Why Isn’t Gambling legal in all States? Casino Guide

why isn't gambling legal in texas

why isn't gambling legal in texas - win

Lost in the Sauce: March 22 - 28

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Figuring out how to divide the COVID-19 content from the “regular” news has been difficult because the pandemic is influencing all aspects of life. Some of the stories below involve the virus, but I chose to include them when it fits into one of the pre-established categories (like congress or immigration). The coronavirus-central post will be made again this Thursday-Friday; the sign up form now has an option to choose to receive an email when the coronavirus-focused roundup is posted.
House-keeping:
  1. How to support: If you enjoy my work, please consider becoming a patron. I do this to keep track and will never hide behind a paywall, but these projects take a lot of time and effort to create. Even a couple of dollars a month helps. Since someone asked a few weeks ago (thank you!), here's a PayPal option and Venmo.
  2. How to get notifications: If you’d like to be added to my newsletter, use this SIGNUP FORM and you’ll get these recaps in your inbox!
Let’s dig in!

MAIN COURSE

Congress passes stimulus

Last week started out with a Republican-crafted stimulus bill that was twice-blocked by Senate Democrats, who objected to the lax conditions of aid to corporations, too little funding for hospitals, and a $500 billion “slush fund” for big companies to be doled out by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin with no oversight.
Conservative-Democrat Joe Manchin (WV) even criticized the GOP bill:
“It fails our first responders, nurses, private physicians and all healthcare professionals. ... It fails our workers. It fails our small businesses… Instead, it is focused on providing billions of dollars to Wall Street and misses the mark on helping the West Virginians that have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”
Through negotiations, Democrats shifted the bill in a more-worker friendly direction. The version that passed includes the following Democrat-added provisions: expanded unemployment benefits, $100 billion for hospitals, $150 billion for state and local governments, direct payments to Americans without a phase-in (ensuring low-income workers get the full amount), a ban on Trump and his children from receiving aid, and oversight on the “slush fund” (see next section for more info). Senate Democrats also managed to remove a provision that would have excluded nonprofits that receive Medicaid funding from the small-business grants.
Echoing sentiments expressed during debate on the previous coronavirus bill (the second, for those keeping track), Republican senators derided the $600 a week increase in unemployment payments as “incentivizing” workers to quit their jobs. Sens. Ben Sasse (Neb.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) delayed passage of the bill in order to force a vote on an amendment removing the extra unemployment funding. "This bill pays you more not to work than if you were working," Graham said. Fortunately for American workers, the amendment failed and the improved bill passed the Senate and the House.

The giveaways in the bill

While Senate Democrats were able to add worker-friendly provisions, the bill still required bipartisan support to pass the chamber and some corporate giveaways remained in the final version.
Politico:

Trump’s signing statement

While signing the latest coronavirus relief bill, the president also issued a signing statement undercutting the congressional oversight provision creating an inspector general to track how the administration distributes the $500 billion “slush fund” money.
The newly-created inspector general is legally required to audit loans and investments made through the fund and report to Congress his/her findings, including any refusal by the executive office to cooperate. In his signing statement, Trump wrote that his understanding of constitutional powers allows him to gag the special IG:
"I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [inspector general] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required" by Article II of the Constitution.
The signing statement further suggests that Trump does not have to comply with a provision requiring that agencies consult with Congress before it spends or reallocates certain funds: "These provisions are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement with respect to the execution of the laws," the statement reads.
While some have said that Congress fell short in this instance, one Democratic Senate aide told Politico that Congress built in multiple layers of oversight, including “a review of other inspectors general and a congressional review committee charged with overseeing Treasury and the Federal Reserve's efforts to implement the law.”
Legal experts have pointed out that a signing statement is “without legal effect.” But that ignores the fact that oversight is not equal to enforcement. The problem, in my opinion, isn’t that Congress won’t be notified of any abuses of power by Trump. The problem is that congressional Republicans and the judiciary have largely failed to hold him accountable and enforce our laws even after learning of his abuses.

Concerns about the IG

Another potential weakness in the oversight structure is the inspector general position itself. The special inspector general for pandemic recovery, known by the acronym S.I.G.P.R., is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. As we’ve seen from Trump’s previous nominees, particularly judicial, many unqualified individuals have been confirmed. The Democrats will not have the power to stop the president and Mitch McConnell from jamming through a loyalist to fill the SIGPR role.
Former inspector general at the Justice Department Michael Bromwich: “The signing statement threatens to undermine the authority and independence of this new IG. The Senate should extract a commitment from the nominee that Congress will be promptly notified of any Presidential/Administration interference or obstruction.”
You may recall that Trump has already proven that he’s willing to interfere with the legally-mandated work of an inspector general. When the Ukraine whistleblower filed a complaint last year, the IG of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, investigated and determined the complaint to be “urgent” and “credible.” Atkinson wrote a report and gave it to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to hand over to Congress. However, the White House and DOJ interfered and instructed Maguire not to transmit the report to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Chairman Adam Schiff had to subpoena Maguire to turn over the report and testify before his committee.
Further, there are already five IG vacancies in agencies that have a critical role in responding to the pandemic. The Treasury itself has not had a permanent, Senate-confirmed IG for over eight months now, and Trump hasn’t nominated a replacement. The Treasury Dept. has taken a lead role in the coronavirus response, with Secretary Mnuchin handling most of the negotiating with Congress on Trump’s behalf. The fact that the lead agency doesn’t have IG oversight should be troublesome in itself; replicating the situation with a special IG doesn’t seem to be a promising solution.
UPDATE: The nation's inspectors general have appointed Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's acting IG, to lead the committee of IGs overseeing the coronavirus relief effort.
This is one of several oversight mechanisms built into the new law. They include:
A committee of IGs (now led by Fine), a new special IG (to be nominated by Trump), a congressional review panel (to be appointed by House/Senate leaders)

Direct payments

Included in the stimulus bill is a $1200 one-time direct payment for all Americans who made less than $75,000 in 2019 (less than $150,000 if couples filed jointly). More details can be found here. I have read that the Treasury will use 2018 information for those who have not filed yet this year, but I am not 100% sure that’ll happen.
Mnuchin has said that Americans can expect to receive the money within three weeks, but many experts expect that timetable to be pushed into late April. Additionally, that only applies to Americans who included direct deposit information on their 2019 tax returns. Those who did not include their bank’s information will have to be sent a physical check in the mail… which could take anywhere from two to four months.
Other options are being discussed, including partnering the Treasury Dept. with MasterCard and Visa to deliver prepaid debit cards. Venmo and Paypal are reportedly lobbying the government to be considered as a disbursement option.
Future payments?
House Speaker Pelosi is already planning another wave of direct payments to Americans, saying that the $1,200 is not enough to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic: “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of direct payments.” Republicans, meanwhile, are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, using the next couple of weeks to measure the impact of the $2 trillion bill passed last week.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “What concerns me is when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it’s because she did not get out of things that she really wanted...I’m not sure you need a fourth package...Let’s let this work ... We have now given the resources to make and solve this problem. We don’t need to be crafting another bill right now.”
For the fourth legislative package, Democrats have said they would like to see increased food stamp benefits; increased coverage for coronavirus testing, visits to the doctor and treatment; more money for state and local governments, including Washington, D.C.; expanded family and medical leave; pension fixes; and stronger workplace protections.
Trump’s signature
Normally, a civil servant signs federal checks, like the direct payments Americans are set to receive. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump has told people that he wants his signature to appear on the stimulus checks.

THE SIDES

War on the poor continues

Amid the coronavirus crisis, Trump has defended his continued support of a Republican-led lawsuit to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would result in 20 million Americans losing health insurance if successful. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case this fall. Contrasting with his position that the ACA is illegal, Trump is considering reopening enrollment on HealthCare.gov, allowing millions of uninsured individuals to get coverage before potentially incurring charges and fees related to COVID-19.
Joe Biden called on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the charge against the ACA, and President Trump to drop the lawsuit:
“At a time of national emergency, which is laying bare the existing vulnerabilities in our public health infrastructure, it is unconscionable that you are continuing to pursue a lawsuit designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance and protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums due to pre-existing conditions.”
The Trump administration is also pushing forward with its plan to kick 700,000 people off federal food stamp assistance, known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The USDA announced two weeks ago that the department will appeal Judge Beryl Howell’s recent decision that the USDA’s work mandate rule is “arbitrary and capricious."
Additionally: The Social Security Administration has no plans to slow down a rule change set for June that will limit disability benefits, the Department of Health and Human Services still intends to reduce automatic enrollment in health coverage, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue the process to enact a rule that would make it harder for renters to sue landlords for racial discrimination.

Lawmakers’ stock transactions

The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are beginning to investigate stock transactions made ahead of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. CNN reports that the inquiry has already reached out to Senator Richard Burr for information. “Under insider trading laws, prosecutors would need to prove the lawmakers traded based on material non-public information they received in violation of a duty to keep it confidential,” a task that won’t be easy.
Sen. Burr is facing another consequence of his trades: Alan Jacobson, a shareholder in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, sued Burr for allegedly using private information to instruct a mass liquidation of his assets. Among the shares he sold were an up to $150,000 stake in Wyndham, whose stock suffered a market-value cut of more than two-thirds since mid-February.

Environmental rollbacks

Using the pandemic as cover, the Trump administration has begun to more aggressively roll back regulations meant to protect the environment. These are examples of what Naomi Klein dubbed “the shock doctrine”: the phenomenon wherein polluters and their government allies push through unpopular policy changes under the smokescreen of a public emergency.
On Thursday, the EPA announced (non-paywalled) an expansive relaxation of environmental laws and fines, exempting companies from consequences for pollution. Under the new rules, there are basically no rules. Companies are asked to “act responsibly” but are not required to report when their facilities discharge pollution into the air or water. Just five days before abandoning any pollution oversight, the oil industry’s largest trade group implored the administration for assistance, stating that social distancing measures caused a steep drop in demand for gasoline.
  • Monday morning update: In an interview with Fox News this morning, Trump said he was going to call Putin after the interview to discuss the Saudi-Russia oil fight. A consequence of this "battle" has been plummeting prices in the U.S. making it difficult for domestic companies (like shale extraction) to turn a profit. It's striking that the day after Dr. Fauci told Americans we can expect 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 (if we keep social distancing measures in place), Trump's first action is to talk to Fox News and his second action is to intervene in an international tiff on behalf of the oil and gas industry.
Gina McCarthy, who led the E.P.A. under the Obama administration, called the rollback “an open license to pollute.” Cynthia Giles, who headed the EPA enforcement division during the Obama administration, said “it is so far beyond any reasonable response I am just stunned.”
The EPA is also moving forward with a widely-opposed rule to limit the types of scientific studies used when crafting new regulations or revising current ones. Hidden behind claims of increased transparency, the rule would require disclosure of all raw data used in scientific studies. This would disqualify many fields of research that rely on personal health information from individuals that must be kept confidential. For example, studies that show air pollution causes premature deaths or a certain pesticide is linked to birth defects would be rejected under the proposed rule change.
Officials and scientists are calling upon the EPA to extend the time for comment on the regulatory changes, arguing that the public is unable to express their opinion while dealing with the pandemic.
“These rollbacks need and deserve the input of our public health community, but right now, they are rightfully focused on responding to the coronavirus,” said Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Other controversial decisions being made:
  • A former EPA official who worked on controversial policies returned as Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s chief of staff. Mandy Gunasekara helped write regulations to ease pollution controls for coal-fired power plants and vehicle emissions in her previous role as chief of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. In a recent interview, Gunasekara, who played a role in the decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord, pushed back on the more dire predictions of climate change, saying, “I don't think it is catastrophic.”
  • NYT: The plastic bag industry, battered by a wave of bans nationwide, is using the coronavirus crisis to try to block laws prohibiting single-use plastic. “We simply don’t want millions of Americans bringing germ-filled reusable bags into retail establishments putting the public and workers at risk,” an industry campaign that goes by the name Bag the Ban warned on Tuesday. (Also see The Guardian)
  • Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia passed laws putting new criminal penalties on protests against fossil fuel infrastructure in just the past two weeks.
  • The Hill: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Friday that it will extend the amount of time that winter gasoline can be sold this year as producers have been facing lower demand due to the coronavirus. It will allow companies to sell the winter-grade gasoline through May 20, whereas companies would have previously been required to stop selling it by May 1 to protect air quality. “In responding to an international health crisis, the last thing the EPA should do is take steps that will worsen air quality and undermine the public’s health,” biofuels expert David DeGennaro said.
  • NYT: At the Interior Department, employees at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been under strict orders to complete the rule eliminating some protections for migratory birds within 30 days, according to two people with direct knowledge of the orders. The 45-day comment period on that rule ended on March 19.
  • WaPo: The Interior Department has received over 230 nominations for oil and gas leases covering more than 150,000 acres across southern Utah, a push that would bring drilling as close as a half-mile from some of the nation’s most famous protected sites, including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks… if all the fossil fuels buried in those sites was extracted and burned, it would translate into between 1 billion and 5.95 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide being released into the air. That upward measure is equal to half the annual carbon output of China

Court updates

Press freedom case
Southern District of New York District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that a literary advocacy group’s lawsuit against Trump for allegedly violating the First Amendment can move forward. The group, PEN America, is pursuing claims that Trump “has used government power to retaliate against media coverage and reporters he dislikes.”
Schofield determined that PEN’s allegation that Trump made threats to chill free speech was valid, providing as an example the White House’s revocation of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press press corps credentials:
”The threats are lent credence by the fact that Defendant has acted on them before, by revoking Mr. Acosta’s credentials and barring reporters from particular press conferences. The Press Secretary indeed e-mailed the entire press corps to inform them of new rules of conduct and to warn of further consequences, citing the incident involving Mr. Acosta… These facts plausibly allege that a motivation for defendant’s actions is controlling and punishing speech he dislikes.”
Twitter case
The president suffered another First Amendment defeat last week when the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review a previous ruling that prevents Trump from blocking users on the Twitter account he uses to communicate with the public. Judge Barrington D. Parker, a Nixon-appointee, wrote: “Excluding people from an otherwise public forum such as this by blocking those who express views critical of a public official is, we concluded, unconstitutional.”
Trump-appointees Michael Parker and Richard Sullivan authored a dissent, arguing the free speech “does not include a right to post on other people’s personal social media accounts, even if those other people happen to be public officials.” Park warned that the ruling will allow the social media pages of public officials to be “overrun with harassment, trolling, and hate speech, which officials will be powerless to filter.”
Florida’s felon voting
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ripped into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration for failing to come up with a process to determine which felons are genuinely unable to pay court-ordered fees and fines, which are otherwise required to be paid before having their voting rights restored.
“If the state is not going to fix it, I will,” Hinkle warned. He had given the state five months to come up with an administrative process for felons to prove they’re unable to pay financial obligations, but Florida officials did not do so. The case is set to be heard on April 28 (notwithstanding any coronavirus-related delays).

