Jcpenney.pay bill

Warning: this is a bit long, so bear with me.
For context, I (29F) live with my sister (26F). To this day she doesn’t drive. She’s afraid of driving herself on the road? I’m not one to judge fears, but in America, driving is pretty important when you can’t afford cabs. We were both employed at JCPenney, which is a good 30-40 minute drive away from where we live. We are essentially also living less than paycheck to paycheck. Our job wouldn’t work with us on scheduling, even knowing our situation, so there would be days where I would have to take her into work on my day off and sit there until she got off because we didn’t have the money for gas to drive from home to work and back more than once in a day. So I was increasingly stressed beyond belief, trying not to take it out on my sister because she won’t get her license. Fast forward a few months, we both left the toxic workplace at JCPenney. I work right down the road from midnight to 6am, and she works about 15 minutes away at our uncles drive thru convenience store. On top of my working nights, I’m also in an IT program to earn my Google IT support certificate, and I’ll be starting business school next month in May. So I’m filled to the brim with stress already.
She has a habit of going straight to me when she needs a ride to work. She usually tries to bribe me with coffee or food or something, so she has cash. Her problem is, she’s a great tipper. Which is great for people who have the extra money to give away. We do not. Not to mention, my mother and my brother live literally 6 apartments down from us who she can communicate with for rides, and my dad and aunt live closer to the drive thru and can come get her if she asks (if they’re feeling well enough; both have health issues). The problem is, she doesn’t ask. She assumes I’ll always be there. So I have to be the one to get my brother or mother involved and basically be like, “Catch your daughtesister, because I’m sleep deprived and there may be a murder.”
Along with all that, she will occasionally do the dishes or pick up the living room a bit, but that’s it. In between shifts and sleep, instead of working on coursework this past week, I was deep cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the living room, deep cleaning the bathroom, etc. In the 3 years we’ve lived together, she has never done anything in the bathroom except wipe the sink down, clean the toilet seat, and pour draino down the shower drain. All the deep cleaning has been me. She never runs the trash down (it’s literally right down the sidewalk); she waits for me to put it in my car and run it before a shift or something. Longer story short, she has the mindset of a teenager still, with a little bit more responsibility of paying bills.
My question is, essentially, wtf do I do? I don’t want to try to find my own place, because, let’s face it, no one can afford to live alone. My mom and I were talking about trying to find a place big enough for all of us because my brother and “extended brother” are moving in with their respective girlfriends within the year. Obviously my sister can’t go her whole life without driving. I’m also not trying to tarnish what relationship with my family I do have. WIBTA for giving her an ultimatum of some sort?

I need help with my debt. I’m at a point where I have nothing left over at the end of the month or I get overdrafts. I know it was insanely dumb of me to get into so much debt but now I’m here and I just want to get out of it. I can drown in self hatred for getting myself into this mess or I can find a way to get out of it. I work full time and am also a mom so I don’t have much free time to get another stream of income. I need help figuring out a way out of debt but with the income I already have. Please help! I appreciate anyone willing to give me advise. Any advice is welcome but just know nothing hateful you could say is worse than what I already think of myself.
Income: $1,070 weekly
My credit score was in the high 700’s and because of the amount of debt I’ve accrued, it is now 585 Transunion and 590 Equifax.
Here is a breakdown of my monthly bills:

• Mortgage-$1,398
• Car payment-$513
• JetBlue CC - $7,791.85 - monthly payment $218.15
• Amazon CC - $5,302.05 ($4,713.02 is interest free) - monthly payment $396.31
• PayPal Credit - $6,621.21 ($4,154.03 is interest free)- monthly payment $114
• PayPal CC - $2,188.88 - monthly payment $76
• Credit one CC - $968.20 - monthly payment $49
• Target CC - $1,269.96 - monthly payment $42
• Sephora CC - $355.10 - monthly payment $30
• Ulta CC - $149.49 - monthly payment $30
• Ashley Furniture loan - $2,950.26 - monthly payment $167.21
• Affirm $39.64 (until August 2, 2025 interest free), $98.57 (until June, 20, 2024)
• Cellphone bill $110
• Personal loan for home repairs - $3957- monthly payment $45
• Electric bill - $100
• Water bill - $35
• HOA - $42
• Sears CC - monthly payment $89
• JCPenney CC - monthly payment $114
• Groceries - $130 weekly
• Gas - $50 weekly
• Aftercare - $128 a month

All the credit card payments are the minimum payment. Sears and JcPenney I pay for my mom since she is unable to for health reasons, just know, those I cannot stop paying and they are over $6000 combined. As you can see I have little to nothing left over at the end of the month. As of right now all of my payments are in good standing. But I need help I don’t know how to fix this. Please help! Thank you!
Edit: To answer most of the questions: -I normally say my husband “left us” when I’m asked by strangers, mainly because the truth still doesn’t seem real but he was in a car accident a few months back. He did not survive it. I’m only adding this because so many people asked about child support which is obviously not an option. Also, most of the debt was in both of our names we bought all of this together and with his income it was never bad, as in, I never felt like we were struggling for money. For years we used the JetBlue card to visit family, we bought this house about a year ago and we bought some furniture we needed, the payments were 0 interest and did not seem bad at the time with both our incomes. The only ones that are mine alone are target, Sephora and ulta. They were much higher and I had chipped away at them but when the accident happened I let everything slide. I don’t know how to manage everything on my own. So I thought stupidly I’d ask Reddit for help and advice. But, wow most of you guys are so mean without knowing any of the backstory or details, you just assume and spew hate. I hope you never have to know the pain of losing your partner. -I’m still waiting on life insurance policy but I’m not sure how much that is going to be. It’s through his employer but he was only there for about 3 years so I don’t think it’ll be much. -My mom had a stroke a year ago, she used to have a good job and at the moment she can barely move or talk. I can’t help at all with her care since I’m far away, my sister does everything and so I offered to take some of her debt since she’s not able to pay it at the moment. She only has those two cards and an Amex that she pays with her SS. I understand that right now in the situation I’ve found myself in I can’t afford to pay it but it’s the only thing I can do for my mom right now so I don’t know how to tell my sister I’m not going to pay it anymore. I’m sure she’ll understand but it makes me feel like I’m helping and before all of this it wasn’t a burden to pay for them. -A lot of you suggested I seek help for my “spending problem” I don’t know if I necessarily have a spending problem but I am seeing a licensed therapist and psychologist and am on medication for depression (obviously) and anxiety which help some. -All of you who gave actual useful advice. Thank you, I appreciate your help greatly.

I’ve been feeling a little lost lately. I’m 31 and I’m worried I’m going to be one of those people with a fancy college degree and stuck in retail/ food service forever. I finished school back in 2018 with my degree in Interior Design and I got a certificate in architectural drafting. It took me about 8 months to find a job after I graduated and I ended up working at Starbucks. I liked working there for a while, the pay and benefits were really good once I moved up into a management position. Then we got a new manager who I didn’t see eye to eye with and I ended up leaving. I worked there for 6 years.To transition out of Starbucks I decided to get a job at JCPenney beauty because I thought it would be a fun job because I’m passionate about makeup. They gave me the frills for my interview and this job hasn’t been what I thought it would be. I’m cleaning dressing rooms most of the time and I think it is so boring. I also only get 12-23 hours a week and I am not making enough to even pay most of my bills. I know the job market is hard but I have extra time to gain skills and pursue other things. What should I do!?

In March 2023, I opened a JcPenney card through Synchrony Bank. I had made a purchase and was paying it off on time. In June, I applied through a bank for a personal loan to take care of some emergency auto repairs. I have good credit and got it, however, it was contingent on them paying off the two cards I had. One for JcPenney and one was for medical. The medical one cleared instantly, but the JcPenney one wanted a check. Using the account number on the JCP statement, they had sent them a check for $307, which was supposed to clear the account. A month later, I get a notification from JCP, saying I still owe money, they never got a check. I called the bank that I got the loan from and they said it was received and cleared and they had confirmation. I called JCP back and they asked my bank to send them a copy of the check and confirmation, my bank did that. They told me that they had actually made a mistake and applied the payment to the wrong account, but had no idea where they applied it and could we resend the confirmation and check copy, we did. A few weeks later, they reach out to me again saying I owe them money and that they never received the check copy and confirmation and to refax it. I went to my bank and told them. They faxed them a third time. This time I had them print out a copy of the check and confirmation for myself so I could send it certified mail, if it kept up. They printed what I needed, as well as three confirmations of faxes sent. On that occasion, JCP said they got it and everything was taken care of.
Now during the dispute process from June until October, I was credited the $307 so that I didn't have to make payments. Once it was finished, the balance was $0. December comes around, and I get a notification again that I owe payments and that I have a $307 balance. I called up the first week and they tell me, they found the problem and that it was applied to an old account and that because they misspelled my name it wasn't applied to the new one that was opened when they issued me a new card for the incorrect name. He told me don't worry, I owe nothing. The payment notification was gone. In January, same thing. I call again, and I'm told the problem was during the dispute process. The $307 they credited was double billed, don't worry I owe nothing. I had to speak to someone tonight cause again they want a payment. The person I spoke to was very rude and said honestly, it's not their fault they applied it to the wrong account, it's my problem and just because it says that they were paid, doesn't mean they would clear my balance. She proceeded to tell me they've never received any confirmation or proof of payment at any time. Every time I go through this process, I get dinged on my credit report and I'm at my wits end with them. What are my options with this?

In March 2023, I opened a JcPenney card through Synchrony Bank. I had made a purchase and was paying it off on time. In June, I applied through a bank for a personal loan to take care of some emergency auto repairs. I have good credit and got it, however, it was contingent on them paying off the two cards I had. One for JcPenney and one was for medical. The medical one cleared instantly, but the JcPenney one wanted a check. Using the account number on the JCP statement, they had sent them a check for $307, which was supposed to clear the account. A month later, I get a notification from JCP, saying I still owe money, they never got a check. I called the bank that I got the loan from and they said it was received and cleared and they had confirmation. I called JCP back and they asked my bank to send them a copy of the check and confirmation, my bank did that. They told me that they had actually made a mistake and applied the payment to the wrong account, but had no idea where they applied it and could we resend the confirmation and check copy, we did. A few weeks later, they reach out to me again saying I owe them money and that they never received the check copy and confirmation and to refax it. I went to my bank and told them. They faxed them a third time. This time I had them print out a copy of the check and confirmation for myself so I could send it certified mail, if it kept up. They printed what I needed, as well as three confirmations of faxes sent. On that occasion, JCP said they got it and everything was taken care of.
Now during the dispute process from June until October, I was credited the $307 so that I didn't have to make payments. Once it was finished, the balance was $0. December comes around, and I get a notification again that I owe payments and that I have a $307 balance. I called up the first week and they tell me, they found the problem and that it was applied to an old account and that because they misspelled my name it wasn't applied to the new one that was opened when they issued me a new card for the incorrect name. He told me don't worry, I owe nothing. The payment notification was gone. In January, same thing. I call again, and I'm told the problem was during the dispute process. The $307 they credited was double billed, don't worry I owe nothing. I had to speak to someone tonight cause again they want a payment. The person I spoke to was very rude and said honestly, it's not their fault they applied it to the wrong account, it's my problem and just because it says that they were paid, doesn't mean they would clear my balance. She proceeded to tell me they've never received any confirmation or proof of payment at any time. Every time I go through this process, I get dinged on my credit report and I'm at my wits end with them. What are my options with this?

In March 2023, I opened a JcPenney card through Synchrony Bank. I had made a purchase and was paying it off on time. In June, I applied through a bank for a personal loan to take care of some emergency auto repairs. I have good credit and got it, however, it was contingent on them paying off the two cards I had. One for JcPenney and one was for medical. The medical one cleared instantly, but the JcPenney one wanted a check. Using the account number on the JCP statement, they had sent them a check for $307, which was supposed to clear the account. A month later, I get a notification from JCP, saying I still owe money, they never got a check. I called the bank that I got the loan from and they said it was received and cleared and they had confirmation. I called JCP back and they asked my bank to send them a copy of the check and confirmation, my bank did that. They told me that they had actually made a mistake and applied the payment to the wrong account, but had no idea where they applied it and could we resend the confirmation and check copy, we did. A few weeks later, they reach out to me again saying I owe them money and that they never received the check copy and confirmation and to refax it. I went to my bank and told them. They faxed them a third time. This time I had them print out a copy of the check and confirmation for myself so I could send it certified mail, if it kept up. They printed what I needed, as well as three confirmations of faxes sent. On that occasion, JCP said they got it and everything was taken care of.
Now during the dispute process from June until October, I was credited the $307 so that I didn't have to make payments. Once it was finished, the balance was $0. December comes around, and I get a notification again that I owe payments and that I have a $307 balance. I called up the first week and they tell me, they found the problem and that it was applied to an old account and that because they misspelled my name it wasn't applied to the new one that was opened when they issued me a new card for the incorrect name. He told me don't worry, I owe nothing. The payment notification was gone. In January, same thing. I call again, and I'm told the problem was during the dispute process. The $307 they credited was double billed, don't worry I owe nothing. I had to speak to someone tonight cause again they want a payment. The person I spoke to was very rude and said honestly, it's not their fault they applied it to the wrong account, it's my problem and just because it says that they were paid, doesn't mean they would clear my balance. She proceeded to tell me they've never received any confirmation or proof of payment at any time. Every time I go through this process, I get dinged on my credit report and I'm at my wits end with them. What are my options with this?

