the first time, the older sailors always tossed the newbies overboard. 
That story always sounded cool!
Once when I was 16, I came home on a brief summer vacation. I had been hanging out with “those Westhaven Boys” (a derisive name from Nanny Jean, your grandmother, meaning trashy, dirty, or hoodlums - the “hoodlums” word she often used), and I did stroll into the house late one Friday evening a... a… a… little starry eyed. Daddy Jack looking up from his bifocals, as he was crocheting, said, “You know on my first trip to South America when I first joined the Navy, we went to Columbia, South America,” he paused, then continued, “they have a different kind of cigarette in Columbia than we do here in the U.S.” 
That’s all he said, and went back to crocheting. I knew then I had a cool dad.
I have never met a person who was so streetwise, and yet still so cheerful about life. Formal education, no; street education, a PhD. Amazing!
How amazing? The day of his funeral, all five of his children, except for my sister who had had a Caesarian section two days before with her third child and was still in the hospital but had been valiantly replaced by her husband — a good guy, were standing around Daddy Jack’s casket joking on him because of his favorite tie: A gaudy, out-of-style tie, with permanent spaghetti sauce embedded on his red, white, and blue stripes (Daddy Jack was always patriotic in a proud sense. I think now part of his patriotism was directly influenced by the Navy providing him three square meals when he was a hungry 15-year-old kid, and food and shelter for his wife and family in the coming years. Don’t read that as greedy, only pragmatic), expressed:
(Oldest son #1) “Hey guys, unfortunately Daddy really loved me the most. I know he loved you too, but I was the oldest, a Junior no less, and I know he loved me the most.”
(Son #2) “Where in the world did you get that? No way!” with voice levels starting to rise, “I joined the Navy at age 17. You all know Daddy retired after 26 years as a Chief, something he was very proud of, and I followed in his footsteps becoming a Navy Electrician no less, just like him. He loved me the best, I know.”
(Son-in-law to Daddy Jack and husband to Child #3) “With all of you boys in the house growing up, you know how he always protected her, and there was nothing she could do wrong in his eyes. Sorry fellows, but I think he loved her the most, and I know she agrees.”
(Third son #4 child) “Woe mules, slow down,” decibel levels inching-up, “I am certain he loved me the most. I was the first to go to a seminary, and he always wanted a son who was a priest.”
(Lastly, Moi #5) “You guys are crazy!” with the volume so loud that only the dead can’t hear us and hands gesturing to emphasize my point. “I know for a fact Daddy loved me the most. He retired when I started the 5th Grade, and he drove me to school every day that year. We were pals! We played chess all during elementary and junior high. We actually did hang-out. Definitely, he loved me the most!”
He was that amazing! That every child could be so self-assured he loved them the most. A true gift. 
I am confident he is someone you would love to have known.
Van taught me about business. Daddy Jack taught me about life. Clem taught me about the Gospel. All three lessons precisely combine my philosophy (and the ancient Hebrew biblical authors) on a fulfilled life: Food, sex, and the Lord are all your you need to enjoy a happy life! Pretty simple.
It’s been a great run with Sunday Evening Thoughts, but it’s ending. Paul and Rachel, you are completing your doctorates, and nobody is in college. Congratulations to Paul and Rachel! 
You guys are wonderful. As all of you head into your professional worlds, remember the little guy.
Have a great week..
Love
Dad
P.S. Here is a nice little tribute to John Prine who died recently during the coronavirus outbreak by Dave Matthews. Crank it up!
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herarebels · 4 years
Text
A folklore review by an aspiring author.
the 1
The beginning sounds like a college coming of age movie, and then follows the narrator as she looks back through her previous relationship.
cardigan
I really love the imagery. And I love the parallel of the narrator is told she knows nothing because she is young, but she insists that she knows one thing- her lover. I’m also getting young adult Victorian London romance vibes.
the last great american dynasty
I really like how Taylor equates herself to Rebekah, and says that she is the next mad woman to own the house. (Is Mad Woman about Taylor or Rebekah?!) I love that Taylor says that she did all of the things that Rebekah did. The past tense of the last few lyrics made it sound like Taylor sold the house?
exile
I loveeee this song to write about a romantic couple too. I love her imagery, and her word choice. I’m imagining this couple still being in love, but they were separated by a misunderstanding. And now that they see each other in a location, and now they don’t know what they’re living for because they still love the other person, but they feel like the relationship is unfixable.
my tears ricochet
I like the intro vocals/instrumental. I have two thoughts going off of this song. (WHEN I”M SCREAMING AT THE SKY?!) The woman died, and her ghost is watching her love interest at the funeral. What if this is the couple from the song before (?!?!?) and the woman died unexpectedly, and her ghost is haunting her love interest because she still loves them even after their mistakes. Or it could be the couple from above, and the burying is their breakup. She’s fighting because she wants to stay for her love interest. (I’m getting real forbidden love vibes here.) Maybe they were enemies to lovers, and he had to kill her, and now she haunts him. This song really fits Daenerys and Jon really well too.
mirrorball
I love the effect on Taylor’s voice. I see myself and what I used to do in the past in this song. This could be taken literally as Taylor’s need for the audience and how she changes herself to keep their attention. And she wants to be a source of comfort and entertainment for her fans, even when no one pays attention to her anymore. But it could be taken as another romantic thing where one partner just wants to make the other happy and they have each other as the world burns down (dancing with our hands tied bridge anyone?!)
seven
Aw I really like this cute song about Taylor’s childhood. I like that she recalls her attitude as a child being less subdued, and that as she grew up she had to do so to become more civil. I also just like her wondering if there are any good things in the world anymore, and equating those good things to her childhood. (Also, INTHAF vibes.)
august
Okay I claimed this one off of the tracklist, so hopefully it’s good lol. AHHH ITS SO CUTE! I’m getting college relationship vibes. *its one of the love triangle songs* “Back when I was living for the hope of it all” I really love the music and her voice in this one, it matches the vibes of the song perfectly.
this is me trying
So um I accidentally skipped this song, so this review is not going to be as coherent as the other songs in this place of the album. (You should probably skip this review and then come back to this after you read hoax.) I love the echo effect on her voice. This is the third song of the love triangle that I couldn’t find in betty lol. Another forbidden love. What the hell. Wait, this is super short. And I love it. Dang.
illicit affairs
The high *down* and *stop* and *him*. FORBIDDEN LOVE VIBES AGAIN. Could this be the same couple from exile and my tears ricochet? OOooh I love the harmonies. I love the bridge! (Honestly I think I’m going to need to make a couple of new OCs for this trinity of songs.)
invisible string
Hahaha bad blood easter egg. I really like the idea of invisible strings tying all of the people of your life to you. This is a really cute love song to Joe. This is sooooo cute.
mad woman
I have been forewarned that this is a doozy. Oh Taylor is out for blood people. She’s gonna be burning the witches now. We all know the “two” she’s talking about. Oh. Wait. I don’t really appreciate how Taylor is talking about one of their wives however. (I know that it does not directly reference the people that she’s talking about, but there is so much media attention on this topic that anyone could figure it out.) While she does make a good point that the woman isn’t mad at her husband because of societal conditioning. I believe that is not Taylor’s business and she really shouldn’t have put that in a song in my opinion. Overall, good song! I just didn’t agree with those few lines at the end.
epiphany
Oh frick this is going to be sad isn’t it. Wait is this the song about her grandfather in WWII?!? It is. Oh no. Anddddd she mashed it with covid. Nice dude. I’m totally fine. I like the servitude theme of the song. I like the notes and the backtrack of the song, I think it really fits the topic. This song really fits our world right now, and I like how she related it to devastated events of our history. It really shows that someday we will have our epiphany during this pandemic and we will get through it just like we got through everything else that happened in our history.
betty
So I saw three theories about this song:
1. Betty is Joe’s mom.
2. William Bowery is Joe writing with Taylor under a pseudonym.
3. Apparently Joe and Taylor are going to announce that they secretly got married in this song.
Let’s see how the theories pan out, shall we? I love the harmonicas! School children again? Maybe this is the love story of Joe’s parents? Joe’s dad better be named James. Wait what was the other song that talked about picking up somebody for a drive? August? Is this another love triangle song? Then if these two are the love triangle songs, where's the third? Did I miss it? Is CARDIGAN the third song? Why else would she reference it again? Dude I’m so confused.
peace
Okay, we are ignoring the whole love triangle debacle for now. Why is this titled peace but it’s explicit? I feel like those two words don’t go together. Wait this is the ultimate love song to Joe. I’m about to cry. I want this. I want what they have. I saw somewhere that Taylor told a secret sessioner during the rep sessions that the bridge to CIWYW was originally “dreaming of angels, raising angels into good people with you.” (I cannot confirm that this is true, I am believing this person’s word.) Taylor didn’t put it in because she was still worried about the delicate (lol) nature of their relationship, and she didn’t want any pregnancy rumors. But now in peace we get: “Give you my wild, give you a child.” Guys I’m actually crying rn. This is growth, and I want what they have one day. I want to be a part of a couple that never settles down and stays forever young. I want to be a part of a relationship that is romantic and that is also platonic. This is my next OTP song oh my gosh, it’s perfect.
hoax
I’m getting forbidden love break up vibes again. Why is this album full of songs like this? But this song also has a lot of references from Taylor’s life that she has sung about throughout the years. Is Joe the sadness that she’s referencing, idk? It’s really late and I know that she is talking about things in her life that she is already written about, but I’m not catching on to what they actually are.
overall thoughts:
I really like this album. This is a songwriting quality that we haven’t had from Taylor since Red. (Not that her other albums were bad at all!) I haven’t been a Taylor fan for very long. I grew up with YBWM and Love Story, and I knew all of the radio singles off of Red and 1989, but I didn’t become more than a casual listener until reputation (which is still my favorite album by her!) I write in the fantasy genre, so it’s really hard for me to write to 1989 and Lover, and I am not really familiar with self-titled, Fearless, and Speak Now.