ICE, Jails, and COVID-19

ICE
One of the most overlooked populations with an increased risk of death from coronavirus are those in detention facilities, which keep people in close quarters with little sanitation or protective measures (including for staff).
Last week, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the federal government to “make continuous efforts” to release migrant children from detention centers across the country. Numerous advocacy groups asked for the release after reports that four children being held in New York had tested positive for the virus:
“The threat of irreparable injury to their health and safety is palpable,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their petition… both of the agencies operating migrant children detention facilities must by April 6 provide an accounting of their efforts to release those in custody… “Her order will undoubtedly speed up releases,” said Peter Schey, co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the court case.
On Tuesday, 13 immigrants held at ICE facilities in California filed a lawsuit demanding to be released because their health conditions make them particularly vulnerable to dying if infected by the coronavirus. An ACLU statement says the detainees are “confined in crowded and unsanitary conditions where social distancing is not possible.” The 13 individuals are all over the age of 50 and/or suffering from serious underlying medical issues like high blood pressure.
“From all the evidence we have seen, ICE is failing to fulfill its constitutional obligation to protect the health and safety of individuals in its custody. ICE should exercise its existing discretion to release people with serious medical conditions from detention for humanitarian reasons,” said William Freeman, senior counsel at the ACLU of Northern California.
Meanwhile, ICE is under fire for continuing to shuttle detainees across the country, with one even being forced to take nine different flights bouncing from Louisiana to Texas to New Jersey less than two weeks ago. That man is Dr. Sirous Asgari, a materials science and engineering professor from Iran, who was acquitted last year on federal charges of stealing trade secrets. The government lost its case against him, yet ICE has had him in indefinite detention since November.
Asgari, 59, told the Guardian that his Ice holding facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, had no basic cleaning practices in place and continued to bring in new detainees from across the country with no strategy to minimize the threat of Covid-19...Detainees have no hand sanitizer, and the facility is not regularly cleaning bathrooms or sleeping areas…Detainees lack access to masks… Detainees struggle to stay clean, and the facility has an awful stench.
Jails
State jails are making a better effort to release detained individuals, as both New York and New Jersey ordered a thousand people in each state be let out of jail. The order applied only to low-level offenders sentenced to less than a year in jail and those held on technical probation violations. In Los Angeles County, officials released over 1,700 people from its jails.
A judge in Alabama took similar steps last week, ordering roughly 500 people jailed for minor offenses to be released to lessen crowding in facilities. Unlike in New York and New Jersey, however, local officials reacted in an uproar, led in part by the state executive committee for the Alabama Republican Party and Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson. Using angry Facebook messages as the barometer of the community’s feelings, Robinson worked “frantically” to block inmates from being released.
  • Reuters: As of Saturday, at least 132 inmates and 104 staff at jails across New York City had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus… Since March 22, jails have reported 226 inmates and 131 staff with confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a Reuters survey of cities and counties that run America’s 20 largest jails. The numbers are almost certainly an undercount given the fast spread of the virus.

Tribe opposed by Trump loses land

On Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs announced the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation would be "disestablished" and its land trust status removed. Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell called the move "cruel" and "unnecessary,” particularly coming in the midst of a pandemic crisis. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who last year introduced legislation to protect the tribe's reservation as trust land in Massachusetts, said the order “is one of the most cruel and nonsensical acts I have seen since coming to Congress.”
The administration’s decision is especially suspicious as just last year Trump attacked the tribe’s plan to build a casino on its land, tweeting that allowing the construction would be “unfair” and treat Native Americans unequally. As a former casino owner, Trump has spent decades attacking Native American casinos as unfair competition. At a 1993 congressional hearing Trump said that tribal owners “don’t look like Indians to me” and claimed: “I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations” to gambling.
More than his past history, however, Trump has current interests at play in the Mashpee Wampanoag’s planned casino: it would have competed for business with nearby Rhode Island casinos owned by Twin River Worldwide Holdings, whose president, George Papanier, was a finance executive at the Trump Plaza casino hotel in Atlantic City.
In the Mashpee case, Twin River, the operator of the two Rhode Island casinos, has hired Matthew Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a vocal Trump supporter, to lobby for it on the land issue. Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, is director of strategic communications at the White House.
submitted by rusticgorilla to Keep_Track [link] [comments]

Will the Banks Collapse?

Interesting article...
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/coronavirus-banks-collapse/612247/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
---
After months of living with the coronavirus pandemic, American citizens are well aware of the toll it has taken on the economy: broken supply chains, record unemployment, failing small businesses. All of these factors are serious and could mire the United States in a deep, prolonged recession. But there’s another threat to the economy, too. It lurks on the balance sheets of the big banks, and it could be cataclysmic. Imagine if, in addition to all the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, you woke up one morning to find that the financial sector had collapsed.
You may think that such a crisis is unlikely, with memories of the 2008 crash still so fresh. But banks learned few lessons from that calamity, and new laws intended to keep them from taking on too much risk have failed to do so. As a result, we could be on the precipice of another crash, one different from 2008 less in kind than in degree. This one could be worse.
The financial crisis of 2008 was about home mortgages. Hundreds of billions of dollars in loans to home buyers were repackaged into securities called collateralized debt obligations, known as CDOs. In theory, CDOs were intended to shift risk away from banks, which lend money to home buyers. In practice, the same banks that issued home loans also bet heavily on CDOs, often using complex techniques hidden from investors and regulators. When the housing market took a hit, these banks were doubly affected. In late 2007, banks began disclosing tens of billions of dollars of subprime-CDO losses. The next year, Lehman Brothers went under, taking the economy with it.
The federal government stepped in to rescue the other big banks and forestall a panic. The intervention worked—though its success did not seem assured at the time—and the system righted itself. Of course, many Americans suffered as a result of the crash, losing homes, jobs, and wealth. An already troubling gap between America’s haves and have-nots grew wider still. Yet by March 2009, the economy was on the upswing, and the longest bull market in history had begun.
To prevent the next crisis, Congress in 2010 passed the Dodd-Frank Act. Under the new rules, banks were supposed to borrow less, make fewer long-shot bets, and be more transparent about their holdings. The Federal Reserve began conducting “stress tests” to keep the banks in line. Congress also tried to reform the credit-rating agencies, which were widely blamed for enabling the meltdown by giving high marks to dubious CDOs, many of which were larded with subprime loans given to unqualified borrowers. Over the course of the crisis, more than 13,000 CDO investments that were rated AAA—the highest possible rating—defaulted.
The reforms were well intentioned, but, as we’ll see, they haven’t kept the banks from falling back into old, bad habits. After the housing crisis, subprime CDOs naturally fell out of favor. Demand shifted to a similar—and similarly risky—instrument, one that even has a similar name: the CLO, or collateralized loan obligation. A CLO walks and talks like a CDO, but in place of loans made to home buyers are loans made to businesses—specifically, troubled businesses. CLOs bundle together so-called leveraged loans, the subprime mortgages of the corporate world. These are loans made to companies that have maxed out their borrowing and can no longer sell bonds directly to investors or qualify for a traditional bank loan. There are more than $1 trillion worth of leveraged loans currently outstanding. The majority are held in CLOs.
Just as easy mortgages fueled economic growth in the 2000s, cheap corporate debt has done so in the past decade, and many companies have binged on it.
I was part of the group that structured and sold CDOs and CLOs at Morgan Stanley in the 1990s. The two securities are remarkably alike. Like a CDO, a CLO has multiple layers, which are sold separately. The bottom layer is the riskiest, the top the safest. If just a few of the loans in a CLO default, the bottom layer will suffer a loss and the other layers will remain safe. If the defaults increase, the bottom layer will lose even more, and the pain will start to work its way up the layers. The top layer, however, remains protected: It loses money only after the lower layers have been wiped out.
Unless you work in finance, you probably haven’t heard of CLOs, but according to many estimates, the CLO market is bigger than the subprime-mortgage CDO market was in its heyday. The Bank for International Settlements, which helps central banks pursue financial stability, has estimated the overall size of the CDO market in 2007 at $640 billion; it estimated the overall size of the CLO market in 2018 at $750 billion. More than $130 billion worth of CLOs have been created since then, some even in recent months. Just as easy mortgages fueled economic growth in the 2000s, cheap corporate debt has done so in the past decade, and many companies have binged on it.
Despite their obvious resemblance to the villain of the last crash, CLOs have been praised by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for moving the risk of leveraged loans outside the banking system. Like former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, who downplayed the risks posed by subprime mortgages, Powell and Mnuchin have downplayed any trouble CLOs could pose for banks, arguing that the risk is contained within the CLOs themselves.
These sanguine views are hard to square with reality. The Bank for International Settlements estimates that, across the globe, banks held at least $250 billion worth of CLOs at the end of 2018. Last July, one month after Powell declared in a press conference that “the risk isn’t in the banks,” two economists from the Federal Reserve reported that U.S. depository institutions and their holding companies owned more than $110 billion worth of CLOs issued out of the Cayman Islands alone. A more complete picture is hard to come by, in part because banks have been inconsistent about reporting their CLO holdings. The Financial Stability Board, which monitors the global financial system, warned in December that 14 percent of CLOs—more than $100 billion worth—are unaccounted for.
I have a checking account and a home mortgage with Wells Fargo; I decided to see how heavily invested my bank is in CLOs. I had to dig deep into the footnotes of the bank’s most recent annual report, all the way to page 144. Listed there are its “available for sale” accounts. These are investments a bank plans to sell at some point, though not necessarily right away. The list contains the categories of safe assets you might expect: U.S. Treasury bonds, municipal bonds, and so on. Nestled among them is an item called “collateralized loan and other obligations”—CLOs. I ran my finger across the page to see the total for these investments, investments that Powell and Mnuchin have asserted are “outside the banking system.”
The total is $29.7 billion. It is a massive number. And it is inside the bank.
Since 2008, banks have kept more capital on hand to protect against a downturn, and their balance sheets are less leveraged now than they were in 2007. And not every bank has loaded up on CLOs. But in December, the Financial Stability Board estimated that, for the 30 “global systemically important banks,” the average exposure to leveraged loans and CLOs was roughly 60 percent of capital on hand. Citigroup reported $20 billion worth of CLOs as of March 31; JPMorgan Chase reported $35 billion (along with an unrealized loss on CLOs of $2 billion). A couple of midsize banks—Banc of California, Stifel Financial—have CLOs totaling more than 100 percent of their capital. If the leveraged-loan market imploded, their liabilities could quickly become greater than their assets.
How can these banks justify gambling so much money on what looks like such a risky bet? Defenders of CLOs say they aren’t, in fact, a gamble—on the contrary, they are as sure a thing as you can hope for. That’s because the banks mostly own the least risky, top layer of CLOs. Since the mid-1990s, the highest annual default rate on leveraged loans was about 10 percent, during the previous financial crisis. If 10 percent of a CLO’s loans default, the bottom layers will suffer, but if you own the top layer, you might not even notice. Three times as many loans could default and you’d still be protected, because the lower layers would bear the loss. The securities are structured such that investors with a high tolerance for risk, like hedge funds and private-equity firms, buy the bottom layers hoping to win the lottery. The big banks settle for smaller returns and the security of the top layer. As of this writing, no AAA‑rated layer of a CLO has ever lost principal.