I was very ambitious as a sculptor and photographer. I went to a great 4 year private college in a city and as soon as I graduated I immediately went for my MFA in the neighboring public university for 2 years.
I hate using COVID as a scapegoat, but it’s really true. In 2020 we had to pack our studios and head home halfway through my last semester. Finished my degree online with no art show or anything. All the work I made for 2 years was for nothing. Felt like I didn’t earn the degree, that it was just handed to me out of pity. I moved back in with my parents, which is in the middle of nowhere. There’s no community, or progression whatsoever.
Then the debt hit. My overall damage is $90k. Managed to pay almost 1/3rd of it off. By selling my soul as a manager to JCPenney portraits.
side rant about that Which at the time of applying seemed great opportunity, but I didn’t understand the restrictions of artistic freedoms of corporate photography. Everything is on auto. Can’t change the lights or the settings of the camera. Their tech team has everything wired to the company’s standards. They gave us a guide for poses we were suppose to replicate, and we would be graded on our photography based on the most contradicting rubric in existence. No photoshop allowed which was kinda a fun challenge as I am use to film cameras. Oh and btw you have only 10 minutes in the camera room with the client, have to make “enhancements” with Pinterest inspired stickers, filters (only had B&W and Sepia), and vignettes. You also have to sell to this client and close a sale in 35 minutes and throughout the day you are spam calling people to book an appointment. This experience should be a total of 45 minutes regardless if it’s a newborn session, large family, or pet session. Oh, AND the cherry on top. You’re not allowed to photograph outside of the company or run your own business as it’s deemed as “conflict of interest” which no one tells you till you get threatened to be fired for doing so**
I landed an adjunct position an hour away in the next state over. Teaching art history. Which was my minor in undergrad. I was juggling that and JCPenney portraits. Finally I quit and found a better job at a private photography studio, but was hired as a customer service representative. And they keep saying that they’ll train me in photography but it won’t happen because there are so many other things that pop up. This new full time job is also an hour away from my parents home and about 45 minutes away from the school. So I’ve been managing to juggle both. But because of that I’ve been missing out on the art events on campus. And since I teach art history I am in a completely different part of campus which is no where close to the art dept building, I don’t know anyone in my department. I’m fortunate that my full time job allows me to teach, however my car is not making it. And I can’t really afford to buy a new car with interest rates being as high as they are.
I don’t mean to make excuses. But my question is this.
What. Was. The. Point?
You might be thinking “oh you can just make art during your free time at home” except my free time is spent mostly driving, and I’m not allowed to make “a mess” at home (and I can’t really argue with that because I’m grateful that my parents are letting their almost 30 year old child live with them at all, rent free nonetheless.) “oh now that you don’t work that old job you can start your own photography business.” I’d love to, except with what time? What money? What car? What people?And also how? I don’t have a studio, (I have lights for a professional studio. But no place to set up) I don’t know the first thing about starting a business, or LLCs or anything like that. Taxes still confuse me.
I thought about doing a residency and there’s one in particular I really wanna do but I need to be free for eight weeks, and it’s unpaid. There’s also no such thing as a full-time job that will just let you take eight weeks off. And if you thought my job would let me work remotely, ha-ha they won’t. I asked if I could work remote one day because my car was being fixed and I was told that I am expected to be present at work. So I had to have my mom take a half day from her job just to drive me to work and back. The job pays well, but I’m not exactly saving any money because of the debt, other bills and gas. We love that.
I would apply for fellowships and grants but to be honest I don’t even know what they are or how to apply for them at all. I was taught in undergrad for one semester but I was undiagnosed ADHD the entirety of college, (which I just started taking meds for) so I don’t really remember any of it. Googling how to do it online is like asking a question into the void. No simple straight answer.
I feel robbed. I feel like my world and life is in purgatory. I feel like my degree is worthless. I feel like the people in high school who made fun of me for going to art school were right. And I know the solution is just to make shit. But I genuinely can’t. I have all the supplies in front of me and all they do is gather dust. I can’t even sketch in a sketchbook anymore. My partner (who just moved away and we are now long distance) said that my brain is just in “survival mode”. Which I agree. But I want it to stop. But I can’t.
I don’t know why I am venting on here about this. But I want to know if this is normal? Has any other artist ever been through something like this before? Did you recover and get back to making work? How did you do it?
TLDR: Long sad sob story summarizing my last three years. In a lot of debt. Going through hard times. Can’t make art. How do I get out of this imposter syndrome rut?

This is a throwaway just for privacy's sake.
Have established myself as sole durable Power of Attorney of my grandmother who has an estate worth roughly 3mil that is exclusively tied up in real estate in New York state. She has no cash and is in fact personally in debt to the tune of around 60k between credit cards and personal loans from her banks. She has dementia and has personally run her estate into the deep red without understanding it. She and my father both now live in Europe (she is in long-term memory care) and essentially need 50k/year to live between the two of them. As it stands the properties are barely covering the annual expenses cost between property taxes and maintenance fees on apartments.
I have set up a trust and am moving all of the properties into LLCs into a newly formed family trust. I have a lot of reorganizing, legal work, and catching up on sorting out leases, raising below-market rents, properties to be sold, and organizing a cash flow path to keep my family's expenses paid while hopefully continuing to grow the trust beyond it's value today. The plan is to sell every single property and 1031 it into property down in Miami where I live for it to be managed my my in-laws property management business, and hopefully I can turn this ship around and start developing actual cash flows.
My main question comes down to my Grandmother's credit/debt and how to prioritize expenses and debts. She has somewhere around 60k worth of personal debt between chase and citibank personal credit cards, random credit cards like JCPenney / Home depot and the like for a few hundred here and there. Since I have forwarded all of her mail I continue to see outstanding bills in her name. As the cash flow right now is tight - I am prioritizing paying back property taxes she was behind on, attorney fees involved in evictions on some of her properties, etc.
I am considering more and more to simply blowing off any and all of the debt I see entirely. The cash flow from any sales of property/rental income will flow through the trust and myself as the trustee, but I guess my question is how responsible for her personal debt will I really need to be? Especially if I have organized the trust such that money flowing from properties in the trust will be going through separate bank accounts and not her personal ones.
I would love to never worry about the outstanding credit cards and eventual debt collectors that will come looking for her knowing that she is in a small town in Eastern Europe and will never be held responsible for it.
Thanks for reading.
​

Best Next steps for 736 credit score?
Hello Everyone,
I'm currently looking into opening a new credit card(s)?
One new card will likely be something from one of the 4 majors as I am only an authorized user on a chase card. Also looking to break into the travel hacking side of things, that being said I'm transferring to Columbia next spring and will likely be taking on significant student loans which may set my credit back a bit for awhile so I think now is the time if any to attempt opening a few up. Also will likely become authorized user on another parent card to hopefully offset the damage to avg acct age as that seems to be my biggest demerit on score.
Any help would be appreciated.
Current cards:

1. Chase Southwest rapid rewards - 31k limit authorized user
2. UFCU 1.5% Cash back card - 6000 limit

Then I have small lines of credit through: 3. JCPenney 💀- 500 limit 4. PayPal - 700
Student loans: 4 federal loans totaling 13k
And then I use Experian boost for a few bills

• FICO Score: 736
  
• Oldest account age: 8.5yrs auth user
  
• Average acct age: 3.5 yrs
  
• Average monthly spend and categories:
  
  • dining $600(though hopefully not for long)
  • groceries: $200(will be higher in NYC)
  • gas: $200(will be near 0 in NYC)
  • travel: $100(more in NYC idk hm tho?)
  • other: $300 (primarily school stuff)
  • Utilities:$200(0 in NYC)
• Open to Business Cards: maybe?
  
• What's the purpose of your next card? * Travel/Cashback
  
• Do you have any cards you've been looking at? Not really amex, wells Fargo, capitol one
  
• Are you OK with category spending or do you want a general spending card? Probably smart to do category spending, currently just use UFCU for everything.
  

Also M22 if that matters
Thanks ahead of time!
Edit: income situation. Currently I am in an internship for a tech company making 10k for the summer, with the possibility of a full time return offer 70-80k(made in August for proof of income, but starts in Feb) should I get the offer I will likely go to school part time in nyc. This year I was also previously working full and part time at $24/hr, and am unsure what I will do for the fall. I would estimate annual income for the year between 30-40k. Last year would be 25k

