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SoFi / IPOE growth catalysts are on the way
SoFi is going public via merger with Chamath's IPOE spac. Here are some SoFi catalysts to look forward to! Cash deposits! SoFi is in talks to roll out cash deposits. A cash deposit solution will drive increased adoption of SoFi Money over accounts at brick-and-mortar banks. Cash deposits are a big deal because they are the main sticking point for online banking holdouts. If cash deposits take the form of partnering with a national chain, that could also mean new Member benefits. Social Investing platform and Chamath as an Influencer SoFi Invest has a "Social Investing" feature where you can view the holdings, watchlist and performance of other Members (if they opt-in). From there, you can make follow on investments/watches, discuss investments, and leave emojis. Will Chamath join SoFi's social investing platform? Seems likely! He is the ideal anchor investor to promote the platform. The Social Investing platform gives SoFi a means of growing SoFi Invest by bringing notable investors (and their communities) to SoFi. In a hint of things to come, CEO Noto says "... we're on our way to introduce portfolios for those that you're following socially on our platform." This might mean one-tap portfolio duplication, or a form of MembeInfluencer managed portfolios. SoFi hiring favoring experience with social networks suggests that Social Investing will continue to evolve. SoFi Member Rewards aka SoFi Points Currently in Early Access, SoFi's Member Rewards program is expected to roll out to everyone in 2021!
The SoFi Rewards program allows eligible members to earn points through various account activities, and then redeem those points as the member sees fit across multiple SoFi products. You can redeem your SoFi Points into cash in your SoFi Money account, into Stock Bits in your SoFi Active Invest account, as an extra payment applied to your SoFi Personal Loan or SoFi Student Loan Refinance, or as a statement credit on your SoFi Credit Card--all from your phone.
This program will increase daily engagement and cross-buy of products. Resources: SoFi Member Rewards, Rewards FAQs. Not to be confused with existing Member Benefits. Bank charter SoFi received preliminary approval for their banking charter and is on the way to full approval. The charter will enable SoFi to lower costs and compete more aggressively. SoFi hiring is seeking to fill key banking positions. Targeting $1 Billion in 2021 revenue & full year profitability SoFi's target looks well within reach. They reported ~$200MM in revenue and a return to profitability for Q3 2020.
... pulled in about $200 million in revenue in the third quarter and also generated positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and other exceptions, the first time it has done so since 2017, Noto wrote in a letter to shareholders last month.
per The Information. Credit Card Currently in Early Access, the SoFi Credit Card is expected to roll out to everyone in 2021! Credit Card FAQs. SoFi-as-a-Service partnerships SoFi's consumer digital banking solution is ripe for white label expansion with major brands. The 2020 launch of Samsung Money by SoFi gives a glimpse of the massive potential.
Samsung Money by SoFi is the new way to grow your hard-earned cash, letting you save, spend, and earn -- all in one secure place. Now available on Samsung Pay.
Look for more SoFi-as-a-Service deals as consumer brands and dinosaur financial firms seek to catch up. Not limited to banking services: In October, T. Rowe Price launched co-branded financial wellness offerings with SoFi. SoFi International Expansion SoFi's international expansion was announced in Q2 2020 with the launch of SoFi Invest in Hong Kong!
Obviously, we put a lot of thought into where we chose to go with our first international foothold, and Hong Kong made sense to us for several reasons. As one of the financial capitals of Asia and a global financial center, it has a strong base of both novice and sophisticated investors that would benefit from the innovation we could bring to the market.
Members in HK can trade over 15,000 US and Hong Kong stocks for free using the SoFi Hong Kong app. This is one of SoFi's "top of the funnel" feeder products. Look for HK offerings to expand. SoFi has long planned for international expansion. From targeting mortgages in Australia (old), expansion to Canada (old), Asia and Europe (old). As SoFi's feeder products mature, they will be positioned for fast international deployment. SoFi Stadium SoFi Stadium will drive brand awareness and accelerate trust building. These are both key for growth in consumer finance. Some major events are already lined up:
The state-of-the-art stadium re-imagines the fan experience and will host a variety of events year round including Super Bowl LVI in 2022, the College Football Championship Game in 2023, and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 2028.
Located in LA, this massive stadium is packed with benefits for SoFi Members, including line skipping, 10% cash back on concessions and merch, free bag checking, and an exclusive SoFi Member Lounge. SoFi was planning to IPO at the end of 2022, which we can assume was in part due to the expected Super Bowl bump. More info at SoFi Stadium. Member Experiences SoFi has hosted free in-person Member Experiences for years. These include social events at Top Golf, escape rooms, bars/dining and so on, as well as teaching events in line with SoFi's "Get Your Money Right!" ethos. There are big celebration events for Members who have paid off their student loans in full. When the virus put a pause to in-person events, SoFi expanded their digital experiences. Over 20,000 Members registered for virtual SoFi events in 2020! As virus re-openings expand, look for SoFi Stadium opportunities and Member Experiences to increase. Galileo SoFi is expanding their offers across Galileo's platform of 50M-and-growing accounts. Keep up with Galileo using their Resources page. Possible tax solution & other additions A couple months ago SoFi surveyed Members about a possible tax filing solution. Maybe it will launch for this tax filing season. At the start of 2021, SoFi asked for input on which new features to prioritize. Such as portfolio analytics, more advanced spend tracking, and debt repayment budgeting. SoFi continues to iterate and improve their offerings with a focus on the Member. More information SoFi's public listing via IPOE merger SoFi Investor Presentation IPOE / SoFi Introductory Presentation EDIT: A revised and enhanced catalyst DD has been posted here: https://old.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kvz9x1/sofi_ipoe_growth_catalyst_overview_extensive_dd/
The man in my basement takes one step closer every week. [Part 13]
I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI - XII - XIII - XIV — He will begin in the furthest corner of your basement. — Paul was right about one thing: Psych wards aren't like the movies, at least this one wasn't. If anything, it felt more like a nursing home. Boring. Assisted living with cameras and security guards. No electroshock therapy. No drawn-out talks with stoic shrinks. No evil head nurse. The movies got one thing right though: isolation. Especially for the first few days. I was in hysterics, strapped to a bed, screaming about the man in the basement. Screaming about how sleeping away from home would only make him stronger. Give him more influence. Of course, I knew this behavior didn't exactly help my case for appearing sane. But when you're staring down the barrel of a gun, none of that really matters. Regardless, I calmed myself down after a few days. A steady cocktail of Seroquel and benzos might've helped too. Now, I had only one goal: Appear sane enough to get discharged. Get back home and hopefully salvage this disastrous transgression. Maybe the intruder would give me some leeway since my being here was involuntary. Wishful thinking. I guess there's one other thing the movies get right. The more you try to appear sane, the more insane you appear. It's not easy to pretend things are normal when you believe an ever-more powerful hivemind/ tulpa/ whatever the fuck is trying to absorb you into itself. But… I put up a decent show. To be honest, getting stuck in a psych ward is the last place I expected to be. Before this, it seemed like everything was leading up to some vast and terrible revelation, like I'd finally get the answers to all my questions. A final, horrific revelation connecting all the pieces together. But now... I was stuck in a borderline nursing home, putting together cat puzzles and playing Uno with strangers. Not exactly the finale I had in mind. The anti-climax of it all was suspect, to say the least. I was still waiting for the hammer to drop. To wake up in my room and see a coat-rack in the corner. — Getting forced into a psych ward changed my view on a lot of things. There was one guy in there; he had OCD so bad he needed seven cups of water on his bedside table at all times. Each cup needed to be slightly fuller than the last, but he also needed to drink from the third, fourth, and seventh cups every fourteen minutes. Then, pace around the psych ward three times. If he broke the ritual, he was convinced a man made out of paper would climb in through the vents and cut him in half. Shit like that might've seemed funny to me before, in a morbid kind of way, but after seeing it first hand, after living through it myself. Let's just say I don't look at homeless people rambling to themselves on the street the same way I did before. It's easy to make fun of things that make you uncomfortable. It's not so easy when you're the one going through hell. Paul came to visit too. Or at least, he tried; I didn't sign off the first few times. As far as I was concerned: Paul wasn't Paul. The real Paul was trapped back in his house, barely alive, strapped to a hospital bed, and burnt up almost beyond recognition. A prisoner in his own home. Mitch even showed up once too, but I refused him as well. Mitch wasn't Mitch either. Mitch was dead. A mangled heap of skin on his kitchen floor. Worst of all, I don't think either of them was even aware of it. But I believed that they believed they were actually themselves. Unwitting duplicates. Paul kept trying, showing up every other day. He even covered all my hospital bills out of his own pocket. (I was borderline broke, so that was appreciated.) Out of curiosity more than anything else, I finally gave in. I finally signed off on Paul's visit. We sat down in the common area. Imagine a low-income high-school lunchroom. Round tables covered in half-finished puzzles. Cold vinyl floors with flecks of milky gray. An older woman stood by the window; Rosa was her name. Every ten minutes or so, Rosa would call out for the nurse. When the nurse showed up, she'd ask them for the time. They'd tell her the time, and she'd thank them. Rinse and repeat that for the last three hours straight. After a while, you start to tune out stuff like that. Everything becomes background noise eventually. Finally, the doors pushed open, and in walked Paul. Our eyes met. He smiled sadly. Strode across the room, pulled out a rickety chair, and sat down across from me, "How've you been?" I shrugged. He nodded, and pulled a brown envelope out from his jacket. He placed it flat down on the table and slid it towards me, "That's not gonna answer everything, but it might help some." Skeptical, I reached into the envelope and pulled out a stack of documents — papers, photos, ID cards. Paul cleared his throat, "That's everything I could find on my friend in the guest room. Full warning, some of it's a little graphic." I scanned the first paper: Hospital records, detailing a man named Lawrence Weiser. A photo: A man laying on a gurney in the Vietnam jungle covered in full-body chemical burns. I flipped to the next page: Military legal papers, giving Paul the right to shelter and look after Lawrence Weiser. Clearance to 'monitor and treat complications sustained due to long-term effects of a wartime injury.' I flipped to the next page. A photo of Paul, much younger, was paper-clipped to the corner, his arm wrapped over another man's shoulder, about the same age. Both of them looked so much alike; they could've been brothers. I kept flipping, more documents, more photos, ID's, birth certificates. If they were fake, Paul would've spent a lot of time and money making them. Maybe the intruder created them out of thin air... I turned the page. More photos of Paul; He was setting up a hospital bed in his house's spare bedroom, military personnel helping out. I put the papers down and looked at him, "and...?" Paul scratched his neck, "I know it barely answers anything. But at least it clears up one thing." I set the documents on top of the envelope and slid it back across to Paul. "…I drove to Mitch's apartment, forty minutes out of town, saw a fucking fetus monster climb out his mouth, then I ran down the hallway and ended up in your basement… Hell, I'm pretty sure my car's still parked out at Mitch's. And you're saying it's in my head?" Paul nodded understandingly, looked back over his shoulder, making sure nobody was in earshot, "It's not in your head," he said, turning back to face me, "It's only partially in your head. This thing's got a foot in the door between reality and nothing, and if you let it, it'll push that door all the way open and never go back." I scoffed, "Why all the runarounds? Why the stupid fucking rules?" Paul leaned back into his chair, "Mitch and I have different ideas on how to fix it. I figured accepting it's there and living life regardless is the best route. Mitch thinks that's what it wants you to do... Truth is probably somewhere in the middle." "Why'd you say I could pass it off then?" Paul looked at me, genuinely confused. "In the park," I continued, "you said I could build a bunker door, pass it off to somebody else." "In the park...?" I looked at him in disbelief. Did he forget? "I- I honestly don't know what you're talking about," said Paul. He seemed sincere. But I'd been fooled more than enough by now. "In the park, you told me this long, drawn-out fucking story about how you fell in between these boulders, saw a man down between the rocks. Told me the intruder dug a tunnel between the houses." "A tunnel?" "You're serious?" "Look, Brandon… I don't know who you talked to, but it wasn't me... But that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is you focus on moving past all this. Focus on getting better. The stronger you are, the healthier your mind is, the less power this has over you. Like I said before, once I stopped drinking, started caring for people close to me, all the crazy shit started going away. Things still happen, don't get me wrong, but I can deal with it now. You learn to cope." "How do I know you're even you?" "You don't. Shit… I don't. But that doesn't matter either. I'm here, I exist. You exist. Work with what you know." I didn't respond. "How long've you been away from home now?" "Two… three weeks..." "Has anything happened? Has the intruder shown up here? Have you died?" I didn't answer, but I caught the point. "This doesn't make any sense," I said, leaning forward, resting my arms on the table. "That's the point. This thing preys off confusion, addiction, fear, repression… trauma. The more fucked up you are, the better a time it has." I mulled it over, still not convinced. "Has the doctor helped?" Paul continued, "The meds...?" I gave a reluctant nod. As much as I hated to admit it, things didn't feel as crazy as they used to. I felt calmer. More stable. But like I said before, this was all too easy: uncomfortably anti-climactic. "…The night before I went to your house, I swerved, almost hit a bear. I smashed into a roadside post and cracked my head on the driver's side window… I saw things, experienced things. I saw you, driving, looking out through your eyes." Paul nodded, as if expecting the point to be raised, "I'm not gonna say it wasn't real. But it's only little snippets of moments, crumbs of conspiracy. Just enough to create a narrative in your head that may or may not be real. Enough to keep obsessed. Enough to-" "-I saw you. Driving drunk. You swerved into somebody on a green-bike. Hit and run. It... seemed like you tried to cover it up..." Paul looked at me with deadly serious eyes, "I'd kill myself before trying to cover up something like that," he said, with brutal conviction, "Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen. But it didn't happen