What I love about this album more than her other albums, is that folklore isn’t really about Taylor’s life. As a media consumer, I like to know what the media I am watching, listening, or reading is about. Because of this, I know a lot of little details about Taylor’s love life and other things that have happened to her that she has written about. But as a writer it is hard for me to separate those instances in Taylor’s life from the songs. I can’t think of them objectively. So this album really gave me a lot of inspiration.
Also, this is a sound that we haven’t heard from Taylor since Red. Folk music really lends well to fantasy writing, and I was ecstatic when I saw the pictures yesterday morning. I just knew that it was going to be the Taylor version of a folk album. (One of my dream Taylor genres has been fulfilled, now I just need a WANEGBT 1989 tour-esqe album. Taylor pleaseeeeee.)
As of right now, all of the ones labeled forbidden love are my favorite. But I think my top three off of the album (in order) are:
peace
exile
my tears ricochet
Anyways, its 3:00 am and I am probably not making any sense anymore. I think I’m going to post this without checking it over. I apologize if any of this is incoherent. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
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itsfinancethings · 4 years
Link
Margaret Keane, CEO of Synchrony—a company that financed $140 billion in purchases for American shoppers last year, via a range of credit card programs—has lived all sides of the debt equation. When she was 10, growing up as one of six kids in Queens, her father, a police officer, developed a costly and ultimately fatal illness that she says left her family burdened with thousands in medical bills. “We were getting calls to shut the electric off,” she says. “I don’t think you could ever forget that.”
She put herself through college working as a debt collector, earning $5.50 an hour, making 90 calls a day, while a student at St. John’s University. She excelled and ended up in the management training program at Citibank before rising to run Synchrony, where she now presides over an army of employees approving loans, and also collecting them when borrowers fall behind.
The ability of consumers to keep paying their bills will play an outsized role in the post-pandemic recovery. So far, Keane is not seeing a spike in delinquencies one might expect given the plunge in economic activity, though the stimulus is clearly aiding those bill payments. “The consumer is definitely hanging in there,” she says.
Keane, 60, recently joined TIME for a video conversation on the mindset of the American consumer, the impact of small business health on any recovery, and what corporations need to do to help address systemic racism in society.
Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.
(This interview with Synchrony CEO Margaret Keane has been condensed and edited for clarity)
Your company was founded in 1932, another time of great financial distress, to help people buy appliances on credit. Now there are tens of million of Americans out of work. What parallels do you see?
What’s interesting about our company is the culture and the roots of how we came about was really during a time of crisis. And honestly, back in the day, when you think back, I know it doesn’t feel innovative now, but actually lending people money was a big deal.
What products were being sold?
Back in the ’30s, people would literally go to their local corner appliance store and pay weekly to get the appliance. You can imagine people weren’t working and GE wanted to sell appliances. So they came up with this idea, ‘Okay, how do we finance appliances?’ And that’s how the company started—GE wanted to sell appliances. Appliances were still relatively new for them. Having that at home was a big deal. It allowed the average American to have access to those kinds of luxuries back then.
How concerned are you about the health of the American consumer right now?
Coming into the crisis the consumer was very strong. People were paying their bills. Right now, we are not seeing real change to our performance on delinquencies. There’s two big unknowns. The first unknown is there’s been a lot of stimulus for people. I’m sure you’ve read, people put a lot more in savings.
Savings are at a record rate, right?
Record high, and then a second piece is people are paying their bills. Now the question is, is it the stimulus that’s helping them pay their bills, tax returns? What’s interesting to me is that consumers are being conservative. They’re being thoughtful about how they’re using their dollars. So what we need to do is say, ‘Okay, what happens when the stimulus stops? And then when the stimulus stops, how many people actually get back to work?’ That’s really the piece that’s a little uncertain right now.
With your partnerships with so many big retailers such as Lowe’s, Sam Clubs and the newly announced Verizon card, you have a lot of insights into consumer behavior. What are people buying now?
There’s a lot being spent around the home, home improvement. You can’t find plants now.There’s a lot being spent around the home, home improvement. You can’t find plants now. You can’t find vessels to plant in. Furniture obviously dropped, but didn’t drop completely. People are still buying online. What we did see though is that the ticket size was smaller because you didn’t have a sales person saying, ‘Oh, if you’re going to buy that chair, you might want to think about this table.”
Anything else?
Bikes. Fishing rods. All outdoor stuff now is kind of hard to get. I was just talking to someone who said you can’t find kayaks right now. People have just said I’m not going to take vacation. So I’m going to have vacation at home. And then there are people who say, ‘Okay, I really want to make my house more of my vacation.’
I’ve heard you mention that all of these Zoom calls are going to drive demand for another service that you finance.
We have our health care business, CareCredit. We do a lot with plastic surgeons. And I joked that the plastic surgery business is going to take off. And sure enough, it has taken off now that things have reopened.
Is that true? Do you think that’s driven by Zoom?
I use myself as an example. I’m looking at my face every day and there’s some things I should be getting. [LAUGHTER]. One of our employees, their wife is a nurse in a plastic surgery center, and she told her husband that she saw 32 patients in one day. It’s the most she’s ever seen in her entire career.
What economic indicators do you monitor to tell how consumers are feeling financially?
We look at things like are people paying less than their minimum payment? Are payment levels holding? And honestly, all of that’s holding. So that’s a sign for us that right now, the consumer is definitely hanging in there.
Purchase volume is the number of times people use their credit card?
Yeah, these are purchases on our card. Our cards across our merchant and retail and health care networks. When we started the pandemic, it started out, in March we were down 26%. It moved down to about 31% [in the first half of April.] And it’s now down 10% (in late May.)
TIME for Learning partnered with Columbia Business School to offer a series of online, on-demand classes on topics like effective leadership, negotiation and customer-centric marketing. To sign up or learn more, click here.
How are brick and mortar retail stores going to come out of this?
We have been over-retailed for a long time. There was a retail transformation happening even before COVID. And there were a number of retailers that were struggling. What the COVID experience has done is accelerate that transformation. And we’re seeing more bankruptcies and reductions in retail. We’re seeing, obviously, more and more people buy online than ever before. But people still like to go to a mall and get out and see things and touch things.
I know your view is that some of the problems in retail went beyond competition from e-commerce, right?
Online is not the only driver of why retail has had its troubles in opening. I think there were some fundamental challenges underneath. Too many stores. No investment in the stores themselves. Lack of inventory. I was in a store before this whole thing happened and, honestly, I had to really search to find someone to pay for something. You’re like, ‘Oh, my God, why am I even here?’
What is your biggest concern about the economy?
I’ve been through many crises before where we’ve modeled a lot of things out. We tend to model unemployment. I don’t think we’ll be at this 40 million unemployment number. I think the real concern that I have when I think of employment is more around the small business constituents here. And how many of them actually survive, right? I think the real question is how many people survive in the small business segment, and then what does that do to unemployment?
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And what are your models showing right now?
It will be a double-digit unemployment number we think going into 2021.
What’s your favorite letter these days to describe the expected shape of the recovery?
I think it’s going to be somewhat of a U, but it’s going to be a little elongated It’s going to be a little slower coming up.
How important are small businesses to the American economy overall?
We need a robust small business community here to make our economy in the U.S. work. Studies show they employ the most people. They keep our communities strong. As a country, small business is the heart of who we are. [On June 17, after the interview was conducted, Synchrony committed $5 million to support small business; $2 million of that amount is directed to minority and women owned businesses in underserved communities.]
And people still value the connection with local businesses.
I live in a little town here [In Connecticut] and I walk down my Main Street, and I keep saying ‘I love that store, I hope they’re going to be back. And that store, I hope they’re going to be back. The restaurants, I hope they’re going to be back.’ These are real businesses with real expenses that have been shut for quite awhile.
The majority of your 17,000 employees work in call centers. How is that going in the pandemic?
We moved the entire company to home. That’s much easier said than done because we literally had to give everyone the technology. We had to create a whole logistics process. We put those packets, if you will, together: Their work-at-home technology. And then they’d come into our call centers, pick it up. We had like a whole process. We have some funny stories of people driving in the middle of the night to meet the FedEx guy to get the headsets because they weren’t going to make it in the morning.
What’s in that kit?
It’s a laptop, it’s a camera, it’s headsets, it’s speakers. A mouse. But in addition to that, we had to work with them and make sure their network could handle it, too. There was a lot of back-and-forth on just getting them set up in the right environment at home.
That sounds expensive. What did that cost?
I have no idea how much we spent. I know it was a lot. But I didn’t even ask. If we weren’t in a pandemic, we would have had our 55 meetings before we got to the decision of, Okay, we’re going to move everybody home. Then we would have done the budget. Then we would have said, well, whatever. We didn’t do any of that. We moved.
When you were a debt collector back in the day, did you have a good spiel? Did you go off script?
Look, I always try to tell people, what you do learn in collecting is there are people that have real tragedies and really are trying to pay and they’re lawful. And there are those people who are trying to beat the system. And I think the trick of a collector is figuring out who those other people are, and just making sure you have empathy for the people that have hit something.
Did you have a good nose for the people that are trying to beat the system?