Catch the full episode: https://www.wealthformula.com/podcast/373-the-investment-that-keeps-on-giving-even-when-you-die/
Buck: Welcome back to the show, everyone, today. My guest on Wealth Formula podcast are well known to this group. They are the Wealth Formula banking folks named Rod Zabriskie. And we also have Brenyn. Brenyn, you haven't been on this show before though heavier. It's usually Christian.
Brenyn: Yeah, I think man I'm trying to think if we did one episode before Rod or am I thinking of a webinar we did.
Rod: But we've done some stuff in. Yeah, Brenyn's joined us at some of the meetups and stuff, so he's been around.
Buck: Okay, So no, I've definitely seen you around in the meetups and that kind of thing. But anyway, welcome, welcome to Wealth Formula podcast again, guys, and it's about Happy summer to you, as you can tell, if you're watching this on video. I am extraordinarily informal today. Just got back from a kickboxing exercise morning here and got the Wealth Formula hat on. Instead of trying to, you know, try to look nice for people. So repping.
Rod: Repping the brand.
Buck: Yeah, that's right. That's right. So, guys, I'm glad you made it on. And, you know, I was thinking about this show the last few weeks because it's like, you know, we got to we've got some rough waters on the investor side. And it made me start to think about, well, you know, where where do you deploy in times like these? Because there's always places to deploy capital and that kind of thing. And the obvious one to me seem to be, you know, something like what you guys are doing with Wealth Formula banking and, and, you know, various permanent insurance things. And so I thought let's back up, let's tell the story here, because this is historical. This is something that has been an issue throughout history where people have fallen back on to the permanent life insurance thing. So let's talk first let's back up way back up. How did the concept of permanent life insurance come into existence in the first place? And what is it? That's the other thing.
Rod: Sure, yeah, So I can answer that one life insurance. I mean, as it was originally conceived, was what's called annual renewable term. And all that means is I pay my premium. If I die this year, my insurance pays out. If I don't die this year, then next year they'll they'll bill me again and I'll pay a little bit more because as I get older, the cost gets higher. The statistically, I'm more likely to die. And so they'll pay me. They'll charge me more for the insurance.
Buck: It's just like, is this American stuff that you're talking about or is this like going back to medieval European history and that kind of thing?
Rod: Yeah, well, I mean, I think it goes back to the Middle East.
Buck: Right? Okay. Got it. Got it.
Rod: So and it's just pooling risk, right? Like buddies get together and say, hey, I don't think I'm going to die. But if I die, you know, I'd like to have something for my family. And everyone else agrees. And so they say, well, let's all pony up, you know, a little bit. And then if any of us dies this year, then that money goes to that family, right?
Buck: Like captive insurance. I mean.
Rod: Yeah, it's like self-insuring. But I don't want to self-insure. I want to pool it with a few. So then the insurance companies, the way they are now, it's just like millions of people pulling together and saying, hey, I don't think I'm going to die. But just in case, you know, here you go.
Buck: Right. So, of course, it has evolved over the years. And so tell us a little bit about that over the terms of policy structure and benefits and all that. And, you know, at what point did the concept of term insurance come up and what, then what, you know, just in general.
Rod: Sure. So that model works great for a little while if you're in your thirties and you say, well, I need a million bucks of insurance and I pay whatever my 300 bucks for that, then that's great. But the older you get and that million bucks of insurance is going to cost more and more. You get into your seventies and eighties and that could be a hundred grand of a premium because there's only ten of you left. Right in the pool or whatever. So at some point, you start asking yourself, is it worth me putting? I'm just going to end up putting more than $1,000,000 into this thing before I die and get any kind of benefit back out?
Buck: Right?
Rod: So that's where permanent life insurance was conceived, where they said, okay, what if instead when we start with the 30-year-old, they just put in a lot more money into the policy than they have to just for the pure cost of insurance. Right. So instead of 300 bucks, it's 3000 bucks or something. But as long as they put in that $3,000 every year for the rest of their life, then we can build up this underlying cash value so that later on in May, when he gets into his 67, his eighties, there's this additional pool of money that's going to help not only cover the cost, but there's growth. Yeah, right. On top of that money that's sitting there. And so that can make it so that he can pay an even premium for the rest of his life, 3000 bucks a year. And it takes care of that whenever he dies, no matter when that is, a million bucks goes to his family.
Buck: When did that start permanent life insurance? Do you have an idea?
Rod: Couple of hundred years ago is really I think where that started kind of coming about and becoming a thing. So and you know, the way we know it now, it's obviously evolved, you know, more to where different types of insurance if it's whole life we know how the cash value grows based on a guaranteed interest rate and a dividend.
Rod: If it's a what's called variable universal life, that cash value is actually invested in the stock market. So your cash value fluctuates depending on how the stock market is growing or not. And so there are different types of that. But but ultimately, that's the idea. That's the reason cash value is even a thing inside of life insurance.
Buck: Right. So I want to talk a little bit about, like, you know, not that we're in a global depression or we're headed to one right now or something like that. But it would be helpful if you could provide some insight into how global events, you know, like world wars, economic depressions, pandemics, how have they impacted this industry?
Brenyn: Yeah, I'll take that one. That's a great question. And really one of the major benefits of specifically whole life insurance is the stability, predictability, and the guarantees that it's very well known for. And so when you're looking at global events, world wars, depressions, even high-interest rate environments, they've all come and gone, and whole life insurance has just continued to plug along as expected. And maybe to clarify that, there are two ways that a whole life insurance policy grows. You've got the guarantee, which will be anywhere from 2% to 3.75%, depending on the company. And then with mutual insurance companies, you have the dividend. So that doesn't mean that the dividend doesn't fluctuate because it does with those different global events. However, those fluctuations are very small adjustments because of the long-term outlook that an insurance company has. Now, if you take other products like variable universal life insurance policies, those are largely affected by global events, mainly because variable universal life will fluctuate with the market and can easily go negative. So in a depression or any event that changes the performance of the market, you can see big swings in those kinds of policies. And that's really how the index universal life policy came about, or the ideal because it has always used an index in the stock market to track the performance. But there's a flaw so that if the market goes negative, the client doesn't experience any of the negative years in the market. And because you have that flaw, the insurance company gives you a cap on your gains. So you have the ability to capture the majority of the upside, but it's capped on the upside as well. But you do get the protection on the downside.
Buck: Maybe you guys need to back up here because we're throwing around a bunch of terms like variable life and ideals. It's probably a good idea to clarify. What are these different things and when did they come up?
Rod: Yeah, so originally I was describing whole life insurance, which has been around for a long time. But variable life insurance is a relatively new thing. It wasn't around during the Great Depression. Whole life insurance was featured in movies like "It's a Wonderful Life" in the 1920s and 1930s, highlighting its cash value.
Buck: So that saved him.
Rod: Yes, the cash value of the life insurance policy saved the character in the movie. There are other stories like JCPenney and Walt Disney using the cash value of their policies to start their businesses. Whole life insurance became less exciting, so people wanted their cash value to grow better. They started tying it to the stock market, introducing volatility.
Buck: When did that happen?
Rod: It started in the 1970s.
Buck: From what I understand, during the Depression, people valued whole life insurance, but their children forgot about it and got attracted to the stock market. So the insurance industry wanted to make their products more appealing and introduced variable universal life (VUL) insurance.
Rod: That's also when the 401(k) retirement plan came about, moving towards more use of the stock market.
Buck: So how did VUL perform?
Rod: In the 1970s and 1980s, with high inflation and interest rates, whole life insurance seemed boring. VUL became more popular because it was tied to the stock market, which was seen as a way to combat inflation and potentially earn higher returns. However, relying on the stock market for cash value can be risky, especially during market downturns. Right. In the 1990s, people may have become overconfident, and in the 2000s, they underfunded their policies, which put them at risk during market downturns like the dot-com bust and the real estate crisis.
Buck: So mechanically, this is like having cash accounts invested in the stock market. You live and die with the stock market in this case. The problem is when there's a crash, people's portfolios suffer, and suddenly variable life insurance doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore because you've lost a significant portion of your portfolio. This perception has made people skeptical about life insurance and has given ammunition to those who profit from managing people's assets. But then there's the concept of overfunding. When does that start?
Rod: Overfunding refers to putting more money into the policy than just the premium for life insurance. Initially, there was no mechanism for this. However, companies developed a rider called paid-up additions that allows additional money to be put into the policy. By overfunding, we can get more benefits and more cash value inside the policy. For example, if someone puts $100,000 a year into their policy, $20,000 might be for the core insurance, while an additional $80,000 goes in to build cash value and receive benefits. This strategy aligns with the concept of infinite banking, where the policy's cash value grows, earns a return, receives tax benefits, and can be accessed and used.
Buck: So let's clarify. With whole life insurance, it's more of a fixed return, right? It's relatively stable. With whole life insurance, you have a fixed return, and additional distributions based on the profitability of the insurance company. Now, we can overfund it. What's the value of overfunding at that point?
Rod: The value of overfunding is that you have more money to take advantage of the benefits such as guaranteed growth, dividends, and tax benefits.
Buck: And then you can borrow against it.
Rod: Yes.
Buck: The main focus of wealth formula banking is not just the impressive returns, although they may be looking good right now. We are more interested in borrowing against the policy to amplify other cash-flowing investments.
Rod: Exactly. We compare it to other options for an opportunity fund. If you use a bank account or a money market account, you put money there, take it out to invest, and it stops earning. But with this strategy, you set the money into the policy, it grows tax-deferred, and when you borrow against it, your money continues to grow, creating value in multiple places simultaneously. You're investing in the same things as before, but this is a much better opportunity fund than a regular savings account.
Buck: So effectively, you're investing the same money in two places at the same time. Not only does it amplify your returns, but it also provides protection for your heirs. That's why wealth formula banking is compelling. Now let's shift back to the concept of variable life insurance, the one that took a hit in the stock market on Black Monday or Tuesday in the 1980s. Variable life insurance doesn't sound like a good idea after losing money. But then indexed universal life comes along. How is that different?
Brenyn: Indexed universal life was designed to capture most of the upside of the market while avoiding the downside. It uses similar indexes as those available for investments, but with a floor of zero or 1%. Indexed universal life (IUL) is designed to capture the majority of the upside of the market while avoiding the downside. It uses similar indexes as the stock market, but with a floor of 0% or 1% and a cap of around 10% to 14%. So if the index goes negative, you don't experience the loss, and if it goes up, you capture the capped percentage.
Buck: The leverage component comes in when the market is performing well. Even if you're capped at a lower rate, you can still leverage the returns to achieve higher overall returns. So by adding leverage to the capped rate, you can potentially outperform the market. It may sound too good to be true, but that's the power of leverage.
Rod: We call this the wealth accelerator or velocity plus. By using leverage, we can amplify the growth rate of the policy. For example, if the policy generates a 5% return, with leverage, we can turn that into 11%, 12%, or 13%, which is equivalent to an 18% to 20% rate of return in other taxable investments.
Buck: It becomes an attractive option because you're effectively investing the same money in two places simultaneously. You receive protection for your family, and the investment is stable. Indexed universal life with leverage allows you to achieve higher returns than what the market offers, while still having a floor of 1% or higher to protect against losses. However, people often question how insurance companies can provide these benefits and remain financially stable. These insurance companies have been in existence for over 150 years and have consistently paid dividends. So how do they do it?
Rod: Insurance companies have a long-term perspective when it comes to investments. They invest in long-term bonds and notes, typically spanning 30, 40, or 50 years. This approach smooths out short-term fluctuations in the economy. So even when interest rates are high or low, the insurance company's long-term investment strategy allows them to provide stable returns over time. When people ask if rising interest rates affect the wealth accelerator, the answer is no. In fact, rising interest rates can benefit the policy. Higher interest rates give insurance companies a larger budget to purchase options in indexed universal life policies, which increases the caps. It also leads to higher dividends in whole life policies as insurance companies earn higher returns on their investments.
Buck: So the insurance companies have well-diversified portfolios and are able to adapt to changing market conditions. For example, Penn Mutual, which has been around since 1847, has never missed a dividend payment since 1849.
Rod: That's correct. These insurance companies have a long track record of financial stability and consistency in providing returns to policyholders.
Buck: Yeah, they were trying to figure themselves out, but since 1848, 49 or whatever, they paid out a dividend to what is a company like Penn Mutual actually invested in that allows them to have such continuity in times like the Depression, hyperinflation wars, and the pandemic is still rock solid. In some ways, it's more stable than historically than any bank out there, if you think about it.
Rod: Yeah, well, I think that's helpful to make that comparison. And I have a really funny story for you. So here a couple of months ago when Silicon Valley Bank was falling apart, a couple of weeks later, I got a call from one of our clients, a large business owner who had life insurance policies for a long time. He asked when his next anniversary comes up so he can put more money into it. He wanted to send a check for $300,000. He said as long as they deposit it, he's good because he doesn't want it sitting in his account. He keeps large amounts of cash in his life insurance policies and accesses it regularly. He sees it as a stable place for his money. My point is, he's looking at the comparison of life insurance companies, and he clearly sees that it's a much more stable place. So now back to your question, why do banks have the capital and liquidity they show on their books? It's like a 10 to 1 or 10% liquidity. For most of them, that's a high point because they engage in fractional reserve banking, loaning out the same money multiple times. Life insurance companies, on the other hand, have more reserves for every dollar they have promised out. Penn Mutual, for example, has around $1.13 in reserves for every dollar promised out.
Buck: Well, they probably have old bonds from way back when they were high.
Rod: Yes, they do have those and a lot of short-term bonds as well. But the point is, there's no run on an insurance company like there is on a bank.
Buck: Right.
Rod: The majority of people who have money in these policies leave it there. There's no such thing as a run on a life insurance company like a run on a bank. If everything goes wrong, life insurance companies are the last companies standing in the United States.
Buck: Yeah, sometimes when we talk about this, it just seems too good to be true. But these are reputable companies that have been around for a long time. So what are some common misconceptions or misinformation about insurance? When I came out of residency, someone told me not to buy permanent life insurance and to buy term and invest the rest. But then I saw wealthy business owners using various types of premium finance, and I realized there was a discrepancy. What's the confusion?
Brenyn: I think a lot of it has to do with what people are used to seeing when they talk about whole life or index universal life policies. They're used to seeing policies with an extremely high cost, and they're sold on the death benefit. But the policies used by the wealthy are structured to maximize cash value that can be utilized for investing, leveraging, and tax-free income. People are used to seeing high costs and just a death benefit, instead of a very efficient policy that allows for utilization while living.
Buck: One of the things that I recently did was converting a wealth formula banking policy to a wealth accelerator policy. I realized that I deploy capital quickly and wasn't utilizing the banking policy loans as intended. I wanted exposure to the stock market and decided to move forward with the wealth accelerator.
Rod: So your whole life policy, the wealth formula banking policy, wasn't being tapped into as planned. You wanted to do more with it and make it grow. This is an opportunity for people who have overfunded their policies but haven't utilized them effectively. It's a good time to capitalize on the policy and let the money work for you until opportunities arise.
Buck: That's right. If you have cash sitting around and want to avoid idle money, the wealth accelerator is worth considering. Could you explain how it works?
Rod: With the wealth accelerator, we take the cash in your policy and put it to work by financing it through the bank. The cash value will continue to grow at 5%, but with leverage, you can expect a higher return. Additionally, we stack additional policies on top of the original one to make the bucket bigger. By leveraging and building the policy, you can benefit from a larger death benefit for estate planning purposes.
Buck: Some people might be concerned about using leverage, especially with rising interest rates. How safe is it to use leverage in this context?
Rod: We use conservative leverage as a tool, not going overboard with it. With the wealth accelerator, the cash value in the policy will always be higher than the loan balance. It's important to note that banks like this approach because it's a predictable cash equivalent asset.
Rod: The same reason you talked about that you like it, that the banks like it as collateral for a loan as well. So, so all of those principles work for you in kind of building this additional benefit, but it's doing it in a way that is very calculated and conservative so that we don't have to worry about.
And I'll give you an example, because people say, well, what banks are using right now for this and interestingly, we're actually not using banks at this moment. We're actually using the insurance companies in a way, because when we use if we were to use the banks right now, we would be paying seven and a half, 8% interest.
Whereas if I'm on the whole life side, it's a 5.7% interest rate on us, so it's a 5% interest rate. So we have, because of the instrument itself, the cash value line of credit, it just gives us a lot more fluidity to be in the right place as it relates to how we're using the debt. So and like I mentioned earlier, the rise in interest rates is going to mean that the policies will produce more growth moving forward than they would if interest rates hadn't gone up.
I like the fact that the interest rates went up. I know it gets creating havoc in a lot of other places, but as it relates specifically to life insurance, I think of it as like an interest rate reset when interest rates were low and had been low for so long. It just makes it tough for the insurance companies to think that they can keep paying higher a, you know, reasonable dividend or end or with the other have reasonable caps, but with interest rates going up, that helped put us in a healthier place.
As it relates to that. And the interest rates on the loan side are not going to stay high. If you go back to the eighties, they weren't really high 18, 20% at their highest in like 1980, 81. But by 1985, 86, they had dropped to five or 6% again. But the effect of having had the high interest rates and the insurance companies going out and buying 30-year bonds at those 18% rates means that the insurance policies were bolstered for the next, you know, decades.
Buck: So when we did mine, I didn't speak to the mechanics of that because you again we started with a whole life policy. So presumably you can't switch, can you? Can you?
Rod: Yeah. It's not that you can't, but it wouldn't be smart at this stage to do that. In other words, the costs are higher in the in year one and two of the policies. You're already past that point. We don't want to go back and start over with that on the cost side. So keeping the whole life that you have as your starting point and then when we start stacking the policies, then we'll go heavier on.
Buck: So what we do there again, mechanically, I want to make sure we everybody kind of gets an idea how this works. We, you say we take the loan. So the nice thing about wealth accelerator or two is like you're not you don't have to do something every year. It's in effect, it's like a one-time deal. You can you can do it every year if you want, but you're not required to do that because I think that's one of the things that's kind of nice about it is you're not putting yourself on the hook for, I don't know, 100 grand a year for five years, and then all of a sudden you
Brenyn: Yeah, I think that insurance companies we use have been around for 150 plus years. So, you know, we've covered that. They've gone through different global crises and they've been able to navigate those very well and consistently continue to pay dividends to policyholders, which means they're profitable every single year. So, you know, one thing that I take away from that is that it may not be the most exciting thing to have, but it's definitely going to be here for the long term. It's conservative leverage. It's the ability to use your money in two different places at once. And the underlying asset is something that you can count on.
Rod: And maybe just to build on that, it's taking the tool of life insurance and setting it up correctly, like in this case to minimize costs, maximize the growth of the cash value, to use whole life where it makes sense, like in the world from the banking, that's where you use whole life, right? Can you use. Well, yes, you can. We choose whole life because of the predictable growth that we get inside of it. You don't worry about what's happening in the market at all because there's no correlation to the market with that. Whereas with the wealth accelerator velocity plus we use IUL, well, we actually use a combination of both whole life and IUL because we want to take advantage of the strengths that they bring to the table without having issues with some of the weaknesses. They balance each other out in that sense. So when you talk about what lessons do we learn, we learn that when set up in the right way and used as a tool to grow wealth, they can actually be very effective at doing that.
Buck: Thanks, guys. I appreciate you being on Wealth Formula podcast again. Thanks again, guys, Brenyn and Rod, for being on Wealth Formula podcast. You know, I think this is something that people need to be thinking about right now or should consider, especially if you're worried about the way things are going. This, again, has been a savior for people in the past. And, you know, it's one of those things, you know, sometimes boring is good and boring is kind of like what we're sometimes saving on or on a rainy day. So if you're interested in these things, want to learn more, go to wealthformulabanking.com. There are a few webinars there where you can dig down deeper, and then ultimately if you're interested, you know, contact Rod and Brenyn or Christian through that by filling out a form. Again, guys, thanks again for being on Wealth Formula podcast, and love to have you on again soon. We’ll be right back.

Basically the title. I would like to know if I used a store credit card, like JCPenney, Old Navy, Kohls, etc to make purchases to take advantage of additional savings off Christmas shopping, but go online and pay off the balance within days of making the purchase, will the charges show up? I'm in the market for purchasing a home and am trying to keep my spending/available balance ratio under 20%. I have cash, but I can't take advantage of additional percentages off if I don't use the store card. What I'm hoping is that I charge my cc, pay it off within the next day or two, but before the billing cycle ends, and not have it show up on my credit reports or even receive a statement. Does anyone know if I can get away with this?

