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thepapercutpost · 3 years

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Female Artists Fighting For Their Due Are Not Being Greedy; They’re Defending the Futures of Their Industries

"Scarlett Johansson" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (left). "File:191125 Taylor Swift at the 2019 American Music Awards (cropped).png" by Cosmopolitan UK is licensed under CC BY 3.0 (right)

In May of 2010, Iron Man 2 introduced Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A few months later, Netflix—whose subscribers were, in majority, still receiving DVDs—began offering a standalone streaming subscription independent from its DVD rentals. It wasn’t until nearly ten years later that Disney, parent company of Marvel Entertainment, would launch its own streaming service, Disney+. And in 2021, after three pandemic-related delays, Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff’s solo film which fans had been demanding for 11 years, was finally released.

The long-awaited film garnered $80 million in North American theaters during its opening weekend, more than any other film released during the pandemic era. (In comparison, MCU’s last pre-pandemic release, Spider-Man: Far From Home, made $185 million). Because of the somewhat mercurial state of indoor gatherings around the world, Disney chose to make Black Widow available simultaneously in theaters and for an additional $30 fee for Disney+ subscribers. After opening weekend, in an unprecedented move in streaming service transparency, Disney revealed the film had grossed $60 million through Disney+’s Premier Access feature.

The next weekend, the film suffered a 67% drop in box office sales. Disney has not since released streaming numbers.

Within a month, news broke that Johansson was suing Disney over the film’s hybrid release. Her suit claims that her contract for the film guaranteed an exclusively theatrical release and that her compensation was largely tied to box office revenue, which was impacted by the film’s simultaneous availability on Disney+. The breach of contract is a serious allegation against the company, and it comes from the embodiment of one of the longest-standing pillars of its most successful franchise.

Disney’s response? Make her the bad guy. Paint her as the greedy, insensitive Hollywood prima donna. Publish her salary to prove it, despite a policy of “never publicly disclos[ing] salaries or deal terms.” And blame the pandemic.

In a statement, the company claimed Johansson’s suit had “no merit whatsoever” and called it “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Their argument here is twofold: 1) the pandemic prevented them from releasing the movie in theaters, and 2) she should be happy with the millions she has already gotten.

We have all had to make concessions due to the pandemic, albeit most of us on a smaller scale. But Disney’s sudden overwhelming concern for public health and safety is less than convincing. Their claim that they couldn’t have released the film in theaters proves baseless on account of it, well, being released in theaters. What they seemingly meant was that the pandemic meant a smaller payday from movie theaters, so they found an additional method of distributing the film that just so happened to free them of the obligation of splitting its revenue with the star, not to mention movie theater companies.

Appealing to the sympathies of the billions of people in the world who can’t even fathom the amount of money Johansson and her movie star peers earn for each film they make is a slightly smarter move. After all, a jury who decides whether she wins her case will likely consist of non-millionaires who may be biased against a woman who out-earns them by two or three digits. Regardless of the amount of money in question or the wealth of the individual, a deal is a deal, and a written contract is legally binding. The bottom line is that Disney failed to honor the agreed-upon contingencies (ie. a theatrical release). Not to mention, this argument expects us to forget that Disney itself is a conglomerate worth hundreds of billions of dollars, hardly a poor, innocent victim of a rich woman’s greed.

In fact, Disney’s mentioning of “the $20 million she has received to date” only broadens the scope in Johansson’s favor. She is a Tony winner, two-time Oscar nominee, and one of the highest-grossing actors in box office history. If she retired today, her entire family would be able to live a life of luxury for generations to come without having to work a day. So why nitpick over the extra $50 million or so she could have earned with a theaters-only release, cause a Hollywood-sized fuss, and risk the company dragging her name through the mud, as they so predictably did?

Let’s ask Taylor Swift. The singer-songwriter shot to international superstardom in 2008, making her the face of pop music. In recent years, she has fiercely advocated for artists’ rights after experiencing her own long and ultimately failed attempt to buy back her master recordings from Big Machine Label Group, which was acquired by music manager Scooter Braun in 2019.

Similarly, Johansson’s representatives attempted to reach out to Disney after the announcement of Black Widow’s hybrid release, which could possibly have amended their agreement and avoided the lawsuit altogether. But, like Swift, she was ignored.

Swift famously writes her own music, often from her own experiences. Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine, claims that she had the opportunity to own her masters, but, from both his account and Swift’s, the offer was contingent upon her staying with the company. Seeing as doing business with his company was what landed her in this situation, she was not willing to accept this condition, nor did she later accept Braun’s offer to buy back her music, a deal from which Braun would have profited and which came with its own condition: an NDA.

Her claim that Braun’s deal “stripped [her] of [her] life’s work” ignited a highly publicized feud not just between Swift and Braun but between their friends, loyalists, and supporters. Swift’s team shared her stance on artists’ rights while Braun’s defended his nice guy image. Braun himself didn’t comment, instead allowing his allies to take shots at the singer. His wife, Yael Cohen Braun, in an Instagram post referred to Swift as a “bully” and to her claim as a “temper tantrum,” telling her, “the world has watched you collect and drop friends like wilted flowers.” Justin Bieber, a client of Braun’s, suggested Swift's intention when expressing her disgust over the deal was “to get sympathy.”

Even after selling her masters to a private equity firm for $300 million in November 2020, Braun continues to profit off every CD and every stream of every song from every one of the six studio albums Swift recorded while she was signed with Big Machine, an agreement she first entered into at age 15.

Where Johansson is clearly in the right legally, Swift is morally right. Borshetta and Braun were under no legal obligation to sell her the rights to the songs she wrote and created, but they should have.

Both Swift and Johansson have incited high profile disputes, and both have been called by critics the “wrong person” to serve as the figurehead for the big picture arguments based on how much money they make. Two multi-millionaires are hardly the best representatives of the little guy trying to make it in the entertainment industry. It’s no skin off either of their noses if they don’t revolutionize the way artists and actors are paid.

Actually, it makes them the best voices for their causes. The millions of dollars at stake in each of their deals, while massive amounts to the average onlooker, would be a drop in the bucket of their wealth. Yes, they both have huge platforms and established fanbases they can use to garner support, but the fact that they have no skin in the game is their real strength. They don’t need the money, which proves they’re not doing it for themselves.

Disney is trying to hide behind the pandemic to defend its decision to release Black Widow on Disney+, but the issue was present even before the pandemic started, evident in Johansson’s agreement that the film have an exclusively theatrical release. Her suit claims she insisted upon this contingency when the streaming service was launched.

Streaming changed the game. Johansson is likely not the only one to have lost out on media companies’ failure to compensate talent fairly in the wake of the streaming evolution, but she is the first to draw the amount of attention to it that she has. Her claim opens the eyes of fellow actors, film distributors, and the public to an issue that extends beyond her: if the film industry is capable of adapting their content to this new source of distribution, then they can accommodate the role of actors into the changing environment and pay them, and other individuals who make their films possible, what they’re owed.

Record companies can stand to shake things up, too. Contracts that grant an artist’s masters to the labels that produce their music, such as the one Swift signed with Big Machine in 2004, are the norm in the music industry. Hers is far from the first battle to be fought by artists over the rights to their own music. There was the famous Paul McCartney v. Prince debacle in the 1980s, for example. In most cases, revenue is doled out to the label, the producers, the managers, and, last and least, the artists. It’s a system that assumes the performers are just lucky to be there, to have the opportunity to become the next Taylor Swift.

But streaming isn’t just for the movies—it’s changing the music game, too. Artists used to be entirely dependent on record companies to promote their music and get it into the hands of radio stations, but streaming sites and social media have allowed artists to release music independently. Working with a record company is still highly advantageous to an up-and-coming artist, but the other options available to them leave some breathing room for an artist to negotiate and retain the rights to their own music.

So, will wins for Swift and Johansson mean making two rich people richer? Yes. But it also starts a conversation. It gets the word out to young artists and actors that they should expect more from the publishers and executives they work with. And it sends a message to CEOs and big corporations: change with the times.

Since leaving Big Machine, Swift has signed with Universal Music Publishing Group in an agreement that guarantees her the rights to the music she creates with them, from Lover on. She is also in the process of re-recording her first six albums, an endeavor that began with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in April and will continue with the scheduled release of Red (Taylor’s Version) in November.

“Hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation,” Swift wrote in a post. “You deserve to own the art you make.”

#opinion #entertainment #business #feature

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Friday, June 4, 2021

America’s Biggest Companies (Fortune) Fortune magazine released its annual ranking of America’s largest companies, with Walmart topping the list for the ninth straight year. Boosted by the pandemic-driven consumer shift to online and bulk purchasing, the retail behemoth brought in nearly $560B in revenue. The company was followed by Amazon ($386B in revenue), Apple ($275B), CVS Health ($269B), and UnitedHealth Group ($257B). The combined list generated almost $14T in revenue last year—about two-thirds of the US economy.