You don’t have it at the beginning. But then you do. I went into it with a very rose-colored kind of glass thing, And then you’re like, ‘Okay, now I realize what people are talking about.’ It’s the repeat offender that gets you.
How is your workforce doing, mental-health wise?
You know the whole work-at-home is a good thing, but it puts a lot of stress, particularly for women who are trying to home-school.If you asked our staff out in the field, they’re saying this is the biggest challenge we’re facing right now is a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. You know the whole work-at-home is a good thing, but it puts a lot of stress, particularly for women who are trying to home-school.
How do you respond to that?
We were working on mental health before COVID because it’s been very clear to me that we have a very stressed environment in our work right now. And there’s a lot of people who need extra support. So we were actually piloting some things in our call center, where some wellness coaches that were actually there at the site. So we now just transformed that to wellness through telemedicine. And we’ve expanded to offer free consultation with psychologists.
What has been your response to the outpouring of support to address systemic racism in society?
I have to as a leader recognize that we have some real work to do in society and the country. And we’re part of that. What can we do internally?
I didn’t want this to be like a check mark, like, We sent the note out. We all said ‘We’re sad.’ And then move on. This is a pivotal moment in our country that Synchrony can play a role inside its company, and then we’ve got to think about what we do outside the company. [On June 25, Synchrony announced a $5 million donation to organizations supporting social justice and equity.]
So corporations should be involved in this solution?
There’s no way we’re going to solve this, because there’s so many things that need to be solved, without corporations stepping up, engaging in our communities, and engaging with government. I think it’s all about how we lift everybody up through this. There’s how do we hire more diverse people in our company? How do we give more people of diversity, no matter what diversity, the opportunity inside our company? And we’ve been working on a lot of this. And we were very focused coming into this year on Black and Hispanic leadership. And particularly Black … because we don’t have enough. We’re doing a lot of soul-searching because we could pat ourselves, great places to work. We get all these awards. We’re great. But like let’s look at the numbers on some of these things and how we make a difference. We have to double down on all this right now.
KEANE’S FAVORITES
BUSINESS BOOK: I like leadership books. I loved Hamilton. I loved the Grant book. I love historical novels of people who have led. I’m very into those types of figures because look, they made a lot of very difficult decisions to bring our country together both times.
AUTHOR: I’m a big Nelson DeMille fan. I actually like his older stuff better because they’re so good
APP: Twitter. I use it to really stay abreast of what’s happening.
TIME MANAGEMENT TIP: I never go to sleep with an unread email. It’s zero every night.
PREFERRED STRESS RELIEF METHOD: In the middle of the day, I try to make an hour of time for myself to go take a walk outside. Just getting outside has a whole different feeling. And it’s funny because it’s not like I did that in my office. I would work all day, but for some reason I just need to get up, get out, clear my mind, and come back a little refreshed.
(Miss this week’s The Leadership Brief? This interview above was delivered to the inbox of Leadership Brief subscribers on Sunday morning, June 28; to receive emails of conversations with the world’s top CEO’s and business decision makers, click here. The Leadership Brief will not be published over the Fourth of July weekend. The next weekly edition will hit your inbox July 12.)
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newstechreviews · 4 years
Link
Margaret Keane, CEO of Synchrony—a company that financed $140 billion in purchases for American shoppers last year, via a range of credit card programs—has lived all sides of the debt equation. When she was 10, growing up as one of six kids in Queens, her father, a police officer, developed a costly and ultimately fatal illness that she says left her family burdened with thousands in medical bills. “We were getting calls to shut the electric off,” she says. “I don’t think you could ever forget that.”
She put herself through college working as a debt collector, earning $5.50 an hour, making 90 calls a day, while a student at St. John’s University. She excelled and ended up in the management training program at Citibank before rising to run Synchrony, where she now presides over an army of employees approving loans, and also collecting them when borrowers fall behind.
The ability of consumers to keep paying their bills will play an outsized role in the post-pandemic recovery. So far, Keane is not seeing a spike in delinquencies one might expect given the plunge in economic activity, though the stimulus is clearly aiding those bill payments. “The consumer is definitely hanging in there,” she says.
Keane, 60, recently joined TIME for a video conversation on the mindset of the American consumer, the impact of small business health on any recovery, and what corporations need to do to help address systemic racism in society.
Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.
(This interview with Synchrony CEO Margaret Keane has been condensed and edited for clarity)
Your company was founded in 1932, another time of great financial distress, to help people buy appliances on credit. Now there are tens of million of Americans out of work. What parallels do you see?
What’s interesting about our company is the culture and the roots of how we came about was really during a time of crisis. And honestly, back in the day, when you think back, I know it doesn’t feel innovative now, but actually lending people money was a big deal.
What products were being sold?
Back in the ’30s, people would literally go to their local corner appliance store and pay weekly to get the appliance. You can imagine people weren’t working and GE wanted to sell appliances. So they came up with this idea, ‘Okay, how do we finance appliances?’ And that’s how the company started—GE wanted to sell appliances. Appliances were still relatively new for them. Having that at home was a big deal. It allowed the average American to have access to those kinds of luxuries back then.
How concerned are you about the health of the American consumer right now?
Coming into the crisis the consumer was very strong. People were paying their bills. Right now, we are not seeing real change to our performance on delinquencies. There’s two big unknowns. The first unknown is there’s been a lot of stimulus for people. I’m sure you’ve read, people put a lot more in savings.
Savings are at a record rate, right?
Record high, and then a second piece is people are paying their bills. Now the question is, is it the stimulus that’s helping them pay their bills, tax returns? What’s interesting to me is that consumers are being conservative. They’re being thoughtful about how they’re using their dollars. So what we need to do is say, ‘Okay, what happens when the stimulus stops? And then when the stimulus stops, how many people actually get back to work?’ That’s really the piece that’s a little uncertain right now.
With your partnerships with so many big retailers such as Lowe’s, Sam Clubs and the newly announced Verizon card, you have a lot of insights into consumer behavior. What are people buying now?
There’s a lot being spent around the home, home improvement. You can’t find plants now.There’s a lot being spent around the home, home improvement. You can’t find plants now. You can’t find vessels to plant in. Furniture obviously dropped, but didn’t drop completely. People are still buying online. What we did see though is that the ticket size was smaller because you didn’t have a sales person saying, ‘Oh, if you’re going to buy that chair, you might want to think about this table.”
Anything else?
Bikes. Fishing rods. All outdoor stuff now is kind of hard to get. I was just talking to someone who said you can’t find kayaks right now. People have just said I’m not going to take vacation. So I’m going to have vacation at home. And then there are people who say, ‘Okay, I really want to make my house more of my vacation.’
I’ve heard you mention that all of these Zoom calls are going to drive demand for another service that you finance.
We have our health care business, CareCredit. We do a lot with plastic surgeons. And I joked that the plastic surgery business is going to take off. And sure enough, it has taken off now that things have reopened.
Is that true? Do you think that’s driven by Zoom?
I use myself as an example. I’m looking at my face every day and there’s some things I should be getting. [LAUGHTER]. One of our employees, their wife is a nurse in a plastic surgery center, and she told her husband that she saw 32 patients in one day. It’s the most she’s ever seen in her entire career.
What economic indicators do you monitor to tell how consumers are feeling financially?
We look at things like are people paying less than their minimum payment? Are payment levels holding? And honestly, all of that’s holding. So that’s a sign for us that right now, the consumer is definitely hanging in there.
Purchase volume is the number of times people use their credit card?
Yeah, these are purchases on our card. Our cards across our merchant and retail and health care networks. When we started the pandemic, it started out, in March we were down 26%. It moved down to about 31% [in the first half of April.] And it’s down 10% in late May.
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How are brick and mortar retail stores going to come out of this?
We have been over-retailed for a long time. There was a retail transformation happening even before COVID. And there were a number of retailers that were struggling. What the COVID experience has done is accelerate that transformation. And we’re seeing more bankruptcies and reductions in retail. We’re seeing, obviously, more and more people buy online than ever before. But people still like to go to a mall and get out and see things and touch things.
I know your view is that some of the problems in retail went beyond competition from e-commerce, right?
Online is not the only driver of why retail has had its troubles in opening. I think there were some fundamental challenges underneath. Too many stores. No investment in the stores themselves. Lack of inventory. I was in a store before this whole thing happened and, honestly, I had to really search to find someone to pay for something. You’re like, ‘Oh, my God, why am I even here?’
What is your biggest concern about the economy?
I’ve been through many crises before where we’ve modeled a lot of things out. We tend to model unemployment. I don’t think we’ll be at this 40 million unemployment number. I think the real concern that I have when I think of employment is more around the small business constituents here. And how many of them actually survive, right? I think the real question is how many people survive in the small business segment, and then what does that do to unemployment?
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And what are your models showing right now?
It will be a double-digit unemployment number we think going into 2021.
What’s your favorite letter these days to describe the expected shape of the recovery?
I think it’s going to be somewhat of a U, but it’s going to be a little elongated It’s going to be a little slower coming up.
How important are small businesses to the American economy overall?
We need a robust small business community here to make our economy in the U.S. work. Studies show they employ the most people. They keep our communities strong. As a country, small business is the heart of who we are. [On June 17, after the interview was conducted, Synchrony committed $5 million to support small business; $2 million of that amount is directed to minority and women owned businesses in underserved communities.]
And people still value the connection with local businesses.
I live in a little town here [In Connecticut] and I walk down my Main Street, and I keep saying ‘I love that store, I hope they’re going to be back. And that store, I hope they’re going to be back. The restaurants, I hope they’re going to be back.’ These are real businesses with real expenses that have been shut for quite awhile.