I'm not the OOP. This was posted by u/throwawayaccount5276 in trueoffmychest.
Original (14 Nov 22)
When people ask why I’m not in our family pictures, I’m going to tell them the truth.
A couple of weeks ago, my wife asked if we could have professional family photos taken. I said that money was too tight between our daughter's birthday, a trip to her parents' for Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I asked her if we could wait until after Christmas; she said no. She never brought it back up. I didn’t think anything of it because I assumed she was planning on taking them herself.
The other day, one of my tires blew out, and I went to our emergency fund to cover it. That’s when I discovered that she took three hundred dollars out of it to pay for photos. THREE HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS.
I know it sounds pathetic, but when I saw that shit, I broke down. The last couple of years have been horrible for us. I got laid off and she got sick in the same year. We eventually both found new jobs, but we never fully recovered financially. It took months and months of hard work just to get our emergency fund to that point. Now half of it is gone right before Christmas for fucking photos.
When I confronted her about it, she didn’t even try to deny it. She just said that she deserves to have nice photos. I begged her to try and get that money back, but she said no.
The photo session she booked is next Saturday, but I won’t go. She keeps threatening me, saying that people are going to ask why I’m not in them and that I’m going to look bad. I’m sure she’s right, but I’m counting on it. When people ask why I’m not there, I’ll tell them exactly what happened. I don’t care if it’s in person or on her Facebook page. I’m going to let everyone know what she did.
Since having pictures to show off is more important to her than our family’s safety, it seems only right that her family and friends should know that.
I feel like I’m married to a stranger. The woman I married would have never betrayed me like that.
Update (22 Nov 22)
Update: When people ask why I’m not in my family pictures, I’m going to tell them the truth.
I contacted the photographer directly. I didn’t think it would work, but I decided to try it after so many people suggested it. I told my wife that I changed my mind about the photos and asked to see the photographer's other work. She gave me the website. Then I sent the photographer an email explaining the entire situation. I was shocked by how understanding she was. She refunded us right away. The only catch is that my wife is banned from using her services.
I had planned on sitting my wife down to talk. However, the photographer sent her an email before I could. She was pissed. She wouldn’t stop yelling at me until I told her I was considering leaving her.
She calmed down after that. I told her how angry and disgusted I was that she would act so irresponsibly. I asked her why she would do something like this. She said she deserved nice photos after the last couple of shitty years. I pointed out that we both had hundreds, if not thousands, of family photos saved on our phones. She said they weren’t high quality enough, and that we didn’t look nice enough in them.
I responded back that we could have gone to JCPenney, or just fucking waited and budgeted for them. She said that she didn’t want JCPenney style portraits, and that she wanted Christmas pictures. I told her that it doesn’t matter, and that financial safety was more important than fucking photos. I said if she didn’t agree, it meant that we were incompatible as a couple.
She apologized but didn’t agree. She still wants to stay together and try to work through our issues. I agreed to try on two conditions: 1) we separate our finances, and 2) we do a trial separation. She agreed. We’re splitting the bills 60/40, which is proportionate to our incomes, and splitting the emergency fund 50/50. We’re also taking turns sleeping on the couch.
I know a lot of you wanted me to leave her, but I can’t do that. I want to see my daughter every day, not fifty percent of the time. I owe it to her to at least try and make this marriage work. As angry as I am at my wife, we have gone through hell together. I can’t throw that away without trying to make it better.
The trip to her parents isn’t happening anymore. We evenly split the hundred dollars we saved for gas. My wife can’t afford the trip without my half. She’s angry that I won’t give it up. I told her that when I said separate finances, I meant separate finances. Besides, after paying for the tire and the tow, my half of the emergency fund is depleted. I need every dollar to build it back up again. I also want to stay in town with my parents.
I suggested she dip into her half of the emergency fund, but she told me she already used it to book a different photographer for her and my daughter.
Last Saturday, I borrowed a couple of sleds from a buddy of mine and took my kid sledding. I want us to build real memories together, not photos posted for likes. I think that twenty years from now, she’ll remember that more fondly than the photoshoot her mother has planned.
Reminder - I'm not the OOP

I spoke to my nephew's fiance who is a who is a branch loan manager at Commonwealth Bank of Virginia.
His take on the bill that's being introduced into committee in regards of alternatives to Visa / MasterCard / Amex / Discover credit card processing.
What he thinks is going to happen is stores will start requiring PIN entry for credit card purchases for third party processing. (unlike the India and EU type which has no frills credit cards with very limited consumer protections).
It would be up to the banks and issuers whether to treat a PIN entry as a cash advance.
In fact this has happened in the past and currently does.
Example 1.
Some stores when you insert your debit card into the POS terminal, it does not give you the option to press enter and bypass the PIN entry It must be processed as a debit card.
Example 2.
Up in Hanover Virginia, if you go to pay your water and sewage bill and you use a CC they will only accept a PIN entry. Visa / MasterCard / Amex / Discover treat that as a cash advance.
Example 3.
We could revert back to what was done in the early '90s, some stores would give you instant approval with a major credit card for their store card.
In closing:
This is what he sees retailers doing to lower the interchange rates with the bills being introduced into Congressional committee, retailers requiring PIN entry instead of setting up a completely new network since PIN debit card processing has been available for decades.
Interestingly enough, the stores that are complaining the most about the interchange rates; Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy's Inc (Macy's, Bloomingdale's etc), JCPenney, Kmart, Amazon and Sears along with 1600 other major retailers offer their own MasterCard / Visa / Amex with perks.
Now what I wrote above is speculation from a branch loan manager as to how this might play out. I asked him about tap and pay and he said that could still work even as a PIN entry. You would tap your CC then enter your PIN on the terminal.
Of course he is opposed to this because if stores are allowed to go to a PIN entry on CC purchases, every purchase would be a cash advance purchase as to credit card TOS. Credit cards would have to modify the TOS so PIN entry would not be treated as cash advance with 3% fees.
Your thoughts?

All through history, there have always been two types of people: rulers and peasants.
The ruling class is much, much smaller than the peasant class. Almost all people on earth are poor peasants, like you and me. We are the worker drones. The little pawns on the chess board of life. The expendables.
Only a select few belong to the ultra rich ruling class. That's why they're called the one percent. The elite. They're a small little club. They all know each other and hang out together at exclusive galas, luxury resorts on private islands, golf tournaments at country clubs, or yacht parties in St. Tropez.
You're not part of that elite club of the ultra rich, and you never will be. You’re working class. You work for a living. They don’t. That’s why they’re not working class. In their eyes, you're nothing more than a worker bee. An ant. A servant.
Chances are, you're literally working in the service industry. Which is, let's face it, a polite way of saying you're a servant.
​
The ultra rich are not servers. They spend their entire lives being served by peasants like you. To them, your only reason to exist is to serve their needs. Your life only has meaning as long as your existence benefits them.
They don’t care if you’re overworked or underpaid. They don’t care if pollution gives you cancer and you have no health insurance. They don’t care that you can’t afford to pay your bills and your meds. They don’t care that you’re a homeless vet with PTSD. Your quality of life is meaningless. Because your life is meaningless, once you’re no longer useful to them.
Once they have sucked the life out of you, they throw your burned-out leftovers in the trash. You get fired and replaced by the next poor schmuck who will do your shitty job for even less money.
That’s what they call “raising productivity.” That’s when less and less people are employed and work harder and harder for less and less money. Cheap slave labor means higher profits for the ruling class. That’s why your life is shit, while they get richer and richer. The gap between the small ruling class and the rest of us is now greater than it has been in a hundred years.
You know those old-timey Charles Dickens novels about poor peasant children begging for food? We’re headed right back to those days.
​

“Income gap between rich and poor is biggest in a century
If you feel you're falling behind in the income race, it's not just your imagination. The wealth gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99% in the U.S. is as wide as it's been in nearly 100 years, a new study finds.”
-Los Angeles Times

​

“This wealth gap that we see today is something that has really skyrocketed since about the 1980s and certainly in the past decade, decade and a half.”
-Fortune Magazine

​
You know what happened in the 1980s? Reagan happened. His policies, particularly “trickle down economics,” were all about making the rich richer, and the poor poorer, by taking money away from the poor masses and giving it to the one percent on top. And that’s exactly what happened.
​

“The tsunami of wealth didn’t trickle down. It surged upward”
-Warren Buffett

​

“The Rise of Homelessness in the 1980s
Why, in the early 1980s, did so many Americans find themselves homeless? Why did the accumulation of personal tragedies reach epidemic proportions at the same time across the nation?
Over three-quarters of the new jobs created during the 1980s were at minimum-wage levels. By 1983, over 15 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line, even though half of them lived in households where at least one person worked.
Nationwide, between 1982 and 1985, federal programs targeted to the poor were reduced by $57 billion. Because of adjustments to the eligibility requirements, over half the working families on the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) were removed from the rolls.”
-KCET

​
Where did all that money go that the government saved by not helping poor people? Straight into the pockets of a couple of very rich people. There are countless government programs where rich people get free money. Free money for rich people is called subsidies, or corporate welfare.
​

"Where Is The Outrage Over Corporate Welfare?
Three-quarters of all state economic development subsidies went to just 965 corporations since the beginning of the study in 1976. The Fortune 500 corporations alone accounted for more than 16,000 subsidy awards, worth $63 billion – mostly in the form of tax breaks.
Think about that. The largest, wealthiest, most powerful organizations in the world are on the public dole. Where is the outrage? Back when I was young, people went into a frenzy at the thought of some unemployed person using food stamps to buy liquor or cigarettes. Ronald Reagan famously campaigned against welfare queens. The right has always been obsessed with moochers. But Boeing receives $13 billion in government handouts and everyone yawns, when conservatives should be grabbing their pitchforks.”
-Forbes Magazine

​

“Fortune 100 companies received $399 billion in federal funding between the 2014 and 2017 fiscal years, according to a report from transparency organization OpenTheBooks.
The report found that in the four years measured, the top 10 companies on the Fortune 100 list received $338 billion from the federal government. Almost all of the money—$393 billion—was provided in contracts, but $3.2 billion in government grants was also given out. The report noted that the recipients of the federal funds spent significant amounts of money lobbying for their own interests.
Several recipients of the highest amounts of federal funding were in the defense or pharmaceutical industries. Lockheed Martin received almost $138 billion, and Boeing received over $82 billion. McKesson, a pharmaceutical company, received over $30.1 billion, and insurance company Humana received close to $13.8 billion.”
-Newsweek

​
The rich ruling class doesn’t like it when you mention that there is a rich ruling class that rules over us. When you even just mention that fact, they immediately accuse you of class warfare, to shut you up and ridicule you. They don’t want the truth to get out, so they want to make sure the other peasants won’t listen to what you have to say.
The funny thing is, there always has been a class war. It’s a war the rich have waged against the poor since the beginning of time. And not knowing anything about this war puts you at a serious disadvantage.
​

“In a sense, you could say we’re involved in the class struggle.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.

​

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
-Warren Buffett

​

"The history of society is the history of class struggles."
-Karl Marx

​

"The class-struggle is the main source of progress, and therefore the nobleman who robs the peasant and goads him to revolt is playing a necessary part"
-George Orwell

​
Knowledge is power. When you don’t know what the hell is going on around you, or how all the puzzle pieces fit together, it puts you in a very weak position. That’s why they like to keep you nice and stupid. The less you know, the better for them.
And that’s why the rich ruling class always wins the war they wage against the rest of us. That’s why they’re our rulers. That’s why they have all the money and power.
Ever since peasants worked themselves to death to build a pyramid for the Pharaoh, the rich ruling class has sucked the life out of the poor.
How has a tiny group of ultra rich assholes managed to control the unwashed masses all through history?
With violence and lies.
​
Have you ever asked yourself why the folks in Britain still defer to a Queen? What the hell makes her so special? What exactly are "royals" anyway?
During the Stone Age, there were many little tribes. (Yes, we’re gonna start at the very beginning. Sorry, but this part is important. So pay attention, numbnuts.) So there were small family clans. And when they met other clans, they killed each other, to steal each other’s resources. The only rule was, kill or be killed.
Knuckle-dragging cavemen didn’t know much, but they knew one thing: “My own tribe are the good guys, simply because I’m one of them. They won’t hurt me, because I’m one of them. All the other tribes are the bad guys, because I’m not one of them. They’re gonna eat me.”
Nothing much has changed in the past couple of thousand years. You don’t have to look very far to see tribalism in action:
​

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.”
-George Bernard Shaw

​
If you were a member of the other tribe, the other tribe would be the good guys to you. That’s how tribalism works. It always boils down to us versus them. They are the enemy. And “they” means everyone who is not part of your own little tribe or party or race or religion or nationality.
Tribalism is the root of all wars.
​

“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one”
-John Lennon

​
The rich ruling class has used tribalism, a primitive caveman instinct, to their advantage since the beginning of time. They use it to divide and conquer us. They drive wedges between us peasants and make us fight each other, so we won’t rise up against our rulers and fight them.
You can observe the same old trick everywhere in America today: Red states and blue states are fighting. Christians and Muslims are fighting. Men and women are fighting. Baby Boomers and Millennials are fighting. Black people and white people are fighting.
That doesn’t just happen all by itself. There are always voices instigating these fights.
As long as poor white people and poor black people fight each other, we’re too busy to notice how we’re all being fucked over by our real enemy: the ruling class.
Poor whites and poor blacks have way more in common than poor whites and rich whites. But many poor whites hate poor blacks, and adore rich whites.
Weird, huh?
That doesn’t just happen all by itself.
​
We’re constantly being brainwashed into believing that the rich ruling class are great people, and that we must look up to them. If they’re rich, they’re special. They’re amazing. Their lives are interesting. Their thoughts matter. We’re obsessed with celebrity gossip about rich people. We want to dress like them. Be them. Every time a rich royal princess is pregnant, it’s big news. As if it’s so much more special, when rich people fuck.
This shit is so ingrained in our culture, so normal, we don’t even notice it anymore. Or did you ever notice that almost all books, TV shows and movies tell stories from the perspective of rich people?
Books and movies are full of stories of dukes and ladies and princes. Great houses going to war against each other, or falling in love with each other, or overcoming great obstacles. Meanwhile their peasants are just unimportant, nameless, faceless figures in the background, opening doors for rich people, standing guard, quietly serving food, or holding the horse steady, while the lord climbs into the saddle.
​
Dear poor white people, I have bad news for you: super rich white people are not your friends. They became super rich by exploiting people like you. That’s not what friends do.
There was a time, during the Irish potato famine, when the lives of white Irish immigrants were worth even less than the lives of black slaves. The brutal heat and humidity on the cotton fields near New Orleans made the slaves sick. Slaves were valuable property. Losing a slave was expensive.
But Irish immigrants, fresh off the boat, were a dime a dozen. So American robber barons saved their expensive slaves and made the Irish peasants work in the fields. Every time one of them dropped dead, he was replaced by the next worthless Irish peasant. It was much cheaper than losing a slave.
​

