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Britain’s Housing Market Is Flashing Red, and the Tories Are Scared
Main Post: Britain’s Housing Market Is Flashing Red, and the Tories Are Scared
Top Comment: Bloomberg must have been a very boring place before Alex Wickham joined. But yes, the contents are true. The housing market is fucked every which way. Either interest rates settle at a higher level than the 2010s average, which will mean downward pressure until it reaches the equilibrium level for affordability (and you have everyone remortgaging complaining); or the housing bubble will rapidly re-inflate and we'll go back to the far more serious (but traditionally more easily ignored) problem of a runaway housing market and every future generation priced-out of any kind of financial stability. But there's literally no way of solving that problem without causing significant pain to at least 800,000 households. Which is why all political parties just kick the problem into the long-grass and hope it goes away. The last point where this could have been tackled without causing massive pain was the very early 2000s. For three years between 2002-2004 we had 25%+ house price inflation per year. That just didn't need to happen, and despite all the other schemes that have come later, nothing quite like that has happened again since. But it did happen, and ever since there's been a cohort of recent buyers who'd be instantly mega-bankrupt should anyone try and fix the housing market. Simple political expediency suggests that, for the Tories, the way to lose the fewest votes is to cut interest rates and re-inflate the housing bubble before the next election, and Jeremy Hunt's budget last year was intended to do just that. It won't work, they'll still lose for other reasons. "And then Labour will win and fix the housing market for the good of the population as a whole?" A ha ha ha ha ha. "Or at least make it fairer for younger people?" Also no. "But they won't leave it exactly the same?" No, they'll just leave it 99.9% the same. They'll change some laws about private rentals. They'll also create 50,000 new social rents, set-aside for key workers only, and call that a victory. The other aspects of the housing market will stay exactly the same. By which I mean they'll get worse at more-or-less the same rate.
How do you get red dye for the market?
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I have been trying to get the market so that I can open up about 50% of what the game has to offer. I am playing on the normal sky block, with the tree and one dirt. How could I obtain red wool?
Top Comment: Youll have to make grass which is done by placing leaf blocks into mud inside a cauldron. Then you bonemeal the grass to get flowers and the red dye. You also then need this grass to spawn sheep, either making sheep seeds or waiting for them to spawn naturally
IamA Scott Carney, author of "The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers and Child Traffickers" Ask me anything.
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Hello Everyone,
I’m Scott Carney, investigative journalist and author of “The Red Market: On the Trail of the World’s Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers and Child Traffickers”. For six years I was a Contributing Editor for Wired and Mother Jones where I tracked down many of the ways that body parts are bought and sold illegally around the world. Some of you may just have seen an article that I wrote about a man who kidnapped people in India and sold their blood one pint at a time. That story really just scratches the surface of what is a global problem.
The Red Market came out in 2011, and since I have your attention, I’m happy to announce that I submitted my second book to my publisher at Penguin last month and it will come out sometime in 2015. It's about the life of Ian Thorson, a Stanford graduate who ended up dying while trying to reach enlightenment in the Arizona desert. You can read the story I wrote about him in Playboy last year here: http://www.scottcarney.com/2013/06/death-and-madness-on-diamond-mountain/.
What else? You can follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/sgcarney (proof tweet included)
Or check out my website: http://scottcarney.com
Or perhaps buy the red market:, because, you know..... RAMPART http://www.amazon.com/Red-Market-Brokers-Thieves-Traffickers/dp/0061936464
Stealth edit fun that you didn't know about me: I graduated Kenyon College in 2000 in the same class as John Green and Ransom Riggs. In fact, Randy and I shared a house during my senior year)
Top Comment: I seem to recall some years ago that the Chinese were accused of forcing convicts to donate organs. Is that true? Does it still happen?
Have you ever heard of the red market?
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Have you ever heard of the red market?
When I was a kid, I always thought the “black market” was an actual, physical place. I pictured a dark, dimly lit bazaar straight out of Indiana Jones except exclusively dealing in drugs and slaves and what not instead of fruit.
I guess a lot of kids probably thought of something like that, huh? Then you grow up and find out it’s just sort of a nebulous term for any sort of illegal trade and it - I dunno, personally, it lost its luster!
Anyway, flash forward a decade or two and I heard the term “red market” for the first time. It’s another term for the organ trade, apparently - mostly illegal as well. The phrase fascinated me though. It evoked those childhood images of Agrabah-style bazaars all over again, except this time with ice boxes full of hearts and livers, canopic jars full of god-knows-what, eyeballs in glass vials - the works. All draped in crimson fabric, of course, befitting the name.