The majority of your 17,000 employees work in call centers. How is that going in the pandemic?
We moved the entire company to home. That’s much easier said than done because we literally had to give everyone the technology. We had to create a whole logistics process. We put those packets, if you will, together: Their work-at-home technology. And then they’d come into our call centers, pick it up. We had like a whole process. We have some funny stories of people driving in the middle of the night to meet the FedEx guy to get the headsets because they weren’t going to make it in the morning.
What’s in that kit?
It’s a laptop, it’s a camera, it’s headsets, it’s speakers. A mouse. But in addition to that, we had to work with them and make sure their network could handle it, too. There was a lot of back-and-forth on just getting them set up in the right environment at home.
That sounds expensive. What did that cost?
I have no idea how much we spent. I know it was a lot. But I didn’t even ask. If we weren’t in a pandemic, we would have had our 55 meetings before we got to the decision of, Okay, we’re going to move everybody home. Then we would have done the budget. Then we would have said, well, whatever. We didn’t do any of that. We moved.
When you were a debt collector back in the day, did you have a good spiel? Did you go off script?
Look, I always try to tell people, what you do learn in collecting is there are people that have real tragedies and really are trying to pay and they’re lawful. And there are those people who are trying to beat the system. And I think the trick of a collector is figuring out who those other people are, and just making sure you have empathy for the people that have hit something.
Did you have a good nose for the people that are trying to beat the system?
You don’t have it at the beginning. But then you do. I went into it with a very rose-colored kind of glass thing, And then you’re like, ‘Okay, now I realize what people are talking about.’ It’s the repeat offender that gets you.
How is your workforce doing, mental-health wise?
You know the whole work-at-home is a good thing, but it puts a lot of stress, particularly for women who are trying to home-school.If you asked our staff out in the field, they’re saying this is the biggest challenge we’re facing right now is a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. You know the whole work-at-home is a good thing, but it puts a lot of stress, particularly for women who are trying to home-school.
How do you respond to that?
We were working on mental health before COVID because it’s been very clear to me that we have a very stressed environment in our work right now. And there’s a lot of people who need extra support. So we were actually piloting some things in our call center, where some wellness coaches that were actually there at the site. So we now just transformed that to wellness through telemedicine. And we’ve expanded to offer free consultation with psychologists.
What has been your response to the outpouring of support to address systemic racism in society?
I have to as a leader recognize that we have some real work to do in society and the country. And we’re part of that. What can we do internally?
I didn’t want this to be like a check mark, like, We sent the note out. We all said ‘We’re sad.’ And then move on. This is a pivotal moment in our country that Synchrony can play a role inside its company, and then we’ve got to think about what we do outside the company. [On June 25, Synchrony announced a $5 million donation to organizations supporting social justice and equity.]
So corporations should be involved in this solution?
There’s no way we’re going to solve this, because there’s so many things that need to be solved, without corporations stepping up, engaging in our communities, and engaging with government. I think it’s all about how we lift everybody up through this. There’s how do we hire more diverse people in our company? How do we give more people of diversity, no matter what diversity, the opportunity inside our company? And we’ve been working on a lot of this. And we were very focused coming into this year on Black and Hispanic leadership. And particularly Black … because we don’t have enough. We’re doing a lot of soul-searching because we could pat ourselves, great places to work. We get all these awards. We’re great. But like let’s look at the numbers on some of these things and how we make a difference. We have to double down on all this right now.
KEANE’S FAVORITES
BUSINESS BOOK: I like leadership books. I loved Hamilton. I loved the Grant book. I love historical novels of people who have led. I’m very into those types of figures because look, they made a lot of very difficult decisions to bring our country together both times.
AUTHOR: I’m a big Nelson DeMille fan. I actually like his older stuff better because they’re so good
APP: Twitter. I use it to really stay abreast of what’s happening.
TIME MANAGEMENT TIP: I never go to sleep with an unread email. It’s zero every night.
PREFERRED STRESS RELIEF METHOD: In the middle of the day, I try to make an hour of time for myself to go take a walk outside. Just getting outside has a whole different feeling. And it’s funny because it’s not like I did that in my office. I would work all day, but for some reason I just need to get up, get out, clear my mind, and come back a little refreshed.
(Miss this week’s The Leadership Brief? This interview above was delivered to the inbox of Leadership Brief subscribers on Sunday morning, June 28; to receive emails of conversations with the world’s top CEO’s and business decision makers, click here. The Leadership Brief will not be published over the Fourth of July weekend. The next weekly edition will hit your inbox July 12.)
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d2kvirus · 4 years
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Dickheads of the Month: April 2020
As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of April 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.
Remember when Donald Trump thought he knew better than the WHO and said the CDC would do all Covid-19 testing...because nobody told him that would set back testing by at least three weeks?  You did?  Well that’s a problem, because he’s cut WHO funding because he’s trying to blame them for the risking death toll in the US rather than accept that it may have been his own incompetence that should be held accountable
...and you know he fucked up given Kellyanne Conway was dug up to speak absolute bollocks to try and pin the blame on the WHO by ignoring the fact that it;s called Covid-19 as the disease was discovered in 2019 and instead trying to claim that the WHO didn't tell us about eighteen previous outbreaks so Daddy Trump is justified in being a sociopath
But the President of Jonestown The United States Donald Trump didn’t stop there, as his next genius idea was to suggest that people inject disinfectant into their veins to combat Covid-19, apparently unaware that a 100ml dose of Dettol is...what’s that word again?  Oh yeah, now I remember: lethal
Does anyone remember that Matt Hancock tested positive for Covid-19 on March 27th?  I have to ask, because on 2nd April he was on press conference duty instead of self-isolating, and because he was on press conference duty he was risking infection of the two people flanking him during the conference who had to squeeze past him on their way to their lecterns
It says a lot about the British press and their motivations that they were all running headlines saying “Huzzah!” because Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson had recovered from Covid-19 after spending two nights in intensive care...with no mention whatsoever to the fact that, on both of the days he was in intensive care, the UK death rate was over 900
...of course we shouldn’t be surprised that Alison Pearson responded to the news of proven liar Boris Johnson being moved out of intensive care with an even more enthusiastic “Huzzah!” than her boot-licking peers, but to make a direct equation between his health and the health of the nation is the sort of thing usually reserved for works of dystopian fiction
Yet as soon as proven liar Boris Johnson slithered back into Downing Street after self-isolating the first thing he spoke of was “our apparent success” - because 20,000 deaths, and that’s just the number in hospital (aka the official figure) is a “success” now and definitely not a reason to ask why the fuck the absolute fucking cretin sat on his backside for six weeks and skived off a string of COBRA meetings instead of, oh I don’t know, bother to come up with a fucking plan for an impending pandemic
There was something utterly bizarre about how the Department of Health and Social Care responded to the revelation that one of Dominic Cummings’ troll farms had created dozens of Twitter profiles purporting to be those of NHS staff but were actually a group of his underlings using fake profiles to direct the day’s media narrative by claiming that the story was “categorically false” in spite of the wealth of evidence that the story was categorically true, especially in the case of the figurehead of this latest dirty tricks campaign “NHS Susan” as the profile photo was clearly of somebody clearly not named Susan that was nicked off of Unison’s website
So not only does Matt Hancock say it is not the time to talk about increasing NHS salaries at the exact time when they’re overworked due to having to try and stem the tide of the Tory’s lackadaisical attitude to preparing for Covid-19, but he also thinks he can blame NHS staff for their lack of protective equipment by saying it;s their fault they don’t have enough as they’re not using what little equipment they have until it’s literally falling to pieces...which is hardly what any normal human being would call “protective”, is it?
Mayor of Amity Island Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis continued his campaign of being the villain of every disaster movie ever when he decided that WWE shall be classified as “essential business” in Florida, which of course has nothing to do with DeSantis being in Trump’s pocket and the wife of the bloke running WWE being in Trump’s cabinet
...although Racoon City Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman soon one-upped even this stupidity when she suggested re-opening Vegas’ casinos not just so people could get back to work, but also so there would be a control group to test just how necessary social distancing measures really are amidst widespread protests from ignorant cretins loudly demanding a haircut
Yet after the $18m bung from WWE had cleared and they were classified as an “essential business” in Florida, the next phase of the plan was releasing a glut of talent from their contracts - which is certainly not related to how WWE head honcho Vince McMahon lied to WWE stockholders about how WWE definitely did not hold a stake in the revived XFL...only for it to come out when the XFL went belly up for a second time in twenty years that WWE held a 23.5% stake in the franchise
Naturally the response from the “centrists” of Twitter when Labour Leaks got out wasn’t one of the dawning realisation that they had been duped by those who so vociferously campaigned against Jeremy Corbyn after a wealth of evidence that the likes of Tom Watson, Mike Gapes, West Streeting and Chris Leslie were among the names sinking to new lows trying to force out Jeremy Corbyn up to and including gaslighting MPs, tipping off journalists to the whereabouts of Diane Abbott so the press could keep hounding her and actively slowing down investigations into antisemitism to make Corbyn look bad - no, instead their response was howling indignantly that somebody would dare blow the whistle on everything that was going on behind the scenes that had long been suspected but now there was proof that those suspicions didn't even scratch the surface
...which was less baffling than Emilie Oldknow responding to her being revealed as one of those responsible for the hounding of Abbott and various other attempts to cost Labour the 2017 election by threatening to sue the Labour Party, as if the information about what she, Iain McNicol, Tracey Allen, Julie Lawrence, Simon Mills, Patrick Heneghan, Sarah Mulholland, and John Stolliday were up to - as if the leak didn’t come from one of that group forwarding their entire WhatsApp log to their Labour email account  
Are we supposed to ignore how Matt Hancock said that four doctors “and some nurses” dying of Covid-19 made it look uncannily like he was saying that nurses were expendable?  Just like we’re supposed to ignore Matt Hancock saying that 19 NHS staff have died of Covid-19, at a time when the figure was somewhere between 28-31?