“America's tycoons in the 19th and early 20th centuries, pejoratively nicknamed "robber barons," built massive empires and accumulated unprecedented wealth. Many of these men gained their vast fortunes either at the expense of their factory workers or by methods that were considered unscrupulous even back then”
-Business Insider

​

“Robber Baron
a ruthlessly powerful U.S. capitalist or industrialist of the late 19th century considered to have become wealthy by exploiting natural resources, corrupting legislators, or other unethical means.”
-Dictionary.com

​
The robber barons didn’t just disappear one day. They’re still here with us today, still fucking all of us over on a daily basis. But of course they don’t call themselves robber barons. They call themselves Republicans.
A lot of us peasants don’t even realize how the ruling class brainwashes, manipulates and controls us with lies and propaganda, to distract us and make us hate each other, while they exploit and rob us.
​

“The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.”
-Noam Chomsky

​

“Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”
-John Adams

​
The robber barons are vastly outnumbered by the rest of us. That’s why they hate democracy. They could never win a fair, honest election in a democracy.
That’s why the robber barons need to cheat.
Have you ever heard of gerrymandering? Silly name, I know. But it’s a way to cheat in democratic elections. Corrupt Republican politicians randomly redraw lines on the map and create fake congressional districts, to give themselves more votes in congress.
Basically they change the lines on the map, so that a whole bunch of Democratic voters all live in one big Democratic district, and get one congressman. And then the Republicans draw a bunch of other congressional districts on the map, with hardly anyone in it, and each of the almost empty congressional districts all get one Republican congressman each.
That way the Republican robber barons get more votes in congress, even though they represent far less people in their empty districts.
In order for Democrats to gain control of congress, they need to get an overwhelming majority of votes. They need to win even in those districts that the Republican robber barons specifically created to make sure the Democrats lose.
You might be thinking that’s a good thing, since you believe the Democrats are your enemies and the Republican robber barons are your friends, but they’re not. The Republican robber barons are the ones fucking you over on a daily basis. They’re not just cheating on congressional district maps. They do shady shit like that all day every day. You just don’t know anything about it.
​

“Ohio Congressional Map Is Illegal Gerrymander, Federal Court Rules
A federal court on Friday tossed out Ohio’s congressional map, ruling that Republican state lawmakers had carved up the state to give themselves an illegal partisan advantage and to dilute Democrats’ votes in a way that predetermined the outcome of elections.”
-New York Times

​

"Federal Court Rules That Michigan's Congressional Map Was Unfairly Gerrymandered
A federal court in Michigan says that the state's Republican-controlled legislature unfairly drew some of Michigan's state legislative and U.S. House district lines and that a divided government will have to come up with new boundaries."
-NPR

​

"North Carolina’s gerrymandered map is unconstitutional, judges rule, and may have to be redrawn before midterms
A panel of three federal judges held Monday that North Carolina’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans over Democrats and said it may require new districts before the November elections, possibly affecting control of the House."
-Washington Post

​

“Pennsylvania court orders new congressional map due to gerrymandering
Pennsylvania’s top court on Monday threw out the state’s congressional map, ruling that Republican legislators unlawfully sought partisan advantage, and gave them three weeks to rework it in a decision that could boost Democratic chances of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a 5-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the electoral map violated the state’s Constitution by manipulating the district boundaries to marginalize Democratic voters, a practice called partisan gerrymandering.”
-Reuters

​
Pretty fucked up, huh?
And you had no idea, because no one ever told you about it. The less you know, the better for the robber barons.
But this shit is not the only way the robber barons cheat, to take our votes away.
You know what Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Delaware, Nevada, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa…
...and California have in common?
​
Together, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Delaware, Nevada, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa have 40 million residents...
...and California alone also has 40 million residents.
​
You know what the difference is?
Together, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Delaware, Nevada, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa have a total of 46 senators...
...but California only has 2 senators.
​
So, on the one hand we have 46 senators representing 40 million people. And on the other hand we have 2 senators representing 40 million people.
Does that sound fair to you?
No, of course not.
It means that the 40 million people in California are totally under-represented. Their votes count a lot less than the votes of someone who lives in North Dakota. One single vote in North Dakota counts thousands of times more than a vote in California.
​
But it’s not just the people in California who’re getting fucked. Most of the blue Democratic states have a lot more residents than the empty red Republican states. But the Democrats always get a lot less senators per voter.
4 Republican senators from almost empty states like Wyoming or North Dakota, who represent only a small handful of people, can outvote the 2 senators from California, who represent 40 million people.
The robber barons don’t even have to win millions of votes in California. They can win the election with a few thousand votes in North Dakota and a couple of other empty red states.
Obviously there’s something seriously wrong with that picture. The senate and the house of congress are both rigged in favor of the rich robber barons.
A country where a tiny minority can rule over tens of millions of people is not a real democracy. It’s corrupt.
Remember when they told you before the Iraq war that Saddam’s Sunni Muslims were a tiny minority who ruled over an oppressed Shiite majority in Iraq? We were told how corrupt and horrible that is. We were told this is proof that Saddam is a dictator. What we weren’t told is that the very same thing is happening in America.
Right now congress and the senate are totally rigged against democracy, and in favor of a small group of Republican robber barons. The system, the way it is right now, makes sure that a small handful of robber barons can control millions of people by simply taking their votes away.
But it gets worse.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the electoral college before. But do you actually understand what it is?
It’s another way the robber barons cheat.
Supposedly we the people get to pick the president, right?
No, we don’t. It’s just a lie.
​
In reality, it really doesn’t matter who we vote for. It’s all just for show. Each state has a couple of rich robber barons, who call themselves the electoral college, and they decide who gets that state’s votes for president.
And who exactly are the handful of people in your state’s electoral college? The cheating robber baron congressmen and senators. They get to pick the president. Not you.
I’m not kidding. That’s really how it works.
​

“The Constitution and federal law do not require electors to abide by the results of the popular vote in their states, so occasionally “faithless electors” go rogue and cast ballots for candidates other than the one to whom they are pledged. A slight majority of states require electors to cast their votes as pledged, although no “faithless elector” has ever been prosecuted.”
-History.com

​
Let’s say 80% of the people in a state vote for a Democrat for president. The 5 or 6 Republican members of that state’s electoral college can simply ignore the people’s millions of votes and pick someone else as president, if they feel like it.
Even if 20 million people in a state vote for a Democrat, 5 or 6 Republican robber barons in that state’s electoral college can simply pick a Republican president instead.
Seriously. Look it up.
Obviously this totally rigged system, with a corrupted congress and senate, has absolutely nothing to do with a real, free democracy.
That’s why so many people demand that we get rid of the electoral college, which was put in place by 17th century slave owners, to make sure that we slaves and peasants could never take control.
It’s a rigged system that allows the robber barons to decide who gets to be president. It’s a rigged system that makes sure the super rich robber barons will always rule over the rest of us.
And that’s why Trump became president, with a narrow lead in electoral college votes, even though Hillary had several million more votes.
When Trump brags about his electoral college victory, what he’s really saying is that the robber barons elected him. Not the people.
The robber barons have totally rigged the system in their favor, to oppress the rest of us. And they’re counting on you being too dumb to know this.
These are actual tweets, written by Trump himself a few years ago:
​

"The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."
realDonaldTrump - Nov 6, 2012

​

"This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!"
realDonaldTrump - Nov 6, 2012

​
So, just a few years ago, even Trump himself admitted that the electoral college is total bullshit. But now he suddenly brags about being president because of the electoral college. Because he’s counting on you being too dumb to know what that actually means.
It’s much easier to exploit people when you’re a dictator and there is no real democracy, and no democratic laws that can stop you. If everyone actually had a fair say in what happens around here, we the people would outvote the robber barons every time.
In a real democracy, where every person gets a vote, and every vote counts equally, the robber barons wouldn’t stand a chance.
We’d vote against them and their corruption, and we’d pass laws to stop them from robbing and exploiting us. They wouldn’t have any more power over us. We’d throw these greedy motherfuckers in jail.
So the robber barons do everything they can to undermine democracy. They confuse and manipulate us with lies. They drive wedges between us, and turn us against each other, to prevent us peasants from thinking clearly, and uniting as one powerful force.
United we stand, divided we fall, remember?
Through the use of propaganda and blatant lies, the impotent rage that exploited peasants feel about their shitty lives is being redirected, away from the real culprits, and directed against each other. That’s why a lot of peasants falsely believe they’re not being exploited by robber barons, but by other peasants.
And then suddenly we bicker about “wedge issues” that divide us, when we should really be working together to stop the robber barons from exploiting all of us. We should be passing laws that reign them in.
Instead, we pass laws about who gets to use which toilet.
Some people are up in arms over the little holiday pictures on Starbucks coffee cups. They claim it’s an evil conspiracy against Christmas. Yeah, that’s not a typo. They seriously believe there’s a war on Christmas. Supposedly the other peasants hate Christmas soooo much, they want to ban it!
What a bunch of bullshit.
And there’s a national debate over whether the temperature in the office is sexist.
Seriously.
On average, men have a higher body temperature than women. That’s why women freeze more easily, and they like the thermostat set at a higher temperature. Men sweat more easily, so they like the thermostat set at a lower temperature. And this cooler temperature in the office results in a “hostile work environment for women,” some people say.
Here’s an idea: wear a fucking sweater.
Are these really the biggest problems we face right now? No, they’re distractions.
While we scream at each other over this bullshit like a bunch of angry clowns, the robber barons fuck all of us over a little more. Maybe we should all focus our attention on that, instead of bickering about trivial first world problems and attacking each other on Twitter over the most ridiculous nonsense.
Choose your battles wisely. Work together, and focus on the important stuff.
​
Anyway, let’s get back to the Stone Age for a minute:
Some Stone Age tribe was a little bigger and stronger than their neighbors, so they raided the neighboring tribes, killed the men, kidnapped and raped their women, and stole their resources.
It was kinda like The Walking Dead, but with more rape and less zombies.
Being good at killing makes your tribe even stronger. Killing your neighbors becomes easier and easier, as you grow stronger and stronger. Your tribe prospers, while the other tribes perish. In a dog-eat-dog world, tribalism is an evolutionary advantage.
American-style predatory capitalism is also a dog-eat-dog world, just like the Stone Age. Big corporations eat small ones. And in the end, there will only be one all-powerful corporation left, and it owns everything.
Have you ever played Monopoly? It's a board game designed to teach kids capitalism. And what happens in the end? The winner has all the money, and everyone else has nothing. Woohoo! So much fun! That's literally how America works. That's why there are a few super rich people who own almost everything, and tens of millions of dirt poor people who have nothing.
It’s happening as we speak:
​

“The retail apocalypse continues to tear through America.
More than 5,800 store closures have been announced so far in 2019, as Victoria's Secret, JCPenney, and Gap shutter dozens of locations.
1,100 closures were announced in a single day in March. Ten retailers have filed for bankruptcy or liquidation so far this year.
The closures and bankruptcies are leaving their mark on malls and shopping centers around the country.”
-Business Insider, April 2, 2019

​
Most mom-and-pop stores don’t stand a chance in today’s America. Big corporations put mom-and-pop stores out of business with unfair business practices, and lots of free money from the government.
Just ask a small local store owner how he feels about a new Walmart or Target opening nearby. Or ask the owner of a small local burger joint, how he feels about a McDonald’s or Burger King opening across the street. Or ask farmers how they feel about giant farm corporations killing off family farms one by one.
Trust me, they’re not happy about it.
​

“Why are America’s farmers killing themselves?
The suicide rate for farmers is more than double that of veterans.”
-The Guardian

​

"Wisconsin, the Dairy State has lost over 1,390 dairy farms since Trump became president due to his continuing trade war."
-John Lycardi

​
To protect family farms and mom-and-pop shop owners, Democratic politicians in small towns try to pass laws and regulations, to ban giant corporations from opening chain stores downtown.
Democratic laws and regulations are there to protect the little local shops, restaurant owners, and family farms from the giant corporations.
But then the giant corporation accuses the Democratic politicians of being “anti-business” and bribes some of the local “pro-business” Republican politicians, to get rid of the regulation that would have protected the people of the town.
Mom and pop can’t compete with the giant corporation, so they end up losing their store or farm or restaurant, and have to work as employees at the giant corporation, for minimum wage.
​

"Most jobs created since the recession have been low-paying
Three-quarters of U.S. jobs created since the 2008-'09 financial crash pay less than a middle-class income, according to an Axios analysis of U.S. Labor Department data."
-Axios News

​

"Trump administration is America’s No. 1 low-wage job creator
When Donald Trump ran for president, he promised to be a workers’ champion who would deliver “better wages” for America’s working people.
But 18 months into his first term, President Trump has neither pushed Congress to take legislative action to raise the federal minimum wage - which has been stuck at $7.25 for a decade - nor taken executive action to boost pay for 12.5 million workers who work in private sector jobs.
As a result, Trump is now CEO of America’s top creator of poverty jobs: the U.S. government.
A new study from Good Jobs Nation - Promises Broken #1 - shows that Trump’s federal government funds more than 4.5 million jobs in the private sector that pay less than a living wage of $15 per hour. By failing to take action to raise wages, Trump is responsible for more low-wage jobs than our nation’s largest 20 employers combined, according to our research.
As a result, more than one in three private sector workers who serve the American people - from aiding seniors with their Medicare benefits to helping our troops prepare for combat - earn so little that they rely on food stamps and other public assistance programs to survive.”
-TheHill.com

​

“Half of fast food workers rely on some form of public assistance to supplement their low wages, costing taxpayers roughly $7 billion annually.
A separate study released Tuesday by the pro-labor National Employment Law Project focuses on the cost of employees' government-funded benefits at the 10 largest fast food restaurants. The study found that employees of McDonald's alone receive a total of $1.2 billion in public assistance benefits annually.”
-Business Insider