But that AAA rating is deceiving. The credit-rating agencies grade CLOs and their underlying debt separately. You might assume that a CLO must contain AAA debt if its top layer is rated AAA. Far from it. Remember: CLOs are made up of loans to businesses that are already in trouble.
So what sort of debt do you find in a CLO? Fitch Ratings has estimated that as of April, more than 67 percent of the 1,745 borrowers in its leveraged-loan database had a B rating. That might not sound bad, but B-rated debt is lousy debt. According to the rating agencies’ definitions, a B-rated borrower’s ability to repay a loan is likely to be impaired in adverse business or economic conditions. In other words, two-thirds of those leveraged loans are likely to lose money in economic conditions like the ones we’re presently experiencing. According to Fitch, 15 percent of companies with leveraged loans are rated lower still, at CCC or below. These borrowers are on the cusp of default.
So while the banks restrict their CLO investments mostly to AAA‑rated layers, what they really own is exposure to tens of billions of dollars of high-risk debt. In those highly rated CLOs, you won’t find a single loan rated AAA, AA, or even A.
How can the credit-rating agencies get away with this? The answer is “default correlation,” a measure of the likelihood of loans defaulting at the same time. The main reason CLOs have been so safe is the same reason CDOs seemed safe before 2008. Back then, the underlying loans were risky too, and everyone knew that some of them would default. But it seemed unlikely that many of them would default at the same time. The loans were spread across the entire country and among many lenders. Real-estate markets were thought to be local, not national, and the factors that typically lead people to default on their home loans—job loss, divorce, poor health—don’t all move in the same direction at the same time. Then housing prices fell 30 percent across the board and defaults skyrocketed.
For CLOs, the rating agencies determine the grades of the various layers by assessing both the risks of the leveraged loans and their default correlation. Even during a recession, different sectors of the economy, such as entertainment, health care, and retail, don’t necessarily move in lockstep. In theory, CLOs are constructed in such a way as to minimize the chances that all of the loans will be affected by a single event or chain of events. The rating agencies award high ratings to those layers that seem sufficiently diversified across industry and geography.
Banks do not publicly report which CLOs they hold, so we can’t know precisely which leveraged loans a given institution might be exposed to. But all you have to do is look at a list of leveraged borrowers to see the potential for trouble. Among the dozens of companies Fitch added to its list of “loans of concern” in April were AMC Entertainment, Bob’s Discount Furniture, California Pizza Kitchen, the Container Store, Lands’ End, Men’s Wearhouse, and Party City. These are all companies hard hit by the sort of belt-tightening that accompanies a conventional downturn.
We are not in the midst of a conventional downturn. The two companies with the largest amount of outstanding debt on Fitch’s April list were Envision Healthcare, a medical-staffing company that, among other things, helps hospitals administer emergency-room care, and Intelsat, which provides satellite broadband access. Also added to the list was Hoffmaster, which makes products used by restaurants to package food for takeout. Companies you might have expected to weather the present economic storm are among those suffering most acutely as consumers not only tighten their belts, but also redefine what they consider necessary.
Loan defaults are already happening. There were more in April than ever before. It will only get worse from here.
Even before the pandemic struck, the credit-rating agencies may have been underestimating how vulnerable unrelated industries could be to the same economic forces. A 2017 article by John Griffin, of the University of Texas, and Jordan Nickerson, of Boston College, demonstrated that the default-correlation assumptions used to create a group of 136 CLOs should have been three to four times higher than they were, and the miscalculations resulted in much higher ratings than were warranted. “I’ve been concerned about AAA CLOs failing in the next crisis for several years,” Griffin told me in May. “This crisis is more horrifying than I anticipated.”
Under current conditions, the outlook for leveraged loans in a range of industries is truly grim. Companies such as AMC (nearly $2 billion of debt spread across 224 CLOs) and Party City ($719 million of debt in 183 CLOs) were in dire straits before social distancing. Now moviegoing and party-throwing are paused indefinitely—and may never come back to their pre-pandemic levels.
The prices of AAA-rated CLO layers tumbled in March, before the Federal Reserve announced that its additional $2.3 trillion of lending would include loans to CLOs. (The program is controversial: Is the Fed really willing to prop up CLOs when so many previously healthy small businesses are struggling to pay their debts? As of mid-May, no such loans had been made.) Far from scaring off the big banks, the tumble inspired several of them to buy low: Citigroup acquired $2 billion of AAA CLOs during the dip, which it flipped for a $100 million profit when prices bounced back. Other banks, including Bank of America, reportedly bought lower layers of CLOs in May for about 20 cents on the dollar.
Meanwhile, loan defaults are already happening. There were more in April than ever before. Several experts told me they expect more record-breaking months this summer. It will only get worse from there.
If leveraged-loan defaults continue, how badly could they damage the larger economy? What, precisely, is the worst-case scenario?
For the moment, the financial system seems relatively stable. Banks can still pay their debts and pass their regulatory capital tests. But recall that the previous crash took more than a year to unfold. The present is analogous not to the fall of 2008, when the U.S. was in full-blown crisis, but to the summer of 2007, when some securities were going underwater but no one yet knew what the upshot would be.
What I’m about to describe is necessarily speculative, but it is rooted in the experience of the previous crash and in what we know about current bank holdings. The purpose of laying out this worst-case scenario isn’t to say that it will necessarily come to pass. The purpose is to show that it could. That alone should scare us all—and inform the way we think about the next year and beyond.
Source: Based on data from Fitch Ratings. The fourth CLO depicts an aggregate leveraged-loan default rate of 78 percent.
Later this summer, leveraged-loan defaults will increase significantly as the economic effects of the pandemic fully register. Bankruptcy courts will very likely buckle under the weight of new filings. (During a two-week period in May, J.Crew, Neiman Marcus, and J. C. Penney all filed for bankruptcy.) We already know that a significant majority of the loans in CLOs have weak covenants that offer investors only minimal legal protection; in industry parlance, they are “cov lite.” The holders of leveraged loans will thus be fortunate to get pennies on the dollar as companies default—nothing close to the 70 cents that has been standard in the past.
As the banks begin to feel the pain of these defaults, the public will learn that they were hardly the only institutions to bet big on CLOs. The insurance giant AIG—which had massive investments in CDOs in 2008—is now exposed to more than $9 billion in CLOs. U.S. life-insurance companies as a group in 2018 had an estimated one-fifth of their capital tied up in these same instruments. Pension funds, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (popular among retail investors) are also heavily invested in leveraged loans and CLOs.
The banks themselves may reveal that their CLO investments are larger than was previously understood. In fact, we’re already seeing this happen. On May 5, Wells Fargo disclosed $7.7 billion worth of CLOs in a different corner of its balance sheet than the $29.7 billion I’d found in its annual report. As defaults pile up, the Mnuchin-Powell view that leveraged loans can’t harm the financial system will be exposed as wishful thinking.
Thus far, I’ve focused on CLOs because they are the most troubling assets held by the banks. But they are also emblematic of other complex and artificial products that banks have stashed on—and off—their balance sheets. Later this year, banks may very well report quarterly losses that are much worse than anticipated. The details will include a dizzying array of transactions that will recall not only the housing crisis, but the Enron scandal of the early 2000s. Remember all those subsidiaries Enron created (many of them infamously named after Star Wars characters) to keep risky bets off the energy firm’s financial statements? The big banks use similar structures, called “variable interest entities”—companies established largely to hold off-the-books positions. Wells Fargo has more than $1 trillion of VIE assets, about which we currently know very little, because reporting requirements are opaque. But one popular investment held in VIEs is securities backed by commercial mortgages, such as loans to shopping malls and office parks—two categories of borrowers experiencing severe strain as a result of the pandemic.
The early losses from CLOs will not on their own erase the capital reserves required by Dodd-Frank. And some of the most irresponsible gambles from the last crisis—the speculative derivatives and credit-default swaps you may remember reading about in 2008—are less common today, experts told me. But the losses from CLOs, combined with losses from other troubled assets like those commercial-mortgage-backed securities, will lead to serious deficiencies in capital. Meanwhile, the same economic forces buffeting CLOs will hit other parts of the banks’ balance sheets hard; as the recession drags on, their traditional sources of revenue will also dry up. For some, the erosion of capital could approach the levels Lehman Brothers and Citigroup suffered in 2008. Banks with insufficient cash reserves will be forced to sell assets into a dour market, and the proceeds will be dismal. The prices of leveraged loans, and by extension CLOs, will spiral downward.
You can perhaps guess much of the rest: At some point, rumors will circulate that one major bank is near collapse. Overnight lending, which keeps the American economy running, will seize up. The Federal Reserve will try to arrange a bank bailout. All of that happened last time, too.
But this time, the bailout proposal will likely face stiffer opposition, from both parties. Since 2008, populists on the left and the right in American politics have grown suspicious of handouts to the big banks. Already irate that banks were inadequately punished for their malfeasance leading up to the last crash, critics will be outraged to learn that they so egregiously flouted the spirit of the post-2008 reforms. Some members of Congress will question whether the Federal Reserve has the authority to buy risky investments to prop up the financial sector, as it did in 2008. (Dodd-Frank limited the Fed’s ability to target specific companies, and precluded loans to failing or insolvent institutions.) Government officials will hold frantic meetings, but to no avail. The faltering bank will fail, with others lined up behind it.
And then, sometime in the next year, we will all stare into the financial abyss. At that point, we will be well beyond the scope of the previous recession, and we will have either exhausted the remedies that spared the system last time or found that they won’t work this time around. What then?
Until recently, at least, the U.S. was rightly focused on finding ways to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic that prioritize the health of American citizens. And economic health cannot be restored until people feel safe going about their daily business. But health risks and economic risks must be considered together. In calculating the risks of reopening the economy, we must understand the true costs of remaining closed. At some point, they will become more than the country can bear.
The financial sector isn’t like other sectors. If it fails, fundamental aspects of modern life could fail with it. We could lose the ability to get loans to buy a house or a car, or to pay for college. Without reliable credit, many Americans might struggle to pay for their daily needs. This is why, in 2008, then–Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went so far as to get down on one knee to beg Nancy Pelosi for her help sparing the system. He understood the alternative.
It is a distasteful fact that the present situation is so dire in part because the banks fell right back into bad behavior after the last crash—taking too many risks, hiding debt in complex instruments and off-balance-sheet entities, and generally exploiting loopholes in laws intended to rein in their greed. Sparing them for a second time this century will be that much harder.
If we muster the political will to do so—or if we avert the worst possible outcomes in this precarious time—it will be imperative for the U.S. government to impose reforms stringent enough to head off the next crisis. We’ve seen how banks respond to stern reprimands and modest reform. This time, regulators might need to dismantle the system as we know it. Banks should play a much simpler role in the new economy, making lending decisions themselves instead of farming them out to credit-rating agencies. They should steer clear of whatever newfangled security might replace the CLO. To prevent another crisis, we also need far more transparency, so we can see when banks give in to temptation. A bank shouldn’t be able to keep $1 trillion worth of assets off its books.
If we do manage to make it through the next year without waking up to a collapse, we must find ways to prevent the big banks from going all in on bets they can’t afford to lose. Their luck—and ours—will at some point run out.
submitted by YouAreBakwas to PersonalFinanceCanada [link] [comments]

