Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

tried to read that jacobin article but was def beyond me. can someone break it down for this simpleton?

Funding a CLT’s operations then becomes one of the primary motivators of the organization. And as HUD funding dwindles, securing coveted HOME or Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) awards has become a highly competitive process requiring formulaic objectives, exact budgets, and absurdly regimented financial record-keeping practices.

This is basically describing most professional non-profit orgs -- tbh -- except it's housing instead of education or health care or the arts ... basically the author seems to have a problem with the professionalized structure of the work. This is a common problem for grassroots activists, as well as academics, like the author, who somehow want community work to not require paperwork and regimented record-keeping and the bureaucratic processes and hoops that the author undoubtedly has experienced, considering they did a PhD.

*reads further*

oh okay, they are bringing up the non-profit structure in general and how it often leads to chasing grants and pleasing funders and losing sight of "the mission" and "the community" ... again, maybe it's because I've worked in different kinds of non-profits that I was hoping to see something about how land trusts differ from arts institutions or schools in terms of how this structure makes them being problematic. ... more specific details ... but this generally reads like a critique of the common issues re non-profit institutions with land trusts as a "case study" ... it's a decent summary of those issues, actually. I have just, read a lot of similar things already on that topic, so that I, personally, in my esoteric nerdy way, am annoyed and disappointed with this article.

* reads further *

omg -- East Bay PREC hahahahah -- that group spent an absurd amount of time "incubating" with "venture capital" to develop a "business plan" ...or something like that (definitely not an example of grassroots DIY oppositional leftists like the Civil Rights workers from the 60s that are the author's ideal) ... EBPREC look realllllllly good on paper / website.

Because these community investment models require complex legal structures and involve ownership of significant assets, some level of professionalism and sound financial practices are still important to making them work

really? whoaaaaaaaaaaaa

Oakland CLT’s vision for acquiring multiple community-financed sites in partnership with a set of mission-aligned local organizations may indeed light the way for other CLTs struggling with the tensions between grant funding and community control.

yeah, that org is pretty legit. ... I don't want to be a hater of this article tbh ... some of their properties are standard residential housing though, but the one I'm familiar with is kinda an artists' live/work building ... both that building and the Hasta Muerte building the link talks about have structural (lol) problems that need to be fixed that are potentially very expensive and are the sort of thing that traditional funding/financing tends to avoid because of risk. The one the article talks about is Unreinforced Masonry which could entail a major seismic retrofit

*reads to the end*
lol of the two orgs the author cites as models, one is the org they work with.

It's actually a decent article tbh. Sorry.

i mean i DID say "lol jacobin" didnt i

tried to read that jacobin article but was def beyond me. can someone break it down for this simpleton?

The original model for the community land trust were entities set up during the 1960s by Civil Rights workers to make sure that black southerners could legally own and maintain property. These entities gave the black people relative autonomy in terms of how they used the land and how they organized themselves. This was good.

Then land trusts became a trendy model to combat gentrification in hip cities. They became professionalized non-profit organizations that focused on getting grants from government and rich foundations. These grants have a lot of rules and paperwork and require knowledge of law and accounting. Because of this, these land trusts operate more like businesses and care more about the needs and interests of the entities giving them money than the needs and interests of the poor people who live in the properties they own. This is bad.

Other newer land trusts are doing things somewhat differently to give the residents/users of the land trust properties more autonomy and input into the management/use of the property. One of them is the land trust the author works for. Two others are in Oakland, CA. However running a land trust is challenging because it is a complex model that involves large sums of money, so after all, it does require skilled management and knowledge of law and accounting. But, still, it's really important to actually focus on the people/communities your land trust was set up to serve.

appreciate the effort to explain. i'm rather unfamiliar with both land trusts and non-profit bureacracy

non-profit bureaucracy is not that much different from corporate bureaucracy tbh.

Basically, in practice, a lot of land trusts work like a condo HOA except they also regulate the sales of the property and ensure that the prices remain relatively affordable to the new owner.

I don't think it's just a California thing, but it was interesting that the author talked about CDBG and HOME funds and didn't mention stuff like local bond funds ... which are local/regional grants. The community land trusts I know of (and similar orgs that do development) mostly are getting money from those, and not federal stuff like CDBGs.

High-speed traders are now building shortwave radio stations and applying for broadcast licenses for datacasting their trades into NYC

Admittedly it's technically clever, but gruesome in a "so it's come to this" way.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/gofundme-economy-was-never-going-work/615457/

The answer that virtually every other rich country has figured out: The government should act like a government, like its job is to provide these things. It should replace people’s income when a recession hits, and help businesses struggling through no fault of their own. It should guarantee simple, affordable access to medical care. It should provide child care and public education for families. And it should invest in trains and buses and classrooms. Fighting recessions and building public infrastructure, including care, health, and educational infrastructure—this should not be the work of citizens. When it is, let’s acknowledge that’s a tragedy.

well when you put it like that ...

Elvis, what is the benefit of using shortwave radio instead of the traditional methods high-speed traders use? Does it somehow obscure the trade? Wouldn't the exchange still have a record of the trade?

Speed for high frequency trading presumably. Each hop/router introduces milliseconds. A direct radio link is limited by the speed of light

Ah, thanks.

people have been working on this shortwave concept for trading for awhile now...let's just say there have been a lot of complications along the way.