​
So, thanks to giant corporations paying their employees shit, many of the employees are so dirt poor, they need food stamps to survive.
And although mom and pop both work full time, they can’t pay their bills. They have to sell their house and move into a trailer park.
Meanwhile the super rich who own the giant corporations rake in all the profits and make billions on the backs of their underpaid workers. They make billions, while the rest of the country slowly drowns in debt.
​

"Americans are way more in debt now than they were after the financial crisis"
-HousingWire.com

​

"Household debt hit another all-time high."
-AmericanBanker.com

​

"Red flags emerge as Americans' debt load hits another record"
-Reuters.com

​
That’s why life in Republican-run red states is so shitty, the small towns are all dirt poor and dying, and there are trailer parks everywhere.
Big corporate chain stores suck the money out of those towns, and into the pockets of some robber baron who inherited the giant corporation from daddy and never worked a day in his life. Because robber baron junior is not working class. Working is for worker bees. Working is for suckers.
American capitalism means a giant corporation pays their workers as little as possible, to put as much profit as possible into the pocket of the robber barons.
And while the giant corporation pays its employees next to nothing, it charges its customers as much as possible, to put even more profit into the pockets of the robber barons.
Then the super rich robber barons tell the poor peasants that it’s their own fault they’re poor, and accuse them of being lazy bastards who shouldn’t expect handouts from the government.
Then the super rich bribe some corrupt Republican politicians to give them huge tax cuts and subsidies, so they make even more money.
And to pay for the tax cuts and subsidies for the billionaires, the corrupt Republican politicians cut the food stamps for the poor workers, who work for the robber barons for next to nothing.
This whole scam is known as “small government.” It’s code for fuck the poor.
​

“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
-Grover Norquist, Republican politician

​
The whole purpose of government is to protect the weak from the rich, to make sure the rich don’t eat the poor, the way they used to in the Stone Age, or medieval Europe, when there was no government and no laws stopping the strong from robbing the weak.
Rich robber barons still don’t like it when the government stops them from exploiting the poor. It cuts into their profits.
While the super rich get richer and richer, everyone else gets poorer and poorer. Just like in Monopoly.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that there is something seriously wrong with this system. Capitalism is a system that puts rich people on a pedestal, legalizes greed, and enables the rich to exploit the poor.
It’s morally wrong.
What kind of a God would support something so immoral? Would Jesus support the exploitation of the poor by the rich? No, of course not.
If you think of yourself as a follower of Christ’s teachings, if you consider yourself a good person, you are morally obligated to be against greed. It’s your duty as a good person to be against exploitation. It’s your moral duty to be against predatory capitalism.
​

“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."
-Martin Luther King Jr.

​

"Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

​

"The problem with capitalism is that extreme wealth ends up in the hands of a few people."
-Richard Branson

​

"U.S. capitalism is a mechanism for looting the many for the benefit of the few."
-Paul Craig Roberts

​

“Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism."
-Bill Gates

​

"You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker."
-Malcolm X

​

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
-John Maynard Keynes

​

"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."
-Al Capone

​

"What Trump represents is a restoration - a restoration of true American capitalism."
-Steve Bannon

​

"Capitalism is against the things that we say we believe in - democracy, freedom of choice, fairness. It's not about any of those things now. It's about protecting the wealthy and legalizing greed."
-Michael Moore

​

"The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism."
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Hello all, love your contributions, thank you for being here. As title indicates I have about $20k to do something with. I have the following debt only in credit cards and I don't use them to buy anything anymore (I have worked really hard to bring my debt from almost $30k to what it is now):

• $13k credit card debt at 0% interest (I pay $200/mo)
• $4k credit card debt at 6% (I pay $100/mo)
• $380 stupid JCPenney account at 24%, that one is going bye bye for sure...(I pay $50/mo)

I receive $1200/mo guaranteed income and I am an unemployed student for the foreseeable future (going for a Masters, no college debt will occur). I had to offload my newish car and associated payment and buy an older car recently so my savings account is sad at about $600. After regularly occurring bills and $150 to retirement I am left with about $300.
If I pay off the credit cards my score will tank, but I'll have an additional $350 so that's nice. And I can move to use those cards for their points and promotions, continuing to stay within my means and after my savings is all better.
I am afraid of the stock market right now, my current losses are pretty ugly so I'm not selling or moving jack. Please don't recommend crypto. I don't know enough about I-Bonds, how much in taxes I would pay after the timeframe is a consideration obviously. I saw the SoFi HYS offer but their fine print makes me feel like their advertisement is a joke.
Educate me, masses.