...but of course smirking cretin Priti Patel crawled out of the hermetically-sealed bunker she spent several weeks hiding in to announce "Three hundred thousand and thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand tests” for Covid-19 had been carried out across the UK, which somehow hasn’t led to three years of dogpiling for flubbing her figures like Diane Abbott got
After all the talk form Keir Starmer saying he would unite the Labour party, when choosing his shadow cabinet he made it quite clear that he had no intention of doing so: the likes of Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips and Wes Streeting all got nice jobs after years of sniping at Jeremy Corbyn, Rebecca Long-bailey and Emily Thornberry got clear demotions, which was better than what Barry Gardiner, Dawn Butler, Andy McDonald and Richard Burgon got as they were all dispatched to the backbenches PDQ
A book can be written about how Stephen Moore somehow equated those protesting stay-at-home orders with Rosa Parks, for the simple reason that an entire book needs to be written to try and engage with the complete lack of anything approaching knowledge, logic or common sense that would enable to say something so utterly moronic that it’s legitimately painful to read
The worst thing about the selfish cretins who hate lockdown taking to the streets...okay, that’s a multiple choice question on its own, but the fact they keep hollering into people’s faces that being in lockdown violates their Freedom of Speech because they can’t have some minimum wage peon cut their hair on the third Tuesday of every month like they used to is so utterly pathetic that it means there’s two reasons why guards at the Michigan capitol should have opened fire when the selfish morons descended upon them
Smirking cretin Priti Patel decided that, just as it was announced that 20,000 people had died in hospital of Covid-19 in the UK, the best idea was to announce that there had been a decrease in arrests for shoplifting in the UK compared to this time last year.  Just a thought: maybe it’s because there’s been a dramatic decrease in shops to shoplift from compared to this time last year due to the vast majority of them being closed?
When it dawned on the Professional Footballers Association that their stance of telling players to not accept any wage cut at a time where clubs were furloughing staff, they took the only available option to them: act like a bunch of spineless cowards and claim that, if footballers took a 30% wage cut, that would mean money was being taken out of the NHS’s pocket...a claim that was slightly undermined by them clearly pulling a figure out of their backsides when trying to say how much money that would be 
Not even a pandemic can stop Margaret Hodge and her tiresome vendetta against Jeremy Corbyn, judging by how as soon as Keir Starmer got his feet under the desk as Labour leader she was demanding a full and thorough investigation into how Jeremy Corbyn owned her at a public event in the mid-90s and made her look like a shrieking harpy with no understanding on any subject
While me singling out Amanda Holden for making herself the public face of the batshit insane 5G Truthers is a little bit mean, the fact that she made herself the public face of the 5G Truthers justifies her inclusion - with Eamonn Holmes also deciding to get in on that action a week or so later
...although she was soon put in her place when David Icke resurfaced to show people what batshit insane looks like and made himself the face of the 5G Truther movement while screaming how he’s being censored after vomiting misinformation in a livestream that Youtube promptly took down
Of course Alan Sugar was going to give his £0.02 about the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown at some point, at he didn’t disappoint when his take on the whole thing was journalists shouldn’t question the government (as if that’s been an issue in the last ten years...) and everyone should just shut up and not complain as if the 20,000+ deaths are a mere inconvenience and shouldn’t be referenced at any point because we are so much better off with a Tory government, even one that can’t be fucking bothered to do things such as prepare in any way for an impending pandemic reaching the country
It’s natural that Guido Blog responded to that NHS doctor who put his name and face to criticism of the government’s complete lack of supplying the NHS with enough protective equipment to keep NHS staff safe during a pandemic in the most Guido Blog way possible: by pointing the finger and calling him “anti-Britait”, “anti-Israel”, “pro-Palestine” (as if one doesn’t usually go without the other...) and a “socialist” - which simply asks the question that, if he was a pro-Leave, pro-Israel capitalist, would they actually be criticising them?
NASCAR’s virtual season hit a bump in the road after Kyle Larson momentarily mistook himself for PewDipShit and used a racial slur during the stream, getting himself suspended by both NASCAR and his team - and also got bitched out by literally every other NASCAR driver who was in the live chat
Apparently the worst thing that Paul Joseph Watson has had to endure in recent weeks isn’t the worldwide pandemic that’s affecting everyone but the most lunkheaded of people who hate not having minimum wage peons serving them every day, instead the worst he had to endure was getting blocked on Twitter by Piers Moron - and boy, did he have one hell of a meltdown about it...
Nothing sums up the “journalism” provided by The Sun than their front page bellowing how pubs might not reopen until Christmas, a front page embellished with the quote “596 dead: see page four” superimposed on a Covid-19 microbe graphic in the small piece of real estate left by the headline.  If ever there was an image that summed up why their hacks are taking to Twitter to literally beg people to buy their rag, this would be it
The determination of Alison Pearson to be on the wrong side of every story continued apace with her tweeting about a couple of her friends leaving lockdown due to being bored, and when asked if she would report them her response was to harrumph that they’ll be fine as they’re healthy people in their 40s and 50s...the problem being that, a few weeks before this, she was posting an article in the Telegraph howling about the selfishness of people who believe that self-isolation need not apply to them
Of course Randy Pitchford waited before the focus was elsewhere, such as the Covid-19 epidemic, before telling the Gearbox employees who worked on Borderlands 3 that, actually, those bonuses they were promised wouldn’t be coming as the game didn’t perform as expected even though their bonuses weren’t tied to sales or review scores, but of course if they had a problem with this they were free to quit...and by complete coincidence that would see them forfeit the scaled-back bonus entirely
On the one hand Steve Rotheram may have a point about Atletico Madrid fans flying into Liverpool for their Champions League tie being responsible for bringing Covid-19 onto Merseyside...but on the other hand, isn’t it funny how he made no mention whatsoever of the Liverpool fans going to Madrid two weeks earlier potentially bringing it back with them?
Irrelevant twat LeafyIsHere decided that now was the best time to make his return to Youtube, in which he made it clear he's still not over getting torn several new ones in by Idubbbz three years ago, somehow failing to understand that by making it obvious he cut his own throat as soon as he started
And finally, adding piracy to his resume is Donald Trump judging by him thinking that stealing Covid-19 supplies destined for Germany for American use is the sort of thing that doesn’t make him look like a dictatorial twat, nor does it sound like the sort of thing wars have legitimately started wars in the past
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riichardwilson · 4 years
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Minority-Owned Small Businesses Need Stimulus Loans the Most. They May Finally Get Some.
For four months in 2018, Danielle Edwards drove past the brownstone on the corner of 6th Avenue and St. Marks in Brooklyn. There was a “For Rent” sign in the window of the second-floor storefront, which caught her eye because the whole facade is enclosed by vintage curved glass. 
“I call it the fishbowl,” she says. “I fell in love with it when I first saw it. But I thought, I’m not going to be able to afford that.” Edwards was looking for a new location for her boutique gym, The New Body Project, which claims the distinction of being the only all-women’s boot camp in Brooklyn. 
Edwards, 35, started The New Body Project in 2017, after the local women’s gym she worked for shuttered suddenly. For the members — many of them women of color — the gym had been a kind of neighborhood home, and its closure was devastating. 
“Literally, a lot of the women had breakdowns,” Edwards recalls. “I just felt like a ton of bricks was falling on me, so I said, I’ve gotta do something.” She decided to start her own gym and went to a number of banks to try to get a loan. It did not go well. 
“Even though my credit is good,” she says, “if you haven’t been open for a year, no one wants to look at you — let alone looking at you [if] you’re black and a woman.” So she launched a Kickstarter campaign, and her community rallied to raise $3,000. Still, the location they landed in wasn’t ideal. (“We were doing burpees and there was mold dripping from the ceiling.”) So one day after driving past the fishbowl, she finally called. Just to see. “His original asking price was astronomical, but my community came together,” she says. “We wrote a letter to the landlord and expressed to him how we’re going to build this community, and he dropped the price significantly.” 
Even so, it was a stretch. To lock down the space, Edwards had to sell her house that she’d bought in her 20s, when she worked at a bank on Wall Street before getting laid off in the market crash. “I went to the SBA. I was denied. I went to TD bank. I was denied. I went to Capital One. I was denied,” she says. “So I was like, you know what? I have this place in Jersey. I hardly ever go back. I’ll sell that and use the money to secure a new location.”
She did, and for a year, it was wonderful. The New Body Project grew from 12 to 62 dedicated members, and Edwards hired four trainers. Her clients were not the Lululemon-y ladies at boutique studios up the block. They were all shapes and shades, from all different backgrounds, at all different stages in their fitness journeys. From early morning to evening, they could be found barefoot on the big squishy mat in the sunny fishbowl, swinging kettlebells and doing tire squats.
Then COVID-19 hit New York City. “Monday, we were open and doing business as usual, Tuesday I was closing my doors, and Wednesday I was remote teaching a third grader and a sixth grader,” Edwards says. “I was like, wait, what just happened? For nearly a week and a half I just went into the bathroom and cried. I couldn’t process that everything I sacrificed, everything I worked so hard for, could be gone.”