Drought ravages California’s reservoirs ahead of hot summer (AP) Each year Lake Oroville helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops, sustain endangered salmon beneath its massive earthen dam and anchor the tourism economy of a Northern California county that must rebuild seemingly every year after unrelenting wildfires. But now the mighty lake—a linchpin in a system of aqueducts and reservoirs in the arid U.S. West that makes California possible—is shrinking with surprising speed amid a severe drought, with state officials predicting it will reach a record low later this summer. While droughts are common in California, this year’s is much hotter and drier than others, evaporating water more quickly from the reservoirs and the sparse Sierra Nevada snowpack that feeds them. The state’s more than 1,500 reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be this time of year, according to Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis. If Lake Oroville falls below 640 feet (195 meters)—which it could do by late August—state officials would shut down a major power plant for just the second time ever because of low water levels, straining the electrical grid during the peak demand of the hottest part of the summer.

Miami Faces the Hard Choices of Climate Change (NYT) Three years ago, not long after Hurricane Irma left parts of Miami underwater, the federal government embarked on a study to find a way to protect the vulnerable South Florida coast from deadly and destructive storm surge. Already, no one likes the answer. Build a wall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed in its first draft of the study, now under review. Six miles of it, in fact, mostly inland, running parallel to the coast through neighborhoods—except for a one-mile stretch right on Biscayne Bay, past the gleaming sky-rises of Brickell, the city’s financial district. The dramatic $6 billion proposal remains tentative and at least five years off. But the startling suggestion of a massive sea wall up to 20 feet high cutting across beautiful Biscayne Bay was enough to jolt some Miamians to attention: The hard choices that will be necessary to deal with the city’s many environmental challenges are here, and few people want to face them. The trouble is that the magnitude of the interconnected obstacles the region faces can feel overwhelming, and none of the possible solutions are cheap, easy or pretty.

A deadly vote (Washington Post) TAXCO, Mexico—Mario Figueroa sat in his armored SUV, surrounded by bodyguards clutching semiautomatic rifles. The bulletproof vest was stashed behind the back seat. These days, Figueroa rarely travels without his security team. As a candidate for mayor of this Spanish colonial city—once popular with American tourists, now lashed by drug violence—the 53-year-old businessman has already taken a bullet in the chest. Mexico is in the final days of one of its most violent electoral campaigns in modern times. Eighty-nine politicians have been killed since September, according to the security consulting firm Etellekt. Scores more have been wounded or threatened. The campaign has become a stark illustration of crime organizations’ quest to expand their control of Mexico’s territory. The violence has focused largely on races for mayor and other local government posts. “They want control of the police, control of public works projects, the budget, and illicit activities,” said Marcial Rodríguez Saldaña, the state leader of Morena, the party of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “We’ve reached an extreme,” Figueroa said.

US troops storm sunflower oil factory in Bulgaria (Foreign Policy) The owner of a sunflower oil factory in Bulgaria has taken legal action after U.S. soldiers accidentally stormed his business during a NATO training exercise. The mix-up occurred while soldiers were simulating the clearing of an airfield in southern Bulgaria, and continued on to Marin Dimitrov’s factory, where workers watched on as gun-wielding soldiers stalked through the premises. The incident has led to a rebuke from the highest levels with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev calling it “absolutely unacceptable.” “We always learn from these exercises and are fully investigating the cause of this mistake,” the U.S. embassy in Sofia said in a statement.

Beijing Introduces Three-Child Policy (Foreign Policy) On Monday, China announced that married couples would be allowed to have up to three children, raising the official two-child limit in a widely anticipated move. Despite government hopes, the introduction of the two-child policy in 2016 failed to produce a baby boom. It’s unlikely the latest policy change will affect China’s fertility rate, either. The public has responded with mocking contempt toward the idea that government restraints have held parents back from having more children, rather than the exorbitant costs of child rearing in China—from migrant families forced to pay fees for local public schools to upper-class parents who fear their children will fall behind without flute or calligraphy lessons. So why keep a limit on the number of children a couple can have at all? One reason is to provide cover for the ongoing forced sterilization of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, whose birthrate fell by nearly 50 percent between 2017 and 2020. Another is that China now has an enormous family planning bureaucracy that supports many jobs. Party leaders may also be concerned that the rich flaunting large families—such as late Macao casino tycoon Stanley Ho, known for his four wives and 17 children—would spark resentment.

Lebanese leaders exchange barbs as country sinks into crisis (AP) Lebanon’s president and prime minister-designate traded barbs Wednesday, accusing one another of obstruction, negligence and insolence in a war or words that has for months obstructed the formation of a new government as the country sinks deeper into economic and financial crisis. The power struggle between the premier-designate, Saad Hariri, on one side and President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil on the other, has worsened despite warnings from world leaders and economic experts of the dire economic conditions tiny Lebanon is facing. The World Bank on Tuesday said Lebanon’s crisis is one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years. In a late night burst of anger, protesters blocked main roads in Beirut and north of the capital. A young activist told a local TV station the protest was against the constant humiliation of Lebanese who line up to fill their cars with fuel, increasing power cuts, search for medicine and deal with confused banking decisions that are robbing thousands of their savings. The Lebanese pound, pegged to the dollar for 30 years at 1,507, has been in a free fall since late 2019. It is now trading at nearly 13,000 to the dollar at the black market.

Netanyahu opponents reach coalition deal to oust Israeli PM (AP) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents announced Wednesday that they have reached a deal to form a new governing coalition, paving the way for the ouster of the longtime Israeli leader. The dramatic announcement by opposition leader Yair Lapid and his main coalition partner, Naftali Bennett, came shortly before a midnight deadline and prevented what could have been Israel’s fifth consecutive election in just over two years. The agreement still needs to be approved by the Knesset, or parliament, in a vote that is expected to take place early next week. If it goes through, Lapid and a diverse array of partners that span the Israeli political spectrum will end Netanyahu’s record-setting but divisive 12-year rule. Netanyahu, desperate to remain in office while he fights corruption charges, is expected to do everything possible in the coming days to prevent the new coalition from taking power. If he fails, he will be pushed into the opposition. (Foreign Policy) While a new government is not yet set in stone, normal business carries on: Benny Gantz arrives in Washington today to request $1 billion in emergency military aid in order to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome defenses and help restock its bomb supply following the bombardment of Gaza. “I would imagine that the administration would say yes to this request and it will sail through Congress,” Senator Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday.

In Syria camp, forgotten children are molded by IS ideology (AP) At the sprawling al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, children pass their days roaming the dirt roads, playing with mock swords and black banners in imitation of Islamic State group militants. Few can read or write. For some, the only education is from mothers giving them IS propaganda. It has been more than two years since the Islamic State group’s self-declared “caliphate” was brought down. And it has been more than two years that some 27,000 children have been left to languish in al-Hol camp, which houses families of IS members. Most of them not yet teenagers, they are spending their childhood in a limbo of miserable conditions with no schools, no place to play or develop, and seemingly no international interest in resolving their situation. Only one institution is left to mold them: remnants of the Islamic State group. Kurdish authorities and aid groups fear the camp will create a new generation of militants. They are pleading with home countries to take the women and children back. The problem is that home governments often see the children as posing a danger rather than as needing rescue.

‘Come On In, Boys’: A Wave of the Hand Sets Off Spain-Morocco Migrant Fight (NYT) Daouda Faye, a 25-year-old migrant from Senegal, was elated when he heard that Moroccan border guards had suddenly started waving in undocumented migrants across the border to Ceuta, a fenced-off Spanish enclave on the North African coast. “‘Come on in, boys,’” the guards told him and others as they reached the border on May 17, Mr. Faye said. Normally, Morocco tightly controls the fenced borders around Ceuta, a six-mile-long peninsula on Morocco’s northern coast that Spain has governed since the 1600s. But now its military was allowing migrants into this toehold of Europe. Over the next two days, as many as 12,000 people flowed over the border to Ceuta in hopes of reaching mainland Spain, engulfing the city of 80,000. The crisis has laid bare the unique pressure point Morocco has over Spain on migration. Spanish government officials and other experts say Morocco increasingly sees the migrants as a kind of currency and is leveraging its control over them to extract financial and political prizes from Spain. Hours after the migrants began pouring into Ceuta, Spain approved 30 million euros, about $37 million, in aid to Morocco for border policing.

A Military Drone With A Mind Of Its Own Was Used In Combat, U.N. Says (NPR) Military-grade autonomous drones can fly themselves to a specific location, pick their own targets and kill without the assistance of a remote human operator. Such weapons are known to be in development, but until recently there were no reported cases of autonomous drones killing fighters on the battlefield. Now, a United Nations report about a March 2020 skirmish in the military conflict in Libya says such a drone, known as a lethal autonomous weapons system—or LAWS—has made its wartime debut. But the report does not say explicitly that the LAWS killed anyone. The assault came during fighting between the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord and forces aligned with Gen. Khalifa Haftar, according to the report by the U.N. Panel of Experts on Libya. “Logistics convoys and retreating [Haftar-affiliated forces] were subsequently hunted down and remotely engaged by the unmanned combat aerial vehicles or the lethal autonomous weapons systems such as the STM Kargu-2 ... and other loitering munitions,” the panel wrote. The Kargu-2 is an attack drone made by the Turkish company STM that can be operated both autonomously and manually and that purports to use “machine learning” and “real-time image processing” against its targets.