PRELUDE (Skip this is you want to): We all have our reason for loving the Stock, and all of us do it on our own. I've been in it since the January Sneeze, 2021... I have photos and screenshots of being locked out of my trading account and being placed on hold for 3 hours while monitoring RH (my secondary account at the time) as well as all the photos flooding in on WallStreetBets as retail traders reported actual stocks being censored out of the "Free Market"... When we say that they took away the buy button; that means that they took away the tickers completely. You couldn't get to them at all, they wouldn't come up in any results, regardless of the APEX broker. They were, in all actuality, Disappeared…
I don't know why I was feeling impressed to look at stocks the week prior, I don't know why I had this sudden urge to be more active in it. It had to do with being locked in for so long and the need to invest myself into something else. But living in the pandemic, with all the extra "policies" that they went ahead and put everyone through--even after the science indicated that these mandates, masks, and mrna shots could be harmful to the people.
This, after years of our political "leaders" pitting us against each other with lie after lie after lie, and harmful policy after harmful policy that stripped the public of freedom, liberty, and justice to line their own pockets and cover their own asses.
You see, I came down with a serious case of broken back just before Trump went to Washington. I had been an actor for 15 years, so watching movies (when you can't fill the roles) was maddening... So I studied current events and our politicians at work. I read anything I could find on every outlet for years, cross referencing and double checking statements... Needless to say, by January 2021, I needed to a new subject... Then it happened, they showed me that it wasn't free--and they were responsible. They turned off the buy button.
I sold all my investments and sunk them into the BANG Gang. GME, NOK, AMC, and BB. Those were all edited out of reality. With every paycheck (I have a broken back, I never registered as disabled, I use my mind to work), I was sinking more and more into GME first and AMC second. It was a nice balance. AMC was lining up like GME and AMCApes picked up everything they know from the OGApes of GME, and they learned quickly. But GME was the first problem, and thus they've been the ever-elephant in the room--spoken or unspoken.
Disclaimer: These companies are leading the market at hiring people right out of college, I imagine it has to do with ramping up Gamma on the Manipulation Index, possibly benefiting longevity… Remember the likelihood of blackmail victims being prevalent while reading this, many innocent people are not the bad actors here… It’s more likely only at the top...
[The NOCEBO Effect]
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes" --Mark Twain
Grasp for a moment that there are companies older than countries, and these companies very much mimic immunosuppression.. Immunosuppression is a reduction of the activation or efficacy of the immune system. A live threat presents itself, and these companies shut down vital parts of the organism in order to allow the danger to continue under the radar… Boston Consulting Group, via the parent—Boston Group, is one said company.
Through research, the Apes have pulled forward a multitude of examples where predatory companies have broken the law to bankrupt businesses into nonexistence for their own gain. Citadel and Bain Capital have been engaging in Bust out schemes for decades, for the profit not only themselves but Amazon as well. It wasn’t until Boston Consulting Group sued GameStop for $30,000,000 that they were connected to these aforementioned entities, to the Apes’ knowledge. Then everything started clicking into place. BCG was at the center of much of this activity… BCG has been involved in directly consulting SEARS, JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, Kohls, Whole Foods, Circuit City, Blockbuster, Victoria’s Secret, ToysRus, KBToys [thank you for the display, u/BasicAd4976] And we’ve now uncovered connections to Blackberry, [AMC], Nokia, and GameStop. That’s the BANG-gang, Bangerang for the BANG-gang… BCG has placed consultants in these companies to advise how they move forward, they did this while Amazon (i.e. other clients) was targeting the industry of each of these and Citadel/Bain would short their company stocks... Bust Out Scheme. Looking at the dates of these activities, it becomes clearer with the more you look at them, they all acted these out at roughly the same time. This information is backed up by the amount that both Citadel and BCG trade players. [List from Anonymous]
But it doesn’t stop there, the deeper Apes Dig, the more they find on this particular pile of shit… u/THC_Is_Me did a remarkable DD on BCG’s connection with certain entities within the US Government.
https://www.reddit.com/Superstonk/comments/tz2ewg/bcg_is_a_terrorist_organization_disguised_as/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I bet these Shitheads didn’t expect this…
Nocebo Effect: When the bad effects of trying to “fix” the situation ends up being worse than the bad situation that you’re in.
To the Reader: Please get ready for the worst theory rounded out, the type of thing you push back as paranoia… In this section, we round out how Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a central part of a Global Collaboration that is locking Apes up and drugging them… Here we go…
June 2008: As of 2008, AstraZeneca hired Boston Consulting Group to help them penetrate the Chinese medical market. A Pfizer spokesman said the company doesn’t generally discuss marketing strategy, but said “we are currently experiencing reasonable growth in our prescription-drug business in China.” AstraZeneca’s push into China began in earnest around 2002. Bruno Angelici, its executive VP for International sales and marketing outside of the US and Canada, started traveling to China regularly. The Company hired BCG in Hong Kong, where Mr. Yin worked at the time, to draw up a plan for the Chinese market. AstraZeneca’s sales in China had been growing at around 12% annually, but Mr. Angelici wanted more. Though he had commitment for more funding from AstraZeneca’s London headquarters, the problem was where to spend it; the country’s eastern cities were saturated with sales representatives, so AstraZeneca looked inland. Mr. Yin had a list of nearly 700 cities, with data on each ranging from per capita spending on health care to population projections. They narrowed the list down to around 200 of the most promising cities and nicknamed the strategy Project 88. Mr. Yin and his team at Boston Consulting developed a computer algorithm to help decide where to put sales representatives. Mr. Yin says the algorithm told them to bulk up significantly in Xinjiang… In 2002, AstraZeneca had around 8 sales reps in Xingjiang, by 2008, it had 43. “Now, everybody is interested in Xinjiang”, stated Mr. Yin of Boston Consulting Group at the time… Uighur, the Turkic language, is widely used in this province (twice the size of Texas). https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121331518414669979
July 2009: Urumqi riots ostensibly started as a peaceful street protest demanding official action over two Uyghurs who died in Shaogun. After 70 of their leaders were taken into custody, a group of 1000 people were gathered in front of the hospital in Shanxi Alley, the biggest of the crowds that were protesting in the province. The matter was blamed on racism. Many Uyghurs were disappeared and according to China News Service, by 2010, at least 26 Uyghurs had received death sentances. Following trials in October of 2009, one person was executed and several others were sentenced to between 5 to 7 years and life imprisonment… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_riots
So BCG begins working with AstraZeneca in 2008, targeting Xinjiang Provence in China, and by 2009 they are rioting outside of hospitals… The media blamed it on Racism…
Since then, Chinese government reports that birth rates in mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%. In the same period, the birth rate of the whole country only decreased by 9.69%... Authorities admit that birth rates dropped by almost 1/3 in Xinjiang in 2018, but denied reports of “forced sterilization and genocide”. Birth rates fell a further 24% in 2019, compared to 4.2% nationwide… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik/Uyghur_genocide
Pretty sure we’ve all heard the phrase “Uyghur Genocide”. The question is, why? Moving on…
2014-15 Sierra Leone: "San Francisco-based Metabiota Inc. was tapped by the Sierra Leonean government and the World Health Organization to help monitor the spread of the virus and support the response after Ebola was discovered circulating in neighboring Guinea in March 2014. But emails obtained by AP and interviews with aid workers on the ground show that some of the company's actions made an already chaotic situation worse. "Metabiota's team worked tirelessly, skillfully and at substantial potential danger to themselves to assist when most of the world was still ignoring the problem," he said in an email. "We are proud of our team efforts which went above and beyond the call of duty." Wolfe said some of the problems flagged were misunderstandings - and that others were planted by commercial rivals... "We didn't have the personnel and the infrastructure that was needed to handle the onslaught of cases that were coming," he said. "We were doing the best we had with what we had there." -- Dr. Bob Garry https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-company-metabiota-problems-during-ebola-outbreak/
"The United Nations called on BCG to help manage the worldwide response to the fast-moving Ebola crisis. Within 48 hours, BCG had a team in place at U.N. headquarters in New York. Working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO), BCG supported the initial design of the Ebola response and developed a novel 30-60-90 day plan to get the epidemic under control. After the initial planning, the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) deployed to West Africa, and so did BCG. Shortly thereafter, BCG helped design and facilitate a pivotal four-day planning conference in Accra, Ghana, that brought more than 80 experts together with all the major partners to align on a robust, unified response strategy and implementation plan for the three affected countries—Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. U.N. officials later cited the meeting as a turning point in the Ebola fight. In all, BCG invested $2.2 million in professional fees and expenses in the Ebola effort. BCG’s analysis found that for too long, the response to the outbreak was “virus centric,” focused on getting resources and technical solutions in place. It was only when the response also became “people focused”—understanding and adapting to the influences of culture, beliefs, and practices—that Ebola began to be brought under control and communities became more likely to accept the response." https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/social-impact-sustainability/smarter-ways-fight-ebola
Oct. 2014: Air Worldwide out of Boston [A Verisk Analytics, NJ company (Weather Catastrophe consulting company for the insurance industry as of 2003] stated at the time, “There is a high level of uncertainty associated with estimating the dynamics of a disease during an on-going outbreak. Preliminary estimates from AIR's soon-to-be-released Emerging Infectious Disease Model (which will be part of the updated AIR Pandemic Model) suggest that the projected outbreak sizes reported by these various groups are possible, especially if mitigation and containment measures in West Africa are not expanded. While containing the current outbreak has proven difficult, the risk of sustained and widespread infection across multiple continents remains low. Scientists have used simulations of travel by airplane and local disease transmission dynamics to estimate the probability that an individual infected with Ebola will enter a foreign country undetected, and the expected number of people who would subsequently be infected.” Take a look at what their pandemic model covers in the Editor’s Note… Editor's Note: The forthcoming update to AIR's pandemic model will cover emerging infectious diseases, including coronaviruses and filoviruses such as Marburg and Ebola. The Ebola outbreak is currently showing no signs of slowing, and projections show the possibility that hundreds of thousands of people could be infected by early next year, mainly in West Africa. The potential for sustained and widespread infection across multiple continents remains low. AIR disease modeling experts share their insights in this article. https://www.air-worldwide.com/publications/air-currents/2014/Understanding-the-Ebola-Outbreak/
Aug. 2015: The Global Health Risk Framework Project Workshop on Pandemic Financing found Metabiota CEO Wolfe on a panel with AirWorldwide Principle Scientist Nita Madhav (now Metabiota CEO and World Economic Forum Jr. member) discussing the Identification of Triggers and Modeling Risk, while BCG moderated directly afterword on the same, as well as on a panel discussing Investment Case for Preparedness and the Role of the Private Sector. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/21855/chapte13#83
Apr. 2016: AIRWorldwide Pandemic Model: Event ID 810254128 This Megadisaster scenario, with Event ID 810254128 in the stochastic catalog of the AIR Pandemic Model, kills nearly 23 million people and sickens more than 2.6 billion. In the early stages of the event, particularly in resource-limited regions, reporting agencies are overwhelmed by the magnitude of cases and deaths. Illness severity ranges from mild flu-like symptoms (i.e., fever, chills, malaise, cough, etc.) for which those infected may not seek treatment, to critical outcomes involving coinfections (such as pneumococcal pneumonia) that mandate hospitalization in an intensive care unit (ICU) or cause death. This modeled event causes about 300,000 deaths, 4 million hospitalizations, and 40 million outpatient clinic appointments in the United States alone. https://www.air-worldwide.com/publications/air-currents/2016/global-pandemic-megadisaster-are-you-prepared/
2017: Metabiota partners with Amazon's AWS rescale to tackle big epidemics (Pandemics) https://aws.amazon.com/partners/success/metabiota-rescale/ https://rescale.com/big-epidemics-big-cloud-computing/
Feb. 2019: Merck acquires Antelliq for their bovine tracking system and the potential therein, "Merck was represented by Barclays and Centerview Partners and Antelliq was represented by Goldman Sachs International, BCG and Rothschild & Co... BCG did the VDD (Vendor Due Diligence) for BC Partners and Antelliq. We knew the asset from the previous transaction in 2013 and we were amazed by the digital transformation achieved in five years. The company went from a leader in traditional livestock identification tags (e.g. the plastic tags in cows’ ears), to a fully-fledged data management company. This was enabled by the acquisition of an Israeli startup, and the development deployment of a “big data” smart monitoring system." https://www.finance-monthly.com/2019/02/merck-to-acquire-antelliq-group/
An application garnering increased interest is the use of real-world evidence to serve as synthetic control arms (SCAs), dramatically changing the historical approach to clinical development testing. SCAs have the potential to reduce the number of patients required in traditional control arms, especially active-comparator or standard-of-care arms, thereby decreasing the study cost, accelerating the speed to result, and boosting the overall attractiveness of clinical trial participation for prospective patients.
Indeed, all signs indicate that the use of SCAs is poised to take off. The relevant data is becoming more readily available, and the advanced analytics needed to gain insights are rapidly improving. Moreover, regulators have become increasingly open to accepting the results of SCAs as the basis for decisions and are supporting efforts to test their use. Adding to these catalysts, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to accelerate efforts to expand the use of real-world evidence in the pharma industry." https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/synthetic-control-arms-changing-clinical-trials
October 2019: This article breaks down the BCG Classic/Platinion/Digital Ventures/Gamma divisions: BCG "Classic" focuses on analyzing a business problem or scenario and making a recommendation. Platinion is actually building and implementing technology - this is the "enablement" part. DV is focused on growth beyond the core business through digital means (digitalizing). BCG Gamma is focused on data science technology: it's building algorithms, machine learning systems and other data intensive products for its clients (might include mining all their existing customer data, marrying it with publicly available customer information and building a prediction engine to determine which customers are likely to become valuable in the future.) Ultimately, BCG is pursuing a strategy that allows it to help its clients run the gamut: from helping define right strategy to building the right technology to follow through on it. In many ways, BCG has already proven that the hypothesis of strategy plus implementation works. For example, BCG has a well regarded post-merger integration practice which is focused on how to successfully integrate an acquired company, not on the strategic decision itself to acquire (or not acquire) a company. [See also Bain Vector and McKinsey Digital] https://www.rocketblocks.me/blog/bcg-platinion-overview.php
Next we consider a very special vaccine called Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG, I shit you not)... Serious side effects are rare. Often, redness, swelling, and mild pain occur at the site of injection. A small ulcer may also form with some scarring after healing. Side effects are more common and potentially more severe in those with immunosuppression. The BCG vaccine was first used medically in 1921, so it's nice and cheap. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. As of 2004, the vaccine is given to about 100 million children per year globally... It is encouraged in areas that where leprosy and tuberculosis are more common, is applied to fighting cancer, it has been one of the most useful immunotherapies to date, has been the standard against bladder cancer for some time, and was originally developed from Mycobacterium bovis, which is commonly found in cattle...
Approximately, 1.5 million people died from TB in 2020 (including 214,000 among HIV positive people). WHO modelling projections suggest the number of people developing TB and dying from the disease could be much higher in 2021 and 2022.
I know, it’s getting dark quickly… I’m going to give a side fact to give you a moment…
Side fact: One of the main scientists that brought BCG about was Albert Calmette. He also came up with the Amylolytic process or amylolysis is the conversion of starch into sugar by the action of acids or enzymes such as amylase... Brewing/distilling. The amylolytic process is also useful in the breaking down of molecules, it can be closely associated with the process of hydrolysis (molecular breakdown with water)... He also pioneered antivenom. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Calmette
"Talk is cheap, it takes money to buy whiskey." --RC
Steroids were the first class of immunosuppressant drugs identified, though side-effects of early compounds limited their use. The more specific [vague] azathioprine was identified in 1960, but it was the discovery of ciclosporin in 1980 (together with azathioprine) that allowed significant expansion of transplantation to less well-matched donor-recipient pairs as well as broad application to lung transplantation, pancreas transplantation, and heart transplantation. After an organ transplantation, the body will nearly always reject the new organ(s) due to differences in human leukocyte antigen between the donor and recipient. As a result, the immune system detects the new tissue as "foreign", and attempts to remove it by attacking it with white blood cells, resulting in the death of the donated tissue. Immunosuppressants are administered in order to help prevent rejection; however, the body becomes more vulnerable to infections and malignancy during the course of such treatment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunosuppression
"eew eew llams a evah I" --RC
An example of non-deliberately induced immunosuppression is HIV... It’s still rather dark, I’m sorry…
I know what you’re thinking, what does this have to do with the equasion?? Well, Merck & Co is the sole distributor of BCG vaccine, and they're consulted by... You guessed it, BCG... Along with Moderna, and Astrazenica respectively. Pfizer and Johnson&Johnson are represented by McKinsey (McKinsey advised J&J to increase Opioid sales when epidemic was widespread according to July 2019 article from NYTimes). And in—
2019: Merck "began having shortages" in their production of BCG vaccines... Do you recall reports of cancer patients dying because they aren't going in to get treated? 100 million children a year... It makes you wonder at why the sudden drop in production... Last year, Merck & Co., the only maker and supplier of BCG to the United States, informed the AUA they were experiencing a global shortage of BCG due the growing use and need for this product around the world. For more than a year, the AUA has been actively monitoring the global shortage of bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG), and providing updates to members about this important concern. https://www.auanet.org/about-us/bcg-shortage-info
2020: "Since 2012, Merck has been the only manufacturer of BCG for patients in the U.S. and European markets... Although Merck’s new North Carolina facility will take around five to six years to build, it is expected to eventually triple their capacity" ...Are you kidding me, 5 to 6 years??
Apr. 1, 2020: Boston Consulting Group has been awarded a 6-month contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for a Mission Essential Function Risk Based Scenario Planning Exercise. This contract is awarded in support of the OA Organizational Efficiency Assessment initiative. The contract was awarded using the GSA Professional Services Schedule (PSS). CMS awards Contract for Mission Essential Function Risk Based Scenario Planning Exercise - FedHealthIT, a service of MileMarker10
Apr. 2020: "BCGDV portfolio company LabTwin is helping researchers fight the COVID-19 pandemic... the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is collaborating with Moderna on their mRNA vaccine against the novel coronavirus... AI and machine learning tools can also help diagnose patients with COVID-19, and predict the spread of the virus... Companies such as Canada’s BlueDot and Metabiota in the US use AI to predict disease outbreaks from news and health-care reports." https://medium.com/bcg-digital-ventures/how-ai-and-digital-lab-tools-are-joining-the-fight-against-covid-19-b759ff08b309
August 2020: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) intends to negotiate and award a sole source purchase order to The Boston Consulting Group, Inc, 4800 Hampden Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814-2938 (It was interesting that there were so many sole sourse awards). The sole source award will be made under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 235 (C) (1) as implemented by FAR6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies and Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements. A justification and approval is currently being processed for this requirement. CMS REQUIREMENTS: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) provides development, planning, and execution of risk-based scenario planning and response to assess and mitigate CMS’s potential program and operational risks associated with performing mission essential functions while responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. BCG delivers comprehensive analysis and support to CMS for pandemic response and risk management efforts. Boston Consulting Group will provide the following consulting services CMS: • Analysis of Potential Events that will impact CMS’s Operations and Programmatic Activities • Development and Management of a “Response Cycle” to Pandemic-related External Events • Sustainment of Ongoing Pandemic Response Initiatives • Enablement through Evolution of CMS’s Operating Models and Organization CMS to award Execution of risk-based scenario planning and response task - COVID-19 - FedHealthIT, a service of MileMarker10
Oct. 2020: The purpose of the logical follow-on contract is to provide the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) with support to develop, plan, and perform risk-based scenario planning and response exercises that assess and mitigate potential program and operational risks associated with performing mission essential functions while responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current task order, GS-10F-0253V/75FCMC20F0029, was awarded as a sole source award in accordance with FAR 8.405-6 Urgent & Compelling and has a period of performance of March 24, 2020 through September 23, 2020. The contract will support CMS/OA to identify, define and prioritize scenarios with the COVID-19 workgroup. These scenarios will focus on the potential for negative risks associated with vulnerabilities or weaknesses that may arise while trying to execute on mission essential functions while responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the contractor will support prioritization of outcomes, mitigation planning and execution, and organizing responses from stakeholders. The unprecedented nature of this COVID-19 pandemic and the potential further disruption necessitate an agency-wide response effort to update and execute existing response mechanisms, and to design new interventions to meet these challenges. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is uniquely positioned to begin this urgent work immediately. BCG has extensive experience at CMS supporting strategic initiatives within the Office of the Administrator over the last year and a half. Most recently, within the past six months BCG has stood up the initial pandemic response and risk management efforts and worked with CMS in the evolution of the public health emergency in order to deploy support against the most critical needs of the agency. Over this time BCG has gained a thorough understanding of CMS strategic priorities, operations and has successfully delivered complex services within CMS’ portfolio of work and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As this contract is in response to the COVID-19 pandemic we do not anticipate future requirements, but if a similar requirement arises, every effort will be made to compete it to the maximum extent possible. CMS awards contract for Execution of risk-based scenario planning and response to COVID-19 - FedHealthIT, a service of MileMarker10 Mar. 2021: https://mobile.twitter.com/bcg/status/1372960309254705155
April 2021: The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has been awarded a 6-month task by the National Institutes of Health for CDC program management and strategic analysis support for vaccine distribution and administration. This task, valued at $5M, was awarded using the HHS COVID-19 Support BPA. https://www.fedhealthit.com/2021/04/nih-awards-5m-cdc-program-management-and-strategic-analysis-support-task/
May 2021: https://mobile.twitter.com/BCG/status/1389248020601098240
June 2021: An unnamed consulting company, which Vox has identified as BCG, charged the World Health Organization $11.72 million since the start of the pandemic for contracts that were dubiously awarded, according to the audit. Before the pandemic, Vox revealed the WHO committed at least $12 million on consultants to support the agency’s reform, approximately a quarter of which has been paid for directly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At the time, a WHO spokesperson said the agency welcomed consultants’ work. “The [consulting] companies have supported WHO in areas where we lack in-house expertise or want to tap the current best-in-class standards.” The audit, which examines a sampling of the WHO’s biggest contracts, analyzed the agency’s work with BCG, known as “Consulting Firm A” in the report, and uncovered multiple violations of WHO policies. The auditors claim WHO staff sought to circumvent the organization’s public procurement rules in order to help BCG win a contract. https://www.vox.com/2021/6/16/22527665/world-health-organization-who-12-million-bcg-consultants See Also: McKinsey infiltrated the world of global public health. Here’s how. - Vox
June 2021: Metabiota is named a Pioneer in the World Economic Forum https://www.pilotgrowth.com/metabiota-awarded-as-technology-pioneer-by-world-economic-forum/
July 2021: Moderna sits down with Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh, senior partner with BCG, colead to BCG’s AI practice in North America. Together, MIT SMR and BCG have been researching AI for five years, interviewing hundreds of practitioners and surveying thousands of companies on what it takes to build and to deploy and scale AI capabilities across the organization and really transform the way organizations operate. .... Sam Ransbotham: Take us back to early in the COVID race for a vaccine. What was it like being part of that team and a part of that process? I mean, what were the emotions like when the algorithms … or when the people find something that seems to work or that seems promising? Does that lead to a massive appetite for more artificial intelligence and more algorithms? Tell us a little bit about that story.
Dave Johnson: I think if you look at how people felt in general at the time, it was a real sense of honor and pride. We felt very uniquely positioned. We’d spent a decade getting to this point and putting all of this infrastructure in place and putting things in the clinic before this to get to this moment. And so we just really felt truly honored to be in that position. And for those of us on the digital side who have kind of contributed to this and built it, this is why we did it. This is why we’re here: to help bring as many patients [these vaccines] as quickly and safely as possible [throughout] the world. But there was always the question of, “Would this thing work in the real world?” And that’s where the proof came in the clinical data, and we were all anxiously waiting — like everybody else — to see that readout." https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio/ai-and-the-covid-19-vaccine-modernas-dave-johnson/
Notice the way Shervin Khodabandeh tried to stear the conversation, if you care to read it. Moderna highlights that they were working on this for a decade to be able to push experimental drugs flawlessly…
August 2021: California wasn’t alone in using private contractors (McKinsey) to manage the vaccination campaign. At least 25 states, along with federal agencies and many cities and counties, hired consulting firms, according to a Washington Post tally. The American vaccination drive came to rely on global behemoths such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), with downsized state and local health departments and even federal health agencies relying on the private sector to make vaccines available to their citizens, according to hundreds of pages of contract documents, emails and text messages obtained through public records requests. McKinsey’s role extended beyond California to other states, including Ohio and New Jersey. Deloitte worked in 10 states. BCG received millions of dollars from the federal government to coordinate vaccine planning, while at least 11 states also worked with the company, in some cases paying it to address gaps in federal planning. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/22/private-consultants-vaccination-drive-outsourced/
August 2021: Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has hired Aamir Malik, a senior partner in McKinsey & Company’s pharma & medical products practice, as EVP and chief business innovation officer. Malik succeeds John Young, who held the role for the last three years. Young will retire in 2022, having spent 34 years at Pfizer. As dealmaking leader, Young oversaw the company’s Covid-19 vaccine collaboration with BioNTech. https://www.consulting.us/news/6493/pfizer-hires-mckinseys-aamir-malik-as-dealmaking-chief
But wait, there’s still a missing piece to all this. That one aspect that was mentioned that seemingly cut short of it’s conclusion… And here it is in the Time-line… Apparently Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, the Merck vaccine, is effective against COVID—yes, seriously... As it’s the reverse of an immunosuppresent, it offers mechanisms involved in immunological protections against viral infections such as Covid, and has a deeper connection than has been covered by the Media--that has been in an all-out Wall Street propaganda campaign against Apes since the beginning!!
Nov. 2021: Cedars-Sinai "It appears that BCG-vaccinated individuals either may have been less sick or they may have mounted a more efficient cellular immune response against the virus," says Moshe Arditi, MD, executive vice chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics, director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and the GUESS?/Fashion Industries Guild Chair in Community Child Health. https://www.cedars-sinai.org/discoveries/tb-vaccines-and-covid-19.html
Dec. 2021: Boston Consulting Group says, "The emergence of the Omicron variant has elevated the importance of vaccination and vaccine mandates in the fight against COVID-19. While uncertainties and legal challenges remain, by early 2022 most companies in the US with more than 100 employees will likely be operating under a vaccination or testing mandate to contain the spread of COVID-19. Even with the emergence of a new “variant of concern,” mandates remain a divisive issue but not an unsolvable one... The Biden administration’s overarching goal is to increase vaccination rates. The three policies are powerful, complex, and interlocked tools: Biden’s executive order covers federal contractors; another (under OSHA’s emergency temporary standard) applies to all organizations with at least 100 employees. And a third (imposed by the US Department of Health’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) covers staff at organizations receiving Medicaid or Medicare funds." https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/covid-19-us-vaccine-sentiment-series
2022: "Evidence from multiple scientific studies suggests that the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, widely used worldwide as a preventive measure against tuberculosis, also offers cross-protection against other pathogens. This review aimed to gather data from research that studied the mechanisms involved in the immunological protection induced by the BCG vaccine, which may be important in the control of viral infections, such as COVID-19." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34983348/
These same that entered into Xinjiang before the birth rates plummeted astronomically; these same that were in West Africa during the Ebola Outbreak; these same that have been helping to bankrupt our businesses and costing 100s of thousands of jobs; these same that were involved in the crash of 2008... These are the ones behind the global lockdowns and mandates of “Science”, we’re just shown Anthony Fauci… DOJ… Can't dumb it down further than that because I worked on this possible DD alone; Do your jobs…
“Children & Animals must be protected at all costs”—RC
Date unkown*: https://www.disabledperson.com/jobs/15732217-cdc-coordinator
(This is by no means medical or financial advice.)