But it was all still just flights of childhood fancy. The real thing is, again, pretty banal, if a bit morbid. Transplant lists that outpace supply lead to underground organ trade, and the donees just try not to ask too many questions about the source. Sometimes whole-ass skeletons are bought and sold for research, or even as props for movies. Gross, but at least somewhat understandable.
One day, after class, I was wandering around my college campus waiting for my girlfriend to get off work to pick me up. Sometimes people posted signs for jobs, and Penny had been on my case lately about my unemployment, so I headed toward the park to see if there were any interesting postings.
If I’m being totally honest, I wasn’t really planning on applying. My courses were kicking my ass already, and unemployment paid enough for me to at least pay rent and afford some cheap food. I just wanted to look good for Pen by coming home with some leads. Scummy, I know.
Well, there was a poster for a no-qualifications-needed assistant for some sort of experimental medical treatment, and something about it just called to me. It promised quick, easy cash for a small workload, with the caveat that you sign an NDA and be okay working around blood. I was already studying to become a nurse, so those stipulations didn’t bug me one bit - and some easy money on the side wouldn’t hurt either. Maybe I could actually afford to buy a new video game or two without rifling through Penny’s purse.
At this point you’re probably thinking I sound like a terrible person. Maybe you’d even be right. But don’t worry, karma’s a bitch.
Anyway, Pen picked me up and chewed me out, as usual. I tuned her out and played on my phone, nodding and muttering “uh-huh” as necessary to keep her from blowing up. It wasn’t the healthiest relationship. But the sex was great, and I couldn’t afford to live on my own, so why not?
Anyway, not long after we got home I told her at one point that I had to make some calls to some potential employers. For once, I wasn’t lying. I went into the other room and rang up the guy behind the medical experiment.
“Sam here,” he answered in a thick drawl. “This about the posting?”
“Erm, yes. My name’s-“
He cut me off. “Don’t care. Short staffed. You’re hired. Meet me at 4th and Washington. I’ll be wearing a red coat.”
He hung up. Weird.
“Hey, babe? Got an interview. I’ll be back in a bit!” I called through the door as I left. I didn’t know if she heard me. Didn’t really care, either. If she knew I was out she’d probably have her boy toy Ricky over anyway.
Thankfully, the corner Sam mentioned wasn’t too far away by foot, and the weather was nice enough for a brisk stroll. I was feeling pretty good, despite how weirdly abrupt the call went. Hell, I actually found myself whistling happily as I walked to 4th Street. I was optimistic. Maybe this could help me turn my life around.
I approached the corner and saw a short man in a bright red trench coat with a matching wide-brimmed fedora. He looked for all the world like Danny Devito dressed up as Carmen Sandiego.
“You Sam?” I asked, as though there was any doubt.
Sam nodded and grunted to the affirmative. He then spun wordlessly and entered the dimly lit warehouse behind him, beckoning me to follow. Okay, that’s a bit creepy, I’ll admit - but again, I was in a pretty bad place mentally, so I didn’t hesitate to follow him in.
Sam and I walked down a seemingly endless corridor lit by flickering fluorescent lights. The only sounds were the thuds of his heavy boots, the flapping of my flip flops, and the squeaks of the occasional mouse.
About ten minutes passed.
“So, uh... what kind of research-“
Sam stopped in his tracks. He whirled around, glared so hard I swear his eyes glowed as red as his attire, and shushed me harshly. He turned back around and resumed his march as I meekly followed behind.
Stomp. Flop. Stomp. Flop. Stomp. Squeak. Flop. Over and over. It became a steady rhythm to the point that whenever we slowed to turn a corner or stepped in a puddle it was jarring to hear the pattern break.
After a while, we arrived at a massive iron door locked with a comically large padlock. Sam withdrew an equally large key from his coat pocket, emblazoned with a skull and crossbones motif. He held it up to the flickering light and grinned.
“Skeleton key,” he said, chuckling to himself briefly, clearly very proud of the awful pun.
I laughed nervously in return, anticipating another death glare and demand for silence. Instead, he smiled warmly at me and unlocked the door, holding it open for me like an old timey gentleman.
“Right this way, honored guest,” he said. “Apologies for the trek down here. We have to keep our operations hidden from prying eyes and ears, you know? Anyway, welcome aboard!”