Danielle Edwards instructing at The New Body Project. Image Credit: Sideline.com 
A legacy of prejudice, compounded
Minority-owned small businesses stand to be hit the hardest by the pandemic’s economic fallout. In the best of times, entrepreneurs of color face a multitude of unique obstacles, many of which are embodied in Edwards’ experience. Taking straightforward racism out of the equation — of which there is plenty — it’s always difficult to get a loan without already having significant capital behind you. The facts are that the average white family in America has 10 times the wealth of the average black family, and eight times that of the average Hispanic family.  In 2019 the SBA found that 49 percent of loans from banks go to white-owned businesses, 23 percent go to Asian-owned businesses, 17 percent undetermined, 7 percent to Hispanic-owned business, 3 percent to black-owned businesses and 1 percent to American Indian-owned businesses. 
Because it’s hard to get loans — much less attention and strategic advice — from banks and investors, many minority owners also have more difficulty growing their businesses. In New York City, the virus’s long-standing epicenter, only 2 percent of all small businesses are black-owned, and only 3 percent claim employees (compared to 7 percent of Hispanic-owned businesses, 21 percent of Asian-owned businesses, and 22 percent of white-owned businesses). Many businesses started by entrepreneurs of color also operate in lower income areas, and on narrower margins. In immigrant communities, there are language impediments. 
Now those obstacles are compounding at an alarming rate. In the chaotic scramble to disperse the first $350 billion of relief loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA), banks prioritized clients who already have loans with them, as well as “small businesses” that are, in reality, anything but. (See this week’s Shake Shack fiasco.) The SBA had been essentially offering two types of loans: Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), of up to $2 million (with advances of up to $10,000, dispersed to businesses within three days of applying, but those advances have yet to materialize) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offers small businesses loans of up to $10 million. 
Initial PPP funds ran out last Friday, and last night the Senate passed a new stimulus package that replenished the PPP with another $320 billion — including $60 billion for community banks, credit unions and even smaller lenders like Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). This last specification is absolutely key to reaching minority small businesses, the vast majority of which have been left out in the cold so far.
CDFIs are some of the only lenders firmly rooted in communities of color, and their inclusion in the PPP is something that Gregg Bishop, New York City’s Commissioner of Small Business Services, has been pushing for. “The overwhelming needs of New York City’s small business community can only be met by the resources of the federal government,” he says. “We fought for more support in the next stimulus and won an additional $60 billion for our CDFIs and local banks. Our smallest businesses who rely on their community partners for support and service now have a greater chance at accessing the capital they need to remain open.”
Hopefully, that money will make it to those who need it most, fast. But in the past three weeks — as banks overlooked small businesses with no safety net �� many minority small businesses have already plummeted too far into the red to make it out.  
Related: 3 Ways to Support Minority-Owned Businesses
The less you’re asking for, the less likely you are to get it
Back when the first round of SBA stimulus loans were announced in early April, many entrepreneurs were optimistic. James Heyward, a CPA in Durham, North Carolina, certainly was. Heyward is a black business owner, and the majority of his accounting firm’s clients are minority business owners. He spent two days studying the bill and applied for PPP through his bank, Wells Fargo. He didn’t need much to cover his payroll; he was only asking for $5,000. But as the days passed, he just received more emails from Wells Fargo telling him that, in his words, “I was still in the queue, but because of their lending cap, I might need to go apply somewhere else.”
For many entrepreneurs of color, their first obstacle in accessing stimulus funds is that they don’t have loans, a line of credit or an established relationship with a bank. But Heyward is an exception to the rule. He has a fairly extensive relationship with Wells Fargo. He has two business accounts, a line of credit, a business credit card, his personal account, his mortgage and a certificate of deposit. So when he wasn’t getting that little check for $5,000, he started thinking something was off. 
“Banks are for-profit businesses, right?” Heyward says. “They’re only making 1 percent interest on these loans. They don’t have the infrastructure for small loans, so their underwriting process for my $5,000 is the same for somebody requesting $500,000. So which one do you think they’ll spend the manpower on? If I was a bank, I would say yeah, okay, I could just give you this money. But it’s better for us to give larger amounts to sure bets than smaller amounts to a whole bunch of risky borrowers. Especially if your business isn’t really open right now. Not to be doom and gloom, but this may cripple you forever, and the bank will be left holding the bag, because I don’t get the sense that they necessarily believe that the government will get the SBA money to them in a timely fashion.”
Heyward isn’t alone in this conclusion. Benjamin Burke is a senior tax consultant at Snappy Tax, in Ocala, Florida. In an email he said, “I have been told off the record that banks are prioritizing the [PPP] loans first for people that have pre-existing loans with them. Then the bigger clients. Then everyone else. Additionally, some banks will not even touch PPP loans under $30,000. If a business owner did not have reserves, it won’t be long before they have to close for good. We are already seeing clients in this position.”
One of Burke’s clients is Brooke McGee, a Latina business owner based in Ocala. A 33-year-old single mom with six kids — one of whom is disabled and severely immunocompromised —  McGee worked for a trucking company for 13 years until she got laid off in 2019. So last October she founded her own company, First Watch Dispatch, a carrier, shipping and dispatch service and started out running the business from home. That quickly proved impractical since, as she puts it, “I don’t have a big house in a nice neighborhood, and having 20 semi trucks pull up to my driveway was not conducive.” 
She tried to secure a loan for an office space but couldn’t. “So,” she says, “in January I took my life savings and leased a building.” This February, after maxing out her credit card and having the lights turned off in her home, McGee was finally able to pay herself for the first time. Then, the pandemic started to spread, and McGee had no choice but to shut down. Even though her company plays an important role in the supply chain, McGee says a big part of her job is handling truckers’ paperwork, which “has been through literally thousands of hands, at stops from New York all the way to Florida.” The risk to her disabled daughter’s life is simply too great. “I’m trying to work from home,” she says, “but I can’t have the truckers come to my house. Plus I have six kids in six grades and only two computers.” 
As of our conversation, McGee had tried for weeks to get through on the government site to file for unemployment. Burke, her tax consultant, has helped her apply for the EIDL and PPP loans through her bank, the Florida Credit Union, but she hasn’t heard back about either. Because McGee’s truckers are all private contractors, her PPP request covers only her salary, and Burke worries the request won’t be worth her bank’s time. “My fear is that these smaller sized loans are being overlooked,” he says plainly. Now, McGee’s landlord is threatening to evict her. 
Brooke McGee and her six children. Image Credit: Brooke McGee
Beware predatory practices amidst of information chaos
While reporting this story, I talked to many minority small-business owners who assumed that they’d have an easier time getting approved because the amount they were asking for was so negligible. But as time went on and stimulus funds began dwindling, some owners inevitably turned to outside parties for help, leaving them and their businesses exposed to an entirely different threat.
The New Body Project has five employees including Edwards, and she requested $12,500 to cover payroll. As soon as the SBA loans were announced, she called TD bank, where she had her business checking and savings accounts, to ask about next steps. She waited on hold for over an hour to be told that “they don’t know because they have not been guided by the government yet.” 
As she waited for help from TD Bank, and panic-researched online, Edwards got an email from Groupon saying that she could apply for the PPP through their partnership with Fundera. Fundera is an online loan broker, similar to Kabbage or Lendio, which connects businesses to lenders for a “finder’s fee” from the bank. Edwards was dubious, but figured it was worth a shot and applied, and got a response that she’d made it to the next step with one of Fundera’s lending partners, Cross River Bank. Edwards had never heard of Cross River Bank, so she was hesitant, but decided to move forward with the application because she still hadn’t heard anything from TD Bank, and knew the loans were first-come, first-serve. Then the PPP money ran out.
While it’s not always a bad idea for business owners of color who are being underserved by their banks to look for funding through legitimate brokers like Fundera, attorney, stimulus analyst and Entrepreneur contributor Mat Sorensen points out that borrowers should be aware that the SBA-approved lenders these brokers will connect you with are still likely to put their established clients first.
Of greater concern is the lack of information and reliable advice available to desperate business owners, particularly immigrant entrepreneurs for whom English is their second language. The Renaissance Economic Development Corporation is a CDFI, and affiliate of Asian Americans for Equality. They’ve been lending to minority business owners in New York City since 1997, and their managing director, Jessie Lee, says she’s seen a surge in predatory practices. 
“A lot of our borrowers are getting secondary information from their ethnic media,” she says. “It’s so confusing that a lot of them have turned to brokers and accountants for guidance, and some of these brokers are predatory. I just found out that one of our clients went to a loan broker who said that they do the PPP program, when they don’t, and then took $2,000 from my business owner.”
Her advice for dealing with third parties? ”Always verify — are you an agent of an SBA lender? Do you have an SBA lenders agreement?”
Related: These City Programs Are Giving Minority- and Women-Owned …
The case for giving CDFIs capital
Renaissance is one of roughly 2,500 nonprofit Treasury-certified CDFIs across the country. CDFIs have long played a critical role in dispatching federal and state funds to the businesses in underserved communities that need them most. And in past crises like 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, CDFIs dispersed substantial public relief funds (they gave out $12 million in emergency funds after 9/11, and $6 million after Sandy). But as the COVID-19 crisis has played out, Lee says that Renaissance has had to rely on private funds, like part of a recent $1 million commitment from Chase to minority-owned NYC businesses. It hasn’t been nearly enough. When we spoke a week ago, Lee told me that, “Over a thousand businesses have submitted interest forms, and we’re only going to be able to help maybe 200 of them.”
