Link Roundup December 2021

[wepon]

My Body Is Used to Design Military Tech’

According to David Serlin, professor of communication at UC San Diego, the US military spent the first half of the 20th century developing various analytical methods to identify the body types of ideal military recruits. The result, in popular media and the public consciousness, was an indelible association between the military and the idealized male body: muscular, symmetrical, and lean. When these bodies returned from the World Wars with missing limbs, the military sought to convince the public that not only were these men especially masculine for putting their bodies on the line, but also that prosthetic devices would help reaffirm their masculinity, virility, and even heterosexuality.

Hundreds of PPP Loans Went to Fake Farms in Absurd Places

The Kabbage pattern is only one slice of a sprawling fraud problem that has suffused the Paycheck Protection Program from its creation in March 2020 as an attempt to keep small businesses on life support while they were forced to shut down. With speed as its strongest imperative, the effort run by the federal Small Business Administration initially lacked even the most basic safeguards to prevent opportunists from submitting fabricated documentation, government watchdogs have said.

Online financial companies' processes facilitated fraud in PPP loans, Texas university study finds

Although the PPP funds are technically loans, they can be forgiven if businesses prove they saved jobs and used the money correctly. Small Business Administration data shows only a fraction, about 17,000, have been repaid.

S&P 500 rises to record close Friday despite inflation fears, posts best week since February

The S&P 500 closed at a record on Friday, capping off Wall Street's strong rally this week, despite inflation hitting a 39-year high.