Tl;dr: GameStop uses DoorDash to fulfill same day delivery orders. DoorDash cofounder has a hand at McKinsey, relatable to the big three (and BCG).
I recently posted this in a DoorDash subreddit but they will not understand this “DD” I worked on exposing the DoorDash mindset. I only seek to help. I would love to make constructive posts like this all the time but I do not have access to a computer.
GameStop should seek other same day delivery fulfillment methods. “Roadie” is one of them.
This was my post on another sub -
Hi, this is going to be some smooth brain stuff right here. I am an avid full time DoorDash driver and I’d like to expose exactly the mindset the executives have at this company, why it will be here for years to come (DoorDash is not going anywhere), and why it’s harder and harder for you to make steady money (in most cases).
Let’s start off with the infamous Tony. Tony didn’t just come from the bottom. He worked his way to the top. Being a billionaire doesn’t just happen out of thin air. Either you play the game and win big, or you play the game, bend the rules, and take everything you can get your hands on.
Tony is no exception. Aside from working at payment processors Square Inc (CashApp, e-commerce, in-store payment processing) and PayPal/eBay, he also played a role at McKinsey & Company, one of the “Big Three” consulting firms in the entire world. This is no easy task. Only the filthy rich and dirty hands of grime work for these companies. The other two, are Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company.
McKinsey, Tony’s firm, is most notably known for being THE largest and most influential consulting firm out of the three. They know how to cripple us, the fed, and the government. They know where EVERY PENNY you spend goes, and how to collect those pennies in the end. There’s not just some magical automated process behind the scenes the handles all of this. It eventually makes it across someone’s desk, whether It be an individual transaction or a large census. McKinsey & Company played a “significant role” in the crash of 2008, alongside BCG and Bain & Company (Bill Bain, Mitt Romney). These consulting firms cause other companies to go bankrupt so that it makes way for their cronies other self-fulfilling prophecies, much like DoorDash.
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any companies that DoorDash and these consulting firms would have caused to go under, other than mom and pop shops who used to hire delivery drivers, but now solely rely on DoorDash since the pandemic.
What I will tell you, is that the “big three” is not there to advise or consult you. They are there to ruin you. Boston Consulting Group in particular, is known for sending their own people to sit at board of directors, pile on MILLIONS and MILLIONS of debt ($999,999,999.9999), inevitably causing the company to go bankrupt, and the shareholder to be wiped out when the company gets delisted.
As much as you think DoorDash can be stupid, it’s not. It’s actually a very genius plan to rob the retail investor, and continue to aid the Big Three in their expenditure. The goal is to spend as little as possible to bankrupt as much as possible. This leads back to the big three, Wall Street, the fed, the SEC, and the rest of congress. Everyone is in everyone’s pockets and bed.
Tony knows exactly what you want. A job, with no immediate ties to the corporate model of DoorDash. There’s no union, no pay increases, no set hours, and no expectations. There’s no boss but you. You have two choices: play this game, or play a different one.
Well, if you’re going to play this DoorDash game, I want you to be aware. All of these people have worked with one another before starting their own companies and corporations. They all know each other. They’re taking a dump on our chest every day just as they have been for the past 4+ decades, and DoorDash is one of the ways they get to us.
Tony on Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Xu
“Early in his career, Xu interned at the financial services and digital payments company Square, Inc. and completed business development work for the e-commerce app RedLaser.[1] He also worked as a business analyst for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and as a corporate strategy consultant for eBay and PayPal.”
McKinsey & Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company
(See Controversies)
McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the "Big Three" management consultancies (MBB), the world's three largest strategy consulting firms by revenue. It has consistently been involved in various corruption, money laundering, and human rights scandals accross the globe.
The Big Three
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(management_consultancies)
(See Controversy)
Boston Consulting Group (second after McKinsey) is currently under fire after recently discovering their ties to Citadel Securities and their effects on the market. They have effectively target, shorted and bankrupted many companies that you and I have both loved since we were born. This includes KB Toys, Toys R Us, Bed Bath & Beyond, Sears, Macys, JCPenney, GameStop and many more. It’s an act called “cellar boxing”. It effectively wipes out the competition to make room for one as a whole (Amazon).
DoorDash is no small fish in the water. They know we don’t get paid enough. They don’t care. At the end of the day you are playing the game, you will lose (one way or another), and they will win. It is inevitable. It was designed to be this way.
Will this stop me from being a driver for DoorDash? No. I love declining/sitting on no top orders so those people wait for their food. I also love driving my car and enjoy the fact that I can play the game just like them and drive as many miles as I want all year long to claim in tax deductions. CDL drivers drive 100,000+ per YEAR. There’s no reason, if you’re doing DoorDash full time, that you shouldn’t be too.
Drive 100,000 work miles in one year * 58.5c per mile deduction = $58,500 tax deduction. It’s that simple. But no one will tell you this. (My god please track your miles with Everlance)
How does this affect me? Simple. Tony has more on his mind than just food delivery. He wants to scrap pennies on the dollar just like his partners have through all the years. This is his mindset. It will not change. By engaging with DoorDash, you are effectively moving mountains, even if your bank account only moves $1.
I hope all of this makes sense. I have no other constructive posts like this on Reddit and it was very hard to format everything on my phone.

Hi, this is going to be some smooth brain stuff right here. I am an avid full time DoorDash driver and I’d like to expose exactly the mindset the executives have at this company, why it will be here for years to come (DoorDash is not going anywhere), and why it’s harder and harder for you to make steady money (in most cases).
Let’s start off with the infamous Tony. Tony didn’t just come from the bottom. He worked his way to the top. Being a billionaire doesn’t just happen out of thin air. Either you play the game and win big, or you play the game, bend the rules, and take everything you can get your hands on.
Tony is no exception. Aside from working at payment processors Square Inc (CashApp, e-commerce, in-store payment processing) and PayPal/eBay, he also played a role at McKinsey & Company, one of the “Big Three” consulting firms in the entire world. This is no easy task. Only the filthy rich and dirty hands of grime work for these companies. The other two, are Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company.
McKinsey, Tony’s firm, is most notably known for being THE largest and most influential consulting firm out of the three. They know how to cripple us, the fed, and the government. They know where EVERY PENNY you spend goes, and how to collect those pennies in the end. There’s not just some magical automated process behind the scenes the handles all of this. It eventually makes it across someone’s desk, whether It be an individual transaction or a large census. McKinsey & Company played a “significant role” in the crash of 2008, alongside BCG and Bain & Company (Bill Bain, Mitt Romney). These consulting firms cause other companies to go bankrupt so that it makes way for their cronies other self-fulfilling prophecies, much like DoorDash.
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any companies that DoorDash and these consulting firms would have caused to go under, other than mom and pop shops who used to hire delivery drivers, but now solely rely on DoorDash since the pandemic.
What I will tell you, is that the “big three” is not there to advise or consult you. They are there to ruin you. Boston Consulting Group in particular, is known for sending their own people to sit at board of directors, pile on MILLIONS and MILLIONS of debt ($999,999,999.9999), inevitably causing the company to go bankrupt, and the shareholder to be wiped out when the company gets delisted.
As much as you think DoorDash can be stupid, it’s not. It’s actually a very genius plan to rob the retail investor, and continue to aid the Big Three in their expenditure. The goal is to spend as little as possible to bankrupt as much as possible. This leads back to the big three, Wall Street, the fed, the SEC, and the rest of congress. Everyone is in everyone’s pockets and bed.
Tony knows exactly what you want. A job, with no immediate ties to the corporate model of DoorDash. There’s no union, no pay increases, no set hours, and no expectations. There’s no boss but you. You have two choices: play this game, or play a different one.
Well, if you’re going to play this DoorDash game, I want you to be aware. All of these people have worked with one another before starting their own companies and corporations. They all know each other. They’re taking a dump on our chest every day just as they have been for the past 4+ decades, and DoorDash is one of the ways they get to us.
Tony on Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Xu
“Early in his career, Xu interned at the financial services and digital payments company Square, Inc. and completed business development work for the e-commerce app RedLaser.[1] He also worked as a business analyst for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and as a corporate strategy consultant for eBay and PayPal.”
McKinsey & Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company
(See Controversies)
McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the "Big Three" management consultancies (MBB), the world's three largest strategy consulting firms by revenue. It has consistently been involved in various corruption, money laundering, and human rights scandals accross the globe.
The Big Three
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(management_consultancies)
(See Controversy)
Boston Consulting Group (second after McKinsey) is currently under fire after recently discovering their ties to Citadel Securities and their effects on the market. They have effectively target, shorted and bankrupted many companies that you and I have both loved since we were born. This includes KB Toys, Toys R Us, Bed Bath & Beyond, Sears, Macys, JCPenney, GameStop and many more. It’s an act called “cellar boxing”. It effectively wipes out the competition to make room for one as a whole (Amazon).
DoorDash is no small fish in the water. They know we don’t get paid enough. They don’t care. At the end of the day you are playing the game, you will lose (one way or another), and they will win. It is inevitable. It was designed to be this way.
Will this stop me from being a driver for DoorDash? No. I love declining/sitting on no top orders so those people wait for their food. I also love driving my car and enjoy the fact that I can play the game just like them and drive as many miles as I want all year long to claim in tax deductions. CDL drivers drive 100,000+ per YEAR. There’s no reason, if you’re doing DoorDash full time, that you shouldn’t be too.
Drive 100,000 work miles in one year * 58.5c per mile deduction = $58,500 tax deduction. It’s that simple. But no one will tell you this. (My god please track your miles with Everlance)
How does this affect me? Simple. Tony has more on his mind than just food delivery. He wants to scrap pennies on the dollar just like his partners have through all the years. This is his mindset. It will not change. By engaging with DoorDash, you are effectively moving mountains, even if your bank account only moves $1.
I hope all of this makes sense. I have no other constructive posts like this on Reddit and it was very hard to format everything on my phone.

I will begin my internship in May and it will end in August. I will make about $20,000 from this internship (post-tax) and I was wondering what I should do with it?
Background: The internship is remote and I live with my mom. The only bill I pay is my credit card bill which is $45 a month. I also pay for my own gas which takes $40 to fill up.
I have two credit cards:
Discover it: $575 balance , $3,100 credit line JCPenney: $0 balance , $1,200 credit line
Gist: what should I do with $20,000 as someone who has little financial responsibility