I cautiously slipped past him and entered the room. In stark contrast to the dimly lit, dilapidated corridors that led here, the lab was bright, pristine, and colorful. Machines of all shapes and sizes hummed to life as Sam flicked a switch on. The one-time reception desk at the center had been repurposed as a makeshift workstation, covered in microscopes, racks of test tubes, and incubators. Tubes going down into the floor carried liquid to and from the largest machine. It shuddered periodically and ejected a canister into what looked like a tackle box angled to catch it. The box was nearly overflowing.
I stared in wonder as the soft blue lights overhead illuminated this marvel of modern medical science. This was incredible. Despite my education, even I had no idea what some of these devices actually did!
The only thing missing was ... workers.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“I told you, we’re very short staffed at the moment. So they spared me for a day to go out headhunting. Told me to just grab whoever I could. The ad wasn’t lying. No experience necessary.”
“I... see,” I answered hesitantly. I didn’t really get it at all, to be honest. “So what do you guys do here? What do you need my help for?”
Sam walked over to a coat rack and hung up the obnoxiously bright hat and jacket. “We just need warm bodies, really!” he said with a laugh. I was getting tired of his bizarre sense of humor. I liked him better when he was silent.
“Right. Ha, ha. Seriously though, what do you need me to actually do?”
“Courier service, for lack of a better word. Just need some of our products delivered, discreetly, no questions asked. We’ll pay handsomely for your silent compliance.” He collected the tackle box, closed the latch, and handed it to me, then replaced it with another empty one.
I should clarify that these events took place well before the likes of DoorDash or Instacart were established. So while his request was a bit odd, it was that or, I dunno, FedEx, I guess. It made sense to me at the time.
I should also clarify that by this point you’re probably assuming he was going to have me deliver organs or something. Ahh, if only it was that simple. No, at this point, Sam really did have experimental medicine he was developing and needed a hand delivering it to “patients” on the down-low. He was testing a few stem cell-derived treatments that couldn’t get FDA approval because of some bureaucratic red tape bullshit, I guess. Some sort of anti-retrovirus injection, a “miracle foam” first aid spray, that kind of thing. So I took tackle boxes full of syringes and spray cans to a few of his customers in exchange for cash and an oath to not speak a word to anyone.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty bad at keeping my promises.
A few weeks go by and I’m enjoying having some disposable income for once. And even better, it’s all cash, under the table, so I can keep my unemployment benefits! Life was good. Or at least, better than it had been for a long time. Penny and Ricky were still getting it on in “secret” whenever I was at class, but whatever. As long as she helped with the rent, she could screw half the football team for all I cared.
After a few more months of this, Sam started opening up more. He was still unnervingly stoic and stern in the streets and the hallways leading to the lab, but once we were inside, he was a more and more of a goofball. His jokes still got on my nerves at times, but we were definitely warming up to each other’s company. We started to actually talk about things beyond the deliveries.
“Yeah, she’s not the best partner, but like - until I save up some more I can’t live on my own, you know?”
I swear his eyes lit up when I said this.
“You need more money to break free from the ol’ ball and chain, huh? I’ll see what I can do. Some of my clients have pretty deep pockets. The stuff we’ve had you peddling? That’s chump change.”
His countenance returned to the deadly serious Sam that greeted me on the street corner.
“Assuming, of course, you can be a good boy and stay quiet,” he practically growled at me.
I nodded meekly. “Of... of course, Sam. Ain’t told a soul where I’m getting the money, honest.”
Sam paused and looked me up and down with a scowl. He sighed heavily, turned, and - I shit you not - pulled down on a candelabra-style light fixture on the wall, causing a dusty section of the masonry to rise into the ceiling.
I stared, slack-jawed and confused. “What in the Scooby Doo hell...?”
As the secret door opened, a series of identical sconces sprung to life beyond it, illuminating a damp-looking stone brick corridor. I half expected a swarm of bats to come fluttering out.
“This is where we keep the premium shit,” Sam answered. “Gotta keep away from ... meddling kids,” he finished with a wry smile.
As he led me down yet another seemingly endless corridor, one thing caught my attention - the smell. It smelled awful. It smelled like a middle school gym’s locker room with just a hint of morgue.
I noticed that Sam had pulled his neckerchief up around his nose and mouth. He saw me wince and handed me a small perfumed bandana of my own. “Still time to turn back, kid. No shame if you don’t have a strong enough stomach.”
I was committed. Any reasonable young man would’ve taken him up on that offer - probably wouldn’t have even made it this far, really - but I was dumb, broke, and miserable, so I held the cloth up to my face and pressed onward. It smelled vaguely of lilac.
Eventually, we made it to the end of the hallway. Sam knocked on the door rhythmically and it slowly creaked open. The smell intensified, even through the lilac.