#headlines #news

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wineanddinosaur · 3 years

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Morals Over Margins: A Blueprint for a More Equitable Hospitality Industry

The spring and summer of 2020 brought a reckoning for many Americans, with a global pandemic causing mass unemployment and the murder of George Floyd spurring protesters across the country to decry police violence against Black lives. For the restaurant industry, these events brought every failure and uncomfortable truth to the forefront — and exploited and jobless workers suddenly had plenty of time for such conversations.

Social media was flooded with infographics about the racist origins of tipping and the inequities that have kept the hospitality machine running in America since its birth at the blurry end of legalized slavery in this country. Capitalism itself was under a lens, the unfair concentration of power and profit magnified with every report of another billionaire doubling or tripling wealth. Replacing this economic and political system is a long shot, but anti-capitalist practices have existed in bars and restaurants for years now. So what does this look like, and why should everyone care?

Fair Wages

Capitalism is an economic system wherein the means of production of goods and services is privately owned rather than state-owned, with those private owners reaping the sole benefit of profits. That leaves the “means of production” — bartenders straining your Margarita and line cooks preparing your al dente pasta — in the hospitality industry exposed to exploitation thanks to notoriously slim margins for success. And since the hospitality industry, like most in this country, was built on the backs of Black people, it should be surprising to no one that the mistreatment of BIPOC, immigrant, and undocumented workers remains prevalent, despite their significant majority as employees in restaurants today.

One of the most basic ways an establishment can ensure the safety of its staff is by providing stable pay. Sadly, tipped workers who serve guests in bars and restaurants often make a subminimum wage, which is legal in all but seven states. Organizations like One Fair Wage seek to end this subminimum wage, but so have business owners.

In 2015, the practice of paying restaurant staff a higher but un-tipped wage cropped up noticeably. Prominent chefs like Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., began including service fees in guests’ checks in order to facilitate the change, while now-closed Bar Agricole in San Francisco raised its prices 20 percent to do the same. Chef Amanda Cohen was an early advocate for abolishing tipping in New York City when she adopted the practice at her Lower East Side location of Dirt Candy.

A Level Field

One of the most prominent supporters of the movement was Union Square Hospitality Group’s Danny Meyer, who announced back in 2015 that USHG would gradually end tipping and raise menu prices at all of its restaurants. Citing pay disparities between back- and front-of-house employees, which often fuels an unspoken feud between the two, the move to eliminate tipping at such a large and influential restaurant group convinced others to follow suit. This past summer, Meyer reversed the company’s “Hospitality Included” policy, meaning that servers at Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe (to name just a couple) are once again working for tips.

Where Meyer posited that staff should benefit from guests wanting to tip generously in the wake of an economic crisis, Stephanie Watanabe, co-founder of Brooklyn wine bar Coast and Valley, found the opposite to be true. “We instituted a universal living wage, which was super important for us,” she says. “I think we did that in the summer after realizing that folks were not tipping.”

With tips plummeting, Watanabe and her partner Eric Hsu began to have the conversation about livable wages with their staff. “It really solidified for us when Covid hit: People before profits, period. It’s non-negotiable,” she says.

Thanks to her background in filmmaking in Hollywood, Watanabe brought outside perspectives to the argument against tipping, too. The “Most Favored Nations” clause utilized in movie contracts for smaller independent projects — paying the A-list celebrities the same amount as the supporting players — inspired her to try something similar. “We saw the dynamic between dining room and kitchen [employees], and it really bothered us,” says Watanabe of the tipped FOH/untipped BOH schism. “So for me, this was a way to level that and say, ‘No. We’re not going to pay this person less because somehow their job is deemed less valuable than the person who is able to go to get their WSET [Wine & Spirit Education Trust certification].’”

The friction between staff, coupled with the usual caveats of tipping — tipped workers experience higher rates of sexual harassment and people of color are tipped less than their white coworkers — led to a discussion with staff about experimenting with a fixed wage. “We understand the deep roots that tipping has and how ultimately, it’s incredibly, incredibly harmful and racist, and that doesn’t sit well,” Watanabe says. “Every single person, including the owner, gets paid $25 an hour.” This anti-capitalist strategy, which values humans over money, brings her staff equality and stability. It is not, however, an easy way to run a business in America.

“Every month, we’re losing money. But we’re like, ‘and?’” says Watanabe. “Then so be it, then our business can’t survive. Period. And that’s a shame, but it’s also a function of capitalism and society and these systems and structures that exist.”

With profit margins hovering around 1 percent at places like Coast and Valley right now, most investors would be hesitant to risk it all, but many of Watanabe and Hsu’s backers are friends and family who truly believe in their vision. The team recognizes the real struggle that most bars face. “There are good folks out there, and the problem isn’t [that] owners don’t want to pay their people. Some of the time, it’s that they can’t,” Watanabe says.

Even for the big players, a seemingly minimal loss in income might come with strings attached. “Who knows if they’ve got investors and people that they’re beholden to that don’t share their commitment to those things?” Watanabe says. “Then oftentimes, you don’t have a lot of control over it. And that’s where capitalism kind of just comes in and wreaks havoc.”

Nobody is saying that flouting our capitalist tendencies is painless. “To do the right thing is really, really, really hard in this world that we live in,” Watanabe says. “I think it’s like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. But for Eric and I, … we can’t violate our own integrity, and so maybe that means we’re bad business people. And at the end of the day, I’d rather be a bad business person than a bad person.”

A High Road

Andrea Borgen Abdallah, owner of Barcito & Bodega in Los Angeles, was once a general manager at Union Square Hospitality Group’s Blue Smoke in Battery Park City, Calif. “I became really interested in that model and what it hopes to achieve — especially when it came to dealing with the inequity between kitchen staff and waitstaff,” she says. Borgen Abdallah followed USHG’s lead and did away with tipping less than a year after Barcito’s September 2015 opening.

Thanks to the restaurant’s proximity to the L.A. Convention Center, Borgen Abdallah noticed business was very cyclical. “[On a] Monday, I would out-sell a Friday night, and there was no method to the madness,” she says. But eliminating tipping created stability for her employees, ensuring that shifts would be predictably fruitful on any given day. “I was also able to introduce healthcare as a result of that,” Borgen Abdallah says — no small feat, given that the Affordable Care Act only requires insurance to be offered if an establishment has a larger staff of 50 or more full-time employees.

In March of 2020, with the shutdowns brought upon by the rise of Covid in the U.S., Borgen Abdallah closed her restaurant and made two important decisions. First, Barcito would continue to pay for the health insurance of its furloughed employees. Second, it would keep jobs available for anyone lacking a solid safety net. In this way, even though the restaurant was unable to provide the same hours, it was able to keep its doors open and its vulnerable staff cared for.

Last year, Barcito was also one of the first restaurants to participate in High Road Kitchens — a group of restaurants working to provide food on a sliding scale to low-wage workers, healthcare workers, and others in need. One Fair Wage, which fights to end subminimum wages nationwide, oversees the program through RAISE (Restaurants Advancing Industry Standards in Employment). Participating High Road Restaurants like Barcito commit to advocating for fair wages and increased racial and gender equity through hiring, training, and promotional practices.

Borgen Abdallah’s dedication to the fight for better wages began while working directly for One Fair Wage in the past, even making trips to Washington, D.C., and her commitment doesn’t seem to be waning. “I think this pandemic certainly exacerbated a lot of the issues that we’ve had for a really long time,” she says. “And I think a lot of people wanted to sweep [them] under the rug and finally were forced to reconcile.” Now, with all that is known about the instability of a life reliant on tips without guaranteed access to healthcare, paid leave, and other benefits, real change could be on the horizon.

The Hope

It has been one year since the start of the pandemic, and the cry of the overworked and underinsured is once again becoming just a murmur. An increase in vaccine availability quiets much of the fear of going back to a job where contracting Covid remains a danger, but bar and restaurant workers are still far from safe. Returning to work during a national emergency can be confusing, adding new ways for management to exploit staff such as through unsafe Covid practices, unexplained pay changes, and denial of federally required paid sick leave. After so much loss and disruption, mental health is suffering, and affordable insurance is often still tied to employment. One look at the long list of resources put together by the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, a nonprofit created by and for restaurant workers, gives some insight into just how vastly workers’ lives have been and continue to be affected.

With the passing of President Biden’s latest Covid relief package, small restaurants received access to $28.6 billion in grants, but a $15 federal minimum wage amendment failed. “I think people kind of started to talk about [issues for restaurants],” observes Watanabe, “but it was just like ‘bailout bailout bailout!’ But … that’s not going to cut it anymore.”

Last month, Barcito was able to get all of its employees vaccinated against Covid. As eligibility opens up to the rest of the public, a new normalcy feels within reach. But the sense of urgency to repair broken systems within hospitality threatens to dwindle. “I feel like it has kind of started to fall to the wayside,” Borgen Abdallah says. “The light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter and brighter, and I think it’s just important that we [have] those conversations and that that continues to feel really urgent.”