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Dec. 21, 1987

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82
1-5-1987 1-12-1987 1-18-1987 2-2-1987
2-9-1987 2-16-1987 2-23-1987 3-2-1987
3-9-1987 3-16-1987 3-23-1987 4-6-1987
4-13-1987 4-20-1987 4-27-1987 5-4-1987
5-11-1987 5-18-1987 5-25-1987 6-1-1987
6-8-1987 6-15-1987 6-22-1987 6-29-1987
7-6-1987 7-13-1987 7-20-1987 7-27-1987
8-3-1987 8-10-1987 8-17-1987 8-24-1987
8-31-1987 9-7-1987 9-14-1987 9-21-1987
9-28-1987 10-5-1987 10-12-1987 10-19-1987
10-26-1987 11-2-1987 11-9-1987 11-16-1987
11-23-1987 11-30-1987 12-7-1987 -
  • Dave’s been following wrestling for 17 years at this point, and sometimes it’s easy to think you’ve seen it all with that kind of experience. But after seeing All Japan Women live, he realized he’d seen nothing. The shows he saw during his trip to Japan had the best wrestling he’s ever seen, so much so that nothing before comes even close. The atmosphere and the action have Dave struggling to find words, and he’s just as dumbfounded by how good Chigusa Nagayo and Dump Matsumoto are at their jobs. 90% of AJW's audience is teenage girls, a demographic you don’t really see as a focal demographic over here, but to these girls the wrestlers are so over an American fan has to see it live to really get it. Dump’s the best heel in the world by a distance and as for Chigusa Nagayo: “the reaction she gets not only can’t be duplicated by any wrestler in this country (Hulk Hogan certainly comes the closest and at best his isn’t half as good) but you’d probably have to use Madonna or Bruce Springsteen at their peak for comparison. The crowd literally lives and dies with every move she makes.” At one show, the crowd were all crying, and then the main event of the 3-hour show was a fast-paced 50 minute match where every move was a high spot and the crowd never let up for the whole match.
  • Dave’s therefore changing his vote for Wrestler of the Year to Chigusa Nagayo. He’ll still vote for Hogan for best babyface, since Hogan has broader appeal and is a bigger draw, but Chigusa's sheer level of overness with AJW fans and her skill are huge. Strictly in terms of business and drawing power Hogan should win Wrestler of the Year, and should have won 1985-1986 as well (Ric Flair won those years in landslides). Dave personally figures ring-work for 60% of the equation, with impact at the box office to be 40%. Dave will not be putting Flair in his top three for Wrestler of the Year, even though his promos and ring-work merit it. Allowing his drawing power to be cut so hard and the destruction of his perception among the marks when he has the ability to call the shots about his presentation means he doesn’t deserve to be considered for Wrestler of the year at all this year (Riki Choshu winds up winning for 1987, breaking Ric Flair's 5 year streak).
  • A lot has changed during the week Dave was in Japan. Fritz Von Erich sold WCCW. Ken Mantell and a group with him have bought the company, and there are conflicting stories about the exact breakdown of the ownership (Dave keeps hearing either 30% or 51% of the stake is owned by Mantell), but Texas newspapers are reporting Fritz is out entirely and Mantell now signs the checks. Kevin and Kerry still own a lot of the company, so they’ll still get big pushes. Mantell still owns Wild West Wrestling, and the plan for now seems to be to run both promotions. That’s not going to be good for them in the long run, since they’re competing in the same area of Texas. Expect a merger when they figure that out. A lot of guys are returning to World Class now that Mantell’s in charge, like Missing Link, Bill Irwin, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts. Looks like Fritz finally wanted out of the business, because everything suggests he contacted Mantell. Mantell was the booker for World Class during their heyday in 1983-84, so there’s obviously the hope he can rescue things, but his time in UWF in 86-87 saw him repeat the World Class booking from in UWF and it didn’t work and killed business enough that Bill Watts had to sell to Crockett. If he tries to relive 1983 in 1988, it’s not going to work. If he can build new stars and remove the focus on the Von Erichs, there’s a chance of World Class becoming a major power again.
  • The February 1988 issue of Penthouse will do a story on the Von Erichs. Dave doesn’t know what’ll be in the story, but Fritz is apparently worried about it and how it will portray him.
  • Kazuharu Sonoda, who teamed with Great Kabuki in World Class and would sometimes play the Great Kabuki character when the real Great Kabuki was double booked, died in an airplane crash on November 29. He was 31 years old and had been in the business since just after he turned 18. The airplane had a fire in the cargo hold that caused it to break up in mid air and killed all 159 on board. Sonoda’s trip to South Africa was to be a working honeymoon as a gift from the Great Kabuki - Kabuki was sending him in his stead to do a tour under the Great Kabuki name and gimmick and enjoy a vacation at the same time. Raja Lion, the 7’2” supposed martial arts champion working for Baba, was also supposed to be on the same plane, but canceled at the last minute and avoided disaster himself.
  • No numbers yet for Starrcade and Survivor Series. Starrcade did sell out in Chicago and drew well on closed-circuit on the East coast, but the Crocketts seem disappointed by the final gate. Dave speculates slightly more than $1 million for the final gate. While he was in Japan, Dave heard Survivor Series did $4 million, which sounds reasonable but he can’t vouch for the accuracy of it. What Dave can say is that Survivor Series was definitely a financial success in addition to being good. In terms of impressions of the shows, Dave’s heard from hundreds about Starrcade and the reaction has been mixed. Many thought it was great. There was near universal dissatisfaction with the UWF Title match. And the TV title unification was largely unpopular, which Dave blames on the build up ruining the match. Dave has heard that the UWF Title match was different from what it was supposed to be, which restores a little of Dave’s faith in Dusty as a booker. The majority was disappointed, and about 20-25% of responses said the show was terrible. Dave falls in the disappointment camp. If it hadn’t been Starrcade, it would have been fine. But Crockett needed a great Starrcade, or at the very least to outperform WWF’s show in quality, and that did not happen.
  • Business is still not good coming out of Thanksgiving. Ted DiBiase and Hogan’s matches just aren’t drawing as much as they should. The Bunkhouse Stampedes have so far been disappointments at the gate, enough that Crockett needs to reevaluate their entire model or they’ll cease to be a major promotion entirely. The November 28 Saturday Night’s Main Event is the best life sign in these times: an 11.3 rating and a 30 share are what Dave has heard (not official), which would be the second highest rating the show has ever gotten and third highest rating for that time slot in tv history. TV ratings are the biggest indicator of public interest right now, so even if live crowds are down, this shows that WWF is still very interesting. They’re just not turning that into a rabid desire to be at the show. Crockett’s ratings are dropping, though, and they need to get fans watching tv again before they can worry about getting live attendance back up. In syndicated ratings, WWF gained viewers leading toward Survivor Series, while Crockett remains out of the top 15 and has a below 5.0 combined rating, putting them behind the AWA and Pro Wrestling This Week, which combined have a rating in the low 5s.
  • Dusty is throwing everything he can at the booking to break out of the fall, and that includes turning Lex Luger. Luger turned on December 2 at a Miami Beach Bunkhouse Stampede. The match came down to Luger, Arn, Tully, and J.J. Dillon. Dillon asked the others to let him win so he could go down in the record books as a stampede winner, and Arn and Tully eliminated themselves. Luger then threw Dillon over the top to win. Turning Lex is a good move, but Dave figures it’s the second best move they could have done and that’s the difference between Crockett and WWF - WWF generally goes with the best thing they can do, not the second best. Another year as a heel might have been good for Luger and helped him shore up his skillset, but Crockett is in desperation mode and needed to make a major move. And Luger has the potential to be a great face, and could make a lot of money for Crockett with Flair if they handle things right. But if nobody’s watching tv, it won’t matter how hot he gets as a face. Other major things happening to try and get things righted: Kevin Sullivan’s group with Rick Steiner, Mike Rotunda, and Steve Williams is one; another major turn is coming soon; lots of new angles that aren’t being spelled out yet. They’re going to change up their tv as well, but if the shows all remain basically duplicates that might keep ratings down and make them worse. And the plan is currently for every hour they tape to go to two different shows, with a different commentary team depending on which show. Nikita might do an interview with Gregory for the Florida show and then immediately do a simiar interview with JR for UWF. Dave thinks basically duplicating tv shows with only interviewer and announce team differences is going to tank ratings when fans figure it out. On the pus side, the shows have improved.
  • Paul Boesch has come out of retirement and is trying to rebuild the Houston market with Crockett.
  • New Japan and All Japan have concluded their tag tournaments. New Japan’s was in Osaka on December 7 in front of a crowd of 6,120 and shown live on tv. Fijunami & Kimura were tied for second with Masa Saito & Fujiwara and had to face them in a battle to determine who would face Inoki & Dick Murdoch in the final. The final was a bloody and excellent match, and Kimura bled a lot before he and Fujinami won. With Choshu and Maeda not involved, the tournament lacked interest.
  • The biggest story of the New Japan tournament happened on November 19 during a match between Choshu/Masa Saito/Hiro Saito vs. Maeda/Takada/Kido. Japanese Wrestling Journal reports that Maeda wouldn’t sell for Choshu at all and Maeda shot on Choshu. Choshu eventually figured out what was happening, and at one point Choshu had Kido in the Scorpion Deathlock when Maeda kicked him in the eye legit. Choshu went after Maeda, and the rest of the teams had to break it up. Eventually the match ended with Choshu pinning Takada with a lariat, and nobody knows why Maeda did it. The crowd was mostly UWF Japan fans, and they cheered Maeda on the whole time because they wanted to see a shoot. This took both out of the tournament, and the Journal reports it destroyed the tournament and left Choshu with two broken bones under the eye.
Watch: Maeda shoot kicks Choshu's eye
  • The match was taped, but it’s understood that it will never air on tv and has caused a major PR shitstorm for New Japan. How do you explain suspending someone for a kick to the face to the public when that happens in every match? You can’t do it without going into the distinction between shooting and working and toward no semblance of kayfabe at all. Maeda has only kept his job because New Japan decided to spin an angle out of it. He’ll be punished and knocked down a few pegs and do a lot of jobs to keep his job, no doubt there. Seiki Sakaguchi believes Maeda’s style is hard for fans to understand and may be why ratings are so low, so they’ll be phasing down on Maeda’s shoot style. Dave believes Choshu and Saito was supoosed to be the winning team.
  • All Japan’s tournament final took place on December 11 before a crowd of 13,200. Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu beat Brody and Snuka in the final, with Yatsu pinning Snuka after pulling a midair reversal of a dragon suplex.
  • Dusty Rhodes is “thinking” about retiring. For a long time, it’s been said Dusty was going to retire after Starrcade 1988, so this may be legit. Then again, Dusty saw how over Terry Funk got when he announced his retirement, and Dusty never misses a trick.
  • The winners of all the Bunkhouse Stampedes will participate in the big one on Januay 24 on ppv. Dave wishes them good luck on their first national ppv attempt, because they need it.
  • JCP ends too many tv shows with main events in progress. Dave’s not opposed to the idea in theory, since leaving your audience wanting is proven to work. But with where they are, they need to satiate their fans’ want for a little while.
  • Steve Williams hasn’t made his heel turn yet, but expect it before year’s end. Williams does introduce some problems, like contacting New Japan to add four weeks per year to his schedule, which now is up to 16 weeks. He’s been threatening to quit the NWA on and off for the past year but never goes through with it. So until something concrete happens, Dave’s not going to take it too serious. 16 weeks in Japan at the rate Williams gets paid is about $92,000, which isn’t bad for someone with 36 weeks of leisure time outside that.
  • JCP is full of injuries now. Rick Steiner has a separated shoulder. Barry Windham’s collarbone is broken, and Ricky Morton’s got a bum back.
  • The UWF Tag Belts have been forgotten. No idea what the status of the Sheepherders is, but they aren’t the champions anymore and the belts (along with the Florida tag belts) will simply no longer be referenced. Steve Keirn also quit the promotion, apparently to go to either Memphis or Global.
  • [Stampede] Jason the Terrible turned face and things are heating up and they’re selling out more often than not right now. Jason beat Zodiak in a mask match and unmasked Orton, who then left the territory. The Badnews Allen attacked Jason and sprayed paint through his mask into his eyes, before unmasking him.
Watch: The end of "one heck of a ring-ding-dong-dandy"
  • Stampede are kayfabing Hiroshi Hase’s return to Japan as forced retirement due to injuries inflicted by Jason.
  • The Iran-Iraq war isn’t enough to stop pro wrestling in the Middle East. Foreign wrestlers are being kept out right now, though.
  • Curt Hennig had to be hospitalized after AWA’s show on November 28. He was wrestling Wahoo McDaniel in an Indian Strap Match for the title when Adrian Adonis interfered and used a knife to cut the strap, but wound up cutting Curt’s finger. Somehow this wound up with Curt getting disqualified over the interference (I guess since Adonis was attempting to act on his behalf), and it was thought for a bit that he might lose some of the finger.
  • AWA was supposed to do the tournament for their women’s title on November 28, but have delayed it. Instead, Madusa pinned Bambi in a shitty match and the tournament final is scheduled for December 27 in Vegas. Madusa vs. Candi Divine.
  • Verne Gagne and Larry Hennig will not be wrestling on the Christmas show for AWA. It’ll be Greg vs. Curt with Verne handcuffed to Larry at ringside.
  • WCCW’s Christmas card is shaping up. Al Perez vs. Kerry Von Erich for the world title will headline. No second guesses who wins there. The Six-man tag titles will return as well.
  • The big question for WCCW is how they handle the return of Lance. He’s under contract with David Manning to work independents and eventually Manning’s promotion if he can get it off the ground, but in the meantime he was working for Wild West. No idea what Manning’s relationship with the new WCCW will be like, so who knows what Lance will wind up at.
  • WCCW’s Thanksgiving show drew 6,000 at Reunion Arena in Dallas. It’s less than Dave had anticipated (ticket prices were way down - general admission was $5 for adults and $3 for kids). Kerry’s comeback match (he’d been back for several weeks, but don’t expect honesty from Von Erich promotion) was 57 seconds against Thing, then Brian Adias, and finally a non-title match against Perez. He won all three matches. Perez then lost another non-title Texas Death Match against Kevin.
  • Memphis unified all their singles titles in a tournament on December 7. They had Lawler (Southern Champion), Jeff Jarrett (Mid American Champion), and Manny Fernndez (International Champion) in, and the goal was to get rid of all the titles and declare a Continental Wrestling Association Champion. They’re still recognizing Curt Hennig as World champion, so this isn’t a world title. Lawler beat Jarrett then beat Fernandez by DQ to win the tournament.
  • The Rockers are the Southern tag champs in Memphis and have turned heel. Their reputation for being great workers is clashing with the reports of them in Memphis as basically doing almost nothing in Memphis. After seeing their work in Alabama, Dave thought they just had an ego and thought they were too good for the area. Folks in Memphis are blaming it on their wild partying. Fans weren’t going for them as faces anymore due to their cocky interviews and because they see the Rockers as ripoffs of the Fabulous Ones (a comparison Dave does not get in the slightest), so they needed to be turned.