I guess people don't realize the impact of speeds and feeds in trading. But there has been an arms race going on for a decade or more and the stakes are very, very high.

also fwiw direct radio link is also limited by interference (which is not generally trivial in use cases like this) but I guess that's sort of obvious

there's a great episode of the Michael Lewis podcast (Against The Rules) about this stuff - https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/the-magic-shoebox-s1!33643

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/gofundme-economy-was-never-going-work/615457/

The answer that virtually every other rich country has figured out: The government should act like a government, like its job is to provide these things. It should replace people’s income when a recession hits, and help businesses struggling through no fault of their own. It should guarantee simple, affordable access to medical care. It should provide child care and public education for families. And it should invest in trains and buses and classrooms. Fighting recessions and building public infrastructure, including care, health, and educational infrastructure—this should not be the work of citizens. When it is, let’s acknowledge that’s a tragedy.
well when you put it like that ...

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, August 31, 2020 1:09 AM (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

gofundme is a pathetic replacement for a welfare state. and tbh it’s way worse than charity. so many of the successful gofundmes i see are for hot or well-connected people in a mild financial pickle; the model transparently favors people who are in a favorable high-centrality position in a social network rather than who is in most need

otm

Hence why my own parents who actually were at risk of going under could barely raise $70 (leaving my brother and I to foot the bill), but my brother's then-girlfriend raised thousands for a trip to Germany for an experimental medical procedure by funneling it through her church.

Later it came out that the money was, shall we say, not used in the way the GoFundMe stated. One reason they're not together rn.

Jesus

BREAKING: Disney to layoff 28,000 employees as coronavirus slams its theme park business https://t.co/L23JdMXsXA

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) September 29, 2020

It's the second to last day of the fiscal year where I work. My co-worker got laid off along with 186 others in my position. So bad, all the news all the time.

That's about 36% of the entire Disney World workforce. Holy fucking shit.

Oh I guess those aren't exclusively park employees but still, that's a lot of employees

I saw that...Grim news from the happiest place on earth.

It's actually impressive they didn't do these layoffs sooner tbh ... though maybe not in a good way? If they'd done it sooner the employees could have gotten the extra unemployment benefits?

Were they continuing to pay for non-wage benefits during the furlough? One of the bartenders where I work worked at Disneyland and was hoping they'd call her back soon -- I'll ask her.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-18/the-world-s-cfos-have-a-dire-message-for-real-estate-investors

“That’s the key rationale for buying real estate. Most landlords are in effect pension and insurance funds and ultimately that’s who is going to be paying for it,” said Adrian Benedict, head of real-estate solutions at Fidelity International in London. “If the whole central tenet of security of income is undermined through this crisis, you are storing up a world of trouble.”

Individual security rests on the strength of the social contract far more than the premise that rentier income is inviolate.

commercial real estate investors getting fucked over should have been priced in for a while imho

then again WeWork

ding ding ding

This is wild

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/penny-stock-zomedica-jumps-250-after-someone-paid-netflix-star-carole-baskin-299-for-a-mention-225328904.html

(particularly since the Signal story at the end is wrong - Elon Musk tweeted about it on Thursday, the wrong stock went up, Signal tweeted that it was the wrong stock on Friday and the stock went further up)

stock market is a shell game shocker

lmao https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/gamestop-tug-of-war-gives-reddit-army-a-win-on-record-volatility

So, Elon Musk-esque stock shenanigans?

they're just trying to get to the secret boss

People have been playing Gamestop for a year. It's an entire thing that that article does not really touch on.

You mean the "mob" has been holding long since beginning of 2020?

not the entire "mob" but it's been a lot of people in and out waiting for the short squeeze but also long shares because it was undervalued. I've been in since around Sept. and i felt late, there were already activist investors in it before then. But yeah there is *one guy* who is pretty well known, who has been holding since early 2020, late 2019 with a huge position. I don't really want to say here where it started and where it's at, but he's still holding.

It's interesting... I really don't see how GameStop will defeat the new generation, with makers pushing digital only consoles. at the very least there should be a huge decline in preowned game sales, and I don't think merch can make up for it. But this year has really proven that it's all bullshit anyway, I suppose

oh wait, i just doublechecked, he was in by mid 2019 at least, before the big short, Dr. Burry guy got in. I start paying attention in Oct it looks like.

Hi Yerac!!

Hi silby, do a drive-by at the scampo shop on your way home.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wgvv/people-are-so-so-mad-at-gamestop-investors-and-fintok-influencers
i like this paragraph:

"Here's my strategy in a nutshell,” Chad says in the video. “I see a stock going up and I buy it and I just watch it until it stops going up. And then I sell it and I do that over and over and it pays for our whole lifestyle.” In a follow up video, Chad told the tens of thousands of people accusing him of giving bad advice that they should “suck a butt” and said that he would now create a channel called Crappy Wall Street Advice to actually give advice and grow his profile from it.

tl;dr:

• Chad
• I see a stock going up and I buy it and I just watch it until it stops going up
• suck a butt
• Crappy Wall Street Advice

People who have figured out how to live

If you’re so stupid then why aren’t you rich

Lol

We make money the old fashioned way -- we suck a butt

Strong Beyonce/Ed Sheeran vibes from that video.

i don't watch fintok or youtube videos but the entire language of it all has slowly seeped into my real life- talking about my wife's boyfriend and "sir, this is a casino."

sometimes i get vague foma from stonks and all the people who are apparently getting money from it but i'm pretty sure i would hate it and be terrible at it.

this GME shit is tempting though 🚀🚀🚀