Anti-capitalist methods can actually work well within our capitalist society, even beyond championing workers’ rights through ensuring stable wages, paid time off, health care, or shared ownership opportunities. American bars and restaurants will need to look at sustainability and minimizing harm not just to people, but to the environment. Ambitious bar programs that are eliminating plastics — eco-friendly paper, metal, bamboo, and even hay straws have become standard — tackling water usage, and targeting waste by focusing on the creative use of what most might toss out have a real chance to lead the way as well.

“I’m hopeful, but I also am disappointed in the industry,” says Watanabe. “I feel like we’ve had a year where we could have addressed some really deep problematic systemic problems in this industry.” Businesses must look frankly once again at where they are lacking in response to the racism, sexism, and ableism that has pervaded hospitality since its early beginnings in this country. If capitalism benefits from white supremacy, then now is the time to challenge them both. “Ultimately, it’s not just about hospitality,” Watanabe says. “This is happening all over the place, and there’s a lot of reckonings happening. It’s really about changing the way we do business to be more conscious, to be more people-centered, to be more thoughtful.”

2020 may have broken us down with its harsh realities, shuttering more than 110,000 bars and restaurants nationwide, but as long as we can keep the momentum of learning and reimagining a better future for this industry — one where it values lives over profits — there is hope. “It’s been a tough year,” says Borgen Abdallah. “I think a lot of it could have been avoided had we done things differently, and I don’t think reverting back to the old way of doing things is the answer.”

The article Morals Over Margins: A Blueprint for a More Equitable Hospitality Industry appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/anti-capitalism-hospitality/

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johnboothus · 3 years

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Morals Over Margins: A Blueprint for a More Equitable Hospitality Industry

Fair Wages

A Level Field

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mrsbluebertgreggleson · 5 years

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A federal judge raised serious constitutional questions about the Legislature’s crackdown on Amendment 4, saying lawmakers created a “mess” that has left felons afraid to register to vote.

“What we have now is an administrative nightmare,” said U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, who is overseeing a challenge to the law by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, during a Tuesday hearing in Tallahassee.

The ACLU asked Hinkle to temporarily stop the law, which requires felons to pay back all court fees, fines and restitution to victims before being allowed to vote. Hinkle is expected to rule on it in the coming weeks.

But Hinkle made clear that the Legislature’s law, which critics have called a “poll tax,” raises constitutional questions that attorneys for Gov. Ron DeSantis, Secretary of State Laurel Lee and county elections supervisors were unable to answer after two days of arguments.

It’s become an administrative nightmare, he said, because of problems created by lawmakers. Even so, he said it was the Legislature that was best suited to fix the law, which he said was preferable to judges like himself trying to fix it.

Amendment 4 was supposed to reverse a 150-year-old racist law and restore the right to vote to most felons in Florida who completed “all terms of sentence, including probation and parole.”

An attorney for those who helped pass Amendment 4 in 2018 had said “all terms” included court fees, fines and restitution, and the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature imposed those terms this year, despite nationwide criticism that their plan would stop poor people from voting.

Hinkle on Tuesday agreed that lawmakers created a system that kept people from voting who couldn’t ever afford to pay back those fees.

And that was a problem, he said, because of a crucial 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling from 2005, Johnson v. Bush, which was also a challenge to the state’s Jim Crow-era law preventing felons from voting.

“Access to the franchise cannot be made to depend on an individual’s financial resources,” the opinion states.

Because whatever he decides is almost certain to be appealed, Hinkle told lawyers that the opinion was his “starting point” on whether the Legislature’s law is legal.

He said his view wasn’t radical, noting that eight of the 12 circuit judges signed off on the 2005 ruling.

“These are not judges on the fringe,” he said.

On top of that, Hinkle questioned whether the Legislature’s actions might have run afoul of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment states that voting in federal elections “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.”

Hinkle did not call it a “poll tax.” But he did wonder whether requiring felons to pay court fees constituted an “other tax.”

Court fees are created to subsidize the court system, and judges have no discretion over them, Hinkle noted.

“Why is that not a tax?” he asked lawyers for the state.

They had no good answers.

Attorney Mohammad Jazil represented Lee, who as secretary of state oversees Florida’s elections systems. He said court fees were merely another burden felons had to pay back to society for their actions.

Hinkle seemed unconvinced.

What was apparent after the day and a half of debate is that lawmakers created an almost hopelessly complicated process for felons to restore their rights.

Felons have no easy way to determine if they can vote. Clerks of court are unable to confirm whether some felons have paid back all their fees. And elections supervisors are using voter registration forms that are different from those used by Lee.

Lawmakers now require voters to check one of three boxes when they register: (a) that they’ve never been convicted of a felony; (b) if they have been convicted of a felony, to affirm they’ve had their right to vote restored by the state’s clemency board; (c) if they have been convicted of a felony, to affirm they’ve had their right to vote restored by Amendment 4.

Submitting false information on the form is a third-degree felony, carrying up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Hinkle said the options on the form make no sense, and don’t even apply to people who were convicted in other states. Amendment 4 only applies to convictions in Florida state courts. Leon County’s elections supervisor said he was still using the old form because it was less confusing.

Hinkle wondered whether the new form was intended to discourage felons from registering, since they could later discover they still owe fees from some long-ago felony case.

Lawyers for the state again had no good answer. Jazil conceded that the language was “inartfully worded,” and that the secretary of state was considering adding additional check boxes to cover people convicted in other states.

Felons described for Hinkle the byzantine, and sometimes insurmountable, efforts they’ve had to go through to find out if they owe any fines, fees or restitution, or the damages felons must pay as part of their sentence.

No agency in Florida tracks restitution, for example, meaning felons who stopped paying it can’t find out how much they still owe. And while county clerks of court track payment of court fees and fines, they’ve had massive trouble with older cases.

Betty Riddle, 61, has drug-related felony convictions dating to 1975. She testified that the Sarasota County clerk hasn’t been able to dig up her old records to tell her how much, if anything, she owes on cases before 1990. The clerk in Hillsborough County couldn’t produce any records at all from her 1988 case, she said.

A supervisor at the Leon County clerk of court testified the office didn’t even have records about court fees and fines for convictions before 1998.

Other felons said the sources of information were unreliable. Attorneys showed two examples where the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s criminal database showed felons owed nothing, but county clerk websites showed felons owed thousands of dollars.

The Legislature allowed felons to pay their financial obligations another way: by converting them to community service hours, typically at $10 per hour. But Hinkle scoffed at the idea.

“You’re not going to win on the argument you’ve come up with some alternatives,” Hinkle told lawyers for the state and supervisors. “If you had a $25,000 fine in a drug case, nobody’s going to work that off through community service hours.”

Hinkle said the Legislature could, and probably should, make changes to the law, saying they were “free to adopt provisions more generous to felons than Amendment 4.”

Lawmakers had the chance to do that during this year’s legislative session. State Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, advocated for a bill that would allow felons to vote while they paid down their fines and fees.

But in the last week of session, GOP lawmakers instead chose the more restrictive route.

Hinkle said a new law could resolve many issues felons are facing and that action by lawmakers would be better than a judge like himself deciding how the law should be implemented. He set a trial date for April 6, three weeks after the next legislative session ends.

“The Legislature,” he said, “can make it a whole lot easier.”

Article published and updated October 8, 2019, written by Lawrence Mower.

And:

Clifford Tyson wants to help choose America’s next president. But the Florida resident fears his vote might return him to jail.

Tyson, 63, owes court-ordered fines and fees for three felony convictions, one for robbery, two for theft, all decades old. Under a Florida law that went into effect July 1, he must pay those penalties before casting a ballot or risk being prosecuted for voter fraud.

Tyson searched court records, first on his own, then with the help of a nonprofit legal advocacy group. They say that because Florida has no comprehensive system for tracking such fines, the documents don’t make clear what he owes. The records, viewed by Reuters, show potential sums ranging from $846 to a couple thousand dollars related to crimes he committed in the late 1970s and 1990s. Tyson says he won’t risk voting until Florida authorities can tell him for sure.

“Until there is clarity, as much as I want to vote, I won’t do it,” Tyson said.

The Tampa pastor is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the payments law, which was crafted by Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, also a Republican. The law came just months after Floridians approved a ballot initiative restoring voting rights to more than 1 million felons who have completed their sentences; that change to the state’s Constitution created a potentially huge new crop of voters in a critical battleground state ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The lawsuit, filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Brennan Center for Justice, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, alleges the fees requirement defies the will of Florida voters and amounts to an illegal poll tax on newly enfranchised Florida felons, many of them minorities.

But another argument is shaping up to be central to the plaintiffs’ case: Florida has no consolidated system for determining what felons owe or certifying that they have paid up. It’s a situation that ex-offenders say makes it virtually impossible for them to prove they are eligible to vote.

Those claims are bolstered by state election officials who say they can’t calculate what felons owe, either, according to a Reuters review of 7 depositions, emails and other internal correspondence from voting administrators submitted by plaintiffs’ attorneys as part of the lawsuit.

Florida has no centralized database where records of court-ordered fines and fees - and any payments of those penalties - are stored, election and court officials say. To get that information, felons typically must search documents in courts where they were convicted, be they federal or state, inside or outside Florida. Records have been found to be incomplete, contradictory or missing, plaintiffs’ attorneys say.