  • World Organization Wrestling in Florida are talking about running shows in direct competition with Memphis wrestling. One of the guys they’ve got is a muscular guy managed by Don Fargo by the name of Bob Holly.
  • Former Kansas State footballer and wrestler Curtis Hughes (the future Mr. Hughes of WCW/WWF) has been refereeing in Alabama and is training to start wrestling.
  • Shunji Takano (Ninja in Oregon) was on trial in mid November for allegedly hitting a fan with his nunchucks in Eugene, Oregon back in July. He was found guilty and fined $250. His jail sentence was suspended and he has been instead sentenced to community service.
  • Dave doesn’t know what’s aired and what hasn’t, so here’s what he knows about the DiBiase/Hogan program. DiBiase offers Hogan “7 figures” for the World Title, and Hogan considers it and says he could help his family with the money, but he turns down the offer because he can’t let down the Hulkamaniacs. Then DiBiase makes an agreement with Heenan and Andre that if Andre wins the title, he’ll sell it to DiBiase and get the deal Hogan turned down. Dave thinks the idea of buying/selling the belt is stupid, but it’s less stupid with WWF since they don’t pretend to be a sport. This would be worse in NWA. Anyway, this should all be building toward Wrestlemania and Hogan’s scheduled to leave for a few months to film a movie after Wrestlemania, so rumors will fly that Andre will beat Hogan and sell out to DiBiase. It’d be the first time in WWF history the belt was around the waist of a great wrestler, at least.
  • WWF taped the Saturday Night’s Main Event for January 2 in front of 11,000 fans. The attendance has to be a disappointment considering the hype. Hogan beat Bundy again, which led to Andre attacking and stealing the belt before beating up several other faces and even no-selling Duggan’s 2x4. Strike Force beat the Bolsheviks in two straight falls to keep the tag titles, Jake Roberts beat Sika (who’s back because Killer Khan disappeared and they needed a foreign guy, and whatever got Sika fired was apparently not major enough to make them forget about him), and Greg Valentine beat Koko B. Ware.
  • A source at the last MSG show said the Jumping Bomb Angels got twice the reaction for their match as Savage did for his. Dave isn’t sure WWF will ever get a number 2 face over enough he can draw gates on his own. Aside from Rock/Austin falling in their lap and doing just that through sheer force of will, I think this is something they never did figure out.
  • That’s the length of a regular issue, but this is a double and Dave is going to tell us about his trip to Japan for the next ten pages. It’s a fascinating place. Nobody knows who Joe Montana is, but everyone knows Abdullah the Butcher. Wrestling is big business in Japan, and they tend to set the trends that come to the U.S. several years later. Toys, action figures, records, even Hulkamania were a big deal in Japan well before anyone in the U.S. envisioned it. Vince McMahon gets a lot of credit as a genius in marketing pro wrestling, but he toured Japan several times before 1984 and recreated what they had there. Hogan as an American hero is just the American version of Inoki, with just as big an ego. The albums, t-shirts, action figures, and the rest are all extensions of what Japan had from the 70s on. Vince’s failed attempts to push women’s wrestling came as a result of seeing that they could do big business in Japan. The only thing Vince hasn’t copied from Japan is the work ethic of the wrestlers.
  • While wrestlers in Japan are on tv commercials and talk shows all the time, that doesn’t make the industry stable. Dave’s first trip to Japan was in December 1984, and a lot has changed since then. All Japan was on top and clearly outclassed everything else, and while New Japan was suffering from its arrangement with WWF it still had a big audience on tv. The Crush Gals were the rock & wrestling idols of Japan for the teen set, and their posters were all over record stores and merch available everywhere. Dave didn’t go to an All Japan Women show in 1984 and regrets that deeply, but in every record or book store he went to, the Crush Gals’ popularity was inescapable.
  • Compared to UWF and Crockett in 1987, it’s hard to look at Japan as in a bad way, but this year’s trip was different. In Tokyo there were ten stores that catered specifically to wrestling fans back in 1984, compared to five now. Only three weekly magazines are left standing and one monthly, and the monthly is strictly joshi. The Chigusa Nagayo and Riki Choshu calendars are around, but gone are the Crush Gals, Tiger Mask, Stan Hansen, and Choshu records and the posters of the joshi. The most they found was a new 45 by Fujiwara. The lack of the joshi posters is probably due to idol culture in Japan, where they can take a teen, turn her into a rock star, and spit her out in two years. Nearly every teen idol name Dave remembers from his trip three years ago has disappeared from the stores and replaced with new 17-year-olds. The fact that Chigusa Nagayo has managed to increase in popularity and maintain a hold in the mainstream now that she’s 23 has to do with, in Dave’s mind, her improvement of her wrestling to become the best there is in the entire business.
  • If wrestling has declined over the past few years in Japan, that doesn't mean it’s not still the ultimate experience for a fan. The sheer volume of wrestling coverage is unfathomable to an American. The daily newspaper had a full page devoted to Starrcade and Survivor Series, while American newspapers ignored the results. The death of Kazuhau Sonoda was the lead story in several newspapers, and even though he was just a mid-card guy his death was covered more than American newspapers would cover the hypothetical of Hogan going down in a plane crash. Dave spends a lot of time going over the Japanese wrestling magazine landscape. He managed to work out a deal on getting a lot of magazines to bring back to America for people to be able to buy cheaper than by import subscription.
  • Dave talks at length about the presentation of wrestling and the fan demographics in Japan. It’s much more sports-like in presentation, and lack the surreal characters, skits, promos, etc. that attract audiences in the U.S. Ticket prices are higher in Japan with the cheap seats as low as $16 (the bigger shows cost $75 for ringside). So the audience is wealthier and more white collar than in the U.S. In the major cities, the fans are almost entirely boys and men between the ages of 15-30. The audience grows older in smaller towns, accounting for the continuing popularity of guys like Baba and Inoki.
  • He next explains the basics of men’s wrestling in Japan: what New Japan and All Japan are, who their big stars are, etc.. All Japan is more reliant on foreign stars and New Japan relies more heavily on feuds between Japanese wrestlers. He compares Inoki to Dusty, in that he’s popular and pushes himself high on the card, and hardcore fans don’t like him much but unlike Dusty he’s really considered a legend by everyon in Japan. That is one of four reasons people in Japan gave Dave for why New Japan has been suffering in the ratings. The other big reasons are that Japanese culture is still interested in seeing the Japanese prevail over the big, monstrous Americans and New Japan has almost none of those. There’s also a feeling that New Japan’s style is perhaps too esoteric and too heavy on submissions for the casual fan to catch on to. Lastly, they aren’t fans of people changing jobs and bouncing between promotions. Nobody minded when Choshu jumped to All Japan in 1984 because he said a lot of things about Inoki that fans took as true. Jumping back to Inoki purely because he wanted more money and thus breaching contract and making a whole legal thing of it has not been received well in Japan, though, and the jump is popularly felt to have almost killed wrestling in Japan.
  • The five New Japan shows Dave went to while in Japan made good money at the gate, but the big issue is tv. TV-Asahi has lost interest due to bad ratings and have turned down the request to host the Crockett Cup in April, and New Japan’s tv is in danger of being moved to midnight Mondays or off the air entirely. Landing an afternoon slot on the weekend would be the best goal.
  • The tv ratings issue is pushing Inoki to try some wild things, the most controversial of which is currently an angle involving a comedian named Mr. Takeshi. Takeshi was once the most famous comedian in the country and is analogous to a Don Rickles or Johnny Carson now, and he’s doing a Cyndi LaupeAndy Kaufman type of angle with Inoki, saying he’s putting together a group to beat Inoki, with a probable end point of a Tokyo Dome show in April. New Japan’s fanbase hate this angle. But New Japan needs to hope the fans stick around and they can get new eyes on the promotion and convert them to fans. It’s the same gamble Vince made with Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T, and it helped cement Hogan. Masa Saito is involved with Takeshi in the storyline and the first involvement of Takeshi will be at the December 27 show, with Takeshi being given the role of bringing over a massive guy named Leon White in as Saito’s partner against Fujinami and Kimura.
  • All Japan is more stable than New Japan right now. Choshu leaving certainly hurt them, but they’ve recovered and are doing steady business now that Tenryu is hitting his stride as a heel. Bruiser Brody and Abdullah the Butcher returning has been a big boon. Tv ratings arent spectacular, but they’re safe and doing better than New Japan (New Japan’s range from 6-9, All Japan sits in a consistent 11-12 range).
  • The last promotion Dave covers is All Japan Women, and he finds it hard to explain. The best explanation he can give is this description of an event on December 6 at Korauken Hall:
about 2,400 teenage girls log-jammed in an 1,800 seat building breaking every fire law known to mankind. It was the best live card I’ve seen in at least three years and the main event was by far the greatest match I’ve ever seen live. In fact I’d say without question it was better than any match ever held in the United States in the history of this business. It was a 12-girl tag team match with the most falls before curfew deciding the winner, and he rates it 5 stars. The match went 50 minutes of nothing but high spots and the crowd was screaming at about double the level of a Hulk Hogan posing routine for the entire time. When Chigusa Nagayo was squaring off against Lioness Asuka, the roar was louder than you’d here [sic] in the seventh game of an NBA championship series with 18 seconds left and the home team down by one. I’ve never experienced anything like the energy that comes out of the crowd, and the girls in the ring worked every bit as hard as the crowd. The girls are on TV on the Fuji network and while they consistently draw 7s plus on Saturday afternoons, the week we were there they drew an 11.3 rating. To give you an example of the popularity of this group in Japan--that rating for one show is higher than the rating of all McMahon’s syndicated shows in the United States put together. In fact, it’s roughly the same as the rating that McMahon’s best Saturday Night Main Event NBC special drew, so when I compare the importance of Chigusa with Hulk Hogan it is not an outlandish statement at all.
  • Despite putting on the best wrestling in the world, AJW’s audience is almost 100% teenage girls. They live and breathe Chigusa Nagayo. The fans who go to men’s cards don’t go to women’s cards in Japan, and the fans and reporters Dave met could not understand why he and his group were so interested in an AJW card. There’s a negative stigma about women’s wrestling in Japan among the fans, probably because the show is designed to appeal to a teen girl’s interests. But it wouldn’t surprise Dave if AJW was as profitable as any other major promotion. They have the ratings (Japanese promotions are paid by their networks, rather than the other way around like in the U.S.) and more importantly, they have major merch - about 15 minutes before the show mentioned above, only 150 people were seated. But then one of the guys Dave was with pointed him to the lobby, and about 1,500 girls were buying all of the merch. Videos, cassettes, posters, keychains, purses, wallets, Dump Matsumoto gym shorts, shopping bags, books, programs, streamers - you name it, they were buying it. Given ticket prices, Dave estimates the gate at about $75,000, and they probably more than doubled that with merch and concessions. There were also other Americans at the AJW show, which you don’t see as much at men’s cards. Based on American reactions to Dump Matsumoto, Dave believes if she were given quality opponents and allowed to work without restriction, she’d make women’s wrestling huge in the U.S. She and Chigusa have drawn several times gates of more than $200,000 (Crockett only did that twice this year - the WarGames matches in Atlanta and Miami, and Hogan did it about a dozen times this year).
  • The main attraction of the show was that it was Devil Masami’s retirement show. AJW has a mandatory retirement age of 26 (only Dump Matsumoto has been granted an exception by the promotion), and Masami turns 26 on January 7. Dave’s not clear on the reasons, but he figures it probably goes back to the idol culture thing - promote them young, wring out every drop of marketability, spit them out and bring the next fresh crop in. It keeps the stars relatable to the audience, Dave supposes. Some argue that they like their female stars young and cute, but Dave doesn’t see that as a major reason if there’s no men in the audience. Masami’s final match was a five minute exhibition with Chigusa, and the crowd went silent for it out of respect. Chigusa bumped for Masami for the most part, and in the final 45 seconds or so of the match, when Dave thought they’d turn on the intensity, both women broke down in tears together, and the crowd broke down with them. Masami is expected not to stay retired, but to leave Japan to continue her career.
  • Dave does note some positive things that come out of the age rule AJW has. For one thing, pro wrestling is part of pop culture, but pro wrestling promoters have a really bad understanding of pop culture. Some musical groups have long runs, but most groups that get hot don’t last long and the fizzle quick. The average run for any kind of teen heartthrob to last in pop culture is about two years. Hogan cannot simply sell out a building by showing up. The Rock & Roll Express and Road Warriors can’t draw big numbers by themselves anymore. By having the age rule, AJW forces the constant development and pushing of new talent to the top, which keeps things from getting stale. It keeps you from having a Dusty Rhodes who is still popular and somewhat legendary, but turns other people off. Dave isn’t in favor of the rule at all or any kind of mandatory retirement - he’d still love to watch Bockwinkel or Masa Saito five days a week, but it’s undeniable that the business has been hurt by guys staying long past their prime and using what political power they have to stay on top. It’s hurt by promotions who don’t build stars and only think about the upcoming card, never realizing you need to sometimes tear the whole business down and rebuild and freshen things up to keep alive in the long run.
  • Anyways, Dave runs down some of the key wrestlers in AJW and talks about them. You’ve got Lioness Asuka and Chigusa Nagayo, Dump Matsumoto, the Jumping Bomb Angels, Yukari Omori (nearing retirement age), Yumi Ogura and Kazue Nagahori (both very young and coming up as a top babyface team), Bull Nakano (19 years old and already a top tier worker), and Condor Saito.
  • Dave then gives complete results and ratings for every card he saw during his trip. I’ll stick to negative stars and 4+ star matches for matches of note. December 11 All Japan had Tenryu/Hara vs. Hansen/Gordy go to a double count out in the tag tournament. 4.5 stars. December 6 AJW had Dump Matsumoto vs. Yukari Omori go to a double count out. 4.5 stars of an absolutely bloody match that went all around the arena and included a fork (American fans started cheering Dump after she got out the fork, and she blew them kisses in response, though Dave makes a shitty joke about Americans cheering for a fork after having to use chopsticks). The 12-woman tag match mentioned above gets 5 stars and is the best thing Dave’s ever seen live. December 3 New Japan has Shiro Koshinaka & Kazuo Yamazaki & Keiichi Yamada beat Hiro Saito & Norio Honaga & Kensuke Sasaki in a six man match. 4.5 stars. They had another 6 man the next night where Yamazaki & Nobuhiko Takada & Yamada beat Hiro Saito & Honaga & Dynamite Chris. 4.5 stars. Antonio Inoki & Dick Murdoch vs. Masa Saito & Fujiwara went to a 30 minute draw on the same show. 4 stars. Lastly, New Japan saw Fujinami & Kimura beat Masa Saito & Fujiwara in the tournament semi-final on December 7. 4 stars.
Watch: Hansen/Gordy vs. Tenryu/Hara
THURSDAY (last issue of 1987): 1987 in review, Observer expanding to two columns of text per page, WWF riding high, projections for 1988, on the importance of PPV, and more.
submitted by SaintRidley to SquaredCircle [link] [comments]