Bishop, the Commissioner of NYC’s Small Business Services, says giving CDFIs nationwide the capital they need to lend in their communities would be a game-changer for minority-owned small businesses. “CDFIs and small community banks are really the only lenders operating in communities of color,” he says, “They look beyond the credit score. They’re very flexible.” Until this point, however, most CDFIs haven’t been able to offer PPP loans. “We’ve been advocating for them to be allowed to participate, but it’s really about liquidity,” Bishop explains. 
It’s a catch-22: Because CDFI borrowers are often small businesses in communities of color, many operate with very narrow margins and are now struggling to pay their rent, much less their business loans. Consequently the CDFIs are too low on cash to offer PPP. 
Now, thankfully, the Senate’s latest stimulus bill  — which should move through the House quickly — has allocated $30 billion of the new $320 billion PPP funds specifically to community banks and credit unions, and another $30 billion to even smaller lenders like CDFIs (a total of $60 billion intended to reach minority and women-owned businesses). 
Lee is cautiously optimistic. “We believe this legislation is a step in the right direction because it gives smaller businesses a fighting chance at securing funding and enables CDFIs to help minority-owned business owners in our communities,” she says. “That being said, $30 billion will go quickly and will not come close to meeting the needs of millions of distressed businesses. In the weeks ahead, we will need more financial resources to stabilize our neighborhood mom-and-pop businesses.” 
One thing Lee is sure of is that, “The 8 week time period for PPP is unrealistic in New York. We believe businesses will need more funding over a longer period of time, given the city and state timelines for reopening the economy. And payroll assistance helps but businesses still must figure out how to pay their rent. This is a big issue they’re having to confront even after securing a PPP loan. Businesses need flexible capital to address their unique needs.”
Still, while the money is there, any minority small business that hasn’t yet put through an SBA application with another lender should reach out to their community bank, or find a CDFI near them (you shouldn’t apply for the SBA loans with more than one lender).
Heyward, the Durham-based CPA, thinks that moving forward, CDFIs and community banks should play a bigger role. But he thinks this should happen in tandem with the SBA creating more permanent classifications of small businesses, so that truly small businesses with no capital aren’t competing for loans with companies 20 times their size. 
“You can call them microbusinesses, or main street businesses, but people with gross revenues under 2 million or something like that,” he says. “Because when anyone in Washington gets on TV and says, ‘We’re doing something for the small businesses,’ I’m looking at the qualifications for a small business and thinking, ‘So what am I, a blip?’ And maybe that could be the domain of the community banks and CDFIs, because the commercial banks could care less about those loans anyway.”
“The systemic prejudice in this situation, in the beginning it’s not racial,” Heyward continues. “But we all know it’s not right. I don’t have to go beat the drum on that.” To the big banks, he says, “I’m just saying that you have to be honest. You have a lot of business owners who are truly expecting to get this money. Their margins were so small to begin with. For minority-owned businesses, this is crushing.”
Edwards is still waiting to see if her PPP application gets approved at Cross River Bank. But in the meantime, after working through the initial shock, she’s been characteristically resilient. In a matter of days, she designed an entire online fitness program for The New Body Project, complete with a weekly family karaoke session. “I won’t throw in the towel,” she says. “I believe this will make us better when we come out of it. It’s never easy to get help when you need it, so I’m blessed my business is something that can be continued online. It’s actually given me the opportunity to tweak my business model. I’m really proud of what I created.”
Related: How to Submit Your SBA PPP Loan Application and Calculate the …
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Minority-Owned Small Businesses Need Stimulus Loans the Most. They May Finally Get Some.
For four months in 2018, Danielle Edwards drove past the brownstone on the corner of 6th Avenue and St. Marks in Brooklyn. There was a “For Rent” sign in the window of the second-floor storefront, which caught her eye because the whole facade is enclosed by vintage curved glass. 
“I call it the fishbowl,” she says. “I fell in love with it when I first saw it. But I thought, I’m not going to be able to afford that.” Edwards was looking for a new location for her boutique gym, The New Body Project, which claims the distinction of being the only all-women’s boot camp in Brooklyn. 
Edwards, 35, started The New Body Project in 2017, after the local women’s gym she worked for shuttered suddenly. For the members — many of them women of color — the gym had been a kind of neighborhood home, and its closure was devastating. 
“Literally, a lot of the women had breakdowns,” Edwards recalls. “I just felt like a ton of bricks was falling on me, so I said, I’ve gotta do something.” She decided to start her own gym and went to a number of banks to try to get a loan. It did not go well. 
“Even though my credit is good,” she says, “if you haven’t been open for a year, no one wants to look at you — let alone looking at you [if] you’re black and a woman.” So she launched a Kickstarter campaign, and her community rallied to raise $3,000. Still, the location they landed in wasn’t ideal. (“We were doing burpees and there was mold dripping from the ceiling.”) So one day after driving past the fishbowl, she finally called. Just to see. “His original asking price was astronomical, but my community came together,” she says. “We wrote a letter to the landlord and expressed to him how we’re going to build this community, and he dropped the price significantly.” 
Even so, it was a stretch. To lock down the space, Edwards had to sell her house that she’d bought in her 20s, when she worked at a bank on Wall Street before getting laid off in the market crash. “I went to the SBA. I was denied. I went to TD bank. I was denied. I went to Capital One. I was denied,” she says. “So I was like, you know what? I have this place in Jersey. I hardly ever go back. I’ll sell that and use the money to secure a new location.”
She did, and for a year, it was wonderful. The New Body Project grew from 12 to 62 dedicated members, and Edwards hired four trainers. Her clients were not the Lululemon-y ladies at boutique studios up the block. They were all shapes and shades, from all different backgrounds, at all different stages in their fitness journeys. From early morning to evening, they could be found barefoot on the big squishy mat in the sunny fishbowl, swinging kettlebells and doing tire squats.
Then COVID-19 hit New York City. “Monday, we were open and doing business as usual, Tuesday I was closing my doors, and Wednesday I was remote teaching a third grader and a sixth grader,” Edwards says. “I was like, wait, what just happened? For nearly a week and a half I just went into the bathroom and cried. I couldn’t process that everything I sacrificed, everything I worked so hard for, could be gone.”
Danielle Edwards instructing at The New Body Project. Image Credit: Sideline.com 
A legacy of prejudice, compounded
Minority-owned small businesses stand to be hit the hardest by the pandemic’s economic fallout. In the best of times, entrepreneurs of color face a multitude of unique obstacles, many of which are embodied in Edwards’ experience. Taking straightforward racism out of the equation — of which there is plenty — it’s always difficult to get a loan without already having significant capital behind you. The facts are that the average white family in America has 10 times the wealth of the average black family, and eight times that of the average Hispanic family.  In 2019 the SBA found that 49 percent of loans from banks go to white-owned businesses, 23 percent go to Asian-owned businesses, 17 percent undetermined, 7 percent to Hispanic-owned business, 3 percent to black-owned businesses and 1 percent to American Indian-owned businesses. 
Because it’s hard to get loans — much less attention and strategic advice — from banks and investors, many minority owners also have more difficulty growing their businesses. In New York City, the virus’s long-standing epicenter, only 2 percent of all small businesses are black-owned, and only 3 percent claim employees (compared to 7 percent of Hispanic-owned businesses, 21 percent of Asian-owned businesses, and 22 percent of white-owned businesses). Many businesses started by entrepreneurs of color also operate in lower income areas, and on narrower margins. In immigrant communities, there are language impediments. 
Now those obstacles are compounding at an alarming rate. In the chaotic scramble to disperse the first $350 billion of relief loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA), banks prioritized clients who already have loans with them, as well as “small businesses” that are, in reality, anything but. (See this week’s Shake Shack fiasco.) The SBA had been essentially offering two types of loans: Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), of up to $2 million (with advances of up to $10,000, dispersed to businesses within three days of applying, but those advances have yet to materialize) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offers small businesses loans of up to $10 million. 
Initial PPP funds ran out last Friday, and last night the Senate passed a new stimulus package that replenished the PPP with another $320 billion — including $60 billion for community banks, credit unions and even smaller lenders like Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). This last specification is absolutely key to reaching minority small businesses, the vast majority of which have been left out in the cold so far.
CDFIs are some of the only lenders firmly rooted in communities of color, and their inclusion in the PPP is something that Gregg Bishop, New York City’s Commissioner of Small Business Services, has been pushing for. “The overwhelming needs of New York City’s small business community can only be met by the resources of the federal government,” he says. “We fought for more support in the next stimulus and won an additional $60 billion for our CDFIs and local banks. Our smallest businesses who rely on their community partners for support and service now have a greater chance at accessing the capital they need to remain open.”
Hopefully, that money will make it to those who need it most, fast. But in the past three weeks — as banks overlooked small businesses with no safety net — many minority small businesses have already plummeted too far into the red to make it out.  
Related: 3 Ways to Support Minority-Owned Businesses
The less you’re asking for, the less likely you are to get it
Back when the first round of SBA stimulus loans were announced in early April, many entrepreneurs were optimistic. James Heyward, a CPA in Durham, North Carolina, certainly was. Heyward is a black business owner, and the majority of his accounting firm’s clients are minority business owners. He spent two days studying the bill and applied for PPP through his bank, Wells Fargo. He didn’t need much to cover his payroll; he was only asking for $5,000. But as the days passed, he just received more emails from Wells Fargo telling him that, in his words, “I was still in the queue, but because of their lending cap, I might need to go apply somewhere else.”