in this world, and it didn't happen to me. Whatever that's worth." "…Sure…" I said, still not fully satisfied. "Nurse?!" Rosa by the window, called out again. The staff was ignoring her now. "NURSE!?" Paul looked around, expecting someone to help. "She just keeps asking the time," I said. Paul pulled up his sleeve and checked the time on his watch, "Five-fifty-eight in the afternoon," he said, smiling warmly towards her. Rosa looked at Paul like he was an angel sent from above, "…Thank you." Paul nodded and turned back to me. More silence. I cleared my throat, "You and Mitch talkin' again?". Paul shook his head, no. "He was just worried about you, is all." "Still thinks you're possessed?" "Something like that," Paul rubbed his jaw, "…I mean, it's not just that, though. I was a shit father too..." I nodded, "You remind me of my old man sometimes." "Shit father too, huh?" I almost laughed, "Nah, he was alright." "…Where's he now?" "Dead." "Ah. Sorry." "It's okay." "What got him?" "Lung cancer." "Same thing that got my dad, in the liver though." A strange calm came over me, something I hadn't felt since before this nightmare began. A feeling that maybe, despite all its misery, life was worth sticking around for. At least a little while longer. If for nothing else, just to see what happens. We talked about Howie too. Paul said Howie always struck him as weird, even before the intruder. Maybe he was a servant of the intruder. Maybe he was an unwitting vessel, controlled by the intruder to spy on new 'recruits.' Maybe he was just a weird guy who really liked the color green and crossword puzzles. Maybe some things were better left alone. A bell RANG out through the PA system, "Dinner will now be served in the cafeteria. Please line up on the marks, maintaining a six-foot distance from one another." Paul hit the table gently with his fist, "Well. I'll stop buggin' you now." I forced a smile. Paul stood up, "I'm not asking you to trust me blindly here, but if you got the patience. I'd love to swing by and visit every so often. Don't got much else going on anyways." "…Sure." I said, still skeptical. Even though I didn't trust Paul, or anyone else for that matter, I had to admit, his presence made me feel a little less crazy. A little less alone. Besides, any visitor, even a potential vessel of the intruder, was preferable to no visitors at all. "Take it easy kid," he smiled again, then strode back for the exit and pushed through the doors. — Paul stopped by every single day for the next two weeks. We played cards, talked about hockey, politics. Sometimes we'd talk about the intruder too, but less and less every day. Paul eventually brought me somewhat around, convinced me to work with the doctors, "What've you got to lose anyways?" A fair point. Paul told me to tell the doctors what they needed to hear. Tell them I acknowledge it was all in my head, even if we both knew that wasn't entirely true. Say what I needed to say to get out, but don't rush things. Only leave when I felt ready to. — Reality is a spectrum. Things in the realm of thought and emotion don't exist or not exist in a binary state. Belief leads to real actions, terrible and beautiful. Just look at religion. I'm not a believer myself, but it's pretty staggering the simultaneous beauty and horror created by mythic ideologies. True or not, sometimes it feels like belief itself has more effect on the real world than anything else. I don't know. Maybe the intruder worked in a similar way. Molding itself out of belief, obsession, trauma, forcing itself out of the abstract into the concrete, like a virus of the mind. Who knows. — Paul was there the day before my discharge. The doctors had determined I was stable enough to return to public life. I still felt like shit, but now in a normal constant haze of vague depression and anxiety kind of way as opposed to a supernatural entity is trying to kill me kind of way. Paul and I played crib in the common area. Best out of three. He won, as usual. Stretching out his arms, Paul checked the time, "Well, I should head out," he said, partially yawning. "I'll swing by tomorrow, give you a ride home." "Sure… Thanks Paul." "No worries kid. — Paul drove me home the next day. We pulled into my driveway, and sure enough, there sat my car. Inexplicably back in its spot, no longer in front of Mitch's apartment. I opened my mouth to ask about it, but stopped myself short. Better leave well enough alone. "So what's next for Brandon?" he adjusted the rearview mirror as he spoke. I shrugged, "Probably gonna move upstate to be honest." "Yeah? I don't blame you." "I haven't checked my email in a while, but… pretty sure I'm jobless by now. That kind of just fell off the map." Paul chuckled, "Fair enough. Is that a bad thing though?" "I mean… not really. Wasn't really my favorite job anyway." "What're you gonna do now?" "I don't know. Maybe I'll go back to school. Maybe I'll start writing again." "You write?" "I used to." "And you enjoyed that?" "Yeah." "Why'd you stop?" "No money." "Well, if you move, sell the place, that might give you a bit of a cushion, huh?" "Sure." "I'm not saying what you should do Brandon, but if you like writing, then at least try for it. If you like something else, shoot for that. It's better than not trying. Trust me. I learned that the hard way," "Yeah, maybe," I said, mulling it over. Looking back, this conversation, like many others, was a little strange, but I didn't think much of it at the time. "Anyways, I'll get out of your hair now," said Paul. Silence. I reached for the door and stopped. "…Thanks Paul," I said, looking back at him. It's hard to know what to say to someone who might've saved your life. "You owe me one," he said, cracking a smile. I smiled back, turned away, and unlatched the door. I stepped out, went to close it and- "-Oh, one other thing," I froze, pulled the door back open, hunched down to meet his eyes. "I know you're planning to move anyways, but…" Paul shifted in his seat slightly, "It's probably better we keep minimal contact from here on out. Same goes for Mitch. I'm not sure why, but this thing seems to feed off us being around each other." I nodded, stepped away, pushed the door shut, and turned back for my house. Paul pulled into reverse, backed across the street, and pulled into his garage. To this day, I don't know if that was even Paul, the intruder, or something in between. All I know is he helped me get back on my feet. So I'm grateful for that. I rifled for my keys and... something caught the corner of my eye. Down the street, parked about seven houses away: A white hatchback with tinted windows. The same car I'd seen all those weeks ago. I don't know why it grabbed my attention, but it did. It felt out of place, sinister almost.... ...I shrugged it off, turned away, and opened the door. The smell of cooking hit me. Chicken soup, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Howie humming to himself. I pulled the door shut behind me, and was greeted with a bright green, brand new: basement door. "You like it?" Howie's voice shot down the hallway. I turned. His bald head peeked out from the kitchen. "Yeah, Howie it's… it's great." I lied. Howie smiled brightly and stepped out into the hallway, "Works picking up again, so it's from my own pocket. The least I could do for you letting me stay here." "Thanks Howie." "… How've you been? Mitch's dad sort of filled me in a little. And he's apparently not dead? His kid told me otherwise... Some people are so weird, huh?" "...Crazy's catching," I said. "Huh?" "Nothing." "-Oh, I got something." Howie slipped back into the kitchen and reappeared on the other side, this time with a crossword book in hand. "Nine words, third letter T, last letter M… A naturally occurring yellow blackish liquid found in geological formations below the earth's surface." I furrowed my brow. The word was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't quite place it. Howie looked at me, eyes filling with anticipation. I shrugged again, "Beats me." His eyes filled with disappointment. "I'll let you know if it comes to me." "Sure… sure… no problem," Howie slumped back into the kitchen and placed down the booklet. He looked like I just told him his dog died or something. — I moved out the next week. Howie offered to stay, pay rent with his newfound income. I agreed. I never did find out exactly what made him leave his old place, but he never brought it up, so I didn't ask. — I moved upstate, rented a small studio apartment in a mountain town. Still can't sleep in places with basements, but you can't really blame me on that one. Got back into writing hard too. Started taking online courses, watching youtube tutorials, stuff like that. Got my craft to a place where I'm not entirely embarrassed to share it. Weirdly, all these events actually inspired me to start writing again. Of course, all the loose ends, all the unanswered questions still bothered me. Something just felt too convenient about the last few weeks. Like I'd gotten out of the woods too easy. Like the hand of an invisible, and benevolent god stepped in and waved away all my problems. Deus ex machina. But sometimes, I wondered if the intruder was still using me. Working towards some unknown and terrifying endgame; An endgame that would reveal itself at any moment. Vague anxiety once again lingered beneath everything. Like a constant, rising, shepard tone. Sometimes barely audible, sometimes unbearably loud. I did what I could to put it out of my mind, to focus on other things. Not pushing it away, just being aware that it's there, and gently choosing to focus elsewhere. I'm learning to live with it. Learning to accept the unknowable. I'll admit one thing though: coat-racks still freak me the fuck out. Despite all my progress, there was something else I couldn't shake. One question that kept me up nights. What happened to Zack? Was it really what the police said? Just some long-haul semi-truck driver in the night. A terrible accident? But what about the visions of Paul, drunk driving, hitting somebody on a green bike? What about the intruder's mimicry murder of Zack? Pleading and apologizing. What about the- -I stopped myself from spiraling. These questions stuck in the back of my head like splinters of wood stuck between fingers. But even here, I'm learning to live with it. — About six weeks ago, I decided to look up Zack's mother. Just to call her and see how she was doing; See if she was even still alive. It took a bit of work, but I found her. She lived in a care-home down in Georgia. I called her on a Wednesday night. "Hello?" she said, her voice sounding almost how I remembered, despite all the years between. "Mrs. Serrano?" "Speaking." "Hi… uhm… I'm not sure if you'll remember me or not, but this is …Brandon Miller-" "Brandon?" her voice filled with recognition. "Yeah, that's me." "Oh, it's so nice to hear from you! How have you been? It's been so long..." "...I'm doing alright." We made small talk for a while, talked about the town I grew up in. Talked about the pandemic. The craziness of the upcoming election. Then, the conversation took an unexpected turn: "How's your father doing?" she asked. "Oh, he passed away quite a few years back now." "Oh, I'm sorry." "It's okay, I've accepted it now." "Yeah…. I've mostly done the same with Zack. But it still hurts. That never goes away. But you learn to live with it." I didn't say anything; I was lost for words. Silence hung in the air until- "-You know Zack always had trouble making friends before you." "…I didn't know that." Zack always struck me as effortlessly charismatic. "He was a bit of an odd duck, but in a good way. Before we moved, none of the other kids ever really clicked with him. But with you? Inseparable." "Huh. Yeah, I was the same way." "How's that?" "Not good at making friends." "Mmm." More silence. "I remember his passing hit you really hard," she said, "You didn't speak for months. Your father was terribly worried about you." "Yeah… I'm doing better now thankfully." "That's good to hear. I'm sure the closure helped too. It helped me." "…closure?" "What?" "What closure?" "...You didn't hear?" "Hear what?" "…A driver. Long-haul teamster, came forward a couple years back. All those years back... he was sleep-deprived, running a cross-state shipment when…" she trailed off, the tragedy spoke from the silence. She took a breath and continued, "This driver, he grew overwhelmed with guilt, came forward two years back to confess. I met with him too. A kind soul, really. A sensitive soul. Wrong person. Wrong place. A terrible mistake." "…Where's he now?" "…He… took his own life a few months back. Poor soul. Neighbors found him in a basement corner." The words 'basement corner' hit me like a concrete wall. Was this connected to the intruder? Was this connected to Paul? Nightmarish thoughts and incomprehensible images raced through my mind. The image of a naked body, pale and decomposing, slumped into a basement corner, a plastic bag wrapped over it's head- "-You there?" said Mrs. Serrano. I stopped myself, took a deep breath. Set it aside. Don't worry about it. It's a coincidence. "I hope his family is okay," I said. "Me as well." Threads of conspiracy dangled in front of me like fishing lures. This had to be connected to the intruder somehow, it had to be connected to the rules- "-What's his name?" I asked, almost involuntarily. "Hmm? "The driver." "Oh... Uh, Mason... Mason Parker I believe." "...Huh." I didn't recognize it. Awkward silence. "…Well, it's been lovely hearing from you Brandon, but games night is about to start and I can't be late." "Of course. You as well Mrs. Serrano." "Take care of yourself, call anytime. Okay?" "Okay." She ended the call. I sat at my work desk. The glow of car lights beamed in through the window and swiped across the darkened walls. Raindrop shadows stretched across the room and returned into darkness. I took another deep breath. Exhaled. Doing my best to stay grounded. Using a trick I learned from Paul: Three by four. Name three things you can see: Bookshelf. White wall. Brown desk. Name three things you can hear: Rain against the window, tires against the road outside, neighbors footsteps up above. Name three things you can feel: The back of my legs against the seat, the warmth of the heater against my shins, the brush of my shirt as I breathe in and out. Name three things you can smell: coffee, gasoline, burnt hair- - overwhelming terror pushed up from the floor, into my toes, through my legs, my spine, into my head. A sickening upward swell of chemical dread. A feeling that something truly heinous... something truly evil, yet emotionless beyond human-understanding was standing behind me. I imagined arms: impossibly long, stretching from the shadows across the room, unnaturally large hands, fingers with extra joints, reaching for the scruff of my neck. Eager to pull me down through the floor, down through the ground, down through the dirt, beneath the surface of reality itself. Trapping me below an invisible barrier, suffocating me under water with impenetrable surface tension. Forcing me to watch, gasping for air as the world above moved on without me. The world above acted as if I never even existed to begin with. Eternal suffering. I spun around, expecting to see something incomprehensible. But there was nothing. No Intruder. No coat-rack. No man held together with nails and wire. Just an empty studio apartment. The orange glow of more headlights wiped across: Slow and yawing light crawling over the kitchen, over the front door, over me. Like the beams of a deep-water submarine scanning the ocean floor. Everything returned to moonlit darkness. Against the window drapes - a faint, greenish and flickering glow from a neon bar-sign across the street. I sniffed the air. The smell of gasoline and burnt hair was gone. Maybe it was never there to begin with. I took another deep breath and exhaled. It's all in my head. Or, at the very least: it's mostly in my head. But still, the words only rang partially true. If I'd learned anything over the past few months, it was this: nothing good comes easy. At least, not this easy. As much as I tried to repress it, as much I tried to ignore it. I knew something was missing. There was some piece of the puzzle that may, or may not, ever be found. I knew this wasn't finished. I took a deep breath. Exhaled. I turned back to my desk, popped open my laptop- -and started writing. — — — Polterkites Part XIV .-. . -- . -- -... . .-. . -.. .-.-.-
After an Adjudication is complete, it may take 24-48hrs until the account status changes.
