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First, thank you to everybody who’s donated to YNP! and 3CR during this year’s radiothon: you rock! Please note that you can still donate and help 3CR each its fundraising goal of $275,…
Palestine Action have raised over £100,000 in less than 24 hours to support their legal case against being proscribed as a terrorist organisation. This would make it illegal to publicly support the group or their actions and would also make it illegal to donate to them. Help out while you can...
Hamas leader Sinwar is dead, Israel says: Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz, confirmed the news on Thursday evening. euractiv.com/section/global-eu…
Yesterday a big and successful chapter for Palestinian Resistance closed. In the same time a new era of glory opened. All these hits against the leadership of Hamas and Resistance are just a reason for more Palestinians to rank on Resistance lines. History proves it.
More madness in the US government - we're being led by a bunch of idiots. I hope you know the National Science Foundation (NSF) is the main organization that funds science research. Now it's getting kicked out of its main building, with nowhere to go!
"The Department of Housing and Urban Development is expected to announce Wednesday that it’s moving into the headquarters of the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia, according to the union representing NSF employees.
But as of Tuesday evening, staff at the science foundation hadn’t been informed by management about their building's incoming occupants, leaving them feeling blindsided and unsure about where they’re expected to work.
[...]
It’s unclear what happens to the staff at NSF, where more than 1,833 employees work in the building, according to the employee union.
[...]
The union said in a press release Tuesday that it was told that plans for NSF headquarters include a dedicated executive suite for the HUD secretary on the 19th floor, the construction of an executive dining room, reserved parking spaces for the secretary’s cars, exclusive use of an elevator for the secretary and a space dedicated to hosting the secretary’s executive assistants on the 18th floor."
Employees at the National Science Foundation say they’ve been blindsided by a plan for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to take over their offices
NSF, in sheer terror, IMMEDIATELY complied with Trump's bigoted assault on decency (diversity, equity and inlcusion)....typical, those who show fear get shit on harder and harder by the bully. Fuck these jackasses. Time to take our country back.
Understood the Trump-appointed hatchet man has stepped down in shame and disgrace. I'm referring to the NSF's IMMEDIATE capitulation even back in January. insidehighered.com/news/govern…
Scheduled review panels for National Science Foundation grant applications are on pause until Feb. 1. Some researchers believe the pause may be connected to the new administration’s anti-DEI crusade.
@Nando161 Yes it was quite good although the baby crawling on the ceiling was a bit much. I've not heard of that time of hallucination from heroin and they were not into hallucinogens so far as I could tell. But otherwise, yea very good film. And not a bad soundtrack either. Lust for life in a movie where people were pissing it away was an interesting contrast. Much more realistic than say 51st state as drug films go. I was very disappointed with the sequel though.
@nanook yes baby on ceiling is a nightmare analogy trip that ended tragically in another scene unfortunately but maybe LSD or other psychedelics but sleepy drugs will produce fucked up dreams allegedly. 2nd movie had some great moments but you can't beat the original or book, some say the book is best.
@nanook I've had a great time on lsd/mdma and other research psychedelic plants and chems, tried some uppers and some are awesome but never got addicted, sex and drugs go hand in hand without a doubt.
@Nando161 I tried some form of speed and this was back in the early 80's so I don't even know what, but my anxiety and paranoia level went through the roof, so non-prescription uppers, save for caffeine, I generally avoid, even too much caffeine is uncomfortable, ritalin on the other hand I do well with but can't afford going to doctors all time for prescriptions.
@Nando161 They never really explain why the baby died, neglect, drugs in mothers milk, just what. But yea it really did show the tragedy of the life style.
@Nando161 Could be but if you've ever seen a truly starved baby or child, the depiction didn't fit, but hey it's a minor detail, overall the film was awesome.
Scale of deaths between israelis and palestinians in #Gaza (not in other territories of occupied #Palestine). From previous "conflicts" till Al-Aqsa Flood.
Hahaha. This is not a government. It's a syndicate of criminals. Nazi Ben-Gvir re-entered the government just a few days before the budget vote and saved Netanyahu. The leader of the gang in return gives a gift to the nazi and this is protection... of what? And for the nazi he sacrifices one of the main pistols of the gang. mastodon.social/@EndIsraeliApa…
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar of investigating Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir without his approval, amid a power struggle that continues to deepen the rift in government.
In a stunning move, Ontario has redirected its critical nickel and cobalt exports from the U.S. to Europe — cutting Detroit out of the equation and rewriting...
In a stunning move, Ontario has redirected its critical nickel and cobalt exports from the U.S. to Europe — cutting Detroit out of the equation and rewriting...
The Commander-in-Chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Pakpour, affirmed on Wednesday that if the enemy commits any mistake, Iran will respond forcefully, as it has over the past 12 days.
Der sechste Artikel zum wieder eingeführten #ThrowbackThursday handelt über ein Smartphone, welches bereits im Artikel vom letzten Monat erwähnt wurde. Also ...
Total user error on my part.... I've managed to delete all the categories on my eggplant home page. This is stopping me from seeing my watch lists. I still have the edit layout button but there are no options for categories to edit. Any help would be appreciated.
Lebanon President Joseph Aoun: Israel’s continued occupation of the five posts continues to hinder the complete deployment of the Lebanese Army to the border english.almanar.com.lb/2445357
26 Ιούν 2025, 09:06 - Λόγω των πληροφοριών που αναφέρουν ότι η Χαμάς επανέλαβε τον έλεγχο της ανθρωπιστικής βοήθειας στη βόρεια Γάζα και τη λεηλατεί από τους πολίτες, δόθηκαν εντολές στον στρατό να παρουσιάσει σχέδιο δράσης εντός 48 ωρών για να αποτρ…
Κάθεσαι στο γραφείο και ο προϊσταμενος εχει βαλει να ακουει δηλώσεις Κυριάκου. Αντιλαμβάνεσαι πως το προβλημα θα λυθεί μονο αν εξαφανιστει το Γιδοτοπι.
@hochjo if a country still trusted the usa after 1971, they deserve to get ripped off again.
---
1971 richard nixon
"we must protect[..]dollar[..]in recent weeks the speculators have been waging a allout war on the american dollar[..]action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators" mastodon.satoshishop.de/@mk/11…
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@CoffeeFingers@noagendasocial.com
yes. since 50 years.