As soon as he stepped over the threshold, a cacophony of screaming and banging erupted from somewhere below us. I cautiously followed, noting that we were standing on a narrow walkway over a dark pit. “Don’t look down,” he advised as he led me across the scaffolding toward what appeared to be a makeshift freight elevator with no walls or railings.
I tripped over a loose power cable at one point and nearly went over the edge. With Sam’s help I steadied myself, but dropped the bandana. The smell was overbearing. Sweat, feces, blood, decay - what the hell was going on down there?
The wailing and banging continued, and intensified as the bandana fluttered down into the darkness below. Then I heard a loud snap, a yelp, and everything went silent.
Sam and I boarded the elevator. I was shaking, terrified of what lay below us. To my relief, the elevator ascended instead, carrying us away from whatever produced the nightmarish scents and sounds.
“Still with me? We’re almost there. Sorry about the mess back there. Necessary evil.”
I nodded and tried to keep a brave face. “Wh... what-“ I barely squeaked out before my throat became too dry to speak.
Sam shook his head. “Best if you don’t know the details. Just do the delivery, get paid, and forget about this until we call you back in.”
The elevator stopped in front of a wall of lockers. Sam opened one and produced a small icebox and handed it to me. “Remember. Don’t open it. Don’t ask questions. You’ll be safe, and the money will keep flowing. Get nosy, and I can’t promise my associates won’t take drastic action. And that’d be a shame. I like you.”
I grasped the handle. It wasn’t as heavy as I expected, but something inside it sloshed when I shifted its weight.
“Please,” he said, with an uncharacteristic air of actual, honest to goodness emotion in his voice. “Please don’t open it. I’m serious. I don’t want to have to replace you.”
For once, I listened. I obeyed his creepy instructions and delivered the cooler to the address he gave me, pocketed the money, and went home. Requests to deliver vaccines dried up at this point. My best guess is that he found someone else to do the lower-risk gigs now that I was handling the coolers. He called every now and then for another cooler delivery, and gradually I built up enough savings that I would be able to kick out Penny.
Well, that’s what I thought, anyway. When I got home one day, the place was a mess, and she never showed up after work. Ricky stopped by a few times under hilariously false pretenses, clearly worried about her but trying not to expose their trysts. Apparently, he thought I was an idiot.
I didn’t know where she went. I didn’t really care, though. It saved me the trouble of breaking up with her and evicting her.
The next time Sam called, he walked me halfway across the pit before stopping. He chuckled to himself once more. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
My blood ran cold. Did he hurt Penny? Our relationship was a fucked up, toxic mess, but that didn’t mean I wanted her dead or anything!
“Excuse me?” I played dumb.
“Don’t worry. She’s alive,” he said. Well, that’s creepy.
“What did you do?”
“Best if you don’t know the details,” he repeated. “Don’t get nosy. Don’t want to have to replace you.”
I placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Sam. What. Did. You. Do.”
My grip tightened. He squirmed in pain.
“Best... if you don’t ... ow, let me -“
I wasn’t taking any more of his shit. “Enough cryptic bull, man. We’ve been working together for a year. You owe me at least a little honesty. What did you do to my girlfriend?!”
He struggled out of my grasp and right into the power cable that nearly cost me my own life a few months ago. He tripped too. It’s like it happened in slow motion. I couldn’t stop him. I reached out but - it’s like when you’re in a dream, you know? You try to run or punch and it’s like you’re underwater? I reached out for Sam but he fell off the scaffolding faster than my arms could reach him. I felt his red coat slip right between my fingers as he vanished into the abyss below. To his credit, he didn’t scream or beg or anything. He just spat one final “ah, fuck” under his breath and fell.
If he said anything else, it was drowned out by the shrieking and banging below. That did it. My curiosity was at its breaking point. I switched my phone’s flashlight on and aimed it down.
To my horror, as I panned the beam of light across the blood-soaked floor, I saw that it was lined with cages. Each cage had one or two naked humanoids in it, battered and bloody, hooked up to an IV. Some laid still, sobbing. Some pounded their fists against the bars until they bled. Men in hazmat suits with knives milled between the cages, loading pounds of flesh and organs into the very same coolers I’d been dutifully delivering on behalf of the man in red. If they noticed my presence, they didn’t react. That made it even eerier. They just waddled from “patient” to “patient,” collecting flesh and offal for distribution.