-----Processing/Paid/Posted
After a Weekly claim is submitted, it first says “Processing-Web”, then¥ “Processing”, then “Paid”, and it takes 48 hours on average to post in an account, if the amount is significant, refer to this post. Related Post
The average time between when the payment shows "Paid" and when it appears in a bank account is dependent on the bank.
If you have been stuck in adjudication, and you have not received any notices or letters, even if you have already provided the required documents and are still stuck in adjudication, it is likely because they have not processed the data that you have provided. See below "How to Escalate To A State Rep", and "Template". _____
Before the expiration of the CARES Act on December 26th, the dashboard on the ESD website used to say that the average time to complete an adjudication was 9.8 weeks. This is why we advocate so strongly for Escalation to a State Rep/Senator; because so few people can go 2.5+ months with no income and (not have a long-term negative impact on their credit). All questions about "timelines" and "How long?" can be referred here.
Here is the Dashboard from July 6, 2020 showing VERY LONG WAIT TIMES
Very few users have had success calling and getting any info or progress about an adjudication. Only "Tier 3 Agents" can help, and they may be 100% unavailable. (See this post and comments)(And this Post, too)
APPEALS: many appeals are handled within ESD and are redetermined and do not need to be forwarded to OAH, see this comment.
Because of, or in spite of this, very few users have gotten a timely court date. It's believed that as with Identity/Adjudication, even if documents/response is provided, it is not processed in a timely manner, which is why an Escalation is recommended for all 3, if/once your appeal is in OAH, see below.
Normal claims specialists cannot discuss these issues. You must call OSI. People who call the general number are reporting particularly fruitless and frustrating conversations.
Highly recommend Escalate To A State Rep, and Template (see above); Many users report that ID docs were provided, but do not get processed in a timely manner.
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Additional Related Posts
-----Taxes/1099/Corrections-----
*1099: Includes all additional amounts, +$600(March 29- July 25, 17 weeks max), +$300 LWA payments (Aug 1 - Sept 5, 6 weeks max)
Most claimants were qualified and paid via both a UI(+PEUC+ EB), and a PUA, so make sure to add paid benefits from both claim types, not just 1.
1099 Are Gross Earnings; If you repaid an overpayment balance, that was not deducted from the 1099, you will have to claim that on your taxes.
10. (New 1/19) Changing your address/phone numbebank account will likely stop payments, and require an Identity confirmation that may take 6-8 weeks. (Because of a continuation of an Audit) See above in Best Practices for changing eServices notices/letters from Mailed to Electronic. See this post
(New 1/24) "Timely Claiming" open case & Adjudication on a claim 23 weeks old with no weekly claim delays. See this post
Disclaimer: Additions/Corrections/Deletion/Suggestions Welcome. Although I compiled this, its public information, and I compiled it not for my personal use, but for everyone. Suggestions, websites, data, best practices, timelines, and any other data point may change at any time, and I cannot vouch for every individual data point at all times, we must work together to refer our users to this Archive, and to build it further. I have been working on this since at least August. Nothing here, whether linked, paraphrased or copied, is to be used to supplant for any current policy, law, proclamation, local mandate, or any other jurisdictional rule or norm, as they are all regularly in flux, and while all attempts are made both public and private to represent the data accurately and timely, insofar as to act in concert with ESD and any and all other entities, listed and not listed herein, the summation of experiences of an online community, policy, and guidance cannot and should not be assumed to be official or otherwise canonical of the respective entities about which any posts herein describe.
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-Always seeking new solutions, new known issues, updates to current Solutions and current known issues, or any better posts than what are currently linked
SoFi is going public via merger with Chamath's IPOE spac. Here are SoFi catalysts to look forward to: Cash deposits SoFi is in talks to roll out cash deposits. A cash deposit solution will drive increased adoption of SoFi Money over accounts at brick-and-mortar banks. Cash deposits are a big deal because they are the primary pain point for online banking holdouts. SoFi-as-a-Service partnerships SoFi's consumer digital banking solution is ripe for white label expansion with major brands. The 2020 launch of Samsung Money by SoFi gives a glimpse of the massive potential.
Samsung Money by SoFi is the new way to grow your hard-earned cash, letting you save, spend, and earn -- all in one secure place. Now available on Samsung Pay.
Look for more SoFi-as-a-Service deals as consumer brands and dinosaur financial firms seek to catch up. Not limited to banking services: In October, T. Rowe Price launched co-branded financial wellness offerings with SoFi. SoFi Member Rewards aka SoFi Points Currently in Early Access, SoFi's Member Rewards program is expected to roll out to everyone in 2021.
The SoFi Rewards program allows eligible members to earn points through various account activities, and then redeem those points as the member sees fit across multiple SoFi products. You can redeem your SoFi Points into cash in your SoFi Money account, into Stock Bits in your SoFi Active Invest account, as an extra payment applied to your SoFi Personal Loan or SoFi Student Loan Refinance, or as a statement credit on your SoFi Credit Card--all from your phone.
Members earn SoFi Points by opening the SoFi app, using the credit card, and by use of other SoFi products. This program will increase daily app engagement and cross-buy of products. Resources: SoFi Member Rewards, How can I earn SoFi Points?, Rewards FAQs. Not to be confused with existing Member Benefits. Galileo Financial Technologies SoFi acquired Galileo for $1.2B in April 2020. From the S-4:
Galileo provides the infrastructure to facilitate core customer-facing and back-end capabilities, such as account setup, account funding, direct deposit, authorizations and processing, payments functionality, and check account balance features. Additionally, Galileo provides vertical integration benefits with SoFi Money. Since Galileo is a platform-based business model, we track the number of accounts, which is defined as an open account as of the reporting date. As of September 30, 2020, there were over 49 million total open accounts on the Galileo platform. We view total accounts as an important indicator of the number of Galileo’s customers' own customers who depend on the technology platform for a variety of products and services, including virtual card products, virtual wallets, peer-to-peer and bank-to-bank transfers, early paychecks, and real-time authorizations.
Galileo's clients include Robinhood, Chime, Monzo, Revolut, Dave, Klar, Greenlight, bitpay, MoneyLion, Remitly, Uala, Shipt, Tomo, TransferWise, and many more. Galileo is a core infrastructure provider to the global neobank/Fintech industry. SoFi owns 100%. SoFi is expanding their offers across Galileo's platform of 50M-and-growing accounts. Plug-and-play loans via API. Keep up with Galileo using their Resources page. Social Investing platform and Chamath as an Influencer SoFi Invest has a "Social Investing" feature where you can view the holdings, watchlist and performance of other Members (if they opt-in). From there, you can make follow on investments/watches, discuss investments, and leave emojis. Will Chamath join SoFi's social investing platform? Seems likely! He is the ideal Influencer investor to promote SoFi. The Social Investing platform gives SoFi a means of growing SoFi Invest by bringing notable investors (and their communities) to SoFi. In a hint of things to come, CEO Noto says: "... we're on our way to introduce portfolios for those that you're following socially on our platform." This might mean one-tap portfolio duplication, or a form of MembeInfluencer managed portfolios. This platform will increase trade volume by improving discovery andsocial proof. Screenshots of the platform with Member names censored: CEO Noto's top holdings, his recent activity, some engagement, and holding activity when merger news broke. SoFi hiring favoring experience with social networks suggests that Social Investing will continue to evolve. Bank charter SoFi received preliminary approval for their banking charter and is on the way to full approval. The charter will enable SoFi to lower costs and compete more aggressively. SoFi hiring is seeking to fill key banking positions. Targeting $1 Billion in 2021 revenue & full year profitability SoFi's target looks well within reach. They reported ~$200MM in revenue and a return to profitability for Q3 2020.
... pulled in about $200 million in revenue in the third quarter and also generated positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and other exceptions, the first time it has done so since 2017, Noto wrote in a letter to shareholders last month.
per The Information. Credit Card Currently in Early Access, the SoFi Credit Card is expected to roll out to everyone in 2021. Credit Card FAQs. Financial Services Productivity Loop The "FSPL" is the core of SoFi's B2C products. From the S-4:
Our strategy, what we refer to as the "Financial Services Productivity Loop", is centered around building trust and a lifetime relationship with our members, which we believe will help build a sustainable competitive advantage. In order to deliver on our strategy, we must develop best in class unit economics and best in class products that build trust and reliability between our members and our platform. When we do this on a member's first product, and they later consider using a second product, they are more likely to start with our platform and we have a higher chance that they will select one of our products to meet their other financial needs. This results in delivering more revenue per member with no second member acquisition costs, resulting in higher lifetime value per member. This also reinforces the benefits of our platform, which simplifies the entire financial ecosystem for our members, helping them get their money right. We are able to use the increased profits to further improve member benefits and product experience.
SoFi seeks to fulfill all of a Member's financial needs in one super app. Here is a FSPL visual. How is it going? SoFi reports 24% overall cross-buy of products for Q3 20. They hit 69% for Home Loans. As SoFi's products mature and deploy, their cross-buy will continue to grow, while Member acquisition costs will decrease. SoFi International Expansion SoFi's international expansion was announced in Q2 2020 with the launch of SoFi Invest in Hong Kong.
Obviously, we put a lot of thought into where we chose to go with our first international foothold, and Hong Kong made sense to us for several reasons. As one of the financial capitals of Asia and a global financial center, it has a strong base of both novice and sophisticated investors that would benefit from the innovation we could bring to the market.
Members in HK can trade over 15,000 US and Hong Kong stocks for free using the SoFi Hong Kong app. This is one of SoFi's FSPL "top of the funnel" feeder products. Look for HK offerings to expand. SoFi has long planned for international expansion. From targeting mortgages in Australia (old), expansion to Canada (old), Asia and Europe (old). SoFi is positioned for international deployment. SoFi Stadium SoFi Stadium will drive brand awareness and accelerate trust building. These are both key for growth in consumer finance. Some major events are already lined up:
The state-of-the-art stadium re-imagines the fan experience and will host a variety of events year round including Super Bowl LVI in 2022, the College Football Championship Game in 2023, and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 2028.
Located in LA, this massive stadium is packed with benefits for SoFi Members, including line skipping, 10% cash back on concessions and merch, free bag checking, and an exclusive SoFi Member Lounge. SoFi was planning to IPO at the end of 2022, which we can assume was in part due to the expected Super Bowl bump. More info at SoFi Stadium. Member Experiences SoFi has hosted free in-person Member Experiences for years. These include social events at Top Golf, escape rooms, bars/dining, theaters, sport events, and so on. As well as teaching events in line with SoFi's "Get Your Money Right!" ethos. There are big celebration events for Members who have paid off their student loans in full. When the virus put a pause to in-person events, SoFi expanded their digital experiences. Over 20,000 Members registered for virtual SoFi events in 2020. As virus re-openings expand, look for SoFi Stadium opportunities and Member Experiences to increase. Apex Clearing Recognize that name from your brokerage tax forms? SoFi has a ~17% stake in Apex Clearing, which provides brokerage clearing services, margin lending, compliance, transfers, and more. From the S-4:
In December 2018, we purchased a 16.7% interest in Apex, which resulted in partial integration of the transaction clearing and asset custody functions integral to SoFi Invest. The investment has also enabled us to participate in earnings from Apex's customer base. As of September 30, 2020, our ownership interest in Apex was 16.8%. Our equity method investment in Apex primarily benefits us in two ways: First, it facilitates better planning, coordination and integration in the technology stack for SoFi Invest, which requires clearing brokerage services. Second, we benefit from the income earned on providing clearing brokerage services to other institutions, and earn fees for margin lending and pay-for-order flow, the latter of which consists of arrangements whereby exchanges and market-makers pay for routing them certain orders.
