HN user
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad
^Also a racially motivated murder that people don't like to confront "Muhammad's goal in Phase One was to kill six white people a day for 30 days (180 per month).". The media is partially responsible for these attacks by stoking racial divisions in the US.
I vaguely remember a story a few years ago about a guy receiving a blow to the head from a bike lock and requiring therapy for potential brain damage from said blow.
I've run into Siporex panels, which are a type of low density concrete per-fabricated panels. When these panels become water logged their tensile strength drops off quite a bit more than conventional concrete panels. The climate in which these panels are to be used probably plays a significant factor in specifying their use.
Minor note; "Manure management accounts for about 15 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Agriculture economic sector in the United States."
If you include the emissions from manure management you end with 45% of all emissions emanating from livestock production.
Your right, it is worse than that, it's a consortium of governments, NATO and corporate interests that so generously donate to the Council;
The Atlantic Council’s president and CEO sent a seven-page letter to Hagel Friday that included a list of foreign corporations, governments and government entities that fund the organization. The list includes roughly 100 corporations and 15 foreign governments, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The amount of funding from each entity is not listed.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/282047-atlantic-council-r...
ignores some serious ramifications.
The ramification being that some people my choose to understand the world differently from you. The answer to that worry is to make compelling points in your favour, or maybe try to understand the other side of the argument. Freedom comes at the expense of security, and security in this instance is overstepping its boundaries.
You're correct, I cited the wrong article. It was rather on Feb 28th [1] that they published an article which posited that the opposition to Maduro's government may have been responsible.
[1] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-28/burning-aid-interv...
To also clarify my position, ZH is not very reputable, but they provide interesting insight into current events and will sometimes post contradictory views from different blogs/news sites. It's up to the reader to determine if the "news" they produce is verifiable or merely conjecture. It should not be up to facebook to make the decision for the reader.
Also it is worrying that a company with the reach of NYT doesn't produce this information till weeks after the event. It allowed for the false version of the incident to complete its cycle in the news without interrupting the narrative being formed, and thus creates and incentive for people to seek-out ZH as a source of info. ZH isn't reputable, but their reputation is improved when they are stacked up against poor reporting from other agencies, which is unfortunate.
Kind of like what news papers do in their OP-Ed sections.
Worth noting, it took the NYT until March 10th [1] to finally come to the conclusion that ZH had come to on Feb 24th [2], regarding the burning of AID trucks being sent to Venezuela. ZH has an anti-establishment bend, and will take a critically hostile point of view against the main stream, it's interesting to read that perspective when most established news organization are aligned one way in their reporting.
Glenn Greenwald had a great piece on the spread of fake news surrounding the AID truck event, worth reading for anyone who is somewhat skeptical of establishment narratives. [3]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-...
[2] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-23/venezuela-border-t...
[3] https://theintercept.com/2019/03/10/nyts-expose-on-the-lies-...
You don't really get to control min-wage laws, working standards or environmental regulations over the long term in a tariff free world. US trade deficits are growing and will inevitably have to be normalized. When that happens the US will have to become a lot more competitive with nations that don't have these standards in place. Stagnated wages are just the beginning and are borrowing time before labour standards and environmental standards are forced to equalize with the East.
4.7t is probably in reference to QE, which in part was used by the central Bank to purchase mortgage backed securities, the rest spent to supress bond yeilds. Banks ostensibly offloaded their poor performing mbs's onto the average citizen who earns and spends in USD. When the central Bank decides to invent trillions to support poorly managed debt obligations it is debasing the value of your earnings potential. The act should be vigourusly debated and the method by which the funds are dispursed should be scrutinized heavily.
The problem wasn't really the bad debt. No, it was a problem of bad debt, poorly managed securities specifically MBS lead to a Ponzi like situation that should have been allowed to wind down instead of propped up. Lenders should have bit the bullet and lessons should have been learned. The political fallout from the decision to put off the the inevitable are only starting to become manifest in current politics.
I live in Canada where atypical interest rates as a result of lockstep CB policy with the US has completely distorted our real estate market. The result is going to be a lost generation that lives at home for a decade longer than their parents. This is all the result of fiscal policy trying to hold up the remains of the 2008 crisis instead of raising the problem to ground and starting again with a more humbled outlook. The Piper will be paid, it's just a matter of when, and who will be paying.