Anything you read on this website or anything else on the internet is "State approved propaganda" (How the state controls the opposition, and the minds of the civilians)

This applies to this sub, 4chan, and any other place where alleged "resistance" might exist. The state understands that while these groups aren't a real threat, there is a tiny potential for a threat to the government. This means that these places are constantly monitored, all of them having government agents and propagandists working for "advocacy groups" moderating them, removing any argument that isn't kosher as seen by the government.
Why is 4chan racist if it is only state approved propaganda? This is because thes state approves racism and other sorts of extremist ideologies on sites like that to cater to the people who are exiled from society. The government here uses 4chan as the Emmanuel Goldstein for the West. 4chan constantly makes endless empty threats against the most "vulnerable" people in the world, and then the government and media use this illusion of "danger" to justify furthering their stranglehold upon the country, increasing protection for these people, and stripping people of their rights to argue with the government's vision of "progress".
Just like in that old meaningless and forgotten Texas shooting, where the Federal Agents literally convinced a dude to shoot up some place and even gave him guns to do this, the government can sleep a lot better at night when their "enemies" do exactly what the government wants them to do. When the government controls their enemies, this means they have no threats.
Any individual who seeks to oppose the government finds themselves forced into bed with these forces of controlled opposition like 4chan, White Nationalism, etc, and since the government controls the propaganda hubs for these places, then the government now effectively controls whatever enemies they might have.
The discontented have no place to turn to voice their opinions besides these places, and this allows the government to then aggressively indoctrinate them with state-approved opposition arguments. These arguments blend into the mainstream narrative of "domestic terror" which the government is currently using to strip people of their rights including free speech and the right to bear arms. Most, if not all of these attacks are likely either fabricated entirely or directly induced by the government, and so long as there is an "apparently legitimate group" that can then be "held accountable" for these actions, then people will believe that the government black flag attacks are legitimate.
This means, so long as 4chan exists, then attacks citing racism are "seemingly realistic" because there is a vocal and racist minority on the internet. If the mass shootings were all in the name of "removing labor laws", then this would seem suspicious, because there aren't a substantial number of young discontented people who are vocally furious about the existence of labor laws.
The issue here is again that "White Nationalist" types are not actually threatening people at all. They are the same kids who would call you racist names on the internet when they were 12, and just like how that guy didn't come and "Fuck your mom" after threatening to do this online, he isn't going to commit any acts of terrorism either.
This puts the government in a pickle, because these terror attacks are the most powerful tool in the government's arsenal with respect to shepherding the people, or otherwise pushing them away from a certain ideology and pushing them towards what the government wants. This is anti-Nationalist pro-gun-control today, but 20 years ago it was Pro-War in the Middle East and opposed to pacifisim/isolationsim.
There are two types of terror attacks, the amateurs and the professionals. There is a profound difference in damage done by these people. Think of the meme video about the kid trying to shoot water bottles with a shotgun from 5 feet away. This guy turned out to be a mass shooter that nobody cared about because he didn't cause serious damage.
Then there are the "big names”, who are clearly trained in how to use a gun and do this very well. These people make very calculated attacks and execute them with precision. These people are the "black flags", possibly produced by governmental and super-governmental powers, meant to provide legitimacy to a movement that would otherwise be full of nothing but emaciated, disorganized, meek, scared, passive, non-physically aggressive, and largely powerless man-children. I say this solely because of the drastic and profound difference between the "organic" White Nationalists you see on the streets, and those who execute large-scale terror attacks in the manner of trained soldiers.
However, the true value of controlling social media is not controlling the opposition. It is controlling you, the civilian.
There is another comparably valuable use of sites like 4chan and reddit, and that is just for the dissemination of propaganda. By controlling these websites, you are essentially controlling the conversations people have, what information they have access to, who they speak to, and effectively how they speak, think, analyze, understand, and reason with the world.
This is a very powerful tool because the government has invested a significant degree of resources into manipulating the speech and conversation patterns on these websites to ensure that people do as little thinking as possible. People read only 1-2 sentences, every time, and this conditions them to speak in only 1-2 sentence comments, often times nothing more than an empty quip or one liner.
This thought and speech pattern is incredibly powerful. 1-2 sentences is never enough to produce a substantial argument, as an 1-2 sentence argument can be dismissed outright due to a lack of support. When people are conditioned to use this speech pattern, then they are conditioned to never make a sound argument in their life, and this means the government is now functionally unassailable by the general public, simply because their minds cannot and will never process a cohesive argument.
There are numerous advantages to ensuring your civilians have this speech pattern. The internet mandates that short 1-2 line reactionary opinions and 1 line jokes are the standard form of communication. This means that even when these people leave the internet, they will rely back upon this familiar form of conversation. Throughout their daily life, their thoughts will be limited to 1-2 lines of purely reactionary opinion based sentiments.
This makes it very easy to control what people think and do, because when you control the images, news, words, and statements that these people see, then you can effectively control their mind, provided that the natural and commonplace reaction to these things is predictable enough.
The peasants are trained only to react in 1-2 sentence remarks, and let this rest as their full understanding of the situation at hand. This means if you can predict the 1-2 sentences that will run through their mind, then you can strategically show them certain news videos, pictures, and other media just to produce the intended and desired thoughts.
It's much easier to predict a 1-2 sentence opinionated reaction than it is to predict a long-winded, objective, and evidence based argument. This is why conditioning people to be averse to reading and making legitimate arguments is so valuable.
When you can predict how people will react accurately, then you can reliably attain the desired outcome in the person's mind. The government is very good at this by now, and they know that having a reliably shallow, reactionary, terse, and opinionated reaction to things is a much more easily manipulated psychological state for a human when compared to a long, thoroughough, objective, and analytical thought process.
Even on bastions of "the resistance" this method is still the standard fare of communication. Any sort of 1-2 line reactionary opinionated statement that produces no valid argument is the most blatant form of indoctrination that is visible in the general public. Statements like these do nothing beyond make baseless claims such as support/approval/indifference/denial/condemnation/joke and the condemnation never anything more than name-calling, without the condemner providing any objective argument.
When a human mind is conditioned to produce only these 6 outputs, this creates a profound simplification of the human mind which is much more easily managed by the powers that be. Rather than be faced with a truly intelligent person with the capacity to analyze any point and provide a sound evidence-based and logic-based counter-argument, the state has positioned themselves by indoctrinating and conditioning the general public so the state only needs to deal with 6 possible outcomes that result from their actions.
Making a statement that is predictably "supported" or "approved" becomes much easier than making a statement that withstands valid, objective, logic-based, and evidence-based argument. Since the people are conditioned via online communication to avoid any thinking that extends beyond these 6 basic outcomes, this makes things like politics and media much more easily managed due to the simplification of what would be incredible natural volatility in situations if people were conditioned to wield the full analytical capacity of their mind.
When the human mind is limited to these 6 outputs, then it becomes incredibly easy to push a narrative and force progress upon society, because so long as the government or media can create messages that are reliably approved/supported, then they don't need to produce any logical or evidence-based legitimization of their claims. The measurement of validity ends at the support of the people. If the people support an idea, then that idea is valid, because the people have no concept of evidence-based or logic-based methods of legitimizing an idea.
Still, the benefits to this communication style go on. This style is one that can easily be mastered by children. It is ideal for the lazy, it is ideal for those who would rather not read or write. This style effectively rewards those who are lazy, because it allows them to dominate social discourse. When people can get popularity for minimal work, this makes them happy, and this is beneficial to the government when this minimal work involves condemning legitimate arguments on account of the word count.
When actual arguments get condemned simply for being different than one of the 6 baseline outputs, then this means that there will never be counterarguments to whatever statements the government wants to issue. These arguments get condemned because the lazy peasants hate reading and writing, and this makes them ostracize people who expect them to do this.
The condemnation issued by the lazy is then further reinforced by the government and their propagandists as needed. These people emulate the style of the lazy, and in turn further reinforce this logic with aggressive rhetoric against anyone who strays from the 6 outputs. With 50% of America reading at or below the level of a 5th grader, and propagandists providing very aggressive support for this majority and condemnation of all who speak in a manner beyond 1-2 sentence basic outputs, this then sets the standard for communication on the internet, but more importantly acceptance within any social community online.
With these people as the majority, this forces all others to amalgamate and adopt their communication style, just in order to be acknowledged and respected. If you speak in 1-2 sentences and restrict yourself to the 6 basic outputs, then you will be respected by these people, and if you agree with them, they will gladly let you circle-jerk egos with them. Still, if you stray from 1-2 sentence basic outputs, you will be condemned, ignored, and eventually censored if the state dislikes what you say enough.
The lazy majority holds a very powerful position, because they are the sole providers of social acceptance on the internet, and this is a very powerful temptation to most people. This is because the human mind is far more instinctively designed to seek social acceptance than it is to seek the obscure and intangible concept of the truth.
Humans will readily believe lies and perpetuate lies if this means gaining acceptance and support from their fellow man, and it is this instinctive desire to be socially accepted that the government abuses to ensure that all people adopt this thought-style of 1-2 sentence basic outputs.
This instinctive desire for social acceptance is incredibly influential on the internet, because the people who use the internet are traditionally social outcasts with little to no social connections in the world. These are the people most desperate for social approval, and these are the people most willing to abandon any principles or logic they may pertain to simply to attain the social support of other humans.
There are other means of influencing the human mind when the state has a stranglehold on social media platforms. One of these is through desensitization. By consistently forcing people to see things, this causes people to become desensitized to these things. If you show a devout christian man a video of two men having sex, he will be disgusted. If you show him this video 5 times a day for a year, the video will eventually produce very little if any response in the man.
This is a powerful tool when the state seeks to push something that is seen as radical, controversial, or otherwise something that has been historically unpopular among the general public. This can be seen with every action of social progress in our country over the past 200 years, as the media will constantly be rife with the "new flavor of tolerance", pushing this relentlessly, as a means to desensitize people to these issues. Common occurences today include the meme "Netflix has only gay characters".
Even if things like immigration, atheism, homosexuality, feminism, socialism, transgenderism, racial integration, or other contentious issues that upset people which are championed by the media, after you force them to see these things 100s of times a week, eventually the human mind loses the ability to care. Their mind comes to terms with the fact that their indignation is futile, and eventually they stop resisting these things.
The second stage to desensitization is normalization, and eventually acceptance. People begin to see these things as normal, then they begin to accept these things. These people begin to accept the things that they once believed unforgivable, often times resorting to these things themselves.
Think of yourself as a child (1980-90s, DARE-era), and how much you hated drugs and cigarettes due to propaganda. Then, after seeing your friends do drugs and smoke cigarettes, after the initial shock, you slowly stopped caring, and eventually had a cigarette or a puff on the joint. If you are older than this, there was still reliably state propaganda that conditioned you to hate or fear something, but eventually, after seeing this entity (racial minorities, communism, homosexuals, etc.) so many times, you became desensitized and indifferent to it.
Another more political example would be the War in the Middle East, as 20 years ago, people would consistently protest these things, but for the past 10 years, nobody really cared.
The human mind doesn't have the capacity to continue caring for prolonged periods of time. If the human mind realizes that their caring doesn't change anything about the facts of the matter, eventually they stop caring at all. I myself am a great example of this, as once I wrote aggressively attempting to hold arguments with people and uncover the truth, but now, as I have been brutally reminded that these efforts are futile as they are contrary to the whims of the state, I seldom write anymore.
While the progressives will think "There is nothing wrong with being open minded and tolerating people", the issue is that this method can be applied to anything and everything. Desensitization doesn't just provide normalization and acceptance for homosexuals, desensitization also provides normalization and acceptance for things like government corruption, and now, things like marijauna.
Even while marijuana may seem harmless, it can easily have a detrimental effect on the lives of people who use it, simply because all pleasurable or enjoyable things can easily abused, and marijuana is no different than alcohol, cigarettes, sex, gambling, computers, or any other seemingly appropriate habit people can become harmfully addicted to.
Again, the issue is not marijauna or government corruption, because these are facts of life which we know we cannot change. The issue is that even more dangerous and radical social and political ideologies can easily be force-fed to the general public this way, and due to desensitization, they will become normalized and accepted over the course of 5-10 years.
Whatever you think is "unthinkable" today, can easily be made "the norm" tomorrow, all through this tactic the government and media have proven themselves to be avid proponents of in order to produce their desired ends. The most dangerous of which today include the threat to civil rights, not limited to freedom of speech and the right to bear arms, because to infringe upon these rights is a sign of danger, because "when you give a man an inch, he will take an ell", and once the government has normalized removing your civil rights, and once you have come to accept this, it then becomes much easier for them to push the envelope even further.
One example being the slow tolerance of the passive and quiet gay community, which once fully fledged, rapidly allowed for the normalization and explosion of the aggressive rhetoric of transgender individuals, who are constantly upset, who demand a whole new can of rights, despite being a community of people that the country was almost entirely oblivious to just 10 years ago.
This is not to say anything is bad. It's just saying that once something has become normalized, this opens the door for further steps down the line to be normalized. The comparison between the gays and the transgender community being that gay people often look like straight people, you often can't tell that a person is gay unless they are very flamboyant, and this is why they were able to be in the closet and function as if they were not gay, simply because nobody knew. This is opposed to transgender people who often don't blend in as easily, even if they were not given so much media attention.
The point being that tolerating and accomodating the gays was a small, subtle change, whereas tolerating and accomodating transgender individuals is often a large and obvious change to many. However, due to the known social standard of acceptance and tolerance for gays, this also extends to transgender individuals, meaning that now that they have their foot in the door, they feel much more secure being vocal and aggressive advocates for themselves.
(As for Mass Shootings, These are often blatantly fabricated, as in the case of things like Sandy Hook, where the victim's father couldn't sue the writer for stating "This even did not happen and was a staged false-flag attack produced by the government", due to a lack of evidence, but he had legal right to sue the father for saying that "he personally forged the death certificate", because clearly the crisis actor did not forge the death certificate, which is a false statement independent from the legitimacy of the shooting.
Logically this means the writer was spot on in his allegations about the shooting, because they could not produce evidence in court to condemn him for anything beyond that false statement, which would all be libelous . That being said, when the state has the legal right to fabricate terror attacks, they can just as easily fabricate "evidence" and use this in a court trial.
From "False Statement of Fact - Wikipedia" -- "The fifth category is one that is not as firmly set by precedent: false statements, even deliberate lies, against the government may be protected.[9] While some "seditious libel" may be able to be punished, political statements are likely protected.[10]"
Due to the fact that the Writer was making what can be seen as seditious libel, it is likely that the government could easily set the precedent in court for slander due to making false statements, were there any hard evidence to support this guilt, which is easy to fabricate.
The rule of thumb for mass shootings is habeas corpus. If they don't show you visible images of the bodies being dead beyond a reasonable doubt, then the shooting did not occur. There are no pictures of bodies from Sandy Hook.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/media/images/71976000/jpg/_71976730_hi020451484.jpg
There isn't even any blood on the carpet in a room where 20 6 to 7 year olds were shot to death.)
submitted by marzipanmaddox to conspiracy [link] [comments]