Apex's clients include Ally Invest, M1, Wealthfront, Stash, Betterment, and others. Learn about Apex Clearing's solutions. Future acquisitions Once SoFi's public listing via spac merger is complete, look for more strategic acquisitions. SoFi will be loaded with ~$3B in cash. Plus their newly public stock as acquisition currency. Strategic targets may include more infrastructure providers and geographically appealing startups. SoFi's entry into HK shows the global expansion model: Buy the local regulatory approvals overnight via a small startup, re-brand, and deploy SoFi's tech stack and talent. ARK Invest? SoFi has been on ARK's radar for years. It is assumed that ARK will build a position, which will blanket SoFi in ARK's halo. Possible buyers would be funds ARKF (Fintech), ARKW (Next Generation Internet), and perhaps the queen, ARKK. Coverage at https://old.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kta42h/ark_invest_interested_in_sofi_since_2018_buckle/ Possible tax solution & other additions A couple months ago SoFi surveyed Members about a possible tax filing solution. Maybe it will launch for this tax filing season. At the start of 2021, SoFi asked for input on which new features to prioritize. Such as portfolio analytics, more advanced spend tracking, and debt repayment budgeting. SoFi continues to iterate and improve their offerings with a focus on the Member. More information SoFi's public listing via IPOE merger SoFi Investor Presentation IPOE / SoFi Introductory Presentation S-4 filing with SEC Chamath's 1-pager on the deal
Signups have now ended for SS20. Please give us some time to get all the matches sorted out. Keep an eye out for the North Pole thread coming soon. If you did not sign up in time, do not contact us asking for an exception, none will be made. Thanks! Hello all loyal content contributors of /gunpla! We are happy to announce the Gunpla SECRET SANTA 2020, a gift exchange program that we hold each year here at /gunpla in keeping with the festivities of the season. 2020 has been one hell of a year for all of us, without too much to cheer for. We’re hoping this event will bring some much needed joy to everyone. If you want to receive something in this exchange, you are required to send something out. We want the participants of this program to be made up only of the most upstanding members and contributors of this community. Qualifications are strict because we desire the best out of /gunpla and for this program to succeed without drama.
THE QUALIFICATIONS TO PARTICIPATE
To participate, you must have a reddit account created prior to 10-01-2019 (1 year old).
You have submitted your own created content to /gunpla more than 6 months ago (submitted prior to April 1st 04/01/2020). Created content includes a link or self-text post to a pic/album/blog/video of a kit you've built or are building. Linking to other's creations, news, or discussion posts don't count.
That link will lead you directly to our Secret Santa 2020 submission form. A Google Account is required to sign up. Do not use auto-fill for the address line! It does not always provide the full address. In the form, you will need to provide:
Your email address (the one that you use regularly and that we can reach you the easiest for correspondence and confirmation purposes if we can’t reach you on reddit)
Your reddit username
Your real name (This is for shipping purposes as some places will not release packages to individuals without some form of ID)
Your shipping address (This is very important to get right, the info here is where your Santa will send your gift so make sure it is correct and complete!)
Your geographic region (USA, Canada, EU, Asia, etc)
Willingness to ship internationally. We will still match first within region but this is to help accommodate our farther flung Santas who are alone within their region.
A link to your /gunpla user created submission prior to April 1st 04/01/2020 (This is for mod purposes to assess your eligibility to the program)
Your wishlist (please be as descriptive as you like, but please keep it to one line, separate items with a comma. No line breaks!)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Important Dates
Sign Up Opens: Oct 3rd 2020 - 10/03/2020
Sign Up Closes: Nov 1st 2020 11/01/2020 00:01 GMT
All gifts must be shipped by: Dec 1st 2020 - 12/01/2020
Sign up process is now OPEN Oct 3rd 2020 - 10/03/2020
Please fill the information to the best of your ability. The form may be edited up till the point sign-up closes.
Sign-up process will close on November 1st (11/01/2020 00:01 GMT). All submissions must be finalized at that time.
Pulling out of the exchange after sign up closes will impact your ability to participate in future events and the subreddit. If you need to withdraw, inform the organizers before the cut-off date.
After Signups end, please allow organizers time to process all applicants. No later than November 15 (11/15/2020 00:01 GMT) we will get in touch with you via Reddit PM and/or via email with the information of your Santa giftee. We will provide you the real name, shipping address, reddit name, and wish list of your match.
Purchase and ship your gift within 15 days.
Gifts should be postmarked by December 1st 2020, 12/01/2020.
Use a shipping service with tracking information. Paypal often includes free tracking with their discount shipping. In light of the state of the world, untracked shipments are not allowed this year. Please ship domestically or via a speedier international carrier. Unregistered SAL and SEA shipments are not allowed. This goes for Amazon too, untracked Marketplace sellers are NOT ALLOWED.
Users will be randomly matched within their region.
Gifts should be Gunpla related and new/unbuilt: Models, tools, paints, hobby magazines, etc.
Non-Bandai kits do not count towards the Price Floor unless specifically requested on your giftee’s wishlist.
Built models can be given, but do not count towards the Price Floor.
Participants may create a wish list to indicate what they want; givers are not obligated to use the wish list, so please set your expectations accordingly.
/gunpla’s Secret Santa 2020 is wholly independent and is not run in conjunction with the bigger reddit-wide Secret Santa held annually.
DETAILS ABOUT THE GIFTS
We are using a standardized criteria of the gift price floor. This price floor will be based on the JPYen MSRP set by Bandai, usually found on the gunpla box.
Shipping and taxes will not be factored into that price floor criteria. You must meet the combined kit minimum of 3000 Yen regardless of how much you pay for shipping or taxes.
You may acquire your gift(s) through any online or physical shop, but the minimum price of your intended gift must reach the Price Floor of 3000 Yen based on Bandai’s official pricing, not at the price you purchased it at.
We require all international shipments to use the quickest available shipment methods (EMS, Courier, etc.). We don't want gifts to get stuck in a warehouse for months waiting for SAL to return. This doesn't mean you have to shell out for same or next day shipping, but we do want purchases to arrive in a reasonable amount of time. Because of this, preorders will also be disallowed this year due to the delay in shipping.
Multiple kits may be combined to reach the price floor. Duplicates of the same kit do not count unless requested.
Additional tools like knives, markers, paint, action bases and other incidentals will not count to reach that price floor unless specifically requested by your giftee in their wishlist. All those extras are encouraged to be included in the gift if you choose but they should not be included for the purpose of merely padding the gift to reach the intended price minimum. Extra promo campaign parts fall into that category as well.
There is NO PRICE CEILING. As a Santa, you can be as generous as you like. If past SecretSanta’s are to go by, it's that the people of /gunpla are among the most generous around. Reap in all the upvotes you can get with the generosity that you provide. If you are unable to provide a gift which meets the 3000Yen minimum price floor, or if this minimum would present unnecessary financial hardship please abstain from the program this year. We understand that some of our members may not be able to participate in the giveaway due to this limitation. If you cannot participate this year, don’t fret! We will hold the event again this time next year! Don’t be a scrooge! Participants that fail to reach the 3000Yen mark will be banned from participating in future events, and the subreddit! If your intention is to join simply to take advantage of the generosity of our wonderful members there will be consequences!
TIPS FOR SANTAS
Once you receive your giftee's information, it is a good idea to get in contact with them.
Getting in contact with your giftee and updating them regularly (anonymously) will help alleviate any doubts and anxieties that your giftee may have about the status of their gift.
If possible, use a shipping service that keeps track of your packages so you can monitor its location all the way to its destination and share that with the parties involved.
In the spirit of keeping things a surprise, we encourage you to use an alternate or throw-away reddit account to get in contact with your giftee to maintain anonymity and surprise for the recipient until the actual arrival of the gift.
Personal touches like handwritten notes and trinkets are always positively received! Your goal is to make someone's day, so send a gift you feel worthy of that goal.
Be generous Santa's! This is your time to shine and show how big your hearts are.
FOR GIFTEES
Giftees are responsible for any import duties and fees imposed by their country. Please let your Santa know if this is a concern for you.
Create a “Thank You” post on /Gunpla with a picture of your gift! We highly encourage you to show-off what Santa has brought you and share with the community the fun you've had. It is highly encouraged that if you participate and get your gift, that you share and post it.
OTHER INFORMATION
If you need to contact a moderator, please use the Modmail function
/gunpla Secret Santa 2020 is the official and only Secret Santa we will be holding.
As with official /gunpla rules, box photos of gifts received for this year's SS2020 program will be allowed within reason. Only certified Official /gunpla SS2020 participants get this pass.
Don’t want to see secret santa posts? Use the filter in the sidebar!
If you have a storefront businesses pertaining to Gunpla that would like to aid in the effort of this exchange program in the form of promos to assist our members in their gift finding, get in touch with the mod team.
Use the comments section below for any questions you may have. Past SSanta participants can also use that area to share your previous experiences with the program and provide tips on where to shop, best places for shipping, methods of gift-wrapping etc. If you guys find any leads to some good shopping options that fall within the SS2020 time period, be sure to share those as well.
With this all said, please have fun and enjoy this celebration of plastic fighting robots. Advanced Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone.
[For Hire] Marketing: especially Google, Facebook and Instagram.
My name is Zack Frederick and I started doing marketing several years ago as I began my first digitally focused business, realising very quickly that the difference between me and the next John Doe wasn’t the product but the presentation and the outreach. So I set about, by trial and error, learning how I could sell more than John Doe. It wasn’t long before I realised I was very good at the marketing aspect, and I didn’t really like things like warehousing and distribution. So here I am. Today I’m most interested in building reports, designing paid campaigns and helping with Instagram. I stray away from Twitter, Bing and other smaller mediums as I lack the hours in those areas to do them justice. I’ve compiled a few free tips for general marketing and SEO.
Brand awareness
First off. Influencers will not magically make your website successful. You have to be your own influencer. Over my tenor, I have spent thousands on social media analysis, rebranding and learning tricks like sticking state names across American products or even changing the colour of my website depending on the demographics of my audience. Spoilers, guys love red. Here’s an example data set. https://imgur.com/gallery/7OHIx Last year, I ran a campaign for one of my shoe clients, and we used the pride of state consumers to grow his shoe business. I researched the best colours to use for different states and gave him a list, we put the state names across his shoes and marketed directly to them through instagram. It wasn’t long before his conversion metrics were soaring.
I have worked with a lot of musicians, a big part of them started with low view, audio-only videos. I learnt quickly that for them to achieve success they had to provide value, so i told them to create videos. They did and then ta-da, they had 4500 views when they only had 200 view music videos before. For the next step, I even got them contacts with massive digital celebrities. My proudest connection having been ‘Ninja’ during the height of his fortnite campaign, I organised the marketing behind several viral Fortnite music parodies with now millions of views.
Trend riding
Make use of trends in your business. If something is so mainstream and big, why ignore it? In the past I have made use of the political trends in the American election with trump AND hillary brands on some of my clients products, with the pro trump and pro hillary supporters wanting to sport their political beliefs no matter the cost. I see a lot of website based businesses underuse social media with broad attempts at Facebook ads and Instagram ads, ill go to digital marketing agencies and see they either have no social following or a huge botted one. It's a terrible idea to buy followers, if you want to cut corners then you should look at buying a smaller business with a bigger social following. Here’s the impressions from a tweet I made on the first day of creating a company a twitter platform and using trend riding and collaboration to grow it https://prnt.sc/huziu6 4K Impressions on one tweet in 15 minutes - we hit 80k impressions in the first day. I did this from simply mimiking the formula for success from a similiar company account, i don't want to try change the magic formula for success.
Direction
It’s better to get one click from a Facebook group dedicated to shoes than it is to get 100 clicks to a Facebook group dedicated to Tree’s for a shoe store. It will be cheaper and about 5000% more efficient. You would lose money on the tree group. That's a rough proverb for why you shouldn't just buy facebook or instagram, youtube ads without putting in a similiar level of funding towards targetting and direction.
I target groups through other groups. You can target parents through niche’s like Barbecue’s where the average participant is an affluent parent, you can target students through games or shoe groups where your average consumers are affluent students.
Adapt
You really do have to stay in touch with your business to know what's working and what isn't, companies like Toys R Us refused to do that and stuck with huge stockpiles of star wars toys and then they collapsed. Blockbusters where ahead of the curve for digital movies and then they refused to change, Netflix changed and Netflix won. Amazon learnt to use online selling and left companies like Tescos with financial crisis.
The big boom in marketing that I’ve seen is social media marketing, marketers can create huge social following for companies and use that platform to sell content for extremely low costs in comparison to the tens of thousands it costs to use other platforms such as radio. Social media marketing has become somewhat controversial, but it is important to always stay open minded.
Collaboration** & Viral content
I can not stress the importance of working with other people. Every billionaire i know of has had a mentor, every big company success story had business partners. I've had far more success in clients who have listened to me and done collaborative work with digital celebs, with a dog product business making thousands of sales when they worked with vlogger Zoella and gave her free products. Viral content is very important because every Youtuber with over 1 million subscribers has started off big and managed to keep it big, nobody grinded and slowly rose up at an equal exponent. Hard work is fine but being consistent and mixing it up, copying the viral content of others is an easy way of bringing in secondary viewership and traffic. Pewdiepie, the biggest youtuber on the planet, started with viral horror content. Ninja, the biggest streamer, grinded for 7 years but only truly struck gold with the virality of Fortnite. So it makes sense to repeat their methods.