With the Feb. 18 deadline to register for the state’s 2020 presidential primary approaching, the issue is taking on urgency. An estimated 436,000 felons have fees to settle before they can vote, according to a study by University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith, an expert witness for the ACLU. The study was based on court data and Department of Corrections records.

The stakes are high. Florida commands 29 of the 538 electoral votes that are used under the U.S. Electoral College system to select the American president. In Florida and most other states, the candidate who places first in the popular vote – even if just by a hair – wins all the electoral votes. Florida has a history of tight elections and contested outcomes.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys say Florida has shifted all responsibility for compliance with the new payments law to ex-offenders, who risk prosecution if they get it wrong. The state contends the legislature merely implemented the constitutional amendment as it was written on the ballot.

The legislation, known as SB 7066, “sows seeds of confusion,” said Leah Aden, deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “It will chill participation.”

Some of the state’s 67 county elections supervisors - the public servants who ultimately decide which felons get culled from the rolls and which can stay - expressed concern in their depositions and to Reuters about making mistakes that could invite challenges to future election results.

Five testified recently in the lawsuit that they lack the manpower to do detailed searches or have no way of ascertaining for certain whether ex-offenders have met their financial obligations under SB 7066.

They said they are relying on Florida’s Department of State, which manages the state’s elections, to help them determine who is ineligible. That agency is developing a procedure to send counties regularly updated lists of felons on their rolls who have unpaid fines and fees, but it has no timetable as to when it will be ready, said Maria Matthews, the director of the Department of State’s Division of Elections, in a September deposition. Matthews did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

For now, the agency is providing counties only with names of Florida felons who are incarcerated, and thus ineligible to vote, Toshia Brown, chief of the department’s Voter Registration Services, said in an August deposition. Brown did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

An early list sent to Leon County in Florida’s Panhandle region appeared to contain inaccuracies, Deputy Elections Supervisor Christopher Moore said in a July email to his staff, which was viewed by Reuters. Moore’s office researched a June list provided by the Department of State containing 66 names of allegedly incarcerated felons, but could not determine whether felony convictions existed for 24 of them – 36% of the total - emails exchanged between Moore and his staff show.

“This process is not off to a very accurate start and we are playing with people’s eligibility to vote,” Moore said in the July email. Moore told Reuters that subsequent data his office has received from the Department of State has gotten better.

Sarah Revell, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the Department of State reviews information from a variety of sources, makes an initial determination on a voter’s eligibility, then passes that along to county supervisors. She said the agency is working to “improve the accuracy and efficiency of the information,” but said it’s up to those elections supervisors to make the final call.

Some backers of the payments law say the responsibility should be on ex-offenders, not the state, to figure out how to comply with SB 7066.

“If you’re going to register to vote and you’re a former felon, it’s worth double checking to make sure you took care of everything,” said J.C. Martin, chairman of the Polk County Republican Party in central Florida.

A federal judge in the Northern District of Florida has set a Monday hearing on the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to throw out the fees requirement. A decision could come as early as this month.

NO CENTRALIZED DATABASE

Florida stripped felons of their votes during the Jim Crow era in 1868, a ban that endured 150 years and disproportionately affected black voters. As recently as 2016, more than 1.4 million people with felony convictions were barred from voting in Florida, including one in five African American adults, according to The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice nonprofit, which used state conviction and incarceration records for the study.

In November 2018, nearly 65% of Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to felons, except those convicted of murder and sex crimes.

Through the end of July, Florida recorded around 337,000 new voter registrations, 45,000 of them by African Americans. That’s a 22% increase in new black voters compared to the same period in 2015, the year preceding the last presidential election, a Reuters analysis of Florida voting data shows.

The ballot initiative said felons must first complete “all terms of their sentence including parole or probation.” Republican lawmakers interpreted that to include any court costs, fines, fees and restitution to victims imposed at sentencing. In May, they passed a bill requiring repayment as a condition for voting.

DeSantis, the governor, signed it into law in June amid criticism by voting rights advocates that the legislation was intended to suppress potential votes of African Americans, who tend to vote Democratic. DeSantis has dismissed claims that the law is a poll tax.

The state is still discussing ways to centralize data to track payments. Building a consolidated system could take years and cost millions, according to lawmakers and officials who debated the issue before the law’s passage.

“Right now, the system is just a mess,” ACLU attorney Julie Ebenstein said.

Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center said the group spent weeks trying to track down what Tyson owes, but couldn’t get a clear answer.

For example, Tyson has a 1998 theft conviction in Hillsborough County on Florida’s Gulf Coast. A judgment order on the clerk’s online docket shows he was ordered to pay $661 in costs, fines and fees. But a separate subpage on the website indicates he was ordered to pay $1,066. Still another shows a total of $573. Tyson’s lawyers say no officials have been able to explain the discrepancies.

State Representative Jamie Grant of Tampa, a Republican supporter of SB 7066, said critics of the law are the ones trying to defy the will of the electorate.

“You don’t get to change what the definition and terms are after people vote for it,” Grant said.

Article published October 7, 2019, written by Linda So (link here), article link here.

#voting #florida #institutional racism #politics #elections #classism #the legal system #reuters #links #text post #long post

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themoneybuff-blog · 5 years

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Tax Identity Theft: Protecting Your Credit and Finances