1971
richard nixon
"we must protect[..]dollar[..]in recent weeks the speculators have been waging a allout war on the american dollar[..
Note: I wrote this poem in the haiku style of poetry yesterday and published it for the first time today, the 26th of June, 2025. If you keep supporting people who lack humanity then you have no one to blame but yourself for our shared dystopian future.
Japan’s Metaplanet buys 1,234 BTC, now holds more than Tesla - Metaplanet has overtaken Tesla in corporate Bitcoin... - cointelegraph.com/news/metapla…
New York City Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, is vowing to help violent illegal alien convicts evade federal immigration enforcement if elected in November.
It's a shame because cities are the product of generations building on common interests. Very hard to make them work, very easy to fall to ruin. Once they fail it's not worth bringing them back.
Spoken or written words are now seen as a scary commodity, just ask the ‘victims’ of Alex Belfield or Lucy Connolly.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/...
At ESA’s Living Planet Symposium, scientist have unveiled how the combination of different long-term, high-resolution satellite datasets from ESA’s Climate Change Initiative is shedding new light on the South American Gran Chaco – one of the world’s …
Prosecutor Andrew Bailey told Sheffield Crown Court today the girl, now in her late 30s, was raped by Hussain, Kessur Ajaib and Mohammed Makhmood between 1999 and 2002.
6 years Ubuntu tried to drop support for multilib or the 32 bit libraries in 19.10 and that went badly, now Fedora Linux is trying to do the same as it's gai...
@Brodie Robertson Learn to build software yourself, then you're not dependent upon what stupid distros do. Ubuntu has forced me into this more times than I can count.
📲 Linux phone Jolla C2: long-term Sailfish OS updates 100% free for all now ✅
Were You on the edge on freeing Your googleless smartphone reality? Were not a fan of Jolla's initial monthly / yearly (small) payment model? No more excuses!
Reclaim Your phone. Break the shackles of Google - yet with ANDROID app COMPATIBILITY layer ✌️
Reclaim your smartphone with Jolla C2 The Jolla C2 isn’t for everyone. It’s for those who believe their privacy is their own to control, who value trust over shortcuts, and who have the courage to make their own way.
One reason I think that complex #AI software projects are never going to happen is that the code it generates has no *intent* behind it.
Senior software devs spend an extraordinarily large amount of time reading existing code and asking not just HOW they work, but WHY they were written that way. Reading long-maintained, complex source code is more than mere reading comprehension; it’s LITERARY CRITIQUE. You’re constantly trying to understand the thought process and motivation of whoever wrote that code, in the hopes of gaining insight into their frame of mind.
Well, AI code has no motivation, thought process, nor frame of mind. While the code it generates MIGHT work correctly (a big assumption) at the point it was extruded, there is no plausible way of maintaining that code, and at some point of complexity (sooner than you think!) maintainability becomes critical.
But WHY do we need to understand the motivation behind a pile of code? Because it reduces amount of COMPLEXITY we need to hold in our mind. Understanding an original author’s mindset helps to define a direction of development that will very likely yield successful results that are harmonious with existing code.
And as any senior software dev knows, complexity is the greatest enemy of engineering, and anything that helps constrain the beast increases the likelihood of producing error-free progress.
AI is great at producing code of little consequence, things so basic or throwaway that no deep understanding is needed to maintain it. To me, that constrains its practical use to generating basically SCAFFOLDING and BOILERPLATE upon which your real code is built, essentially making the (fancy and custom) GRID PAPER on which you will actually inscribe your design. Let it write your for-loops, but don’t let it write the functions it calls.
#AI coding tools can be time-saving automation at the hands of an already-senior developer, but that’s only because it utterly relies on the motivation and depth of experience already found in the HUMAN that’s using it to shape it into something worthwhile. Like a seasoned musician toying with analog synthesizers and sequencers, finding serendipity in the semi-random stream of patterns that are suitable to be molded into actual works requires a human editor. AI itself cannot offer that wisdom.
AI will never be a replacement for expertise. It does not compensate for a lack of skill. It offers nothing to replace an understanding of the fundamental principles of the craft. It will not turn a junior engineer into a senior one.
And it will not create a complex product, at least not one that won’t crumble the moment you have to maintain it.
there's the insidious nature of AI though: all of this ultimately doesn't matter as long as people accept the slop made cheaply, quickly, easily. Is the code, art, music, literature, video and analysis by AI as good as the human one? Probably not. Does it matter to the vast majority of people? Also probably not.
Complex software projects made up of mostly AI-generated code isn’t going to happen. And one reason I say that is because the code AI generates has no *intent* behind it.
HOW YOU FIX YOURSELF WITH WAYS OF FIXING YOURSELF... WHAT MENTAL WARFARE IS !!!
- What schooling public is and what the social control wants you to be and how they trained you from before you could walk... - The world raises workers only, they decorate prison of reality of the society... - you were born to invade and demolition... - it is time to break what they build, bring your fire and your hammer... - don't go for validation !!! - how you work in a temporal time... - how you use time as a weapon ... - how you learn to bend time !!! - how you design yourself !!! - how you re-write the rules of battle in mid battle...
9 Phases of Warrior Level Intelligence: (Mind Hacks to Upgrade Your Life)
Έφυγε από τη ζωή ο αναρχικός Γιώργος Γαρμπής, υπεύθυνος των εκδόσεων «Ελεύθερος Τύπος».
Οι εκδόσεις «Ελεύθερος Τύπος» μεγάλωσαν γενιές αναρχικών με βιβλία από διάφορα ρεύματα της επαναστατικής σκέψης όπως είναι ο ελευθεριακός κομμουνισμός, ο συμβουλιακός κομμουνισμός, οι καταστασιακοί, η κοινωνική οικολογία κ.α. Εμφανίστηκαν μεταπολεμικά (1975) με το βιβλίο του Μιχαήλ Μπακούνιν «Η παρισινή κομμούνα του 1871 και η ιδέα του κράτους». Έδρευε αρχικά στην οδό Κιάφας 3, κατόπιν στη Ζωοδόχου Πηγής 17, και τέλος στον πεζόδρομο της Βαλτετσίου 53.