Key words
It is an obvious thing to say but it's neglected, key words are very important. I had a crypto business come to me and ask why their site wasnt doing very well, and i looked through it and saw they never mentioned anything beyond bitcoin. Bitcoin is a very expensive key word to market, with costs of the raw word being as high as 38$ per click. I had to bring them down to earth with harsh truths, i rewrote their entire site using SEM tools in mind - with key words and phrases like "Altcoin exchange" and using the names of the top 100 altcoins across the site.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is the name given to increasing the value and raw volume of your organic traffic. A successful website always wants as many of the most likely consumer base to encounter their product because that’s the hardest point of digital business. Your websites SEO is determined by crawlers which regularly check up on your website and update their index which is later used by an algorithm to order results when someone ‘googles’ something. Today I’m going to be talking you through some key points about SEO that I personally audit for businesses.
Domains
Https://Www.Example.Com is an example of something we call a ‘root domain’ which is made up of protocol (https://) subdomain (www.) domain name (example) and top-level domain (.com). These are the basic parts. It’s important that the protocol is the best and safest it can be or else google will punish you. It’s also important your domain name and top-level domain are appropriate and readable. The words used in your subdomain can also affect how customers interpret your website, websites can be named after their market base for easy marketing. In addition, the age and previous registrations of your domain matter. It’s important these factors are appropriately considered in your website. Be minimal with subdomains.
Targeting
Google knows where it’s users are and what they’re using from their browser data, IPs and MACs and then matches them with websites in their areas or appropriate to searches. Ever since the infamous 2016 update ‘Possum’ it is not something you can ignore. Even jobs based websites had to use the meta data ‘Jobs Schema’ (from 2017 onwards) to tell google where your website was focused. Location specific landing pages matter. You have to pay credence to DNS (domain name server) and Glue to keep TTL (time to load) and mobile in mind, especially with more mobile users than ever. CMS (customs) is also part of this discussion: themes and plugins are a factor in Google’s ranking. One way to improve TTL is through CDN’s and we have to consider how we approach them to rank better. Sometimes, you might face penalties and there are ways to know; that’s a little too hard to explain here but PM me for more.
Content
Nobody loves a book more than google. Robots will read all your website, even the stuff humans don’t bother with. Things like duplication will annoy Google who doesn’t like reading things twice. CTA’s (buttons basically) have to go somewhere nice and if they don’t work properly google will punish you. Human biases are important too. The user experience will effect their retention and Google will clock that. There’s also lots of minor things that can stack up: Filenames (help you rank on Images) Thin content (Google sees it as lazy) phrase diversity (spamming key words is noticed) and URL structures too! Make sure your in and outbound links are healthy as well as having keyword mapping where you assign the correct words to the right pages. Make sure your anchor texts (viewable when linking) are descriptive yet succinct. And finally: link velocity, a healthy eco system of link building is important to longevity and renewed SEO.
Technical Stuff.
Consistent anchor elements are important to prevent 404s. Don’t use abbreviations with naming files and folders. Limit use of dates for file folder names. Your site architecture has to be simple and close to the root domain so the click depth isn’t too great! Links to and from your site can’t be dead ends, and use breadcrumbs! Be wary of canonical issues from similar content across multiple URLs. Treat Cookies and Session IDs properly, privacy laws are ever changed and mismatching them can be dangerous. There’s lots more to go into like header status codes, site maps, GSC Crawl Errors but Reddit has a text limit so I’ve deleted some of my post.
PM me if interested in my services or with questions.
Metropolitan Crisis, Civics, and Consolidation. A treatise on building better cities from scratch in a post-covid world
Disclaimer:
This post, and the theories within in are aimed at understanding & helping a particular type of city become more robust (post industrial/declining metropolitan areas with vanished manufacturing or single and monolithic manufacturing economies), and is not intended to be a "one size fits all" rhetorical rant. I'll try to explain in detail what types of cities ae likely to consolidate and which aren't further in the post. Also, I know that I promised that I'd have this post up on the sub by Sunday, but, after I get off of work, I usually really couldn't be bothered to sit in front of a computer for a couple hours to crank out an effort post. Better late than never is the 20-something's favorite catchphrase isn't it? Luckily for you guys, this post will be worth it (this has 200% more links than my previous post, that math shakes out right?). Hope you guys enjoy! Okay, down to business
Part One: Theory- An introduction to the "Metropolitan Crisis" and, it's possible remedy
Every planner, their mother, and them some have heard the term "urban crisis" by now. Even though that specific configuration of words has been around and kicking since the 1950's, the term was undoubtedly popularized by Thomas Segrue in his 1999 treatise/dissection of my account's namesake & lifelong home of Detroit. Segrue used the term to argue how institutionalized racism, housing descrimination, and strategic (some might argue intentional) deindustrialization all conspired to push my city into the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. I think Segrue deserves a lot of credit for analyzing Detroit in a way that isn't totally cliche or blatantly ideological to push an agenda of specific policy proposals, however, while I don't think that Segrue's conclusions are "wrong", the world, and thus the city of Detroit, has changed a lot since 1999, so the passage of time itself has resulted in his analysis of the supposed "posterchild for post-industrialism" more or less incomplete. So, in 2021, as a lifelong Detroiter, what are the issues that I see compounding the classic "urban crisis" into a newer, nastier, and broader crisis?
Lack of political autonomy- I feel as if Detroit's bankruptcy in 2014 is an underrated historical event when it comes to urban planning and other urban studies. To me, it lays bare a lot of dynamics that Segrue discussed in his book while dialing up the contradictions to 100. As a quick recap: The city of Detroit was forced into bankruptcy after we formally told our creditors that there was no way we could pay off our $18.5 Billion dollars of debt (which was accrued over the span of multiple decades as finance and feet moved out of the city and into the surrounding suburbs). I assert this because after what happened to the city during this time, I'm shocked that there wasn't some sort of riot or prolonged strikes. See, in Michigan law we have this completely undemocratic position called the Emergency Financial Manager that's enabled by state law to have free reign to do whatever they please in the jurisdictions the governor appoints them in while the elected officials of said jurisdiction are basically turned into political figureheads with no real power. Despite Michigan residents decisively voting voting down a ballot proposal giving EM's and the state new administrative powers in 2012, the state legislature went on to pass a bill overriding the outcome of the ballot proposal (which, surprisingly, is a totally legal thing to do). Then, the EM/state agreed to a completely horrendous "plan of adjustment" where, starting in 2024, the city of Detroit will start a lump-sum payment of $167 million dollar, which will increase by 2% annually for twenty years, on top of which the city will also be forced to service it's debt load at the tune of $117 million/year for six years... Can you guys believe that this deal was spun as some "big win" for the city?.. Anyways, the bankruptcy, it's aftermath, and the plan of adjustment show in plain detail that the modern municipality's fate lies at feet of political institutions and entities only interested in implementing ideological shock doctrine techniques to further a political end. If you don't believe me, here's a study illustrating that the more Black people a Michigan municipality had increased the likelihood of that municipality being under an EM's jurisdiction an at ne point, over half of Michigan's black population lived in a place that had an EM, and here's economist Paul Krugman's take on our bankruptcy where he flat out says it was as ideological as the Greek debt crisis of the same year which resulted in the Greek state passing similar crippling austerity measures. If this state of affairs can happen in the largest city of a crucially/politically strategic state, it can happen anywhere.
Collectivized Stagnation- Back during the postwar years, it was basically an article of faith that urban centers were bound to decline in favor of growth in suburban area or the metropolitan fringe, so, urban policy transitioned from attempting to stabilize old urban centers towards making urban centers attractive daytime hang out spots for the suburban elite (basically, instead of cities/downtowns being cohesive neighborhoods where people lived, they turned into abstract "districts" where people visited instead). In a metropolitan area that experiences steady growth, this transition might not be too bad, but, in the place that popularized the "urban crisis", tis state of affairs has become an untenable method of development because the suburbs, just as the city, are experiencing stagnation and decline too, which is leading suburban municipalities to face their own problems. Here's a fun fact: Metropolitan Detroit has not grown past it's 1970 Census population by a single percent in over fifty years (it's been hovering around 4 million people for four decades). Take an inner ring suburb/city like Southfield for example, outside of the city of Detroit itself, has the metro's largest inventory of office space, and, according to this study from a local real estate firm, Southfield had a office vacancy rate of 22% going into the first quarter of 2020 just as Covid first began to hit... the loss of office tenants & residents over the years has caused the city to undergo a dramatic transformation. Originally a white-flight suburb, the demographics of the city flipped completely as the Black middle class followed Jewish resident out there, now, like Detroit, it's a majority Black city that has a relatively even mix of middle class residents and lower income workers. As recently as 2016 the city consolidated all of it's elementary, middle, and high schools in response to declining enrollment, declining tax revenues, and (some disgruntled teachers I know allege) to avoid one of those state takeovers that I touched on earlier (P.S. the high schools they merge were notorious rivals and there were a string of fights that broke out when the new consolidated high school first rebranded in 2017, and yes, everyone did see it coming). This goes to show that the "urban crisis" we classically think of might be a much broader crisis than we realize.
Political Incestuousness- To have elected officials who've been in government for a while isn't necessarily a bad thing, normally.. If they're competent and willing to "fight the good fight" for their constituents, they might be great agents of change even. Here though, on the local level, we don't have those agents of change. most of our senior political figures either come from the private sector (Governor Whitmer's father owns Blue Cross Blue Shield) or, funnily enough an old political machine centered in Wayne county. One past attorney general turned governor (Jennifer Granholm), and two Detroit mayors (Kwame Kilpatrick, who's in jail for corruption charges. and Mike Duggan, the current mayor who, for whatever reason, is considered "not corrupt") are all direct proteges of an old machine boss who ran Wayne county for three decades named Edward McNamara, if you've been to Detroit, you've probably heard that name before since the scene of one of his biggest scandals also happens to be one of the metro's largest pieces of infrastructure: The McNamara Terminal of the Detroit Metropolitan airport, even more personally bizarre, Dave Massaron, the guy who signed off on the Flint water deal, has leapfrogged from being Detroit's CFO (who, in his infinite wisdom noted in 2019 that "Detroit was unlikely to face another financial crisis") to being the state of Michigan's budget director despite objectively being bad at his job. Anyways, it's my personal theory that in post-industrial cities with limited prosperity/scarce resources, informal political organizations assert themselves in order to self perpetuate and advance the career trajectories of those involved rather than focus on formalized patron-client relationships among constituents like what happened with the political machines of the Gilded Age. That's not to say that these amorphous organizations don't provide any benefits to their constituents, but, what benefits/infrastructure that the machine does actually produce is usually for the purposes of saying to the public: "We did this, look how competent we are, where would you be without us?"
Unsustainable Austerity Economics/Urbanism- Cities, unlike states, or nations, are legally barred from running deficits or issuing as much debt as they'd like, so, they are forced by circumstance to save money before they're able to spend it on their citizens. So, in times when deficit spending is necessary to keep the economy afloat to avoid catastrophe, many municipalities find themselves deep down in Shit's Creek without a life raft in sight to save them. Faced with this constraint on growth, cities such as Detroit have lent themselves over to a type of urbanism that can only charitably be described as "neoliberal". Upon assuming office in 2014, the current mayor championed a series of privatizations and arbitrary regionalization of the city's public services such as trash collection (privatized outright), the lighting authority (privatized outright), the sewer and water system (regionalized to an unelected board), and even the local convention center (regionalized to an unelected board, though, this happened in 2009), despite these efforts to "save the city's money" a 2019 Moody's study cites the city of Detroit as being one of the "worse positioned" large American cities to weather another financial crisis. The extent of rot of municipal ability to assert power goes beyond privatizations though, since cities such as Detroit are unable to supply the needs of residents, the city's government has embraced the practice of allowing private philanthropy to fill in the funding gaps for them. The city's affordable housing program for example, which the city uses to subsidize the rents of thousands of units in the 7.2 mile greater downtown area, is exclusively financed by private capital. If you're politically inclined to see this as a good thing, to see it as an example of the public sector and private sector working together for a good cause, I have a few questions to ask: In times such as ours where credit is hard to come by for both the public and private sectors, do you think this is a sustainable state of affairs? And, if, by some miraculous act of God, the city elects a mayor & council that aren't as friendly to the interests of private capital as the previous administration was, do you think these generous donations to city resources would continue? Just some food for thought.
Now that we've identified all of the problems of the modern metropolis, let's start talking about it's obvious solution: consolidation. Before we get too deep into that, we need to cover some ground first:
Part Two: Consolidation vs. Amalgamation vs. Annexation
To the a lot of people unfamiliar with urban policy, the outcome of these three processes more or less describes the same thing: a city goes from being small -> to getting a bit bigger, BUT, it needs to be understood that there are fundamental differences between all three of them, let me explain:
Consolidation is by far the most democratic alternative of the three- Mutual municipal consolidation is achieved by putting the question of "should X city, merge with Y entity/county" to a public vote and letting ordinary people decide the outcome of the proposal. There've been times where it took more than one vote for a city to successfully consolidate, other times, it only took one vote for the public involved to get on board such as New York in the late 1800's and Jacksonville in the late 1960's
Amalgamation is by far the LEAST democratic alternative of the three- Amalgamation can be differentiated rom consolidation by the agents of change/actors that are entrusted/expected to guide a municipality through such a change. With consolidation, the people are those said agents of change since they are expected to either approve or reject a proposal at the ballot box. With amalgamation, the agents of change are solely elected officials or folks with executive positions of government. It would be irresponsible of me to discuss amalgamation or even advocate for consolidation without talking about what happened to Toronto in 1998. When Ontario Premier, and figurehead of the self-described "common sense revolution" Mike Harris used his powers to force the six former municipalities of the city into one entity in order to pursue the ambiguous promise of "tax savings" ( which was ultimately a ploy to mask his goal of politically neutering a city that reliably sent Liberal/NDP MP's to provincial and national government). The residents of the municipalities involved even held referendums on whether or not they wanted to amalgamate where three quarters of them voted "No" (it should be noted though that the turnout for these referendums was pretty abysmal).