Tax season is here, and though you technically have until April 15 to file your returns, you might want to submit yours sooner than that at least if you want to avoid potential identity theft (and a whole lot of hassle). Tax-related identity theft is a growing problem in America, and the more security breaches, information hacks and digital business we do as a society, the more consumers who fall victim to it. In fact, in 2016 alone, thieves stole more than $21 billion in tax refunds as a result of this simple, yet clever, form of identity theft. Have you fallen victim to Tax ID Theft and need help dealing with the financial ramifications? Or just want to know ways to prevent it from happening to you? This guide can help. What is Tax-Related Identity Theft? Tax identity theft occurs when someone files a tax return using your Social Security Number. In some cases, thieves do this in order to claim a fraudulent tax refund. In others, they may have used your SSN to obtain employment. When this occurs, their employer will report all income to the IRS using that SSN. When you dont report that same income on your own return, the IRS will flag it as suspicious and require you to pay taxes on that additional income. It may even lead to a tax audit. Victims of tax-related identity theft face serious financial ramifications. Not only are they unable to file their own returns (or claim their tax refund), but it also may indicate other financial vulnerabilities are at work. Unauthorized loans, credit cards and other accounts may have been opened using the victims identity. Victims are typically encouraged to freeze their credit when tax-related identity theft occurs. They may also need to work with creditors and credit reporting agencies to clear their name of any fraudulent activity. How Does Tax Identity Theft Happen? Generally, tax-related identity theft and all identity theft, for that matter occurs after a persons sensitive information has become public or fallen into the wrong hands. This often happens due to security breaches or digital data hacks, like the recent ones involvingmortgage data,Quora users andMarriott/Starwood Hotels customers. Tax-related identity theft often occurs in February and early March, as thieves must file the fraudulent returns before the real taxpayers file their legitimate ones. Fortunately, theIRS is taking steps to reduce identity theft from many angles. The agency has hired more employees dedicated to stopping fraud, implemented additional safeguards and also changed many of the standards used to file and authorize returns. Despite these efforts, tax-related identity fraud does still occur and its important everyday Americans are ready should it happen. How to Know Youve Been Victimized If youve fallen victim to tax-related identity theft, there are several ways you might learn of it. First, your legitimate tax return may be rejected. When you go to e-file your tax return, the IRS will reject it if a return has already been filed for your Social Security Number. If you filed a paper return, you would get a rejection notice in the mail, alerting you that your return has already been filed. In the event the thief used your SSN to obtain a job, you likely wont learn of the issue until your returns have been filed and processed. Once the IRS sees that your reported income does not match the income reported by employers to your Social Security Number, they will send you a later saying you failed to report income or that you owe additional taxes. Its important to note that all communications from the IRS will come via mail. The agency will not call, text or email you regarding your returns or any suspicious activity. Do not provide sensitive information to anyone pretending to be an IRS agent via these methods and report the issue to theU.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. What to Do Next If you discover that you are the victim of tax identity theft, youll need to report it to both the IRS and the Federal Trade Commission. Specifically, youll need to: Fill out Letter 5071C, if youve received it. The IRS may send youLetter 5071C if it flags your return as suspicious or suspects fraud has been committed. This form requires you to verify your identity and breaks down the steps for doing so. Follow these directions exactly and take any additional steps recommended once your identity has been confirmed.UseForm 14039 to alert the IRS of the issue. Fill out the form, along with a copy of your Social Security card and drivers license, to Internal Revenue Service, P.O. Box 9039, Andover, MA, 01810-0939. Make sure to send the letter by certified mail to ensure it arrives safely and untampered with. If you received a notice in the mail, include this with your letter as well.Apply for anIdentity Protection PIN. These are six-digit numbers that the IRS will use to confirm your identity on all future returns and filings.Notify the Federal Trade Commission. File an identity theft report atIdentityTheft.gov in order to alert the FTC. This website can also help you create a plan of action for responding to identity theft.Contact yourstate tax agency. There may be additional steps your state requires when identity theft occurs. If you tried to e-file and got rejected, you should go ahead and file your paper return and pay any taxes you owe via mail. If at any point you need help in the process, call the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at 800.908.4490 for assistance. An agent can walk you through the appropriate steps to both report and respond to the theft. The Road Ahead Rebuilding Your Credit and Finances Though the IRS says it typically takes 120 days or less to address cases of identity theft, according to USA Today, it often takes as many as278 days to resolve a claim and get your legitimate refund. This doesnt even include the time and resources needed to address other consequences of identity theft such as unauthorized loans, credit cards, purchases and more. Depending on how deep the theft goes and how available your personal information was, the financial ramifications can often last months or even years. The important thing to do is to remain vigilant. This means: Pulling your credit report and monitoring for suspicious financial activity. Look at your credit report and make sure there are no unauthorized accounts or loans to your name. Contact the creditors and close these if necessary. You should also check with your banks and lenders to ensure there is no suspicious activity. If there is, dispute the charges and follow the steps to have those waived from your accounts.Placing a fraud alert on your credit profile. Contact one of the three major credit reporting bureaus (Experian, TransUnion or Equifax) and ask that a fraud alert be placed on your record. This can prevent thieves from opening up new credit cards or loans in your name. You can also request a total credit freeze if you want to be extra safe.Considering credit monitoring. Though these services come at a fee, they can help you keep tabs on your credit profile as well as any changes that occur on it. Working with the Social Security Administration. Report the identity theft and take any additional steps recommended. In severe cases, you may need to apply for a new Social Security Number. Continuing to work with the IRS and FTC as necessary. Respond quickly to any FTC or IRS request. Any delays could delay the resolution of your case and the delivery of your refund. In some cases, you may want to involve a lawyer especially if your investments, retirement accounts, mortgage or other major financial products have been affected. They can help you traverse the legal issues that crop up with creditors, lenders and financial institutions along the way. Your Options for Financial Recovery Many victims of tax-related identity theft experience cash flow issues or must deal with additional debt as a result of the experience. They also may be unable to take out traditional loans or credit accounts due to the impact the theft has had on their credit score and profile. When this occurs, victims have these options: A Tax Advance Loan Tax Advance Loans (TALs) give you an advance on your projected refund. While sometimes helpful, these arent the best idea if your refund is small. They can also impact your credit score and often require a significant chunk of your refund to secure.A personal loan Personal loans can offer access to more cash, as well as more lenient (and longer) repayment terms. These can be especially helpful for victims hit hard by their identity theft. Credit-builder loans These loans are beneficial if your credit score was severely impacted by the theft. Typically offered through community banks and credit unions, they help you improve your score by reporting your consistent payments to credit bureaus.Secured credit cards If the identity theft required you to close your credit accounts, a secured credit card can be a good option. These require you to deposit money up front, as collateral. They then function like traditional credit cards, while also helping you establish good credit standing (as long as you pay on time, every time).Help from loved ones In many cases, family members, friends and other loved ones are willing to provide financial help. They might offer no-interest loans or even gifts to help you get through your rough patch. Theres always the option to wait it out, too. If the damage was minimal or you werent relying on your refund for financial stability, you may be able to await the IRS resolution of your case. Reducing Your Risk If you arent already the victim of tax-related identity theft, you should take action to ensure you never become one. This means protecting your personal information, shredding sensitive documents and using strong passwords on all online accounts. You can also: Lock your mailbox.Use a secure computer on a secure network when e-filing. Check your credit report annually for suspicious activity.Install a firewall and antivirus software on your computer. Learn how to recognize phishing emails and fraudulent requests for information. Keep sensitive documents (like your Social Security card) in a safety deposit box. Only provide your Social Security Number when absolutely necessary. You should also file your returns as early as possible. A fraudster cannot file a return using your Social Security Number if one has already been filed. Make it a point to file your taxes as soon as you have the information necessary to do so. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/protect-yourself-from-tax-identity-theft/

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rickhorrow · 6 years

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15 TO WATCH/5 SPORTS TECH/POWER OF SPORTS 5: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 21

with Jamie Swimmer & Jesse Leeds Grant

They started the season at 500-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup. Now, the Vegas Golden Knights have advanced to the championship, and the few people who took those long odds pre-season are looking at payouts of $10,020 for a $20 bet. After a 4-1 defeat of the Winnipeg Jets, the Golden Knights becomes the first expansion team in all of sports to reach the championship round since the St. Louis Blues did so in. Tickets to Vegas home games during the playoffs have been “among the most expensive, if not the priciest, on the resale market,” and with the expansion team now headed to the Stanley Cup Final, the market for games at T-Mobile Arena is “only heating up,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The average sale price on StubHub for Friday’s Game 4, "was $567." And even though sports books are bracing for a loss, the Golden Knights’ success has benefited them in other ways. Hockey betting is reportedly up 35% across the board, and the Golden Knights have also created a lot more casino traffic. If the Golden Knights triumph against either Tampa Bay or Washington, they will go down as one of the most unlikely champions in sports history.

On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize sports betting in all 50 states, professional leagues have begun pitching legislation to states. According to the Providence Journal, MLB, NBA, and PGA Tour officials have already made their way to Rhode Island to speak to state lawmakers “for a cut of the action on sports betting should the state legalize it.” All three leagues proposed taking a 0.25% rights and integrity fee of all money bet on their respective sports in the state, which would surely account to tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. The NFL has yet to pitch state legislatures on the issue, making it unclear how America’s preeminent sports league feels on the topic. The leagues also “want the state and its chosen gambling operator to share betting data with them and use their official statistics, which would be licensed, presumably at an additional cost.” Many believe that giving the leagues a cut of the revenue would help wipe out any misaligned incentives between the existing parties. The legalization of gambling is not only going to change how we view sports, it's also coinciding with a data revolution that will change the parameters of what we can bet on.

While other leagues such as the NBA and MLB have showed their eagerness to profit from the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize sports betting, the NFL is expected to “sit the whole integrity fee out, for now.” According to The MMQB, the NFL, America’s most popular sports league, noted its opposition to an integrity fee. Different estimates have been floated around how big these fees would be, but such fees could ultimately “wind up costing Nevada sports books, and later those in other states, around 15-20% of their annual revenue.” With the court decision, however, the NFL could relax its strict policies around teams partnering with casinos, which would likely be lucrative sponsorship opportunities. For the NFL and other leagues, the windfall of cash expected from the court’s decision should lead to a spike “in everything from TV ratings to franchise valuations” and beyond.

Pittsburgh Steelers investor David Tepper has agreed to purchase the Carolina Panthers for a record $2.275 billion. According to SportsBusiness Journal, $2.2 billion will be paid in cash by Tepper, with the final $75 million being deferred. There has been no indication yet of minority partners joining Tepper, nor has there been any signal as to what his plans are for Bank of America Stadium. The 5% share of the Steelers that Tepper initially bought in 2009 is worth $122.5 million now based on the team’s current valuation, though he will have to give up his stake as he takes control of the Panthers. Despite putting in a bid that was hundreds of millions of dollars less than South Carolina businessman Ben Navarro, Navarro was “unable to raise the estimated $2.6 billion he was said to have offered.” Tepper is unlikely to make any major organization changes. If you think these numbers are crazy talk, keep in mind that in 2014 Business Insider pegged the NFL’s total value at $45.7 billion – more than MLB and the NBA combined.

As the Indianapolis 500 readies for its annual Memorial Day Weekend run, IndyCar veterans believe the current crop of young drivers will make a lasting impact. Chip Ganassi Racing Managing Director Mike Hull told the Associated Press, "We've got good, quality guys under 25 and now they're driving for owners who hopefully will stick with them…I think the crop you're talking about is the crop we've needed for a long, long time but we didn't have the stability to do that. Now, we do." IndyCar President of Competition and Operations Jay Frye called this young group "'advanced' in terms of their experience and business savvy." Andretti Autosport driver Zach Veach, 23, sponsored by Group One Thousand One, "looks like the perfect guy for IndyCar's youth movement." He has a "full-time ride with one of the series' top teams, stable sponsorship and what appears to be a bright future." If Veach succeeds, he could "emerge as a cornerstone for the next generation of stars." It is possible more than 20% of this year's Indy 500 starters could be younger than 25, including Veach, Gabby Chaves (24), Ed Jones (23), Sage Karam (23), and Kyle Kaiser (22). Another quality group will assemble at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday, as Horrow Sports Ventures alongside IMS and Octagon convenes a symposium of Indy’s top sports minds: Colts COO Pete Ward, Pacers Vice Chairman Jim Morris, IndyCar CEO Mark Miles, and Group One Thousand One CEO Dan Towriss.