Israeli fighter jets targeted and killed injured Palestinian #journalist Mahmoud Essa in Gaza. He had survived a previous round of Israeli airstrikes, during which rescue teams pulled him out alive, despite losing an eye and undergoing a leg amputation.
can I get a source link to quds news for this article? there is a single reference online to an instagram post by a "TC Media" for this story, quds news network returns no relevant hits for the name "mahmoud essa", and nobody else has reported on this from what I can see
furthermore this link from some group going by "TRT Global" uses the same picture but claims it was a "Mahmoud Issa Abu Sharbi" who was killed, not Mahmoud Essa... something about this is very wrong
At ESA’s Living Planet Symposium, scientist have unveiled how the combination of different long-term, high-resolution satellite datasets from ESA’s Climate Change Initiative is shedding new light on the South American Gran Chaco – one of the world’s most endangered dry forest ecosystems. These data reveal, in remarkable clarity, that fire is the primary driver of widespread, accelerating deforestation across the region.
BRICS is an informal group of states comprising the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 36 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, targeting civilians, including those desperately seeking humanitarian aid, in a new wave of indiscriminate assaults backed by the United Stat…
Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/26/25: Trump Doesn't Think Iran Will Restart Enrichment, Israeli Forces Kill 74 in Gaza, and More youtube.com/watch?v=sTWvyhvSG4…
Contact the White House: https://whitehouse.gov/contact/Support the show: Antiwar.com/donatePhone bank for Defend the Guard: https://defendtheguard.us/phoneb...
Depuis quelques jours, la Méditerranée est en surchauffe, avec une canicule marine et des écarts de +5°C. L'équivalent d'incendies sous-marin, avec une faune qui "faune et flore qui meurent comme si elles étaient brûlées" : bonpote.com/canicules-marines-…
Originally published at TomDispatch. At a time when many may feel that good news has gone the way of the dodo, look no further than the homeland of that long-extinct bird – Mauritius – for a dose of encouragement.
On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report: According to press reports, President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff is back in touch with Iran after the ceasefire with Israel.
Paul van Dyk και Oakenfold παρτυ στην Βάρκιζα. ο Oakenfold 61 χρονων ο van Dyk 53. Αθάνατη GenX Τρέξτε τωρα millenials να χορέψετε με την μουσική των "παππουδων" σας.
In an X post, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited peer-reviewed studies and the actual labels on vaccines to counter The Guardian’s “pharma-financed” claims that thimerosal is safe.
I have a subsonic instance running but I rarely listen to Albums. Stuff I really like are DJ performances like by the channel The Moment.
So I thought: why not download and self-host them before Google makes Youtube sign-in only, (like Elon and Facebook did).
That stuff is probably quite hard to organize. But the type of music simply breaks the common services, like Jellyfin, or Subsonic.
I know of funkwhale. But I'd like to keep the contents private. I just wanna listen to music at work (so being open to the web is a plus). I thought funkwhale is a bit too... "social" for me. I'm a (re)uploader, not creator.
You got any ideas? Maybe a youtube-cloner with audio-only support? (I know how to download videos already)
Edit: Of course, I'd download the sets legally, e.g. from their patreon discord, or whatever. ;)
Also: I know that restricting it to my VPN would be ideal for security and legality reasons. But that's a bit inconvenient. And I want to check my options.
Do you need a web player? I’ve got several years of a radio show on my web server and wrote a script that created an RSS feed for them. This way I can open that in any podcast player (even web based ones) to listen to it.
Doesn’t get any more secure than a battle-tested web server hosting simple MP3 files and a text file.
Convenience might be a thing, though. I’m in the Apple ecosystem so their Podcasts app shows that feed on all devices and tracks listening progress, etc.
If I didn’t have that, I’m still a lifetime customer with PocketCasts and PocketCasts Web. So, that’s that. But if you don’t have anything similar in place, a self-hosted streaming server might be the best way to go, yes.
@Feleki καπου ειδα μια ευρωπαϊκή ερευνά που λεει οτι ο Σκαι ειναι το μονο κανάλι στην ΕΕ με αρνητικό πρόσημο στην αξιοπιστία. -13 η κατι τετοιο 😂 Αλλα παρ ολα αυτά ειναι ακομα "άκαυτο"
The German police just conducted 6am raids on 170 people accused of Internet "hate speech".
Many were arrested for "insulting politicians", such as calling Merz a "moron". I kid you not ... that shows that he is indeed a monumental moron and a pathetic loser! He has already shown that he is a hypocrite and an abysmal liar.
The ones only justifiable arrests would be those who directly call for violence. In Germany, praising the gay Marxist Adolf is still illegal. I have no idea why anyone would do that. He destroyed the country and mass-murdered 8 to 12 million people, including hundreds of thousands for expressing their opinions. Praising a fascist as opposition to a - for now - much milder form of fascism is retarded.
Since this morning, the German police have been carrying out a nationwide operation against suspected authors of hate speech and incitement to hatred on the Internet. According to the German Press Agency, more than 170 operations are planned.
@eee@poa.st The mass migration is driven by CHINA, which is controlled by CHINA and the OIC (Muslim countries) and their allies (WEF, Open Society, Rockefeller, CFR etc)
Jews have NO POWER at the UN.
Soros is a MARXIST who is openly antisemitic and anti-Israel.
The Rockefellers are EVANGELICALS who were always antisemitic!
They used to help Hitler, today they help Hamas.
Idiots who think that the Rockefellers are Jewish never even bothered to look into their history.
WHY would Jews undermine western countries and Judeo-Christian culture?
They already suffer the most from the mass immigration!
"If they die and others take over" seems like a strange assumption - the number of closed-up businesses I'm seeing suggest that nobody is taking over, because it's simply no longer possible to run a business in that niche any more.
True story. The owner used to take pizzas to my great-grandparents because my great-grandmother was bed ridden. The spic-italian relationship goes deep here.
A new analysis of rent prices and homelessness in American cities demonstrates the strong connection between the two: homelessness is high in urban areas where rents are high, and homelessness rises when rents rise.