Annexation is politically unachievable in most metropolitan areas- If the city in question isn't what urban theorists call an "elastic city" (i.e. able to swallow up land on the urban fringe to allow for more growth) then annexation as a method of sustainable growth is out of question. The last annexation of land to the city of Detroit happened 95 years ago in 1926, and part of the reason why Detroit declined like it did was because the city's borders became notoriously inelastic. Also it should be noted that the process of annexation itself is morally gray, if you want, you can compare it to using a hammer. Can you craft a lot of good things using a hammer? Of course. Have hammers been used to fuck up a lot of good things in the past? Sure. It simply depends on how you wield it.
Part Three: What Could a New Consolidated City look like?
^(I'm17kwordsdeepintothispostandI'mjustnowgettingtomymainpoint,JesusChristI'MMISERABLE) Finally, we come to the fun part. With all of this info in mind, now we're actually theorize what a new-age municipal consolidation would look like. And to that hypothetical question, comes the ultimate unsatisfying copout answer: The form of government a consolidated city will take depends 100% which interest groups push the hardest/make the most noise in it's favor. Seriously though, even when wading through all the window dressing, there are millions of different configurations that are possible when it comes to consolidation. Frankly, those configurations are only limited by the imagination of the person reading this post. They could be Stockholm-style pseudo parliaments with hundreds of members in their city halls, or no different from the sclerotic "Strong Mayor" systems we have today. New York's consolidated government provides a lot of services to it's residents while keeping them underrepresented in city hall, Jacksonville provides few services to it's residents AND underrepresents them horribly in their city hall, while a place like Tokyo does the complete opposite. I think a more worthwhile examination would be to look at the potential groups who would do the wheeling and dealing in this hypothetical consolidated city by extrapolating from interest groups that exist right now. So, let's take a look at em:
Part Four: The Factions of a (not-so)Fictional City
The Business Elite/PMC- In most consolidation proposals throughout history, the Business Elite have more often than not been the the practice's staunchest advocates. A Marxist term that's insanely useful to describe these people without beating you over the head with (sniff) ideology is the "Professional/Managerial Class" (PMC). The PMC stock is usually derived from the hiring classes of the region, Industrialists, CEO's, and workers one might consider "white collar". The BE/PMC's don't necessarily have a defined political ideology other than advocating for reforms that allow for the growth of private sector profits. Arguments in favor may include: "The duplication of services is a drag on our region's competitiveness, streamlining our expenditures allows us to focus on other issues, and consolidation is necessary to attract other businesses to the region". Arguments against may include: N/A, consolidation is usually their idea in the first place.
Liberals- This group of people are usually of the older variety (I mean late 30's to mid 50's old, not Boomer old, I mean since I'm in my 20's all of you guys are old to me anyways) and are geographically spread pretty well preferring neither small town nor big city over the other. If they're a left-leaning liberal, they can usually be swayed into supporting consolidation with arguments made by the BE/PMC. However, if they're right- leaning liberals, they might be more evenly split on the prospect of consolidation, and their support is more dependent on the specifics of the consolidation proposal that's put in front of them. Arguments in favor may include: "The city needs to come back somehow and this is the way to do it, with all the money we're gonna save on administration we can spend so much more on stuff like parks and transit, and I like the prospect of a more dynamic city!" Arguments against may include: "I'm in favor of consolidation but this isn't the right time/right way to do it, I'm in favor of consolidation but no one will support it so neither will I, and the city needs to improve itself first before it considers consolidation with the suburbs".
Suburban/Rural Conservatives- After the Liberals, this is by far the most numerically dominant interest group in any city. If you know a bit about Toronto, these are your "Ford nation" types, interested in nothing more than stable/low taxes, reduced "red tape" around government, and balanced municipal budgets. It's my guesstimation that the majority of the metropolitan Conservatives will be against consolidation as they will see it as some sort of "land grab" by the city on the suburbs. However, I think you'll find a subset of conservatives actually in favor of consolidation, but, for reasons that are the mirror opposite from that of your average metropolitan liberal. Arguments in favor may include: "The city's been corrupt for so long it's time we cleaned it up and brought some responsible government back to the table, and the adults need to be ushered back into the room. city politicians had their chance and look what they've done with it!" Arguments against may include: "I'll be damned if I let the city's crooks get ahold of my dollars!, the city has too many problems for consolidation to work, and MY TAXES ARE GONNA BE SKY HIGH!!!"
Suburban Reactionaries- This group is probably even more staunchly against the principal/implementation of consolidation than the metropolitan conservatives are. They see little to no benefit of working together with the city and justifies this feeling by leaning on blatantly racist arguments. If included inside of a consolidated government, they will be the main advocates of secession, certain municipalities having exemptions from merger, or just straight up fear monger about how "long term residents are being out-voted by migrants and foreigners" in an attempt to restrict voting rights to what they feel is a more manageable electorate where they can more easily win. Arguments in favor may include: N/A Arguments against may include: (string of expletives)
Urban Radicals/Progressives- These are all your teenage Tiktok communists, college age "cultural marxists", assorted socialists, genuine anarchists, democratic socialists, social democrats, and the like. This group is by and large the youngest demographic examined ranging roughly from 17 y.o. to the middle edge of the Millennial generation (32-35). The tricky thing about this group is that they could either be consolidation's staunchest allies or it's harshest critics, just like the conservative liberals, their support is predicated on the specifics of the consolidation proposal that's presented in front of them. If consolidation is seen to fit their ideals, they'll champion its ability to redistribute the wealth from the geographies of wealthy suburbs to neglected urban centers, as well as push for radical reforms such us public ownership of urban rail networks, the rebirth of public/social housing, and debt cancellation. If consolidation is seen to screw them, they'll likely see it a nothing more than a coup de main for BE/PMC types to get a stranglehold on their neighborhood and the urban center. Arguments in favor may include:* "Consolidation gives us the opportunity to pursue genuine change within in a short timeframe, A consolidated school district would be the the most radical tool of integration that we've ever seen, and this city has never had a transit system before, and people need jobs now more than ever. if the businesses won't hire anybody then why doesn't the city hire people themselves to improve their neighborhoods?" Arguments against include: "Consolidation is nothing more than the final nail in the coffin cementing corporate control over cities, and this plan fucking sucks!"
Part Five: What Makes a Consolidation Proposal Good or Bad? What Places Are Likely to Consolidate?
Good consolidation proposals do the following:
Emphasizes that the suburb cannot thrive without the city and vice-verse
Raises the prospect that the quality of life in the given metropolitan area will improve/residents will have services that they've never had before
Expands the degree of representation that anyone in the urban center or urban fringe has
Enables economic diversification and specialization
Enacts tangible political/voting reforms that help hold the local government to account for their actions
Bad consolidation proposals do the following:
Promises the prospect of tax savings for the average resident (almost always a lie)
Entrenches industrial/special interests in a newer, shinier form of government
Does not make the adequate reforms necessary to expand political representation, which leads to political apathy, unmanageable workloads among representatives, and gridlock
Serve as a method for surrounding suburbs to out-vote city residents and over-cater to their interests (amalgamation in general)
Does not seek to expand a city's political authority or power
Usually, consolidation is used as a last-resort "hail mary" in order to breathe new life into cities, and so, it has never been a very popular method of urban policymaking in recent years. However, in this decade, especially in light of the financial challenges that cities across the country are facing due to the slump caused by covid, I think we'll see this project get a second look in by those in positions of power. Ultimately though, I really think that only cities in the midwest, sough, and MAYBE some counties out west in California decide to bite the bullet and consolidate. Will cities like NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, etc be harmed by covid? Of course, but those cities and their metro areas have been growing steadily for decades. It may seem grim in the short term, but with the right reformers in place, I think they'll be alright, they might even be willing to do tried and tested methods of regionalization that've worked for other metros. It's cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Buffalo that should be shitting themselves right now, their "rebirths" were always gonna be tenuous for all the reasons outlined in Part One. These cities are gonna need consolidation and good reformers/radicals in place if they're gonna have any chance of surviving into the new millennium.
Conclusion
^(Fuck,I'mexhausted) Whether we like it or not, consolidation is coming, for better or for worse. If those future proposals turn out to be blessings or curses on the cities that we love is up to us to sort out. We have the analytical minds necessary to steer these projects in the right direction, and I think most of us are in some sort of position to at least challenge the "powers that be" if the plans don't turn out to be up to snuff. Hopefully you guys get some sort of enjoyment from this post (writing this piece was hell and self-inflicted form of torture), or, so much needed information. My only request is that y'all don't credit me if I accidentally Lathe of Heaven a metro Detroit/Rustbelt megacity into existence. I'm a nobody, a simple food service worker who's a little too online and obsessed with daydreaming that the city I live in is better than it currently is. I'm just following in the footsteps of the journalists, writers (1, 2), and thinkers who from here he can see the vision of a better city as brightly as I can. Take care of yourselves, and look after your cities folks edit:will edit the grammar slip ups later, I haven't eaten all day. if you find some, point em out to me please
2020 BTS Related Holiday Gift Ideas for that ARMY in your Life! (or treat yo’ self!)
Inspired by this thread, I thought it would be nice if we could create a new guide for 2020! Below are some ideas I’ve noted the past few months! How about you? What do you think would be a great gift for new fans or long time ARMY? Sidenote: It looks like our sub has grown from about 40K plus since the last list in 2018 to 167K subscribers today! YES, looking forward to 167K suggestions! 😅
FILA x BTS. The US store hinted a couple of months ago that they will be carrying this collection but I have not seen it on the site.
System x BTS. I’ve also seen this available on Cokodive and people on the sub mention that they’ve purchased outside the Weverse shop! If anyone has recommendations on where else to purchase please tell us!
BT21 x Royche Airpod Case ...and as stated in the 2018 BTS Gift Guide, “If you are SUPER RICH and your recipient is VERY Patient…” Well good news! The 8 seater Hyundai Palisade is available now if you were thinking about it then!
Magnets with polymer clay! OR simply print some BTS related stuff on photo paper, buy some magnets and stick them to the back of your print outs!
Mix tapes - you do need a tape deck to make it, but you can hook one up to your computer to record from Spotify or SoundCloud. You can also buy cute blank tapes on-line like these and design your own cover for the case.
BTS Candles - check out your local dollar store or grocery for unmarked glass candles, print out your bias (Jinsus? J-pope? The only challenge is who to choose as all of em are angels!) and stick it on!
Print a ton of photos of their bias and hide it in their room or office like this mad lad maybe...
Random / Obscure / As seen on BTS gift ideas! Inspired by this thread
Dyptique Candle in ‘Baies' - Taehyung says it is his favorite candle!. In case you are on the fence of purchasing cause of the price you can try the dupe which is Madewell Rosewood Cassis. They smell really similar and the throw for both are pretty good. The only difference I noticed is that the Madewell one leaves an extremely faint powdery note and the scent does not last the next day after burning while the Dyptique one does.
Mickey Mouse Plush as seen on 201005 J-hope’s Weverse post and it also made an appearance in 2019. I searched hard last year but could not locate this mouse. Lucky for us he posted again on Weverse and twitter found the (hidden) Mickey. It was sold in November 2018 as part of the Memories Collection. It is sold out in Disney Stores but I did spot it on E-bay and Walmart.
The famous Downey fabric softener Jungkook and ARMY accidentally sold this out in January 2019! But it has been available since. It is the scent named Adorable or Sparkling Amber and Rose depending on what part of the world you’re in!
There are other Bangtan footwear that I would like to add as I really got into those at one point. We can maybe discuss it on another day as it will be lengthy lol and it may not be that interesting to most as a gift (although to me it really is!). Tag me in the comments, though, if you have random footwear questions or are somehow also excited about their shoes!
Art Check out FanArt from heungtan and ask the artists if they do commissions!
Food/Snacks Create/decorate a BTS munch box with snacks BTS has eaten in bombs/episodes/RUN!/In the Soop/ other media. You can add little notes citing which videos/timestamps where they were spotted for a trip down memory lane.
Turtle Chips As seen on 181129 ‘Suga is Eating Snack’ Bangtan Bomb
Banana Kick As seen on 200129 Vlive 'TaeTae FM 6.13' around the 46:10 mark. Also seen in RM’s Gym Trainer Meme
Nongshim Ramen as seen on 'Burn the Stage' when JK pranks Jin and adds a chocoball in his ramen and Bibimyeon As seen on 190521 VLive 'Hope is Here 😌'
Chilsung Cider - As seen ‘In The Soop’ - I can’t link it cause it is paid content but the sub has an abundance of CFs. Here are the threads if you want to review the ads for… erm... Science. I’ve only tried the lemon lime one and it is delicious 10/10. Here is an album with the snacks listed if you want a closer look!