For many entrepreneurs of color, their first obstacle in accessing stimulus funds is that they don’t have loans, a line of credit or an established relationship with a bank. But Heyward is an exception to the rule. He has a fairly extensive relationship with Wells Fargo. He has two business accounts, a line of credit, a business credit card, his personal account, his mortgage and a certificate of deposit. So when he wasn’t getting that little check for $5,000, he started thinking something was off. 
“Banks are for-profit businesses, right?” Heyward says. “They’re only making 1 percent interest on these loans. They don’t have the infrastructure for small loans, so their underwriting process for my $5,000 is the same for somebody requesting $500,000. So which one do you think they’ll spend the manpower on? If I was a bank, I would say yeah, okay, I could just give you this money. But it’s better for us to give larger amounts to sure bets than smaller amounts to a whole bunch of risky borrowers. Especially if your business isn’t really open right now. Not to be doom and gloom, but this may cripple you forever, and the bank will be left holding the bag, because I don’t get the sense that they necessarily believe that the government will get the SBA money to them in a timely fashion.”
Heyward isn’t alone in this conclusion. Benjamin Burke is a senior tax consultant at Snappy Tax, in Ocala, Florida. In an email he said, “I have been told off the record that banks are prioritizing the [PPP] loans first for people that have pre-existing loans with them. Then the bigger clients. Then everyone else. Additionally, some banks will not even touch PPP loans under $30,000. If a business owner did not have reserves, it won’t be long before they have to close for good. We are already seeing clients in this position.”
One of Burke’s clients is Brooke McGee, a Latina business owner based in Ocala. A 33-year-old single mom with six kids — one of whom is disabled and severely immunocompromised —  McGee worked for a trucking company for 13 years until she got laid off in 2019. So last October she founded her own company, First Watch Dispatch, a carrier, shipping and dispatch service and started out running the business from home. That quickly proved impractical since, as she puts it, “I don’t have a big house in a nice neighborhood, and having 20 semi trucks pull up to my driveway was not conducive.” 
She tried to secure a loan for an office space but couldn’t. “So,” she says, “in January I took my life savings and leased a building.” This February, after maxing out her credit card and having the lights turned off in her home, McGee was finally able to pay herself for the first time. Then, the pandemic started to spread, and McGee had no choice but to shut down. Even though her company plays an important role in the supply chain, McGee says a big part of her job is handling truckers’ paperwork, which “has been through literally thousands of hands, at stops from New York all the way to Florida.” The risk to her disabled daughter’s life is simply too great. “I’m trying to work from home,” she says, “but I can’t have the truckers come to my house. Plus I have six kids in six grades and only two computers.” 
As of our conversation, McGee had tried for weeks to get through on the government site to file for unemployment. Burke, her tax consultant, has helped her apply for the EIDL and PPP loans through her bank, the Florida Credit Union, but she hasn’t heard back about either. Because McGee’s truckers are all private contractors, her PPP request covers only her salary, and Burke worries the request won’t be worth her bank’s time. “My fear is that these smaller sized loans are being overlooked,” he says plainly. Now, McGee’s landlord is threatening to evict her. 
Brooke McGee and her six children. Image Credit: Brooke McGee
Beware predatory practices amidst of information chaos
While reporting this story, I talked to many minority small-business owners who assumed that they’d have an easier time getting approved because the amount they were asking for was so negligible. But as time went on and stimulus funds began dwindling, some owners inevitably turned to outside parties for help, leaving them and their businesses exposed to an entirely different threat.
The New Body Project has five employees including Edwards, and she requested $12,500 to cover payroll. As soon as the SBA loans were announced, she called TD bank, where she had her business checking and savings accounts, to ask about next steps. She waited on hold for over an hour to be told that “they don’t know because they have not been guided by the government yet.” 
As she waited for help from TD Bank, and panic-researched online, Edwards got an email from Groupon saying that she could apply for the PPP through their partnership with Fundera. Fundera is an online loan broker, similar to Kabbage or Lendio, which connects businesses to lenders for a “finder’s fee” from the bank. Edwards was dubious, but figured it was worth a shot and applied, and got a response that she’d made it to the next step with one of Fundera’s lending partners, Cross River Bank. Edwards had never heard of Cross River Bank, so she was hesitant, but decided to move forward with the application because she still hadn’t heard anything from TD Bank, and knew the loans were first-come, first-serve. Then the PPP money ran out.
While it’s not always a bad idea for business owners of color who are being underserved by their banks to look for funding through legitimate brokers like Fundera, attorney, stimulus analyst and Entrepreneur contributor Mat Sorensen points out that borrowers should be aware that the SBA-approved lenders these brokers will connect you with are still likely to put their established clients first.
Of greater concern is the lack of information and reliable advice available to desperate business owners, particularly immigrant entrepreneurs for whom English is their second language. The Renaissance Economic Development Corporation is a CDFI, and affiliate of Asian Americans for Equality. They’ve been lending to minority business owners in New York City since 1997, and their managing director, Jessie Lee, says she’s seen a surge in predatory practices. 
“A lot of our borrowers are getting secondary information from their ethnic media,” she says. “It’s so confusing that a lot of them have turned to brokers and accountants for guidance, and some of these brokers are predatory. I just found out that one of our clients went to a loan broker who said that they do the PPP program, when they don’t, and then took $2,000 from my business owner.”
Her advice for dealing with third parties? ”Always verify — are you an agent of an SBA lender? Do you have an SBA lenders agreement?”
Related: These City Programs Are Giving Minority- and Women-Owned …
The case for giving CDFIs capital
Renaissance is one of roughly 2,500 nonprofit Treasury-certified CDFIs across the country. CDFIs have long played a critical role in dispatching federal and state funds to the businesses in underserved communities that need them most. And in past crises like 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, CDFIs dispersed substantial public relief funds (they gave out $12 million in emergency funds after 9/11, and $6 million after Sandy). But as the COVID-19 crisis has played out, Lee says that Renaissance has had to rely on private funds, like part of a recent $1 million commitment from Chase to minority-owned NYC businesses. It hasn’t been nearly enough. When we spoke a week ago, Lee told me that, “Over a thousand businesses have submitted interest forms, and we’re only going to be able to help maybe 200 of them.”
Bishop, the Commissioner of NYC’s Small Business Services, says giving CDFIs nationwide the capital they need to lend in their communities would be a game-changer for minority-owned small businesses. “CDFIs and small community banks are really the only lenders operating in communities of color,” he says, “They look beyond the credit score. They’re very flexible.” Until this point, however, most CDFIs haven’t been able to offer PPP loans. “We’ve been advocating for them to be allowed to participate, but it’s really about liquidity,” Bishop explains. 
It’s a catch-22: Because CDFI borrowers are often small businesses in communities of color, many operate with very narrow margins and are now struggling to pay their rent, much less their business loans. Consequently the CDFIs are too low on cash to offer PPP. 
Now, thankfully, the Senate’s latest stimulus bill  — which should move through the House quickly — has allocated $30 billion of the new $320 billion PPP funds specifically to community banks and credit unions, and another $30 billion to even smaller lenders like CDFIs (a total of $60 billion intended to reach minority and women-owned businesses). 
Lee is cautiously optimistic. “We believe this legislation is a step in the right direction because it gives smaller businesses a fighting chance at securing funding and enables CDFIs to help minority-owned business owners in our communities,” she says. “That being said, $30 billion will go quickly and will not come close to meeting the needs of millions of distressed businesses. In the weeks ahead, we will need more financial resources to stabilize our neighborhood mom-and-pop businesses.” 
One thing Lee is sure of is that, “The 8 week time period for PPP is unrealistic in New York. We believe businesses will need more funding over a longer period of time, given the city and state timelines for reopening the economy. And payroll assistance helps but businesses still must figure out how to pay their rent. This is a big issue they’re having to confront even after securing a PPP loan. Businesses need flexible capital to address their unique needs.”
Still, while the money is there, any minority small business that hasn’t yet put through an SBA application with another lender should reach out to their community bank, or find a CDFI near them (you shouldn’t apply for the SBA loans with more than one lender).
Heyward, the Durham-based CPA, thinks that moving forward, CDFIs and community banks should play a bigger role. But he thinks this should happen in tandem with the SBA creating more permanent classifications of small businesses, so that truly small businesses with no capital aren’t competing for loans with companies 20 times their size. 
“You can call them microbusinesses, or main street businesses, but people with gross revenues under 2 million or something like that,” he says. “Because when anyone in Washington gets on TV and says, ‘We’re doing something for the small businesses,’ I’m looking at the qualifications for a small business and thinking, ‘So what am I, a blip?’ And maybe that could be the domain of the community banks and CDFIs, because the commercial banks could care less about those loans anyway.”
“The systemic prejudice in this situation, in the beginning it’s not racial,” Heyward continues. “But we all know it’s not right. I don’t have to go beat the drum on that.” To the big banks, he says, “I’m just saying that you have to be honest. You have a lot of business owners who are truly expecting to get this money. Their margins were so small to begin with. For minority-owned businesses, this is crushing.”
Edwards is still waiting to see if her PPP application gets approved at Cross River Bank. But in the meantime, after working through the initial shock, she’s been characteristically resilient. In a matter of days, she designed an entire online fitness program for The New Body Project, complete with a weekly family karaoke session. “I won’t throw in the towel,” she says. “I believe this will make us better when we come out of it. It’s never easy to get help when you need it, so I’m blessed my business is something that can be continued online. It’s actually given me the opportunity to tweak my business model. I’m really proud of what I created.”
Related: How to Submit Your SBA PPP Loan Application and Calculate the …
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