Mass-scale housebuilding isn’t necessary – there is already enough housing stock. But we need to learn the wisdom of the last century when it comes to landlordism
RFK Jr. reveals that missing migrant children were being dropped off at lots filled with shipping containers before vanishing. t.me/GeneralMCNews/14002
BREAKING: RFK Jr. reveals that missing migrant children were being dropped off at lots filled with shipping containers before vanishing.
@GeneralMCNews
As Iran responds to Israeli attacks, Israel has begun publishing photos and videos showing what it claims are civilian casualties. However, many of Israel’s key military command centers and bases are
The alleged strike of #Iran against a hospital in Be'er Sehva was in reality a strike against 2 military targets next to the complex. Western media reproduced the lies of Netanyahu without doubt. The same media have closed eyes on the systematic strikes against hospitals in #Gaza, #lebanon and #Syria.
#Budget #UKPolitics This article by Gary Stevenson is so good, please read every word of it.
“Whatever Jeremy Hunt says, traders know the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. And they’re paid millions to bet on it.”
This is what the world is - it is run by a minute elite for a minute elite and the rest of us, the masses, the natural world, we just don’t count. It is a #TragedyOftheNonCommons (will reshare my own piece on this below 1/n)
Whatever Jeremy Hunt says, traders know the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. And they’re paid millions to bet on it, says the author Gary Stevenson
I've just published my first ever blog: "The Tragedy of the Non-Commons"
I wrote it in July, frustrated by a Twitter thread about how the Tragedy of the #Commons continues to be taught at universities. I then left it (it's somewhat experiemental) but with #COP27 and #Twittermigration coinciding this week, I just wanted it to be out there. Would love for it to be shared here on our #digitalcommons and grateful for any comments
The climate and ecological emergency is a Tragedy of the Non-Commons. The fact that most resources and power are in the hands of the few has terrible consequences for us all. The ‘Tragedy of Commons’…
3/n Have decided to turn this into a #FollowTheMoney 🧵, collecting pieces on how money flows in our system- more and more towards those already rich. As Kelsey McKenney, in this piece on #Hollywod, writes:
“The reality is that the people with the most money have devised, at every turn, new and more bulletproof ways for them to make and keep more money, and for the people who make things to make less. This is the eternal story of labor and management.”
You can always tell who in Hollywood has family money by their Instagrams. People like Dakota Johnson, who have a Hollywood lineage deeper than the Mariana Trench, post only rarely.
This is happening in creative industries, in higher education, in literature: the more “content” - a lecture, an article, a role in a film - becomes a commodity divorced from its creators, the less creators themselves are paid and valued; they are workers, labourers like everyone else, the value of whose labour gets extracted by capital.
Capitalism isn’t over, replaced by #technofeudalism as some of claimed; it’s in full swing, in its purest form.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 5/n Adding here a piece a group of us co-wrote at an #anthropology workshop, on “Understanding Growth”. This was experimental - co-writing on the spot! -, but i do come back to it: we distinguish between“Growth rooted in life” from “growth rooted in numbers”. Capitalism is pure number thinking.
Obviously there are many real experts on all this (Marx, Pikkety for a start), this piece is left field! But just thought of it again in this context.
Why should Anthropology engage with Degrowth, and why should Degrowth engage with Anthropology? This blog offers a set of reflections around these questions, based on the contributions to the workshop “Anthropology and Degrowth: Deepening the dialog…
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 6/n This is important: in contrast to most other Central Banks, which simply sit out losses, the Bank of England has an indemnity arrangement requiring the Treasury to cover its losses. This has resulted in £38-£40 billion going in effect from taxpayers to private banks in 2023, and same this year. Adding a second hashtag: #SEEtheOligarchy
FT article only for subscribers, I know (i get it through work). Here screenshots of key passages.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 7/n Now something different - this really is a rag bag, really just adding things as they come along, occur to me, no careful crafting! Just things that enable you to trace and understand how money flows to the rich, how accumulation works. So here, a piece, with this fantastic map, of second homes in the UK, in #Cornwall in particular. Key arena of widening #WealthGap #Inequality
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 8/n Adding here a (somewhat sweary, apologies) Politics Joe interview with Gary Stevenson (see 1/n), talking about the rapid increase in inequality in the UK and the world, and also about how we need to make people SEE THIS. They need to realise that the reason their lives are shit, that they can't get houses, is growing inequality. Because the system is set up to make money flow to the rich. Everyone needs to understand this. #SEETheOligarchy
Gary Stevenson @garyseconomics was Citibank's most profitable trader in 2011 by predicting there would be an increase in economic inequality. Now, he spends ...
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 9/n So far the has been more about who the money flows towards, but now also some posts about who it flows away from. Again, random collection, no comprensive analysis - just snippets of what’s going on!
Yesterday I listened to this really heartbreaking and deeply worrying programme about the rapid rise in bankruptcies in the UK. Of course we see this all around us - all those closing restaurants, Debenhams etc. the #DeathOfTheHighStreet speeding up
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 10/n But note the title ⬆️ - what is going on here? Turns out quite a bit of of the program was about how “Zombie firms”were kept alive artificially for years by low interest rates; that it’s good if they die and others take over. Really struck and appalled by utter coldness, distance and dehumanisation by people who say this - as @PippiPunkstrumpf just said, they really think of others just as numbers (see also our “Understanding Growth” piece above 5/n).
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 11/n Another key area money flows away from are local councils and social services and, therefore, the young and, again, community. In Birmingham, whose council declared bankruptcy in 2023, provisions for children will be cut by £52m in 2024-25 and £63m in 2025-26; youth services by £2.3m; and eleven community centres are being sold off. As John Harris says:
First it was austerity. Now it’s something even worse: the suggestion that people didn’t need vital local services to begin with, says Guardian columnist John Harris
#FollowTheMoney 🧵12/n Of course, things were never rosy for everyone. Nevertheless, key shared assumptions about the #commongood informed post war public spending and that is all eroding now.
“Continuing austerity does not just kill people’s services; it has long since warped most political debates about what we should expect from the state. In lots of places, squalor, mess and festering social problems are now seen as the norm. “ #TheCrumble
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 13/n and i have to mention UK universities too, since I am directly affected myself (see #AcademicVenting).