As the industry continues to react to the Supreme Court decision, Legal Sports Report has reported that Irish bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair is close to acquiring FanDuel. Little is known about the deal’s terms, but the price point appears to be less that the $1 billion valuation that the company held in mid 2015. PPB acquired FanDuel competitor DRAFT for around $50 million in May 2017, so should the deal go through, the company would own the 2nd and 3rd most popular DFS apps. FanDuel CEO Matt King indicated earlier this month, that his company would “get into sports betting” if the courts voted in New Jersey’s favor. Paddy Power Betfair isn’t collecting DFS companies for sport – FanDuel has a database that contains 6 million DFS users (many inactive), and PPB believes they’ll be able to convert many of those individuals into sports bettors. The FanDuel brand also brings PPB some value, as the popular U.K. gaming operator lacks U.S. name recognition; though it does own California based horseracing betting business and digital broadcaster TVG and the NJ online gaming site Betfair Casino. FanDuel raised $430 million in venture funding, but has struggled to raise additional capital since the third quarter of 2015, so investors were pushing to either pursue a sale or public offering.

Justify won the Preakness on Saturday, despite rain, mud, fog, and threats of moving the iconic race. The second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown was marred by a cloud of fog that defied Pimlico Race Course’s old technology. Throw in the “effects of such a heavy deluge on the aging grandstand and it’s no wonder,” the Baltimore Sun noted, that Stronach Group COO Tim Ritvo “couldn’t hide his impatience with the facility.” Ritvo “left the distinct impression that barring some dramatic infusion of local government funding to renovate Pimlico, Maryland’s signature sporting event is headed for Laurel Park.” An “announced 134,487 came to Pimlico, ending a four-year rise in Preakness Day attendance.” Attendance was down 4.2% from last year’s record, but was still the third largest in the event’s 143-year history. The total Preakness handle was $93.66 million, also falling short of last year’s record mark of $97.168 million. Now, all eyes are on Justify and the June 9 Belmont Stakes in New York. While the long drought of Triple Crown winners was broken not that long ago – by the beloved American Pharaoh in 2015 – don’t be surprised if Justify, now 5 for 5, adds his name to that rarified equine list.

In the wake of Friday's school shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston, Texans star J.J. Watt told school officials that he will "pay for the funerals of the victims who died," according to the Houston Chronicle. Houston Rockets CEO Tad Brown has also confirmed that Owner Tilman Fertitta and the Rockets organization are "discussing plans to support the victims and families" of the school shooting at Warriors-Rockets Game 5 on Thursday and "in the community.” Rockets guard Chris Paul on Friday reacted to the school shooting, saying, "It's scary that that's become the norm here, and we've got to do something about it.” And the Houston Astros before Friday’s home game against the Indians "held a moment of silence" and "flew the Texas state flag at half-staff" to honor the school shooting victims. While this is yet another example of the healing power of sports and the ability of individuals like Watt and organizations to shine in the face of both natural and human-driven tragedies, it is also another opportunity for athletes and teams to use their influence to drive societal change.

FIFA is forging ahead with its plan to organize a new 24-team Club World Cup. According to the London Times, the first tournament is being planned to take place in June 2021, with China already expressing an interest in being the first host nation for the event. Participating clubs could earn more than $135 million each from the tournament. With 12 European teams planned to enter the field, FIFA has noted its preference for inviting clubs that have won at least three Champions League or European Cups to the first Club World Cup. Based on that criteria, Liverpool, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Ajax, and Inter Milan would all be included automatically, while Juventus would “also be invited on the basis of having won two European Cups and two intercontinental titles.” FIFA seems to be well on its way toward yet another successful extension of its brand.

10.Derek Jeter taking control of the Miami Marlins has seemingly done little to pique fan interest in Southern Florida. According to the Associated Press, through mid-May, the Marlins have averaged the fewest fans per game in Major League Baseball, drawing an average of 10,676 fans per home game at Marlins Park – that number is more than 4,000 fewer that what the Tampa Bay Rays attract per game. Since changing the way they report attendance figures – instead of counting all tickets distributed, including giveaways and heavily discounted ones, the club announces tickets sold – the Marlins have reported four crowds of less than 6,000 at a stadium that has a capacity of 36,742. “We’ve gotten a positive reception with what we’re trying to do,” said Jeter. “But the bottom line is, we want more people to come. We’re not happy with the number of people in here. A lot of that goes with how we perform.” While winning helps, some Bill Veeck-inspired promotions and/or slashing concession prices a la Atlanta Falcons might nudge away the franchise’s summertime blues.

Two of the country’s most storied college football programs will meet for a home-and-home series when the University of Alabama and the University of Texas face off in 2022 and 2023. According to USA Today, the announcement of the series has caused a lot of excitement across the country for all college football fans, hoping that this “signals a trend.” This pairing now joins a list of marquee non-conference matchups like Ohio State-Oklahoma, Texas-USC, Texas-Notre Dame, Georgia-Clemson, Clemson-Auburn and Auburn-Penn State. The 2022 game between UT and Alabama will be the 10th meeting between the two schools, but the first since Alabama beat Texas in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game. Despite a lack of on-field success over the past few years, Texas currently has the second-most wins in college football with 898 all-time, while Alabama sits in fifth with 891. UT had to rework its schedule a bit to make this work, including cancelling a home game with UCF that was scheduled for 2023. But Bama is Bama.

12.English soccer club Chelsea just signed the most lucrative sleeve sponsorship contract in the EPL, coming out to nearly $70 million over five years. According to the London Times, South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai is set to pay $13.54 million beginning next season. The new sleeve sponsorship for the club is worth double the annual amount of EPL champion Manchester City’s deal with Nexen Tire and will “set the new benchmark for such deals, with Arsenal and Manchester United in the process of negotiating their sleeve partnerships for next season.” The EPL only began permitting this new type of on-jersey sponsorship this past season, meaning that most clubs are still working to strike their first sleeve deal. This year, Chelsea had a one-year contract with Alliance Tyres, a subsidiary of the club’s main kit sponsor Yokohama Tyres, “which has two years left on its five-year deal worth $271 million.” Clearly, the EPL kicked the tires on this sponsorship model and declared it sound.

As Calgary is pushing to finalize its bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics, complaints coming from key organizers cite the bid’s underfunding. According to the Calgary Herald, of the $30 million in funds assembled by the municipal, provincial, and federal governments for the Olympic bid corporation, $5.2 million has already been spent. “We are under-resourced, significantly under-resourced,” said Calgary City Manager Jeff Fielding. In addition to the lack of funding, the work of the bid’s organizing committee, including 32 consultants who have been hired by the city at different times to assist, has been challenged by “new information coming in almost hourly.” As the group races to make key deadlines on the Olympic file, including the completion of a draft budget with forecasted capital and operational costs for hosting the Winter Games, other bid groups competing for the right to host have enjoyed an easier path. Sapporo, Japan; Sion, Switzerland; and Stockholm, Sweden, are all vying with Calgary to win the 2026 Games. But the IOC may once again announce multiple winners simultaneously, with the “loser” getting the Games in 2030.

Changes in MLS' salary structure have made the league "more attractive to young foreign stars and older U.S. players alike, resulting in deeper rosters, more exciting games, and a level of play rapidly approaching that of Mexico's Liga MX," according to the Los Angeles Times. LAFC Executive VP, Soccer Operations John Thorrington said, "Look at the on-field product week in and week out and MLS is in a very different place. The types of players that are coming have a lot to do with that." The MLS Players Union released the first 2018 survey of player salaries, which "showed the number of millionaires in the league increased to 46 from 28" in 2017, while the guaranteed salary total for the league's 669 players topped $249 million for the first time. Houston Dynamo Senior Vice President and General Manager Matt Jordan told the Houston Chronicle, "There's a lot of top players who have the choice to go to China and make a ton of money. (But) It's a totally different culture, it's a totally different lifestyle…The one advantage we have in the MLS is that it's a very stable league, it's a very organized league -- very professional -- and it's growing.” You only have to look at the influence of MLS players such as the LA Galaxy’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic to understand the impact young foreign stars are having on the American game.

Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) have announced a three-year partnership with the Francis Ford Coppola winery. Under the terms of the deal, the Californian vintner will serve as the official wine partner of the MLS newcomer. Francis Ford Coppola will supply LAFC’s Banc of California Stadium with its Sofia and Diamond Collection wines. The partnership will include pre-game “tailgate” events in the LAFC fan zone with a Francis Ford Coppola branded bar. Future integrations will include interactive moments within LAFC’s app, animated videoboard celebrations in the stadium, and short-form content highlighting players and the Coppola winery. Francis Ford Coppola said: “There is nothing like a live event. In a world of pre-recorded experiences, there’s a certain thrill to being in a stadium watching a game. Los Angeles is a city dear to my heart and I’m glad we’re a part of the much anticipated opening of LAFC’s Banc of California Stadium.” LAFC is rapidly gaining ground on the Galaxy in the hearts and minds of Los Angeles soccer fans, and the marquee deal with Coppola only adds more star power.