That must be it for now! But I will continue to update this list if new deals come for Black Friday/Cyber Monday/any Holiday kinds of sale and/or if they actually restock the BT21 Headbands. 😔 Here are the BT21baby ones in the meantime. Would love to hear your recommendations for fave fan made stuff, inexpensive or free presents, sell a kidney kind of gifts, names/websites of retailers in your country that sell official BTS/BT21 merch, product reviews or even cute and heartfelt BTS themed quality time ideas!
"Saint Mother Teresa was documented mass murderer" and other bad history on Mother Teresa
A Mother Teresa post is long overdue on badhistory sheerly for the vast amount of misinformation circulating around the figure on the Redditsphere. There are certain aspects of Mother Teresa that are taken as absolute facts online when they lack the context of Mother Teresa's work and beliefs. Much of these characterizations originate from Hitchen's documentary 'Hell's Angel' and his book 'The Missionary Position’\1]) neither of which are academic and are hit pieces, which like a telephone game, have become more absurd online. I intend this neither to be a defense nor a vindication of Teresa; rather, adding some much needed nuance and assessing some bad-faith approaches to the issues. My major historical/ sociological research here deals with the state of medical care in Teresa's charities.
Criticism of Mother Teresa's medical care
" Teresa ran hospitals like prisons, particularly cruel and unhygienic prisons at that"
It is crucial to note here that Teresa ran hospices, precisely a "home for the dying destitutes", not hospitals. Historically and traditionally, hospices were run by religious institutions and were places of hospitality for the sick, wounded, or dying and for travelers. It was not until 1967 that the first modern hospice (equipped with palliative care) was opened in England by Cicely Saunders.\2]) It wasn't until 1974 that the term "palliative care" was even coined and not until 1986 that the WHO 3-Step Pain Ladder was even adopted as a policy\3]) (the global standard for pain treatment; the policy is widely regarded as a watershed moment for the adoption of palliative programs worldwide). Mother Teresa began her work in 1948 and opened her "home for the dying and destitutes" Nirmal Hriday in 1952,\4]) 15 years before the invention of the modern hospice and 34 years before the official medical adoption of palliative medicine. Mother Teresa ran a traditional hospice, not a modern medical one. As Sister Mary Prema Pierick, current superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, colleague and close friend of Mother Teresa said "Mother never had hospitals; we have homes for those not accepted in the hospital. We take them into our homes. Now, the medical care is very important, and we have been improving on it a lot and still are. The attention of the sisters and volunteers is a lot on the feeding and bandaging of the person. It is important to have them diagnosed well and to admit them to hospitals for treatment."\5]) Mother Teresa's charism was not in hospitals and medicine, it was in giving comfort to the already dying and had stated that that was her mission. Neither is the MoC principally engaged in running hospices; they also run leper centers, homes for the mentally challenged, orphanages, schools, old age homes, nunneries among many other things around the world. And note, this leaves out the state of hospice care in India at the time, which is not comparable to England. Which brings us to:
"Mother Teresa's withheld painkillers from the dying with the intent of getting them to suffer"
This is one of the bigger misconceptions surrounding Mother Teresa. It originates from Hitchens lopsidedly presenting an article published by Dr. Robin Fox on the Lancet.\6]) Dr. Fox actually prefaced his article by appreciating Mother Teresa's hospice for their open-door policy, their cleanliness, tending of wounds and loving kindness (which Hitchen's quietly ignores). Dr. Fox notes; "the fact that people seldom die on the street is largely thanks to the work of Mother Theresa and her mission" and that most of "the inmates eat heartily and are doing well and about two-thirds of them leave the home on their feet”. He also notes that Mother Teresa's inmates were so because they were refused admissions in hospitals in Bengal. Only then does Dr. Fox criticise the MoC for its "haphazard medical care" which were the lack of strong analgesics and the lack of proper medical investigations and treatments, with the former problem separating it from the hospice movement. The latter is largely due to the fact that Teresa ran hospices with nuns with limited medical training (some of them were nurses), with doctors only voluntarily visiting (doctors visited twice a week, he notes the sisters make decisions the best they can), that they didn't have efficient modern health algorithms and the fact that hospitals had refused admissions to most of their inmates. Most importantly, Mother Teresa did not withhold painkillers. Dr. Fox himself notes that weak analgesics (like acetaminophen) were used to alleviate pain; what was lacking were strong analgesics like morphine. The wording is important, Fox only noted 'a lack of painkillers' without indicating it's cause, not that Teresa was actively withholding them on principle. What Hitchens wouldn't talk about is the responses Dr. Fox got from other palliative care professionals. Three prominent palliative care professionals, Dr. David Jeffrey, Dr. Joseph O'Neill and Ms. Gilly Burn, founder of Cancer Relief India, responded to Fox on the Lancet.\7]) They note three main difficulties with respect to pain control in India: "1) lack of education of doctors and nurses, 2) few drugs, and 3) very strict state government legislation, which prohibits the use of strong analgesics even to patients dying of cancer", with about "half a million cases of unrelieved cancer pain in India" at the time. They respond, "If Fox were to visit the major institutions that are run by the medical profession in India he may only rarely see cleanliness, the tending of wounds and sores, or loving kindness. In addition, analgesia might not be available." They summarise their criticisms of Dr. Fox by stating that "the western-style hospice care is not relevant to India, The situation in India is so different from that in western countries that it requires sensitive, practical, and dynamic approaches to pain care that are relevant to the Indian perspective.” India and the National Congress Party had been gradually strengthening it's opium laws post-Independence (1947), restricting opium from general and quasi-medical use. Starting from the "All India Opium Conference 1949", there was rapid suppression of opium from between 1948 and 1951 under the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1930 and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. In 1959, the sale of opium was totally prohibited except for scientific/ medical uses. Oral opium was the common-man's painkiller. India was a party to three United Nations drug conventions – the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which finally culminated in the 1985 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, which was ultimately responsible for the drastic reduction of medicinal opioid use in India even for a lot of hospitals. It is also noted that opium use in Western medical treatments in India was limited during the time (post-Independence), mostly for post-operative procedures and not palliative care. The first oral morphine tablets (the essential drug of palliative medicine) only arrived in India in 1988 under heavy regulations.\8][9][10][11]) Before 1985, strong analgesics could only be bought under a duplicate prescription of a registered doctor, de facto limiting its use to hospital settings. Nevertheless, India had some consumed some morphine then, although well below the global mean.\12]) Since the laws prior to 1985 weren't as strict, the Charity was able to use stronger painkillers like morphine and codeine injections at least occasionally under prescription at their homes, as witnesses have described.\13][14][15]) This essentially rebuts critics claiming she was "against painkillers on principle", as she evidently was not. Also note, palliative medicine had not even taken its roots at that point. Palliative care only began to be taught in medical institutions worldwide in 1974. \16]) Moreover, palliative medicine did not appear in India till the mid-1980s, with the first palliative hospice in India being Shanti Avedna Sadan in 1986. Palliative training for medical professionals only appeared in India in the 1990s. The NDPS Act came right about the time palliative care had begun in India and was a huge blow to it.\17][18]) Post-NDPS, WHO Reports regarding the state of palliative medicine in India shows that it was sporadic and very limited, including Calcuttan hospitals.\19]) As late as 2001, researchers could write that "pain relief is a new notion in [India]", and "palliative care training has been available only since 1997".\20]) The Economist Intelligence Unit Report in 2015 ranked India at nearly the bottom (67) out 80 countries on the "Quality of Death Index"\21]). With reference to West Bengal specifically, it was only in 2012 that the state government finally amended the applicable regulations.\22]) Even to this day, India lacks many modern palliative care methods, with reforms only as recently as 2012 by the "National Palliative Care Policy 2012" and the "Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Act 2014" for medical opioid use.\23][24][25][26]) The only academic evidence I could find for the lack of painkillers in the MoC comes from the 1994 Robin Fox paper, post-1985 NDPS act. Both the evidences that Hitchens provides for the lack of painkillers in their homes, Dr. Fox's article and Ms. Loudon's testimony comes post-1985. Regardless, It is disingenuous of Hitchens to criticise the MoC's conditions in 1994 when being ignorant of the situation and laws at the time. Another criticism faced by Mother Teresa was the reusing of needles in her hospices. Plenty articles attribute Fox's Lancet article for reusing unsterilized needles even though Fox did not indicate this in his piece (also, he also did not find anything objectionable with regard to hygiene). While constantly using disposable needles may seem ubiquitous today, it was not a global standard practise at the time. Loudon's account does not seem to be the routine. We know that Mother Teresa's hospice had usually used some form of disinfection on their instruments, surgical spirit\27]), some accounted boiling\28]) and had later switched to using disposable needles (stopping reuse) in the 90s/ early 00s.\29]) Although disposable needles were invented in the 1950s, reuse of needles was not uncommon until the AIDS epidemic scare in the 1980s.\30]) Back then, many Indian doctors and hospitals didn't shy away from reusing needles, sometimes without adequate sterilization.\31][32][33]) There is also no suggestion that Mother Teresa knew or approved of the alleged negligent practice. India did not have any nationwide syringe program at the time. WHO estimates that 300,000 people die in India annually as a result of dirty syringes. A landmark study in 2005, 'Assessment of Injection Practices in India — An India-CLEN Program Evaluation Network Study' indicated that "62% of all injections in the country were unsafe, having been administered incorrectly or “had the potential” to transmit blood-borne viruses such as HIV, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C either because a glass syringe was improperly sterilized or a plastic disposable one was reused. "\34]) Dirty syringes were a problem in India well into the 21st century in government and private hospitals, with researchers citing lack of supplies, proper education on sterilization, lack of proper waste disposal facilities among other things. While the treatments were substandard to hospices in the west, Navin Chawla, a retired Indian government official and Mother Teresa’s biographer notes that in the 1940s and 1950s, “nearly all those who were admitted succumbed to illnesses. In the 1960s and 1970s, the mortality rate was roughly half those admitted. In the last ten years or so [meaning the 1980s to the early 1990s], only a fifth died.”\35]) There are other positive accounts of their work and compassion by medical professionals as well.\36]) The entire point here is that it is terribly unfair to impose western medical standards on a hospice that began in the 50s in India when they lacked the resources and legislation to enforce them given the standards of the country. To single out Mother Teresa's hospice is unfair when it was an issue not just for hospices, but hospitals too. Once this context is given, it becomes far less of an issue focused on the individual nuns but part of a larger problem affecting the area. Once this is clear, it ties into the second part of the sentence:
" Mother Teresa withheld painkillers because suffering bought them closer to Jesus / glorified suffering and pain. ”
A quote often floated by Hitchens was “I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people” with the implication being that Teresa was something of a sadist, actively making her inmates suffer (by “withholding painkillers” for instance). This is plainly badhistory on a theological concept that has been around for millennia. Hitchens relies here on a mischaracterization of a Catholic belief in “redemptive suffering”. Redemptive suffering is the belief that human suffering, when accepted and offered up in union with the Passion of Jesus, can remit the just punishment for one's sins or for the sins of another.\37]) In simpler words, it is the belief that incurable suffering can have a silver spiritual lining. The moral value and interpretation of this belief is a matter of theology and philosophy; my contention is that neither Catholicism nor Teresa holds a religious belief in which one is asked to encourage the sufferings of the poor, especially without relieving them. The Mother Teresa Organization itself notes that they are “to comfort those who are suffering, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to care for the sick, etc. Telling someone to offer it [suffering] up without also helping him to deal with the temporal and emotional effects of whatever they are going through is not the fully Christian thing to do.”\38]) It becomes fairly obvious to anyone that the easiest way for Teresa to let her inmates suffer is to let them be on the streets. Teresa was not the cause of her inmates' diseases and reports (eg. Dr. Fox) show that most inmates were refused to be treated by hospitals. Mother Teresa in her private writings talks of her perpetual sorrow with the miseries of the poor who in her words were "God's creatures living in unimaginable holes"; contradictory to the image of malice given by Hitchens.\39]) Which also brings into question; why did the MoC even bother providing weaker painkillers like acetaminophen if they truly wanted them to suffer? They had used stronger painkillers in the past too, so this was not a principled rejection of them. Sister Mary Prema Pierick, current superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, colleague and close friend of Mother Teresa responds; "[Mother's] mission is not about relieving suffering? That is a contradiction; it is not correct... Now, over the years, when Mother was working, palliative treatment wasn’t known, especially in poor areas where we were working. Mother never wanted a person to suffer for suffering’s sake. On the contrary, Mother would do everything to alleviate their suffering. That statement [of not wishing to alleviate suffering] comes from an understanding of a different hospital care, and we don’t have hospitals; we have homes. But if they need hospital care, then we have to take them to the hospital, and we do that."\40]) It is also important to note the Catholic Church's positions on the interaction of the doctrine on redemptive suffering and palliative care. The Catholic Church permits narcotic use in pain management. Pope Pius XII affirmed that it is licit to relieve pain by narcotics, even when the result is decreased consciousness and a shortening of life, "if no other means exist, and if, in the given circumstances, this [narcotics] does not prevent the carrying out of other religious and moral duties"\41]), reaffirmed by Pope John Paul II responding to the growth of palliative care in Evangelium Vitae.\42]) The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services notes that "medicines capable of alleviating or suppressing pain may be given to a dying person, even if this therapy may indirectly shorten the person's life so long as the intent is not to hasten death. Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering".\43]) According to the Vatican's Declaration on Euthanasia "Human and Christian prudence suggest, for the majority of sick people, the use of medicines capable of alleviating or suppressing pain, even though these may cause as a secondary effect semi-consciousness and reduced lucidity." This declaration goes on, "It must be noted that the Catholic tradition does not present suffering or death as a human good but rather as an inevitable event which may be transformed into a spiritual benefit if accepted as a way of identifying more closely with Christ."\44]) Inspecting the Catholic Church's positions on the matter, we can see that Hitchens is wholly ignorant and mistaken that there is a theological principle at play.