To my horror, I watched as they unholstered a can of Sam’s miracle foam and sprayed I on the wounds. I never believed his claims before, but it looked like it was regrowing some of the tissue, slowly but surely. After some time, a worker would come along with a rag, wipe off the foam, and harvest from the same place as their predecessor. One poor soul had at least three eyes removed from his head before they moved on. He never stopped howling in pain until they took his tongue, too. They didn’t spray the foam on that.
I did my best not to scream, vomit, or drop my phone, but as the beam of light reached the far eastern corner of the warehouse, I couldn’t hold it in any more.
Looking back up at me from a cage was Penny. She was battered, bruised, head shaved, multiple IVs and straps holding her in place. Barely recognizable. But I’d know those eyes anywhere. The eyes that originally attracted me to her before our relationship went to shit. Our gazes met. She tried to call out to me, but her tongue had apparently already been excised and loaded into a box. A worker approached with a can of the miracle foam.
I began to sob. “I’m so sorry,” I mouthed. I hope she could tell what I said. But I didn’t stick around or mount a rescue effort or anything. I’m a coward and an all around horrible person, remember?
I heard a loud, sickening thud. No doubt that was Sam hitting the ground. Indistinct yells and commands from the workers could be heard between the inmates’ racket. Shit. Red lights flashed along the walkway. An alarm sounded in the distance.
That settled it. No time for heroics.
I ran like hell, sealing the facility behind me. No idea if anyone but Sam had a key to that first door. I bolted home as fast as I could. Man, I’ve never been so grateful to have been paid in all cash. I gathered my essentials and left my apartment behind. I ghosted my school and found a cheap trailer park to crash at on the other side of town.
Should I have gone to the police? Probably. But I was an accomplice to god-knows-what for nearly a year. As much as I feared Sam’s employers tracking me down, I feared going to prison just as much. So instead, I decided to write an anonymized account up and share it to the internet in the hopes that some enterprising officer or civilian happens upon it and does what I couldn’t.
Because for the better part of the year, I was an unwitting salesman of the red market.
I’m sorry, Penny. Even you didn’t deserve ... that.
Top Comment: I wonder if they're gonna harvest Sam, lol
Red Markets
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I was wondering who else has played it before and what people’s impressions of it has been? I started playing it this year with my partner and some really good friends, what’s been everyone else’s experience with this system?
Top Comment: It has been my most successful campaign. We tried the Profit System, but my group didn't like it, so we are using Savage Worlds. There is a fairly active community on Discord. 2e is in development too.
What's your red market strategy?
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So about five months ago, I posted how I took out a loan when the market started tanking again so I could grab more BTC. Basically, I went for the 2.9% loans (you need platinum and a loan ltv of 20% or less), then stashed that BTC in a fixed term, and got an extra 2% on top of the earn rate for earning in NEXO. It let me buy more BTC without tossing any extra euros into the mix. Fast-forward to now: I’ve paid off the loan, ended up with a bigger stack of BTC (plus some extra gains), and even managed to flip a chunk into stablecoins before this latest dip hit (you have to stay ready for the dip promos). Overall, it worked out pretty well for me.
What I am planning to do now to capitalise in this red market:
- going for fix terms on stables for couple of months
- buying BTC and ETH with the rest and getting a loan against both with a low LTV
- add more BTC, ETH and NEXO to my portfolio
- HODL
I am still pretty confident that BTC will hodl stable above 100k at some point in the near future, along with ETH at 5k. LFG!
Top Comment: What's your red market strategy? Nothing, I will literally do nothing.
Red Market Brand Temple Ball Hash
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The smell is straight black cherry punch. Texture is like a caramel. Very soft and pliable. I honestly wanted to take a bite lol. Its also harmonized in and out. There is no crust on the outside that you'd expected from a temple ball. May be because its not aged? Im even thinking to buy more and wrap them together to age just to see what happens. The flavour transferred very well in a vape. I could taste the sweet cherry!
Top Comment: Last pic got me thinking of hanky 😂
WD Red Pro 26TB hits the market for $569 — new capacity ...
Main Post: WD Red Pro 26TB hits the market for $569 — new capacity ...
Are human body parts really harvested and sold on the black market? How would that even work?
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Everybody’s heard the story of the guy waking up in a bathtub of ice and discovering his kidneys are missing. Surely there’s an ounce of truth to this urban legend. Or is it really an urban legend?
Top Comment: Somewhere everywhere a thing is happening. Should you be afraid of getting harvested? Probably not, but there are people who have/do get organs harvested for cash whether willingly or not. If your question is ever " does this horrible, plausible thing happen?" Answer is probably yes, and in an area where they can get away with it