The Walker administration had also exempted Foxconn from the state’s usual environmental rules, allowing it to discharge materials into wetlands and reroute streams during construction and operation. The state also exempted the company from doing an Environmental Impact Statement. At stake was a huge swath of land: the plan calls for Foxconn to eventually own 4.5 square miles of what had been mostly farmland. Adriaens says these exemptions and the fact that Wisconsin is allowing Foxconn to operate unusually close to Lake Michigan are “red flags.”
I am only going off what the article purports as truth.
On another note, I wonder what it will take for middle America to let go of the dream of well-paid manufacturing jobs. I understand the hope and allure, but it's plain that this ship has sailed long ago.
Liberalization of global markets has not had that long of a time to run its course. You speak so confidently that the status quo will run eternal. What is happening in middle America should be seen as pragmatism, the people of Wisconsin are beginning to accept their current predicament. They are accepting a leveling of environmental standards to foster competition with East Asia rather than choosing to go the way of the Dodo. Is this not what classical liberals dream of, a leveling of competition across boarders? So quickly the west is ready to externalize the cost of environmental pollution in the name of liberalization of markets but hypocritically don't appreciate the same leveling of standards domestically out of necessity. Perhaps the coasts should subsidize the cost of living in the mid-west to maintain the cost of keeping environmental standards well above those in developing countries.
Please don't turn your nose up at people that are desperate to make a living and are willing to sacrifice a lot in order to do so.
Do you think 4chan also be moderated in this way and users purged for using abusive language? And how do I become the moderator of language? I sure would like to be the gate keeper of acceptable speech.
Adding people to the economy also tends to increase the aggregate demand for labor.
I agree, but the contention is the lag between growth in demand and new immigration. More people will consume more and increase aggregate demand, this we agree on. Most new immigrants don't add a lot to domestic consumption especially if they come from a background of relative poverty. So finding that balance is important.
Just to state, I am more for increasing immigration for people with advanced degrees, but when it comes to low skilled immigration I feel that as a nation we owe it to our poorest to look out for their interests as long as wages remain stagnant for their income strata.
Your point rings true, but I think you're talking more about more microscopic asymmetries in wages. Certainly in some areas of the country you have a demand for labour that is not satisfied by cross state migration, however the aggregate demand doesn't really change. When you add excess labour to the closed system (The whole of the US labour market) it will inevitably reduce demand as companies looking to fill roles are more easily able to do so.
It's not really a scapegoat, it is a major part of the issue. The balance between wage growth and immigration rates don't seem to be discussed in mainstream politics (Likely because it's in the interests of the ownership class to keep the issue muted). The issue gets relegated to the fringes, and thus becomes an emotionally charged issue.
I am not an economist but immigration rates and the relaxing of barriers of trade between nations would seem to be the most impactful policies on domestic wage growth. You can always argue that these policies have helped to lift the rest of the world out of poverty, but it doesn't belie the fact that increased immigration rates impact on wage growth for American workers. Maybe someone could shed more light on this issue, but I would suspect that both issues are inexorably tied.
In a closed labour market (one where the number of available workers remains stable) it would have begun rising already. Wages are artificially depressed using immigration. Like most markets, labour vs demand for labour is just a function of supply and demand.
*Just to clarify, this issue is definitely more complicated than an S&D curve and it is not my intention for this issue to become mired in politics. However it's worth having a discussion about domestic wage stagnation and the decline of the middle class in the US, and how it relates to the past 30 years of trade liberalization and increased immigration rates.
That doesn't necessarily mean that people who identify as religious also attend a church. My family would consider themselves Catholic, yet they don't attend church. In my opinion people have replaced the hole that religiosity used to fill with pop-culture. The amount of time dedicated to reading into the meaning of films/television shows, or worshiping actors/actresses (see tabloids) is reminiscent of the seriousness that religiously dedicated individuals take to scripture.
I work for a Canadian company that manufactures lighting components near Guangdong. Chrome plating is almost impossible to do in North America at a cost competitive price point. Just an anecdote about the conditions there; The supplier we use chome plates parts using a hexavalent chromium plating technique as opposed to a trivalent technique, irrespective of the environmental hazards that come along with it (As far as I know it's produces carcinogenic by products). I didn't see one worker with a respirator on or disposable gloves during my visits, health and safety seems to be an after thought. One of the holding tanks that for the byproduct plating solution was leaking from a fitting into the soil below, the surrounding areas are mostly farm lands (not sure what is in the solution that was leaking, but I would assume you wouldn't want it taken up by food crop). For us it's definitely an environmental sidestep. Really the only way for the west to become cost competitive for low end industrial manufacturing is going to be through a softening of environmental regulations or China's will have to close the gap with improved regulations.