40% of UK universities are in debt, with major reduncancies right now (incl at Goldsmiths). All in arts, humanities and social sciences. All of this is crumbling, with too little money flowing into it. Another industry, another #CommonGood being eroded. Check out this constantly updated tally. #TheCrumble
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 14/n Just realised the title of this really excellent article by Sam Knight is actually perhaps the real theme of this 🧵:
What Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule have Done to Britain
As Sam says, #Austerity is not even talked about so much anymore, but it has just broken the #UK . Please do read the whole piece, so well written, so damning (and I’ve even managed to ignore an aside criticism of Corbyn - usually makes me hate any writer! 😊)
“The average worker is now £14,000 worse off per year than if earnings had continued to rise at pre-crisis rates—it is the worst period for wage growth since the Napoleonic Wars. “Nobody who’s alive and working in the British economy today has ever seen anything like this. This is what failure looks like.” “
A Herefordshire case workers has developed a phrase to describe people needing help, “for her paperwork”:
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 16/n Back to who the money flows towards:
Nobody had a better year than Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth has increased by more than any other billionaire, up by nearly $113 billion over the past 12 months, to an estimated $177 billion #AI #Meta
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 17/n and here the whole Forbes Rich List for 2024. The planet has a record 2,781 billionaires now who are worth a record $14.2 trillion.
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"Spotify’s CEO is now a billionaire but it takes artists 334 streams to make $1. The company just enacted a plan to completely demonetize smaller artists.
This is what I am thinking about now. Not at all the first to say this or even think it myself, but just to emphasise: better not to think of billionaires as evil scheming money grabbers - i mean, they are - but as vessels for money, capitalism itself. Like, sci-fi wise, human bodies that look like humans from the outside but have been taken over by an AI - money itself. And it’s ruling everything!
#AcademicVenting That is what this is: we are governed by money itself, and it brings cruel unimaginative rightwing mediocrity to the top everywhere. (Second crossover with #FollowTheMoney 🧵 here!)
Sadly forgotten name just now, (will edit), but remembering podcast with Cambridge prof saying people worry about being ruled by AI , nonhuman entities, but that is exactly what corporations are. Nonhuman entities are already running everything.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 21/n Suddenly remembered that at the end of 2022 I posted this here. So embarrassing - cringe, as my children would say! That I actually wrote “the new world is almost born”. No it’s not. The time of monsters is in full, full swing, the new world really is not born yet. All we can do is to keep on trying to organise to make it happen one day. #Gramsci
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 22/n Last point and then I will stop for today: saw #Hamilton a few weeks ago and was really struck by how then it was possible to start a revolution, raise an army and WIN! Like, that would just be totally impossible now. The imbalance in military power, just as in wealth (and control over media etc etc) is just so VAST now. It’s impossible to beat. That’s why noone really even tries anymore.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 23/n. Sorry- one more! Just to end on a less bleak note: seeing this toot reminded me that, of course, that billionaire military might AI bleak dystopia is real,IS our world, but there is actually an even bigger reality here every day, in all of us, since forever. Which is that the vast majority of us humans basically just want a simple life, with family, friends, barbecues (ok maybe not perfect example but since it’s here). #FrugalAbundance
Stone cooking supports used to grill skewers of meat by Minoans on Santorini, 3600 years old.
The line of holes in the base supplied coals with oxygen. Many consider modern "souvlaki" street kebabs a direct descendant of this portable food system.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 24/n. Like, watching the blue tits busy building their nest in the box outside our kitchen window, feeding their young, flying back and forth: most of us humans are so much closer to them than to scheming billionaires.
And: this forever (i hope forever- in peril due to other!) reality - of birds, trees, parents hugging children, just enjoying being together - this is perhaps the real reality. Or at least always also there. Mustn’t forget!
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 25/n back to a reality most of us in the UK inhabit on a daily basis: the crumbling public sector. Found this report on NHS dentistry’s struggle for survival really very moving just now. #NHS #dentistry #UKpolitics
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 26/n An outstanding review by Will Davies (my Goldsmiths colleague) of Brett Christopher’s “The Price is Wrong”: about our neoliberal political economy (using a Braudelian distinction btw “the market” and “capitalism” - SO useful) and how this explain why investments in fossil fuels continue to vastly outstrip those in renewables. Key point: Capitalism IS rent-seeking. #ClimateEmergency
#FollowTheMoney 🧵27/n The piece btw contains a necessary critique of my sci-fi “money rules” take a few posts above. Although i still like the idea of all this being a kind of superorganism. But yes, it is about power - political economy, not just economy.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 28/n But honestly, just read this piece - everything in this 🧵 in one brilliant analysis. And, crucially, using to explain lack of climate action. This is what everyone, each one of us, needs to think about! “Ecologically speaking, neoliberalism couldn’t have come at a worse time.”
Here Christopher’s book itself: The Price is Wrong. Why Capitalism Won’t Save The Planet.
RECENT TECHNICAL ADVANCES mean it is typically cheaper to produce electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels. Yet, around the world, the transition to green energy is happening too slowly if it is happening at all.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 29/n Another overlap with #AcademicVenting 🧵- because it’s all of a piece! Because the crisis in HE is a key phenomenon in all this!
This great piece by Jessica Wildfire really needs to be read in full, but this extract most apt here:
“Universities aren't institutions of knowledge anymore. They're assets. They're revenue streams. If they're not generating money for the top, then they only pose a threat, and they have to be weakened and destroyed.”
“A lot of rich people don’t actually want an education system or the educated population that would come along with it. Sure, it would be better for everyone. But it would also mean having to share, and these people have let their greed literally drive them insane.”
Wow. As Bregman says: Stunning graph: the plummeting tax rates of the richest Americans. For the first time in history, billionaires have a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans.
Look at 1980 - I do continue to think that *everything* could have been different if Carter hadn’t lost to Reagan.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 32/n Watched “The Founder” on Netflix yesterday, about McDonalds. Really interesting- would recommend it. Particularly how the real breakthrough came when Kroc, advised by Sonneborn, went for real estate. Checked it on Wikipedia:
“McDonald's present-day real-estate holdings represent $37.7 billion on its balance sheet, about 99% of the company's assets and 35% of its annual gross revenue.”