[let'S build] d100 convicts and their crimes

There is a mine which produces rather rare ore that can be used to craft magical weapons. Since the kingdom is at war, everybody who commits a crime, be it stealing an apple, treason, or anything in between, they are send to the mine, to work as slaves, for the greater good. Now, tell me. Who are the convicts? And what crime did they commit?
​
  1. Brawny Joe. Joe used to work as a bouncer for one tavern in the capital, and since he got into the mine, he quickly found his way to become a bouncer again, in the little "tavern" the convicts get their food at. He doesn't speak much, but his muscles speak clearly. The thing that got him sentenced was simply bashing one unruly customer's head to a pulp.
  2. Artemis d'Evry. Artemis used to be one of the people of the court and even if now he is nothing more then simple digger, he still keeps his attitude and posture from the times he left behind. He was sentenced for treason against the crown, and rushed here. He denies his accusations, and claims somebody just wanted him to vaccate his position.
  3. Hollydove Strifelaughter. This kleptomaniac halfling has been in and out of prison for years. This time she was caught stealing from the wrong person. She is a legitimately ordained cleric as part of an order, but has trouble with gambling debts. At nighttime she holds religious services that are a front for an underground gambling ring.
  4. Barlet the Brogue. a heavyset human with a still-cheery attitude and colorful tattoos. He has only been in the prison a few months but is already ingratiated with the existing gangs. Was imprisoned for fencing stolen weapons and public drunkenness.
  5. Scabs. a prisoner whose crime is long forgotten- wrapped in rags and medicinal wrappings older than the taskmasters. He was enslaved well before the war, and will likely be there long after.
  6. Marc d’Antua. A political prisoner of a far-off nation, kept by the Kingdom as a show of good relations. d’Antua was a young revolutionary, and is now an old one, and he is always the first suspected when attempts at escape are rumored- part of the deal with d’Antua’s homeland is that he cannot be killed, and he has been shuttled between three different prisons due to escape attempts.
  7. Marquis Lüttersavian. not a convict, rather a taskmaster employed by the mine. An amazing tactical leader in his time, he was appointed by the previous King to defend a valuable border March. Now arthritic and bent double with age, he was forced to retire, but wanted to serve the kingdom further. He treats his small group of charges like men under his command and is well liked by convicts and the higher ups both. Can pull strings if befriended.
  8. Ankov Helsson. A reclusive wizard who knows more of the secret passageways of the mine than any other person. If the PCs investigate his file, it is revealed that he used to be in charge of the welfare of the convicts in this mine, and turned to Necromancy in order to hide the excessive amount of deaths caused by his negligence. Some of the prisoners want him dead.
  9. Holden Greystone. Holden is a younger fellow who was an apprentice to a famous blacksmith in a local town, one night the blacksmith was found dead in his house and when Holden arrived crownsguard came in after him and accused him of murder, or that's at least what Holden claims his eyes are shifty and is very physically imposing.
  10. Dalton Errington. wrong place wrong time, he worked on a very prosperous farmland as a animal handler, and one day he caught the oldest son having an affair with one of the other female workers, he didn't tell the boss and chose it ignore it and head home after his shift. In the morning however he was arrested by the crown guard for breaking into the stables and stealing the prized horses.
  11. Joe. really no one knows how he wound up in the prison, Joe is a crazy old half-elven man who rambles all day and night about random and mostly bizarre stories, but he does make the tedious work less, well tedious, when you get adjusted to his ramblings.
  12. Sara Strongjaw. one of the few female prisoners there, she is a large half-orc and is a powerhouse in the deeper sections of the mine. Everyone knows why she got arrested, a large strong female half-orc working on a dock in a port town with fragile egos is bound to go wrong.
  13. Arvold the Fishmonger. Smuggler and tax evasion. Went out to sea to ‘fish’ would meet his partner and smuggle in illegal goods with the days catch.
  14. Doug. A regular human man in a business suit. Used to work a desk job. He loitered outside a tavern for too long.
  15. Jamison Swarz. An older gentleman that was the head of the family, owning a vineyard and such. When the higher taxes due to the war came about, the family fell on tough times and he attempted to evade taxes. He got caught by his son who wanted to get his inheritance and take his place. Little the son knew, the military would take the land and turn it into a camp/training ground.
  16. Richard Haymond. Also known as Richie Hay he was the proud owner of a rich looking farm, until a band of robbers looted the place, burned his farm and killed his wife and his only daughter. Richie, tracked down the bandits only to find they were hired by a local lord who wanted his land. Richie out of vengeance tried to murder the Lord unsuccessfully. The Lord then sentenced Richie to the mines since it would look to suspicious to have him executed the same time he took his lands. And so Richie traded his farm and freedom for his life.
  17. Criminal Bill: A massive mountain of muscle of a man, they say Criminal Bill was only sent into the mine after he was failed to be executed. First, the executioners axe broke on the back of his neck. He hung for hours on end when he was sent to the gallows, even falling asleep for a time. They even attempted to pull him apart via horses, but the only things that died that day were the horses of exhaustion. There are hundreds, no, THOUSANDS of stories behind what he did to deserve such treatment, but they say that the only ones that truly know what Criminal Bill did could never say what it was, preferring to not imagine the horrors he committed. In reality, Criminal Bill is a poorly named individual who was arrested for lollygagging. He just gives off a natural aura of intimidation and killing intent, combined with his large build, variety of scars (including a missing eye) and shy and quiet nature allowed a blizzard of stories to run rampant, creating the dangerous myth that surrounds him.
  18. Miranda. Lovely elven lass with a sweet disposition. Arrested for the murder and assassination of over 120 city, shire, and kingdom officials. Popular opinion holds her either innocent (she’s just a wee lass!) or justified (politicians deserved it). Expected to be released thanks to the machinations of her very high priced attorney.
  19. Elizar the Pious. A self declared saint, he was involved in the Pelorian church from a young age, and while he failed out of the Pelorian Cleric training, he found work in the temple as a groundskeeper. However, he began to act as though he were a priest, then a high priest, then eventually the mouth of Pelor himself, claiming to hear Pelor's voice, his street sermons becoming more and more ridiculous until he was arrested for attacking a rich merchant's wife for carrying a parasol and shunning the holy light of Pelor. He views his prison time as missionary work, and proselytizes when he isn't working.
  20. Artem Quay. A two-bit thief who got nicked stealing apples. He says it was just because he needed the meal and couldn't find work. He was planning to share the apples with a beggar family he'd befriended even! Oh, he did murder a small family and lived in their house for a couple weeks before being discovered. He also ate part of the mother, but that's not really the important bit is it?
  21. Kurtis Papier. A middle aged human man. He is balding, missing his two front teeth, and wears a broken pair of wooden glasses with very thick lenses. Kurtis was convicted of fraud when he claimed he was the lost son Henry Papier and inherited the Twin Heart Tavern. He ran the tavern very successfully for 15 years, until Henry's real son returned to town to seek his estranged father's financial help. Kurtis still insists he is Henry's real son.
  22. Salazaar Sssssilvertongue. A formerly smooth talking gnome that now speaks with a pronounced lisp. He attempted to con a baron into investing into one of his "enterprises" - and got a prison sentence and a piece of his tongue cut off.
  23. Misbah Magahni. a dark skinned half ogre that was taken into custody for pillaging several farmsteads on the edge of the nation. Is not very smart but incredibly strong. He was so strong and strange to the point that the bodies were often found put together at a dinner table, messily dressed up as in a little girls dollhouse or at an imaginary tea party. He does not realize his strength and once broke a convicts arm by giving them a high five.
  24. Snab Bigtooth. A goblin with giant tooth/tusk sticking out the right side of his mouth. Attaches himself to whichever big boss person seems the strongest. He's got a knack for eavesdropping with his big ears and knows more languages than he says he understands.
  25. Maxine Mayards. A young, fiery half-elf woman. She was born in the unsettled frontier of the Southern provinces. The kingdom used to shuttle criminals South before the mines were opened. As prisoners started being sent to the mines, the frontier cities struggled. Maxine resented how the kingdom seemingly abandoned their citizens in the name of greed. She soon found herself at the center of all the circles of discontent, and soon found herself at the head of a rebellion. The rebellion is mostly crushed, and Maxine was captured soon after. She quietly longs for a chance to turn the tides. A mission regarding a prison revolt is possible with enough time, with the PC’s on either side of the conflict.
  26. Artyom . A human that only speaks Dwarvish. Accused of 6 counts of murder that he swears he didn't commit, but knows who did. If only someone in town spoke Dwarvish...
  27. Tor Aldrebrand. An accomplished wizard who was imprisoned for freeing the Archmages enslaved Djinn, as a token of the Djinns appreciation Tor is now immortal and is just waiting for the prison to rot around him.
  28. Dribby. A middle aged man, who looks and acts like your typical village idiot. Spits when he talks and accidentally spit on the king.
  29. Berwick the Shorn. A dwarf who's lost all his hair due to a childhood illness. Not physically strong, he is a keen geologist and able to locate rich seams of ore. Mostly keeps to himself, but flies into a berserk rage if mistaken for a halfling, which is what got him thrown in jail.
  30. Crovik Argham. A massive half-orc, one-eyed and possessing only nine fingers. His face bears the scars of some horrific battle in which he barely escaped with his life. Word around the mine is that he was a member of an elite military squad, sent on a suicide mission with bad intelligence. Crovik was the only member of his squad to survive, and after he was healed by the camp's cleric, the commander announced that Crovik would go before a military tribunal to investigate why he and he alone came back from this mission. Crovik snapped the Commander's neck and then submitted to arrest without incident. His only words at the tribunal hearing were, "If I'm going to be sent to the mines, let it be for something that I actually did."
  31. Aizen Nailo. A half elf/half human or so he claims. It’s the only way to explain how he has lived so long to write as much as he has. He spends all his time scribbling away with whatever he can wherever he can jotting down stories that he swears on his life are real. He claims he heard them from a friend of a friend or even that he was there sometimes. Some of the stories might be familiar to the players but with no tangible explanation as to how he’d know certain details. He was jailed because a noble read one of his stories and found one eerily close to his own corrupt dealings. He was rapidly framed and all copies of that story destroyed. Then again, that’s the story he wrote.
  32. Rodwell "Chicken Thief" Ebonhaum. A middle-aged man often caught mumbling to himself. In the last ten years, Ebonhaum has faced countless minor penalties for relocalizing poultry. The city guards, exasperated with his constant chicken-stealing shenanigans, have recently thrown him in jail for a few days. The guards know all too well that their detainee will reoffend as soon as he is out of jail and in proximity of feathered prey. Unbeknownst to all, Rodwell Ebonhaum has a minor background of studying the arcane arts and has been working on a new golem prototype for years. He is amazingly close to a major breakthrough and should complete his creation within 24 hours after getting out of jail. This Chicken Golem may yet prove to be an immense threat to the city (or not).
  33. Nahay Strife. A short human woman with a stripe of baldness running down the center of her head. She curses profusely and is in and out of jail for starting fights because she keeps screaming slurs at half-orcs, dwarves, and tieflings.
  34. Clive Coldhands Cilve was once an innocent farmer, who was framed for killing his family. In truth the Crown Prince and his gang of thugs and hanger-ons were responsible, but since he's the Prince and Clive is a nobody, Clive was the one to go to jail, where he was killed when the mine tunnel he was working in collapsed, only to return as a reverent(hence his name "Coldhands"). He's planning to break out using his new powers, and pay the Prince a visit (hint: it's not gonna end well for the Prince).
  35. The Red Jester A Warlock who used her connections to Hell to act as a middle-woman for infernal pacts and deals. When the current King took power, he implemented a popular "tough-on-Hell" policy that saw the Red Jester imprisoned for operating without a legal license. Claims her patron will get her out soon (her patron has forsaken her- Hell's fickle like that).
  36. Bom Bom is a flesh golem, who was formerly a servant for a mad necromancer, and was imprisoned here, after the necromancer was killed by the King's forces, simply for existing. Bom is a kind soul who is actually quite terrified of his current situation, and will befriend any PC who is wrongly imprisoned. Bom also is very religious and prays daily to the local God of Justice to get him and his friends out of this place.
  37. Scuttle is one of the youngest prisoners, at only nine years old, but unsettlingly one of the most quiet and serious. His mother, himself, and his sister were all sent here for theft and for refusing to vacate their small ramshackle home when a noble acquired it. Only Scuttle remains of the trio, the other two having died during a cave in at the women’s section. He’s tight lipped and serious and clearly learning the wrong lessons in life as he carries a small shiv and is often jumpy, violent, and unsociable. He often is sent to work with the halflings in the small parts of the cave adult humans cannot fit in, and can speak their language a bit now. Nicknamed after his incredible climbing and squeezing abilities, and refuses to tell people his real name or maybe had just forgotten it in the three years he’s been here.
  38. Mark. Former town blacksmith that was held in high regard for his fine craftsmanship. He cursed certain weapons he had forged, especially ones given to nobles, to animate and kill their owners while they slept.
  39. Tord Faurus. A half-orc arrested and charged for mayhem and mischief. Some children from the local town saw him vandalizing the local corn fields, or so they thought. Really, he's just a very enthusiastic farmer that's good with a scythe, but sadly he's illiterate and doesn't speak common, so has no means of defending himself. When the guards came to question him, he became alarmed and attacked, and eventually found himself behind bars.
  40. Thelonius Baker. Fate treated this human with a harsh hand, words on the street are that he used to be that villager who everybody loved, the best cook around, with a profound love for everyone, a real philantropist who did not want anything in return. That was until "something divine" happened, as he used to say, before he cut his tongue, started to cook with poison, and all he gave away, he needed back. Nobody could talk to him anymore, but everyone was concerned. Some time after, people who looked like medics came for him, and the whole village believed that lie "we will make him better, just the way he was before" Nowadays he can barely lift a pickaxe, since he has a secret, that sweet little newborn he found needs to eat, and there's only enough food for one. Actually, some think there is no baby, just the rambling of a man with sanity long gone.
  41. Karok unbra. A reedy human from a nomadic people in the northern frontier. arrested for rabblerousing after seeing a vision, and attempting to unify the northern tribes. will occasionally mutter half-formed prophecy as he chips away at the rocks.
  42. Eddy "Sneazer" Wheezer. A kobold who's rather tall for his race, and only knows one spell. Eddy scammed millions in gold coins from unsuspecting villagers by casting enlarge on himself and pretending to be a young dragon. He's allergic to the mildew in the prison yard and accidentally casts enlarge on himself every time he sneezes. Wheezer is the only convict not required to wear pants because they keep ripping.
  43. Hilldove Alderberry. Young halfling woman in prison for attacking a nobleman who tried to force himself onto her. Was an entertainer before her arrest, and often gives performances to cheer up the prison crowd. She has been in prison for a year, and is in one of its gangs for protection. She has an extensive family outside of prison that she tries to sneak letters to.
  44. Saw Wobble. A kenku arcane trickster who learned all his spells by mimicking a human wizard in his youth. He lies low in the mines, blending in with the shadows and rarely making himself known. However, he often knicks food from other prisoners and plays harmless pranks on guards. He’s been there for three months and hasn’t gotten caught yet. He’s in prison for stealing food from a high end tavern.
  45. Turs Urx. 30 year old changeling man, arrested for impersonating a deceased, widowed landowner and living in his home for months. Though Turs has been in the mines for about 6 months, he changes his appearance so often that none but his cell mate know who he is. He gets out of being attacked by taking on the appearance of well respected members of the prison. The guards have forbidden him to change his appearance and he has been caught and punished brutally four separate times for this.
  46. Anathu Zoksi. True neutral yuan ti pureblood assassin. Born into one of the lower ranks of yuan ti society due to his less snakelike appearance, Anathu quickly aligned himself with whatever forces would help him live a comfortable life. He worked as an assassin for a local mafia, and was caught and arrested while staking our a local merchant he was meant to kill. When caught, he played it off as if his intent was simply to steal from the merchant. Though his appearance is less snake like than other yuan ti purebloods, it is harsh enough to be disconcerting to fellow prisoners and mark him as someone not to be messed with. He has only been there for one month and will align himself with whatever gang seems the most helpful.
  47. Aldrik Bloodhorn. A hearty 50 year old dwarf, who was a miner before his arrest as well. He was arrested for trying to unionize the dwarves in his mine. He has a reputation for giving inspiring speeches and is prone to fighting with guards. He’s only been in the prison for four months but is already in the process of trying to dig an escape tunnel with his cell mate, Hinbut Smallfeet.
  48. Hinbut Smallfeet. A 160 year old forest gnome druid. Due to a mysterious illness, he has a sickly appearance is perpetually exhausted. He is often punished for fainting in the middle of mining. Though he is very physically weak, he has many allies in the prison who protect him. He has been using the minor illusion cantrip to try to cover up the escape tunnel that his cell mate, Aldrik Bloodhorn, has been trying to dig. He makes up a different unlikely story every time he’s asked, but the real reason he was arrested was for arson. A wealthy human developer cut down much of of the forest Hinbut grew up into in order to build homes, and Hinbut was caught burning those homes down.
  49. Samuel Grandfest. 25 year old human charlatan, arrested for using counterfeit gold coins. He has been in the prison for a year and a half and is deep in the business of smuggling in and selling black market goods to the other prisoners.
  50. Tyrcoril Ianhorn. A young looking half elf and oath of the ancients paladin. He has chin length scruffy blonde hair and hazel eyes. He is dedicated to Pelor, and when the King ordered his order of Paladins work for the army, he refused due to his belief that Pelor would not support this war. He was promptly arrested for treason. Stubborn and strong willed, he often has to be restrained for trying to smite guards and other prisoners.
  51. The Minelings. The five children in total have been trapped in the mine for presumably their entire lives, mining for precious metals and gemstones. One has lost use of his legs, and collectively they hold a few diamonds. If they are freed, they ask that you rescue their friend being held elsewhere, who is unfortunately long dead.
  52. Barry the mushroom killer. Lures travellers into his camp for poisoned mushroom stew. Escaped from stonegate tower prison
  53. Rigosh Nishrober. A mountain dwarf barmaid, a little too carefree for her own good. Allowed herself to get carried away during a feast instead of seeing to her serving and cleaning duties. Got drunk and passed out, to wake and find the king's pet cat dead on the floor, fur soaked in alcohol. It had licked itself in an attempt to get clean, died of alcohol poisoning, and Rigosh was held responsible.
  54. The Wild King. An elderly human, ex-bandit chief and powerful druid who maintains connections even from within the prison. His cell is private and relatively luxurious, he doesn't have to work, 1d10 other prisoners work for him (roll on the table again), whether willingly or not, and 1d4 guards are agents of his in disguise.
  55. Skippy Jones. An incredibly nimble and short human thief who likes to sell all his stolen goods as so-called "legendary items". The con that got him here was selling an alcohol solution of salt and tobasco as a love potion that can even seduce dragons. He hints that when the customer appeared with guards, he seemed to be bit..charred.
  56. Hank Horsehugger. He is a thin old man who worked in the king's stables. He liked the horses. A LOT. And he cared for them, if you know what I mean. He was caught 'caring' for the horses and in response stole one of the horses to escape. He was sentenced for being pretty gross and for stealing a horse.
  57. Lysanthir Wynfaren. An arrogant and ostentatious 200 year old eladrin. He was exiled from the feywild for killing a rival. He was arrested almost immediately upon entering the mortal plane for challenging a member of the royalty to a duel. He is most often in his summer personality state, and quick to violence. He resents the mine work, not because of how physically taxing it is, but because he thinks of himself as too good for it. He’s been in the mines for 2 years, and still talks about breaking out as something he’s gonna do any day now.
  58. Ayre Kelxidor. A 400 year old wood elf hermit who had spent the past 2 and a half centuries living in a “self sufficient” cabin alone. He’s antisocial and gruff, preferring animals to people. He has coppery skin and grey hair. He was arrested for roughly 250 years of tax evasion.
  59. Marcus. Marcus is a human, about 30 years of age. He got sentenced for riding a wild boar through the streets of his home city. He was drunk, the boar was raging, cause it couldn't get rid of that stupid human clinging to its back and kicking it to run faster..and the whole wild ride ended when Marcus crashed into a stall with cabbages, and the boar finally escaped his grip, trampled the shopkeeper, and ran away.
​
.
.
.
​
contributors: KimboatFloats, Silverdragon701, RollinThundaga, archaisdurannon, Iron_Knight_42, PutridMeatPuppet, malnox, SwaffleWaffle, sarma2, InquisitorHindsight, Quibblicous, g3rmb0y, pb_rpg, Woopdeedo, lordchrome, KimboatFloats, yourJaysianfriend, Baconator137, gino562, ElZoof, TexasMonkeyhead, Dr_Prof_Boop, CALL_ME_MR_PIG , PopeCorkytheX, ITS_NOT_FINE, Inksword , Baconator137, thislittlewiggy , FormisFunction, theonlygusintheworld, grannysmithpears, GodsEclipse, IngarnDM, 999pillsonthefloor, SheogorathGaming, FoolyCarnival, A_Heckin_Goblin, grannysmithpears
submitted by Anysnackwilldo to d100 [link] [comments]