Tech Top 5

Facial-recognition app could pull Olympian profiles from TV to phone. A facial-recognition app developed for a Japanese university student competition that can immediately access athlete profiles has caught the attention of Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Committee. Eisuke Sugitani, a junior at Doshisha University in Kyoto, developed the idea that would allow users to direct their smartphones at a TV and instantly receive biographical information back. Sugitani, who is interested in how sports and technology can be linked, wanted to create something that could be used easily, after giving thought to the behavioral tendencies of young people like himself. Another idea he has is to display sports videos on the internet that are sorted by artificial intelligence on the basis of one’s search history. Tokyo’s organizing committee has begun looking into making the student’s winning idea a reality. Takeshi Tachi, head of the committee’s Technology Services Bureau, said the app would likely be useful because even people who are unaccustomed to conducting internet searches could use it, giving it a versatility that would appeal to many generations.

FOX partners with Intel, Ericsson to deliver 4K at the U.S. Open. FOX Sports, in cooperation with the FOX Innovation Lab and partners Ericsson, Intel, and AT&T, will use 5G technology to stream 4K video over 5G for potential broadcast nationwide at this year’s 118th U.S. Open Championship on June 14-17, carried on FOX and FS1. The 5G wireless technology will transmit 4K HDR images from two FOX Sports cameras positioned on the challenging par-3 seventh hole at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club through the FOX Sports production truck, making it available to FOX Sports and its viewers through DirecTV. In the future, 5G could possibly be used to deliver real-time virtual reality views from the course. Deployed for the first time at broad scale earlier this year by Intel and partners at the Winter Games in PyeongChang, 5G technology has the potential to provide disruptive abilities, to broadcasters and consumers alike. The groundbreaking trial will be the first available broadcast footage enabled using 5G technology from a premier U.S. golf event.

Riddell adds head injury analytics to smart helmet. Riddell is upgrading their current technology to assist coaches in analyzing head-damage tendencies to scale back the prospect of damage. Riddell launched the InSite Influence Response System in 2014 to alert soccer coaches when an athlete suffered serious impacts. The primary-era system was meant to assist coaches and trainers on how to handle potential concussions as quickly as they occurred. The 2018 model, referred to as the Riddell InSite Coaching Software, will do all of that plus present detailed head-damage analytics. Riddell’s evaluation is predicated on a dataset of more than five million head impacts, which the corporate has been amassing over the last few years. The data has been used to inform rules modifications to the sport, and now these tens of millions of situations of head impressions will be used to help coaches implement safer practices day-by-day.

MiLB partners with Satisfi Labs on bilingual AI solution. Minor League Baseball announced a new collaboration with Satisfi Labs, a leading artificial intelligence engagement platform, to create a bilingual customer service AI conversation platform for more than 30 MiLB teams. This unique partnership marks the first time a sports league will communicate with its fans in both English and Spanish by leveraging Satisfi Labs' AI capabilities. This new product solution will amplify MiLB's national multicultural initiative "Es Divertido Ser Un Fan®" (It's Fun to Be a Fan®") and its new "Copa de la Diversión™" ("Fun Cup™") season-long event series specifically designed to embrace the culture and values that resonate most with participating teams' local U.S. Hispanic/Latino communities. The interface will initially be made available to the participating Copa teams to support their respective fan engagement efforts. The AI platform will operate within individual teams' Facebook Messenger pages and answer fans' questions pertaining to aspects of the game day experience such as ticketing, parking, and other common inquiries surrounding the venue, game, and teams, while providing unique answers based on the users' locations. MiLB and Satisfi Labs plan to roll out an expanded AI conversation platform and league-wide fan engagement tool for the 2019 season.

All-diabetic pro cycling team to use NormaTec for recovery. Team Novo Nordisk has announced a partnership with NormaTec. The team will use the company's dynamic compression products to help its riders recover after long and grueling days on their bikes. The NormaTec PULSE Series Recovery Systems use dynamic compression to speed recovery and reduce muscle tightness and soreness. NormaTec’s patented technology employs a sophisticated form of biomimicry to enhance circulation and mobilize fluid, following a precise sequence of pulsing, gradients, and distal release. The NormaTec recovery massage leaves limbs fresh and light, so athletes are ready to tackle their next workout or competition. NormaTec was originally developed to help patients with circulatory related disorders, and the technology has since been honed to benefit the specific needs of athletes. NormaTec’s patented compression massage has revolutionized athlete recovery, and today, the NormaTec PULSE Series is relied on by 97% of pro teams.

Power of Sports 5

NFL helmets give helping hand. Two young San Luis Obispo boys are giving back after their own family received some much-needed assistance. Six-year-old Bryson Thompson and his eight-year-old brother, Brock, are raising money for a local nonprofit by collecting signed NFL football helmets. Brock and Bryson started the campaign to benefit the local nonprofit "Jack's Helping Hand." They were inspired to collect NFL helmets not just because of their love for football, but because six-year-old Bryson has epilepsy and has to wear a special helmet to protect his head from falls when he suffers a seizure. The family sent out a video of themselves asking NFL players to sign a helmet, jersey, or football and send it in. The video has spread quickly among the football community. Jack's Helping Hand helped the family pay for Bryson's epilepsy helmet when the family's insurance company deemed it unnecessary. The boys subsequent call for signed helmets, footballs, and jerseys was met with overwhelming support from NFL teams and players across the country. Now, they'll be auctioning off the items they've collected. Auction items include signed helmets and footballs from Tom Brady, Steve Gleason, Joe Namath, Bo Jackson, Nick Dzubnar, Russell Wilson, Odell Beckham Jr., Brian Dawkins, Sidney Jones, Derek Carr, Peyton Thompson, and Luke Kuechly.

WNBA launches empowerment program for women. The WNBA launched “Take a Seat, Take a Stand,” its new women and girls empowerment program for the 2018 season. As regular-season games begin this week, WNBA tickets do more than support women’s sports. When fans take a seat at a WNBA game, they will also have the chance to support several organizations that are changing the game for women and girls. For each ticket purchased, the WNBA will donate $5 to one of six organizations of the fans’ choosing in addition to a ticket to send a young woman or girl to a game to inspire her by the strength, talent, and leadership of the women of the WNBA. Fans can also choose to donate tickets directly to one of the organizations. “For 22 years, the WNBA and its players – women playing at the highest level of their sport – have stood up as role models for millions of women and girls,” said WNBA President Lisa Borders. “With ‘Take a Seat, Take a Stand,’ we are proud to come together as a league to stand with our partner organizations, our fans and the many inspiring women raising their voices for change in the current women’s movement.” The six national partner organizations for “Take a Seat, Take a Stand,” selected for their advocacy on behalf of girls and women, are Bright Pink, GLSEN, It’s On Us, MENTOR, Planned Parenthood, and The United State of Women.

Dallas Cowboys raise $50,000 for Salvation Army. Last week, the Dallas Cowboys held their seventh annual Reliant Home Run Derby. The team raised a total of $50,000 for the Gene and Jerry Jones North Texas Youth Education Town of The Salvation Army Arlington. Cowboys linebacker Jaylon Smith was a powerhouse at the plate, named the 2018 Reliant Home Run Derby champion, hitting a total of 12 home runs and raising $13,700. The Cowboys players were split into two teams representing the offense and defense. Before a final bonus round that doubled donations, team offense raised $13,800 and team defense raised $12,200. Last year’s Home Run Derby also raised $50,000 for The Salvation Army, and over the course of seven years the event has raised more than $330,000 for various local charities. Reliant supports local communities through volunteerism, charitable giving, and partnerships with a variety of organizations. In 2017, over $4 million was donated to different Reliant-sponsored causes with employees giving more than 8,000 volunteer hours. Before the Cowboys took the field, Reliant brought together local Dallas media to show off their baseball skills and raise money for their charity of choice. An additional $25,000 was raised for eight nonprofits across the area.

CFL stars donate to children’s charities. James Wilder, Jr., Brandon Banks, and Mike Reilly secured the top three spots in the 2017 Shaw CFL Top Performers program and decided to donate their winnings to children’s charities. Wilder, the Toronto Argonauts running back, donated $25,000 to Covenant House — which provides shelter for homeless youth — while Reilly, the Edmonton Eskimos quarterback, allocated $15,000 to Adarius 4 Autisim, which was founded by former teammate Adarius Bowman for youth diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. And Banks, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats speedy receiver/kick returner, donated $10,000 to the David Lane Youth Successful Fund at John Howard Society through Give Proof to Our Youth in Hamilton. “I’m always trying to impact and affect youth,” said Wilder, a 26-year-old father of four children aged five and younger. “Some of these kids just need opportunity, they just need a chance.” The CFL and Shaw Communications announced that Shaw would also donate $50,000 to the Canadian charities selected by the league’s top performers.

Chicago Bears host annual charity gala. The 23rd annual Chicago Bears Care Gala will be held this week at the United Club at Soldier Field. Through the annual Gala, Bears Care has been able to award over $14.5 million in grants to Chicago-area research efforts focused on finding a cure for breast and ovarian cancer and improving treatment options for those currently battling these diseases. The Chicago Bears have a longstanding tradition of supporting numerous charities and assisting those in need. Bears Care was incorporated in 2005 as a charity organization committed to improving the quality of life for people in the Chicagoland community, especially disadvantaged children and their families, through targeted programs supporting education, youth athletics, and medical research and health awareness programs focusing on breast and ovarian cancer. Since that time, Bears Care has issued grants totaling over $17.5 million to over 100 qualifying agencies.

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