Today an overlap with #ClimateDiary: British farmers are struggling due to climate change, Brexit AND supermarket power:
Most farmers receive less than 1% of the profit made from the food they grow. Of the 20% food inflation experienced by the public a minuscule proportion made its way back to the farmer. Tesco made a £2.3bn profit last year, while 49% of fruit and veg farmers fear they’ll be out of business before the end of this one.
The climate crisis is making the farming business unsustainable – and without support for us, food security will suffer too, says Riverford founder Guy Singh-Watson
We had a veg box for 12 years from Hankham Organics; 3 weeks ago we suddenly had a note with our box that they were closing, as it wasn’t working financially any more. 😢😢😢
And a fish merchant who we got smoked salmon for Christmas from closed this year too, for the same reasons. Plus Goldsmiths’ woes of course (#AcademicVenting). So many good, small organisations struggling and ending.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 36/n Here a positive, progressive use of money flows:
1400+ Columbia University alumni from its 20 schools have pledged to withhold all “financial, programmatic, and academic support” until school meets demands related to divestment, student discipline, and community safety. Group website says over $63 million of donations at risk. #Gaza #studentprotests
Even though all of us living in the UK know that homelessness is terrible (and has grown exponentially since 2010), it is still shocking to see this graph.
(There are notes on methods: all countries included both rough sleeping and invisible homelessness).
A rare silver lining to severe cuts in local council budgets: for the last few years Eastbourne have stopped spraying our streets and I love this time of year, flowers reclaiming the streets everywhere. #Rewilding #ClimateDiary
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 41/n Ok so the reason for the long pause in this 🧵 was being made rdundant in July, by my lovely (not) employer of 13 years, Goldsmiths University. You can read all about it in this long #AcademicVenting 🧵, tracing the whole sorry saga from first rumblings in Nov ‘23 to the bitter end. But of course, #redundancy is all about money, and I think about money all the time now (I have to), so really should write it about it all here a bit
Half thinking of starting an #AcademicVenting hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.
Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail. #Universities #AcademicChatter #neoliberalism
#FollowTheMoney 🧵42/n Firstly, I am conscious of my own #redundancy being very much part of the wider hollowing out, draining out of both public services and professional, creative industries everywhere (see many posts ⬆️). I am really scared about this - it’s strange how this is happening but not really talked about; no #unemployment crisis narrative at all, as of course most people, like me, end up not being “unemployed” but doing smaller, precarious jobs; very few of us on benefiso no stats
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 43/n Now of course Elon Musk - having made 2/3 of Twitter staff redundant - has been hired by Trump to head the new “Efficiency Department”. i find this prospect alone deeply, deeply scary - both in terms of public services disappearing and the 1000s who will lose their jobs. As you all know: there is absolutely nothing “efficient” about these kinds of cuts whatsoever. They are deeply destructive, nothing else.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 44/n but also: #Redundancy has made me think deeply (of course!) about the role of money in personal decision making. I may be wrong but it feels like this is something we don’t talk about much, and yet it is is so central to everything! I DO want to talk about it, even if I have nothing insightful to say actually. Just a few observations.
1. Money was at core of my decisions around redundancy. I have two teenage children and a high mortgage.
I could not go for lovely 0.5 offered, or for tribunal; I had to opt for enhanced redundancy. If had chosen tribunal route i would have probably been able to keep my job as the 12 who did (who were able to do so due to different financial circumstances) were all reinstalled in an even lovelier deal btw management and union. (The 64 of us eho accepted enhanced redundancy by deadline did not know this would happen).
2. Money is now also so core to all my decision-making in how to spend my time, what jobs to go for - and balancing the need for money with wanting to do good, environmental work, and things I enjoy and am good at. It is quite strange, I gave a lecture at SOAS in Feb this year on “Doing Work You Believe in and be paid for it”, on the very day the Goldsmiths mass redundancies were announced (will see if I can upload recording here)
This was a combination of two papers: one on unpaid Eastbourne climate activism, one on sustainability professionals in the palm oil sector. It is very strange that I gave that lecture and wrote that paper - this is me now! I am out here in the wilderness, having to make a living, and yes, doing consultancy work. Which, of course, as I am rapidly learning, does not have to mean “selling out “ - my current work for the RSPB is really rewarding.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 48/n here also a link to the other paper on Eastbourne climate activism, i’ve shared it before but doing so again as it has a brief section on what kind of work is rewarded by high salaries, and what isn’t. I still feel this is an incredibly important topic and not really talked about enough in #ClimateAction circles. Maybe we can talk about it more together here?
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 49/n Anyway, just to end for today: a huge, HUGE shout out ❤️ to everyone on here who works “freelance”, going from one projec to another (more on “projects” and projectification later - so important in itself). I am now realising the immense privilege of a secure job (not secure in my case, as it turned out), where you don’t have to think about where your money will come from in 6 months or whatever. It is a fundamentally different state of being. Everything now existential.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 50/n Today adding this excellent video by @RichardJMurphy on how “the City” is not our “Jewel in the Crown”, as Rachel Reeves put it, but a parasite extracting huge amounts of money for self-enrichment. It does not add any value to the economy.
The City of London claims it is the powerhouse of the UK economy. Rachel Reeves has called it our ‘Jewel in the Crown’. But actually, it’s much more like a p...
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 51/n Richard’s video has spurred me on to do a few posts now on #PrivateEquity. Long overdue here, because private equity is at the heart of how our world works!
(Just to state again: i am not an expert, just someone who is trying to make sense of our world by #FollowingTheMoney, in an eclectic 🧵)
To start with basics: what is private equity? I like this clear definition by Justin Robertson
The amount of wealth and assets held by private equity is vast. The biggest private equity firm of all is of course #BlackRock, founded by Larry Fink in 1988. Here is a lovely Statistica chart showing how its “assets under management” grew from $1.31 trillion (i mean, not bad) to $10.41 trillion in 2024. Bloomberg predicts they will hit $15 trillion in a few years
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 53/n I have to go now but over the next few days just want to talk about what this means: it means that so much of the world around us - restaurants, care homes, appartment blocks, student accommodation, etc etc, is all owned by private equity; that there is no escape.
This article is hard to stomach for all those of us currently looking for work, and not finding anything suitable, or anything at all. But it’s good that at least rising #unemployment is recognised now.