The Secret Service is not the principal federal law enforcement agency of the United States. The SS cannot take fabricated political hit pieces and massage them into a form of intelligence documentation from which they garner subpoenas from. And not just any subpoena, an administrative subpoena in the form of a National Security Letter under title V of the Patriot Act. From there they can review all email/search communications and telephone communications for as long as the NSA has been collecting records, and potentially use that information to manipulate an incoming president. I think you may underestimate the power of the intelligence community. Senior individuals in these institution I would suggest may be more influential than the sitting politicians that they work for.
"Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." -Lavrentiy Beria
"Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," - Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Can you imagine if J. Edgar Hoover had access to the low level detail that is currently available to the intelligence communities? Both Truman and Kennedy had mulled over dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, but figured that the political fallout to them and their party for doing so would trounce the benefits. Now 50 years later the issue has metastasized and become extremely politicized.
Both the Koch brothers and Bezos are liberals in the broadest sense of the word, in fact Charles Koch considers himself and probably is a classical liberal [1]. They both are both injecting personal bias into politically active ventures, and that is an affront to what democracy should be about. Because of their vast wealth they are able to shape and suppress political discourse in their own favour (I would guess that your and most peoples interests don't align directly with those of a multi-billionaire). Bezos is probably more left leaning than others but that doesn't mean that his politics don't impact people negatively. Do you really believe that Carlos Slim's primary motivator for becoming the largest stake holder in the NYT Co. is to promote coexistence via liberalism? [1]http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-hate-koch-brothers-part-...
Are you implying that the terms 'Nazi' and 'White Supremacist' isn't throw around by left-wing more sensitive idealists as a pejorative for people that hold conservative values? 'SJW' is a synonym for far-left ideologues, just as 'Nazi' has been used to describe the opposite end of the spectrum.
The exact same thing could be said about the people celebrating the DNC and Hillary's race to the White house on reddit. An obviously flawed actor with few redeeming qualities, yet still held in high regard in the minds of people on r/politics. The only difference I see on the left side of the divide is lack of humour (which tends to invite trolling).
Trump did offer quite a bit in the way of policy. On his first day he shuttered the Trans Pacific Partnership, a monumental shift away from the movement towards globalization. He's pledged to renegotiate trade with Mexico and China, both countries have extremely unbalance trade deficits with the US. I would suggest that President Trump's promises have been more reflected in reality than his predecessors. The effectiveness of his policies can be questioned, but he's set out a path achieve or has achieved many of his core objectives (namely trade and immigration).
The reality of the situation has already been set. I think President Trump's move to stop the current trend of opening trade between countries with wildly dissimilar economic standings is the right one, but much of the damage has already been done. Something like 95% of all metropolitan areas in the US have seen a shrinking of the middle class between 2000 and 2016 [1]. If that's not a powerful indictment of the past 30 years of drawing back on the protectionist stance that the US gov't had held over the 70yrs prior, maybe the popularity of unconventional politicians is.
This is the result of globalism and a liberalization of nation state markets to trade freely without fear of tariff penalties. It's not hard to see why blue collar workers would rather work in 'poorer' conditions rather than sit idle and lose hope in their futures. If the west has to compete with manufacturing from abroad, that will mean a lowering of work place safety and environmental standards until domestic manufacturing is cost competitive. The end result will be an equalization of living standards between free trading nations, the west will have to capitulate to the lowering of living standards at some point if it hasn't already.
TN visa restrictions are much less onerous to an employer and employee than an H1B. Similar culture and less restrictive language barriers are also benefits that might lead an employer to hire a Canadian. I would suggest that the first point is the likely culprit for the number of Canadians employed in the US.
Closer to 10 million[1]. They are also unlike other superPACs. The FEC is limited in it's online jurisdiction to regulate paid political ads because of an “Internet exemption” clause. So they can freely coordinate with a campaign and skirt traditional FEC rules.
[1]https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997
When the price of coal rises other forms of fuel become more cost competitive. The net result should be a reduction in coal production as utilities switch to other fuels.