“Mother Teresa was a hypocrite who provided substandard care at her hospices while using world-class treatments for herself”
While a value judgement on Teresa is not so much history as it is ethics, Hitchens deliberately omits several key details about Mother Teresa’s hospital admissions to spin a bad historical narrative in conjunction with the previously mentioned misportrayals. Mother Teresa was often admitted to hospitals against her will by her friends and co-workers. Navin Chawla notes that she was admitted “against her will" and that she had been “pleading with me to take her back to her beloved Kolkata”. Doctors had come to visit her on their own will and former Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao offered her free treatment anywhere in the world.\45]) He remembers how when she was rushed to Scripps Clinic that "so strong was her dislike for expensive hospitals that she tried escaping from there at night." "I was quite heavily involved at the time when she was ill in Calcutta and doctors from San Diego and New York had come to see her out of their own will... Mother had no idea who was coming to treat her. It was so difficult to even convince her to go to the hospital. The fact that we forced her to, should not be held against her like this," says 70-year-old artist Sunita Kumar, who worked closely with Mother Teresa for 36 years.\46]) Unlike some tall internet claims, Mother Teresa did not "fly out in private jets to be treated at the finest hospitals". For example, her admission at Scripps, La Jolla in 1991 was at the request of her physician and Bishop Berlie of Tijuana. It was unplanned; she had been at Tijuana and San Diego as part of a tour setting up her homes when she suddenly contracted bacterial pneumonia.\47]) Her other hospitalisation in Italy was due to a heart attack while visiting Pope John Paul II and in 1993 by tripping and breaking her ribs while visiting a chapel.\48][49]) Dr. Patricia Aubanel, a physician who travelled with Mother Teresa from 1990 to her death in 1997 called her “the worst patient she ever had” and had “refused to go to the hospital”, outlining an incident where she had to protest Mother Teresa to use a ventilator.\50]) Other news reports mention Mother Teresa was eager to leave hospitals and needed constant reminders to stay.\51]) Her treatments and air travel were often donated free of charge. Mother Teresa was a recipient of the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award in 1980, which has the additional benefit of getting a lifetime of free first class tickets on Air India.\52]) Many other airlines begged and bumped her up to first-class (on principle Teresa always bought coach) because of the commotion the passengers cause at the coach.\53]) As Jim Towey says "for decades before she became famous, Mother rode in the poorest compartments of India's trains, going about the country serving the poor. Attacking her by saying she was attached to luxury is laughable."\54])
“Mother Teresa misused her donations and accepted fraudulent money”
There is no hard, direct evidence that Mother Teresa had mishandled her donations other than her critics speculating so. Neither Teresa nor her institution have luxuries or long-term investments in their names and their vow prevents them from fund-raising. Hitchens' source itself asserts that the money in the bank was not available for the sisters in New York to relieve their ascetic lifestyle or for any local purpose, and that they they had no access to it. Her critics have no legal case to offer and haven't bothered to follow up on their private investigations. Cases filed by the MoC's critics in India in 2018 probing their financial records were investigated by authorities in India and have not resulted in any prosecution (to the best of my knowledge).\55]) The case as offered rests on rumours and anecdotes with little precise details. Again, I am not vindicating Teresa, just pointing out how the case as offered is lacking. What is claimed as a misuse is but an objection as to Mother Teresa's choice of charitable objects, coupled with an allegation that she personally failed publicly to account for the donations she received. The former is absurdly self-referential and goes nowhere near substantiating a claim of "misuse" of charitable funds. Unless it can be established that the money was donated specifically for the relief of poverty (as opposed to having been given as a general accretion to the funds of MoC), the allegation is fundamentally misconceived. As for the latter objection, unless it can be established that Mother Teresa was in effective direct control of the finances of MoC and that MoC are under an obligation to make their accounts public, it, too, is misconceived. Indian charities are not obligated by the government to publish their accounts publicly and are audited and filed to the relevant authorities by law. If it is to be alleged that MoC are in breach of any statutory norms for publishing accounts (as distinct from lodging them with the appropriate body with oversight of charities in any given jurisdiction), then the fact should be asserted in terms. It also seems that most charities in Bengal do not publicly publish their accounts, again contradicting Hitchen's.\56]) The claim of "7% fund utilisation for charity" originates from a 1998 article in Stern Magazine. However, no details are given how they arrived at this figure either. This figure only amounts for a single home in London from a single year, 1991. Wüllenweber writing in 1998, had to go back to 1991 to find even one example to provide what is more cover than support for his case. Fraudulence is a substantial claim which requires very good evidence. On inspection, these are at best, insinuations, and at their worst, conspiracies. Like Hitchens said, that what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. For example, Navin Chawla, government official/biographer, penned that Mother Teresa said “[She] needed money to use for her people,” not for investment purposes. “The quite remarkable sums that are donated are spent almost as quickly on medicines (particularly for leprosy and tuberculosis), on food and on milk powder”.\57]) There are no calculations done on the cost of maintaining all her 517 homes across the world accounting for the deficiencies in resources in third-world countries. Hitchens also openly admits that he does not know if the Duvaliers donated any money.\58]) There are also insinuations expressly reliant on guilt by association. The large donation of Charles Keating was prior to their offense. While her assessment of Keating is dubious, there is no suggestions that Mother Teresa knew of his thefts beforehand and there is no indication when the donations were made – the date would have been foundational for any legal claim that Teresa was accountable for the money on the ground that she knew or had constructive knowledge of a fraud. It's likely that the donations were spent by the time they were convicted. Too late for the book, the convictions against Keating were overturned on a non-technicality in April 1996,\59]) nullifying Hitchens' censures against Teresa under this head, which Hitchens fails to mention elsewhere. Bonusbadhistoryon Mother Teresa:
“Her nuns refused to install an elevator for the disabled and handicapped in their homeless shelter in New York to make them suffer”
While the news itself is true, it omits a key detail. By refusing an elevator, the touted implication that they’d let the inmates suffer is mistaken; the nuns stated that “they would personally carry all of them up the stairs”\60]) since they don't use elevators. While it is valid to criticise her asceticism on ethical grounds, it is dishonest to leave out the detail that they pledged to personally carry the handicapped, giving a false historical narrative implying malicious intent. There also were some communal issues involved in the Bronx home. The nuns estimated the costs to be about $500,000 in repairs and had already spent $100,000 to repair fire damages. There were also reports about "community opposition" and "vandals undoing the repairs", raising the price of the home beyond what they could handle. They found that a $50,000-150,000 elevator was above their budget. It seems like their asceticism might not have been the only factor as to why they left the project. I have also contacted some past volunteers of the charity, some who are medical professionals, to get their experiences as well. They are posted as an addendum in the comments. Fin.
References:
[1] Hitchens, C., 1995. The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in theory and practice. London: Verso. [2] Hospice [3] Ventafridda V., Saita L., Ripamonti C. & De Conno F., 1985. WHO guidelines for the use of analgesics in cancer pain. [4] Sebba, A., 1997. Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image. [5] National Catholic Register, 2015. Mother Teresa Saw Jesus in Everyone. [6] Fox, R., 1994. Calcutta Perspective. The Lancet, 344(8925), pp.807-808. DOI:10.1016/s0140-6736(94)92353-1 [7] Jeffrey, D., O'Neill, J. and Burn, G., 1994. Mother Teresa's care for the dying. The Lancet, 344(8929), p.1098. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(94)91759-0 [8] Burn, G., 1990. A personal initiative to improve palliative care in India. DOI:10.1177/026921639000400402 [9] Tandon, T., 2015. Drug policy in India. [10] Deshpande, A., 2009. An Historical Overview of Opium Cultivation and Changing State Attitudes towards the Crop in India, 1878–2000 A.D. Studies in History. DOI:10.1177/025764300902500105 [11] Chopra, R.N. & Chopra, I.C., 1955. Quasi-medical use of opium in India and its effects. United Nations Dept. Economic Social Affairs, Bull. Narcotics. 7. 1-22. [12] Reynolds, L. and Tansey, E., 2004. Innovation In Pain Management. p.53. [13] Mehta, V., 1970. Portrait Of India location no.7982. [14] Lesser, R. H., 1972. Indian Adventures. St. Anselm's Press. p. 56. [15] Goradia, N., 1975. Mother Teresa, Business Press, p. 29 [16] Loscalzo, M., 2008. Palliative Care: An Historical Perspective. pp.465-465. [17] Quartz India, 2016. How history and paranoia keep morphine away from India’s terminally-ill patients. [18] Patel, F., Sharma, S. & Khosla, D., 2012. Palliative care in India: Current progress and future needs. Indian Journal of Palliative Care, p.149. [19] Burn, G., 1991. Third Lecture Visit to Cancer Patient Settings in India, WHO. [20] Stjernsward J., 1993. Palliative medicine: a global perspective. Oxford textbook of palliative medicine. [21] Perspectives from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), 2015. [22] Rajagopal, M. & Joranson, D., 2007. India: Opioid Availability—An Update. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2007.02.028 [23] Chopra, J., 2020. Planning to Die? Don’t Do It in India if At All Possible, The Wire. [24] Rajagopal, M., Joranson, D. & Gilson, A., 2001. Medical use, misues, and diversion of opioids in India. The Lancet, 358(9276), p.139. DOI: 10.1016/s0140-6736(01)05322-3 [25] International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care, Newsletter, 2012 Vol. 13, No. 12. [26] Rajagopal, M., 2011. Interview with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime - India: The principle of balance to make opioids accessible for palliative care. [27] In India: A Flickering Light in Darkness of Abject Misery, 1975. DOI: 10.1080/21548331.1975.11946443 [28] Mehta, V. & Mehta R., 2004. Mother Teresa p.13. [29] O'Hagan, A., 2004. The Weekenders. p.65. [30] Wodak, A. and Cooney, A., 2004. Effectiveness Of Sterile Needle And Syringe Programming In Reducing HIV/AIDS Among Injecting Drug Users. Geneva: World Health Organization. [31] Bandyopadhyay, L., 1995. A Study Of Knowledge, Attitudes And Reported Practices On HIV/AIDS Amongst General Practitioners In Calcutta, India. University of California, Los Angeles, 1995 p.101. [32] Mishra, K., 2013. Me And Medicine p.113. [33] Ray, S., 1994. The risks of reuse. Business Today, (420-425), p.143. [34] Alcoba N., 2009. India struggles to quash dirty syringe industry. CMAJ. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.090927 [35] Chawla, N., 2003. Mother Teresa. p.163 [36] Kellogg, S. E. 1994. A visit with Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine DOI:10.1177/104990919401100504 [37] CCC 1521 [38] Redemptive Suffering, Mother Teresa of Calcutta Center. [39] Teresa, M. and Kolodiejchuk, B., 2007. Mother Teresa: Come be my light : The private writings of the Saint of Calcutta. [40] National Catholic Register, 2015. Mother Teresa Saw Jesus in Everyone. [41] Pius XII, 1957. Address to an International Group of Physicians; cf. 1980.Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Euthanasia Iura et Bona, III: AAS 72 (1980), 547-548. [42] John Paul II, 1985. Evangelium Vitae. [43] Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 1995. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC, n. 61. [44] Declaration on Euthanasia, p. 10. [45] Chawla, N., 2013. The Mother Teresa her critics choose to ignore, The Hindu. [46] Chopra, R., 2013. Mother Teresa's Indian followers lash out at study questioning her 'saintliness', Dailymail. [47] United Press International, 1991. Mother Teresa hospitalized with 'serious' illness. [48] Deseret News, 1993. Mother Teresa in hospital after fall breaks 3 ribs. [49] Sun Sentinel, 1997. The life of Mother Teresa. [50] Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2007. Mother Teresa: Saintly woman, tough patient. [51] Gettysburg Times, 1992. Mother Teresa in Serious condition. [52] BBC, 2016. Mother Teresa: The humble sophisticate. [53] Fox News, 2015. The secret of Mother Teresa's greatness. [54] Catholic World Report, 2016. “Mother changed my life”: Friends remember Mother Teresa. [55] UCA News, 2018. Mother Teresa nuns face probe over funding allegations. [56] Bagchi, B., 2008. A study of accounting and reporting practices of NGOs in West Bengal, p.184. [56] Chawla, N., 2003. Mother Teresa, p.75. [57] Lamb, B., 1993. For the Sake of Argument 1993, C-SPAN. [58] Ibid. [59] The New York Times, 1996. U.S. Judge Overturns State Conviction of Keating. [60] AP News, 1990. Nuns to NYC: Elevator No Route to Heaven.
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