My own #redundancy last year and subsequent struggles have made me so alert to all these wider structural changes; I am really scared that this may be just the beginning. Terrible combination of AI and money going only to the rich
“Keri said her father had been “powered by unconditional love” but he felt the government took advantage of the nearly 6 million people like him who care for a loved one, saving the taxpayer at least £162bn a year.”
This reminded of a thought I had a while back: how salaries/wages are directly negatively correlated with love.
When you do something you love, or out of love, this is instantly punished by capitalism.
David Lodge died after being found next to his father and full-time carer Peter’s body. His sister Keri believes the strain of caring and lack of government support contributed to their deaths
- nurses, art gallery workers, conservation NGOs, academics, etc - all these jobs that people do out of love for something/one are poorly paid. Love is exploited. More love = less money.
Only love of money itself and nothing else is rewarded with money (high salaries, bonuses, etc). Maybe not surprising - what do you expect in capitalism - but not much honesty about it. All that neoliberal motivational #Passion talk (“my work is my passion”) - exploitative bollocks.
This LinkedIn post resonates … wanted to share here just in case there are others who are in this situation too.
Also one reason I hardly ever add to this 🧵any more is that, of course, I am literally trying to #FollowTheMoney, or rather, divert some from somewhere to my bank account😄 #JobSearch #FediHire
This week, a friend told me they’d taken a job with lower pay and a smaller title.
“It’s not my dream job,” they said. “But I need the money.”
My heart ached for him.
I think so much about middle class-ness at the moment. More research in news this week how it’s the top 10%, those with incomes over £36,000, who are largely responsible for CO2 emissions; but it’s even more than that; middle-class aspirations shape everything. So conscious of this now as I am so driven in finding work so as not to have to sell our (nice, middle class, highly mortgaged house). Then a friend just sent me this - must read. #ClimateDiary
Meanwhile also, as I am listening to the radio as I am typing this: yet another horrific attack in northern #Gaza. Another 50 killed, after yesterday’s 80. This is our world.
“The wealth of the world’s 3,000 billionaires has surged by $6.5tn (£4.8tn) in real terms over the past decade, according to Oxfam, equivalent to 14.6% of global output”
Capitalism is shit.It is by the rich for the rich and destroys everything else in the process. Let’s keep saying it!
A key dimension to capitalism’s destructivism is, of course, its complete intertwining with warfare. Here more than anywhere it’s crucial to #FollowTheMoney, as Craig Murray does beautifully in this piece.
Dystopia UK: Genocidal RAF Squadron Targeted by Palestine Action is Owned by a Hedge Fund
If you thought RAF jets were owned by the RAF, think again. The RAF squadron targeted for a repaint by Palestine Action due to its involvement in supplying Israel’s genocide, does not in fact belong to the RAF at all.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵63/n Excellent article by Tim White on how across Europe #privateequity has been buying up significant proportions of housing and driving up rental prices. A key dynamic in growing inequality that contributes to alienation and rise of far-right.
We’ve been living in a great experiment: can finance provide basic human rights such as housing? The answer is increasingly no, says researcher and writer Tim White
#FollowTheMoney 🧵64/n The article made me think once again about Monopoly, and how perfectly it captures what the world is like. Originally called “the Landlord Game”, it was invented in 1903 by left-wing feminist Lizzie Magie who wanted to expose how rentier capitalism works through a game. She more than succeeded but - this being capitalist US - never got the credit for it. Interesting piece about it all here.
In 1903, a leftwing feminist called Lizzy Magie patented the board game that we now know as Monopoly – but she never gets the credit. Now a new book aims to put that right
There's also a perverse normativity in the idea that one's job has to be one's passion that blinds people to their actual alienation. They might feel that something is off but rather than blaming their day-job -something external- they blame themselves for not "feeling it", not "trying hard enough", not really "wanting to succeed", not having the right "mindset" etc. Realizing that one's job is not one's purpose can be liberating. But still, better to have choices of course.
Sending a note from the maelstrom of redundancy negotiations. It’s chaotic and you’re right, suddenly the focus on money is acute. Your thread has been so helpful.
the man, the myth, the legend, guy who barely killed PayPal with the efficiency of his management, man who bought his place in already good Tesla and got the subsidies for it through the lies and managed SpaceX for 6 years and became successful only after getting 1.6 billion in subsidies from the government. Man who did not create anything good without government money and supervision now supervises government efficiency. Lovely
very interesting! I wonder what the alternative might have been though... $64 billion or more fairly distributed among the other 90 richest 100? Old-school arms and oil traders or something?
i think this kind of ecological 'regeneration through abandonment' is going to become increasingly common over the next few decades. Entire cities will become increasingly neglected and we know from the example of Chernobyl that this can be hugely beneficial for biodiversity even under the worst conditions.
Whilst I agree on that, the abandonment of the gardens on the front is tragic.
Adoption of a Dutch style grass and perennial scheme rather than old-fashioned summer bedding would certainly make sense but what I saw there was abandonment.
It is difficult to attract tourism but the rot makes it even more difficult. It will create a downward spiral of further deprivation.
Time was, the Parks Department won awards. All that expertise thrown away.
I did write an email response directly to their alumni office (see pic) that my husband (financial engineering msc) and I (earth science PhD) would not be giving a dime (as alumni)
Missing from message is the reality on #columbia campus:: No students Nypd everywhere Kettling barricades everywhere Nypd ID checks w no one in line because so few are being let in
I don’t think so. The wheels were in motion. The neoliberal movement had installed itself inside the institution. If not Reagan 84 and Thatcher 79 then it would have been someone else willing to follow their playbook. Carter himself had already been busy in playing according to their rules (cf. Oreskes & Conway: The Big Myth)
I spent three hours yesterday at a rural Tennessee courthouse with a lot of other people trying to get my property tax assessment changed. Our property taxes went up 50% last year, and everyone's homes in the entire state went up ~40% probably just to get more $ from us. People in line with me said food, health insurance, healthcare, cars, car insurance, homeowners insurance, etc are now unaffordable, and new state taxes are the latest effort to destroy the middle class.
"I know that “capitalists sometimes do bad things” isn’t exactly an original talking point. But I do want to stress how it’s not equivalent to “capitalists are greedy”. I mean, sometimes they are greedy.
