For those who haven’t heard, we are witnessing a globally coordinated plan (conspiracy) to use fear and safety as cover for a #GreatReset of the world economy & society. This is a planned and internationally coordinated strategy by the most powerful global elites-the ruling class

@AwBlessYerHeart @Gus_802 Keynesian/demand side economics is what made the Middle Class better off but it was applied at a time when it wasn’t always equitable toward PoC or women. We need to bring back Keynesian policies but that means having Dem Mandates in Congress & WH for more than two short years.

@Gus_802 Ultimately we need to stop having arguments about “capitalism vs socialism” because they are both loaded words and imprecise descriptors of how our economy functions. Capitalism and socialism describe systems which, in their purist forms, don’t exist anywhere in the world

@Gus_802 The developed world and even most of the developing world have mixed economies where elements of what is regarded as socialism and capitalism exist. But the real ISM the drives our economy is consumerism as 2/3 of all economic activity is based on consumer/demand side spending

@Gus_802 When we couch these forces as “socialism” or “capitalism”, we automatically created a conflict and a polarizing zero sum argument which often derails honest discussions about our economic system which stifles discussions on ways to improve it

@Gus_802 We should instead call these forces “public funding” and “private funding” as they are more precise and less heated descriptors. We then make the cogent argument that, to support a consumer based economy, we need both public and private funding to do so effectively

Interpretation of Financial Statements - preliminary filters.

1. Looking for sustainable competitive advantage:

When looking for sustainable moat, you wanna see consistency - in earnings, in having low debt, in having growing earnings, low spending in capital expenditures, etc.

The longer the company has existed, and if it sells you the same product for years (like Coca Cola), it reduces production costs and other costs (R&D, Training, marketing) slowly as the company ages.

When costs are reduced, margins and profits increase.

2. What to look for in an income statement:

Let's take a look at Apple:

i) You want to see earnings grow at a steady pace. Take a look at the net income below.

ii) Another thing that's important is a consistent and high gross margin.

As a thumb rule, Warren Buffett wants to see a gross margin of around 40% or above.

Although not quite 40%, it's around that range with respect to Apple.

Compare this to Apple's competitors.

Samsung's gross margins are around similar range, highest being 45.7% in 2018, and Huawei had a gross margin of 38.6%.

THREAD on how economically Muslims maybe poorer (the state is overall also not as rich) in #Bengal but have relatively got socio-political empowerment (part of Threads I am writing for the understanding of Bengal politics in the context of upcoming assembly election):

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The socio-economic status of Muslims in the state is far behind other communities as the Sachar Committee Report (2006) and Pratichi-SNAP’s “Living Reality of Muslims in West Bengal” (2016) attest.

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But it has not witnessed the rule of the BJP yet although the founder of the predecessor of the saffron party, Bharatiya Jan-Sangh, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was himself a Bengali.

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During both the Congress and the Left Front rule earlier, and now under TMC Muslims did get some leverage although political marginalization even at block level had continued.

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Across India, the last two general elections, and even the recent Bihar assembly elections, have resulted in the further marginalization of Muslims.

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I think one way of looking at the economic pathologies of our society, without using words like 'capitalism' and 'rentiership', is to talk about inequities in the distribution of risk. Some have more taste for risk than others, sure, but risk is not distributed on this basis.

In the UK, so much of our political troubles come from the growth in the landlord class, who if nothing else, wield disproportionate power relative to their social worth: at one and the same time claim to be martyrs to the risk of investment, and demand these risks be minimised.

Of course, it's possible to make claims like this: e.g., nurses have every right to claim that they shoulder not merely more risk than most, but far more risk than is strictly necessary. The pandemic has made this brutally obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

However one chooses to tally up compensation for this social role, be it financial, social, or some other privilege, it's pretty obvious that every last 'essential worker' is shouldering more societal risk than most non-essential workers compensated far better than they.

The way this trade off gets (implicitly) articulated as 'pay vs. purpose' is one of the enduring insights of @davidgraeber's Bullshit Jobs. Yet there are many essential workers who don't even get the illusion of purpose in compensation for personal risk (e.g., warehouse staff).

🧵THREAD 🧵As it's the start of a new year, there seems to be a lot more calls for freelance pitches about. If you're thinking of pitching for the first time, or wanted a refresher, here are some of the things I find useful. /1

First up, finding work – here's what I use to find calls for pitches each week. But you can easily search these yourself or set them up as columns in your TweetDeck. Use quote marks so it searches for the exact phrasing. /2

I also try to keep a note of places making call outs that I don't immediately have ideas for – they're probably going to be swamped fairly quickly, but now you know they have budget – and they'll be less swamped if you come back to them in a month with a belter of an idea. /3

In weird Covid times, this is also a really helpful spreadsheet from @studyhallxyz on who is and isn't accepting pitches atm. This kind of stuff is often just useful to give you ideas of places you didn't realise you could pitch. /4

If you can't find an editor's email address, my favourite tool is @EmailHunter which shows you the format of an email address at any organisation, so you can take a best guess. 50 free searches a month. /5