Tsla options and an interesting background story

TSLA options
This is officially my first post to reddit. Long time reader, I also watch YouTube videos and don’t have an account so please forgive if my posting etiquette is off. Use to be a casual trader have a degree in economics with specialty in behavioral economics and minor in psychology. Also initially left college in my sophomore year (2010) to move to California and start a dispensary. I was going to McGill university in Montreal for those of you who don’t know of it(most Americans). FYI I am American myself and I’m Canada they call Harvard americas McGill (not bragging personally I still believe college is a tax on lower and middle class). I visited a friend on spring break and this is a time when a gram of weed would get you a night in jail and a misdemeanor and if you are lucky enough to live in Texas or Tennessee and be black either 1-10 in jail and at minimum they’d take your car or house or whatever expensive enclosed space you owned in which they found it or probably planted it. I could not believe what I was seeing when I went to see my friend (LA) and ultimately never returned from spring break. These were also the days when the laws in California were changing so fast that if you got a dispensary license in about 6 months you could sell the license for 10-100x what you paid for it (2k -7k if you used a lawyer or 500$ if you did all the paperwork yourself). I ended up starting the first 24hr delivery dispensary (legal) in California at that time probably the world. Needless to say it was very successful, after about a year I hired someone else to run the day to day and mostly became a semi professional gambler which many of you would consider yourselves. The difference is I was actually gambling in casinos. This is not a story in which I stupidly lose all my money at a craps table although there were some fear and loathing-esque weekends during this time that are noteworthy themselves. Also to note I decided to move with exactly 2$ to my name and my parents cutting me off because I was leaving college, luckily I also owned (or rather rented for free) a spot on my dear friends couch (who would later end up being an employee). Within 6 months I was worth about 50k within 12 I was making that much every week. This is the part where some of you may become disappointed because of all the interesting preamble that sounded like it was going to end in a crazy story where I used 50 lbs of weed to leverage a massive short on some stock because I had 24hrs to pay off the Armenian mafia or they would give me a Chinese haircut. Despite the fact that that did happen (with some minor liberties taken in the description although ones that make it actually less crazy of a story) it’s not what I am here writing about. I ended up starting my dispensary by winning 48k one night at the native casino near LA can’t remember the name but anyone from SoCal knows what it’s called. I was also a casual trader albeit very successful when I took it seriously. My dad is also a doctor so I essentially invested it all on ARNA before the fda approval of their new weight loss drug (at the time) I think it was called belviq. Anyway it was a killer, went from like 5 bucks to like 25 in a couple of days and I was looking good to start my business. Since then I’ve continued to dabble and did a lot of shorting but hated the risk, was unaware of options trading. After reading a couple articles online I started getting into it, fast forward to me studying economics (In which I didn’t learn much I didn’t already know except how to use programs to analyze massive amounts of data to find out trends that mostly my own intuition was good enough to tell me), but now atleast I’m a “respectable person” in the eyes of my parents and the business world. Ultimately since this is my first post I decided to go big and long with it because I just felt that would be proper and maybe someone would be entertained, and maybe in the future I will divulge the actual crazy shit that happened but wall street bets doesn’t seem like the right thread (?). I just wanted to introduce myself and say, when TSLA hit 964 two days ago how many thousands of wallstreeters and tens of thousands of thousands or hundreds or however many of you redditors that are trading options and know half a twats worth what you’re doing did jizz their pants and buy some puts. Personally I like to gamble only saw it once it had dipped down to 900$ before closing but was trending down already. I figured I’d buy something that had a really short execution period for cheap af at like 895$ and once it dipped to like 865 or something sell but ultimately I knew in my heart as most of u do that it was going to drop to maybe 700 or lower. Didn’t have the liquidity to do what I would have liked but called some of the rich people I know who did and they wanted to jerk me off at 11 am the next morning. The few who missed out were begging for what next. One particular who is a relative of mine and a VP at major software company (think top 3) argued that wouldn’t everyone be buying puts and isn’t that what drove the price up? Wouldn’t it be better to sell options on the tsla shares you own and then if it goes down you made some cash and buy more at the lower price. I’m sure many of you know why that is a much weaker play and has way less upside and at the same time limits your risk way less. When the morning came he and others who didn’t follow thru were dying they missed out and asking me what to do next. I hadn’t looked much but it seemed to be bottoming out at 7 and I assumed put buyers were starting to executing their contracts so I said buy calls near 700 and do it for the shortest period u can find in terms of days. By lunch time it’s at 750$ ofcourse and my suggestion of 10-20 contracts would be betting a nice 80-90k maybe more if u bought the ridiculously short term options. Most of them were able to cash out my relative who is an exec at (insert top software company here) still missed out. He had to go into a meeting and didn’t have enough time to execute and wanted to die as he watched the stock jump 50$ and the imaginary dollars that would have been piling up in his investment account disappearing for the second time in one day for the levels he trades and wanted to buy this would have been around 1m maybe he would have made. After his meeting he messages me “uhh I think I need you to manage part of my portfolio, can you do the options trading for me and manage my short term stocks? I don’t have enough time to watch the market because of meetings etc. and when I see what I’m missing out on I can’t pay attentions during the meetings and it’s fucking up my productivity.” - me : “ well I don’t want to have access to your password etc. and be responsible if some fucked shit happens in your portfolio I don’t want to be blamed. Also if I don’t know how I feel about making you millions and then accepting whatever tip you feel is appropriate. Obviously we could do like a percentage but I’d feel better about starting a separate fund and you can put in whatever you feel comfortable investing and we can see how it goes. I Send the same message to everyone in my thread. Looks like I may have inadvertently started a hedge fund let’s see how it goes. Depending on the funding I will repost with proof.
submitted by 81Gdummy to investing [link] [comments]

why isn't gambling legal in texas video

George Strait All My Ex's Live In Texas Lyrics - YouTube How I got banned from sports betting... - Arbitrage ... Kurdistan’s Erbil police shut down illegal casino, arrests ‘gambling network’ Why Coronavirus Is Unlikely To Lead To Martial Law In The ... Life As a VIP High Roller At the Casino: What It's Like ... Why In-N-Out Isn't Coming to a City Near You - YouTube biggest gamblers, highest rollers in Las Vegas gambling ... Jacksonville illegal gambling bust How Science is Taking the Luck out of Gambling - with Adam ... Casablanca gambling? I'm shocked! - YouTube

Texas has the strictest gambling laws in the country, but could the state benefit from changing its outlook? Texas Hold ‘Em is perhaps the most popular card game in the world, but if you were to Why Isn't Gambling Legal In Texas, writing roulette strategy, dansco casino chip album, gamehuinters/doubledown Texas Climate. Gutierrez isn’t the only Texan who believes it’s time to end commercial casino prohibition in the Lone Star State. Late last year, Rep. Joe Deshotel (D-Beaumont) unveiled A prevailing anti-gambling attitude isn’t the only hurdle this bill will have to clear. As you’ll read about below, even if the state wanted to legalize sports gambling it would still need to amend its constitution to allow for betting on sports. All types of gambling, with the exception of the state lottery and horse and dog racing, is illegal in Texas. There is only one tribal casino in Texas' gambling rules explained: You can play bingo or the lottery, but no sports betting In most cases, it’s illegal to gamble or place a bet in the state. But there are some exceptions. Why Isn't Gambling Legal In Texas, spielbank bad neuenahr roulette, zynga poker android 1, casino st jerome aix en provence. Login. Jackpots. Banking options (2) Dive in for a chance to discover the ocean’s sunken riches. King And Queen. 55. Ancient Dragon. Destiny of Athena. 20,670 . €300 Welcome Bonus and 100 free spins waiting on MasonSlots Casino. September 13, 2020 admin. Banking Why Isn't Gambling Legal In Texas, antioch poker, shoebox casino movie, monk532 poker. New Casinos in 2019. Voodoo Dreams. 18+, T&C Apply,, New Customers Only. Alderney, Isle of Man, Malta, Gibraltar, Jersey, Kahnawake. 30x. Great Casino; Live Support Chat; Good Bonuses; Huge Selection Of Casino Games; Live Support from 10:00 to 22:00 ; Live Casino Games-New 2018 Casino; Big Selection Of Slots Why Isn't Gambling Legal In Texas, the blackjack band michigan, treasure island casino minnesota floor plan, casino casa grande caja san nicolas Why Isn’t Gambling legal in all States? Gambling was once considered an immoral and sinful activity, it was often done in secret. However, these days gambling and Casinos are much more common and acceptable especially in places like Europe where it is the norm. So why isn’t gambling legal in all U.S states. While technically, there is no federal law in the United States that prohibits Texas isn’t receptive of new forms of gambling. The casinos and gaming parlors they have skirt state laws by offering Class II machines that operate through loopholes. With no commercial casino industry to lobby for internet gambling, it seems unlikely that the activity will be available any time soon. Strangely enough, though, Texas has had federal legislative efforts come out of their

why isn't gambling legal in texas top

[index] [2610] [6349] [1133] [6941] [8208] [2394] [247] [5131] [5716] [5422]

George Strait All My Ex's Live In Texas Lyrics - YouTube

Toronto's Illegal Gambling Dens : Hiding in Plain Sight - The Fifth Estate - Duration: 5 ... Undercover investigation exposes illegal gambling in Central Texas - Duration: 4:57. kxan 7,817 views ... From the statisticians forecasting sports scores to the intelligent bots beating human poker players, Adam Kucharski traces the scientific origins of the wor... Undercover investigation exposes illegal gambling in Central Texas - Duration: 4:57. kxan Recommended for you. 4:57. 4 People Who Beat The Casino - Duration: 12:10. ... Martial law is essentially the replacement of civilian government by the military. Some fear coronavirus may be used as an excuse to limit civil liberties in... Today we discuss how I managed to get banned from sports betting, but we also discuss how to implement arbitrage betting strategies to make you money!Arbitra... In this video, I am going to detail for you what it's like being a high roller at the casino, what VIP status is like, how the casino determines whether or n... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... First 200 get 20% annual premium membership of Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/PolymatterTwitter: https://twitter.com/polymattersPatreon: https://patreon.co... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... Classic Casablanca sceneRick: How can you close me up? On what grounds? Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a c...

why isn't gambling legal in texas

Copyright © 2024 top100.realmoneytopgames.xyz