I started pointing this out back in the days of #MyopicMaggie . Unrestrained capitalism is doomed to failure. I think of it like this:
"If you let people do what they want, what will they do?"
Answer : "They'll do what they want"
It is literally, as simple as that. The problem now is getting people to understand that 'legislation is a *good* thing' and also how to deal with global level international money-laundering.
it's amazing how little his bet on the metaverse affected him. If I make a business decision that bad, scaled to my own net worth, my life would fall apart, but scale that up and you get to externalize your mistakes to other people's lives, then when you lay them off, your stock price actually goes up and you're even richer. I already know that that's how it works but it doesn't stop me from being constantly awed by it.
Meanwhile, those whose mortgage was paid decades ago make statements like "well the UK has always been a low-income economy", and ask "why did you come here" when pressed about reasons for the decay and what's the plan going forward (at that point they are letting you know they are upset at you). At best, they'll offer a "there's nothing that can be done" and, if taking it personally, "it's not my fault". In private conversations, they may even say, "no more colonies to plunder, so what were the rich supposed to do?"
Perhaps a whole generation needs to retire. But even then their votes will continue to count – in the wrong direction.
I am hoping beyond hope that someone understands the UK economy well enough to come up with a feasible plan, and has the political savvy and clout to pull it off.
@JeniParsons Second homes and holiday lets are a massive problem where I live in Pembrokeshire. Our nearest beach is in one of those eerie villages that is silent outside holiday season
academia is particularly good at divorcing commodity from the creator. Almost no academic gets paid for peer reviewed essays which is published by an industry making billions every year.
The finance sector does not produce anything of value. Its sole purpose is to siphon off wealth from the rest of the economy and allow the rich to gamble for their share of it. This is not capitalism, this is rent-seeking, or "technofeudalism".
@jackofalltrades Look at capitalism from the perspective of the mid-18th century: it's a fantastic way to take the little surplus in society and create a larger surplus. The fact that the surplus is not shared equitably is less important than the idea of making more surplus, because almost everyone is one bad harvest or one new virus away from an early death.
Now it's 300 years later. The planet mostly creates enough calories for our massive population to live without the constant threat of starvation. We've got enough medical care to live most people a decent life span.
Now we can afford to reign in the excesses and transition to something more equitable.
I loved the part of the article that said to "look at the world with your fucking eyes."
When I look around in my upper-middle class bubble I see many people striving to replicate what the rich are doing. Parents of my daughter's school friend just bought (i.e. took a mortgage for, leveraging their credit score) fourth apartment. Colleagues from work are trading bitcoin or otherwise participate in the FIRE movement.
But is this really newsworthy? This has been going on for decades, even centuries. My question is: how to change it? The French (1789) way obviously didn’t work. „Egalite“ had been abandoned shortly after the heads of government came - literally- off. The Russian (1917) and Chinese (1945) ways also failed. Comrades Putin and Xi are no different from Trump/Biden/Sunak/Scholz/… etc. when it comes to sharing the riches of society. Any ideas?
ACIP should not play along with a crooked CDC, and only approve the rollout of products when ACIP has been provided with comprehensive and satisfactory data.
06:02 Gaza Health Ministry: Health and humanitarian conditions are catastrophic as the enemy blocks emergency medical supplies english.masirahtv.net/news/360…
They execute. You can argue over the wisdom of the policy choices, but the administration is defined by the discipline of its staff work, its task focus, and its drive to produce measurable outcomes. When they set out to do something, they do it.
"Our findings do not comment on the intentions of computer-vision researchers. Rather, they bring into focus the systematic pattern of extracting human data and enabling surveillance."
“Additionally, our findings challenge the notion that only a few rogue entities enable surveillance. Rather, we found that the normalization of targeting humans permeates the field. This normalization is especially striking given patterns of obfuscation. We reveal obfuscating language that allows documents to avoid direct mention of targeting humans, for example, by normalizing the referring to of humans as 'objects' to be studied without special consideration. Our results indicate the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.”
![Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar of investigating Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir without his approval, amid a power struggle that continues to deepen the rift in government.
Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously in the early hours of Friday to dismiss Bar, marking the first time that a sitting head of the [domestic] security agency has been fired.](https://friendica.eskimo.com/photo/preview/640/7798209 "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar of investigating Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir without his approval, amid a power struggle that continues to deepen the rift in government.
Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously in the early hours of Friday to dismiss Bar, marking the first time that a sitting head of the [domestic] security agency has been fired.")
![In 1956, Ray Kroc met Harry J. Sonneborn, a
former vice president of finance for Tastee-
Freez, who offered an idea to accelerate the
growth and investment grade of Kroc's
planned McDonald's operation: to own the
real estate upon which future franchises
would be built. Kroc hired Sonneborn and his
plan was executed by forming a separate
company, Franchise Realty Corp, to hold
McDonald's real estate. The new company
signed leases and procured mortgages for
both land and buildings, passing these costs
on to the franchisee with a 20-40% markup
and a reduced initial deposit of $950. [12][131
The "Sonneborn model" of real-estate
ownership within the franchise persists to
this day, and may be the most important
financial decision in the company's history.
McDonald's present-day real-estate
holdings represent $37.7 billion on its
balance sheet, about 99% of the company's
assets and 35% of its annual gross revenue.](https://friendica.eskimo.com/photo/preview/640/7797536 "In 1956, Ray Kroc met Harry J. Sonneborn, a
former vice president of finance for Tastee-
Freez, who offered an idea to accelerate the
growth and investment grade of Kroc's
planned McDonald's operation: to own the
real estate upon which future franchises
would be built. Kroc hired Sonneborn and his
plan was executed by forming a separate
company, Franchise Realty Corp, to hold
McDonald's real estate. The new company
signed leases and procured mortgages for
both land and buildings, passing these costs
on to the franchisee with a 20-40% markup
and a reduced initial deposit of $950. [12][131
The \"Sonneborn model\" of real-estate
ownership within the franchise persists to
this day, and may be the most important
financial decision in the company's history.
McDonald's present-day real-estate
holdings represent $37.7 billion on its
balance sheet, about 99% of the company's
assets and 35% of its annual gross revenue.")
slackbastard
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