Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "Thom Hartmann Program"
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The median income may be lower in Germany or Austria BUT you need to look at the full picture. Healthcare, childcare, care for the elderly, 5 weeks vaction, the 40 hour week is pretty much reality - as opposed to working 50 - 70 hours per week. Also people retire on average earlier than with 65 years, maternity leave.
Affordable public transportation (especially in Vienna where the net is excellent), free higher education, 150 USD per month child allowance (for everyone that's not welfare), subsidies for lower to medium income college students, extra subsidies for low income people (heating, rent assistance) etc. etc.
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No other country rewards actors for riling up voters, audiences and churchgoers. Nowhere are abortions or guns that controversial. These were the early symptoms of the disease. New Gingrich in the Bill Clinton era. That become worse when Obama got into office (not to forget that the Americans like to vote for stupid, uninformed but folksy presidents: Reagan, Bush2, Trump).
That has of course to do with polarization, the infotainement media, money in politics providing the budgets for attack ads. Going low and going dumb pays off.
The election of Donald Trump was long in the making - and the betrayal of Mr. Hope and Change paved the way for someone like Trump. Dems are lucky he is that crazen and idiotic. A slightly smarter incumbent would have won.
Some eonomic populism, a more reasonable handling of the pandemic, and Trump dragging Congress AND Senate for delaying the stimulus bills, and prefering big biz over smaller biz and citizens.
Obama sold out to the big donors in 2008 already, that is why he got a lot of friendly airtime on Corporate media, and plenty of Wallstreet and other big donor money.
Nothing of that is on Russia or Putin.
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They DO NOT CAUSE THE NEED FOR TRIAGE. and they do not LET THEIR COUNTRY DOWN during a PANDEMIC. Getting vaccinated is easy, and requires action once or twice, they do not have to overcome an addiction, or have to change their lifestyle which can be very hard - this is about a decision the anti vaxxers make.
Being obese, smoking, not exercising enough are unfortunate lifestyle choices / manifestations (it is not always so free - some people are set up to go in an unhealthy direction, and big biz is a big part of that) - but they do not HARM others.
Or addiction to junk food - the marketing for it is a billion dollar industry to exploit evolutionary weaknesses of homo sapiens ..... but these patients do not bring the medical system down for OTHERS.
And it is not a deliberate decison to desregard the wellbeing of others.
The anti vaxxers are only refusing to vaccinate because they think being unvaccinated will not harm THEM or their family (or if they get infected it will be harmless for THEM, they very willfully ignore that they are also better spreaders, and were the only spreaders that opted for that before DELTA spread).
It is not a principled (if mistaken) stance, as soon as they get severly ill, they "see the light". It is the Screw you, I got mine mentality. That is different than Jehova's Witnesses refusing to get blood transfusions for religious reasons, they KNOW they have higher risks. The anti vaxxers do not accept higher risks for themselves, they just assume there will not be any bad consequences for THEM.
A person that overeats does not gladly accept to cause harm to others, they even accept harm to themselves in many cases - deep down they know it can shorten their life span and reduce their quality of life, they just can't help themselves.
Overeating, working too much, too little - or too much - exercise. These are decisions / urges / addictions that can be revised. A smoker can quit next year, an obese person can try to eat differently and starting to exercise. They often have to fight their own demons - it is not that they do not care about others.
The normal "preventable" conditions that land in hospitals (but do not overwhelm them) normally do not include willful ignorance and stubbornly insisting on their freedom to do whatever they want - while reasonable people plead with them to think of all of society ! during a PANDEMIC.
They are not addicted - or maybe they are - to being contrarian no matter what. And to have their point of view confirmed by grifters in politics and online. Getting their bias confirmed (it aligns with "owning the libs" no matter what) is more important than anything else incl. caring for their family or avoiding excessive costs for the healthcare system (the party of family values and fiscal responsibility).
Addiction :
the U.S. governments did their part to promote the spread of drugs (while puporting to have a "war on drugs) and the addicted and reckless drivers (or careless drivers, or overweight people, or smokers, ....) DO NOT CAUSE THE NEED FOR TRIAGE.
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Patients cannot have "skin in the game" when they NEED the service (life and death decisions) and when they do not have the expertise to evaluate whether a test, procedure, surgery, treatment, drug is necessary or not. Making people pay co-pays for expenditures they cannot control and evaluate does nothing for cost-efficiency or to avoid waste. It just punishes people that have the bad luck to get sick and who do not have money.
In single payer systems the doctors make the individual decisions - while a non-profit insurance agency provides the GENERAL framework. The agency does not micromanage the decisions of the doctors. The main job of the agency: collect contributions, negotiate the contracts, pay the bills.
Negotiate the contracts (what does the hospital get per day for intenisve care, regular care, etc. usually the rates include fixed and variable parts). Or the tariffs for airlifts, or the prices for drugs.
Solutions like ACA assume you can leave the profit motive in place and relevant for individual medical decisions - but that you can "regulate" it so that patients and the government that pays the high subsidies will not be exploited. Well, the regulators would need to micromanage every single case. It is like allowing a wild animal into your house (even a harmless one like a raccon, or a smaller piglet, or a bear cub or a fox) and assuming that could work out well if you THEN (after admitting it) make provisions to avoid damage.
So .... - if you monitor it ALL the time it will not rip your house apart. You just have to watch it ALL the time. What could possibly go wrong - and why would you admit it into the house in the first place.
(for healthcare: why let the for-profit insurers or for-profit hospital chains play a role. After WW2 most nations decided they would NOT let them play a role. Every nation did their own things, observing some general rules (leaning strongly towards non-profit is one of them, the more, the better). And they all have been beating the U.S. cost-wise for decades.
So for-profit is allowed for a service like healthcare. A service that is about life and death and where the consumers are so much weaker than all the other players). That can be a foolish uncritical adherence to "free market" ideology (never mind that a free market can only function if ALL actors have about the same power and information - so healthcare is a terrible fit for the "free market").
Or the lawmakers are bought by the special interests and prefer not to think too deeply about it.
Anyway:
If law makers implement general rules in the misguided attempt to regulate the profit motive (instead of eliminating it where it WILL create dysfunction and exploitation) - it will get complex.
Complexity just causes more admin and dysfunction and costs. The big players can deal with complexitiy, it is not their preference (they would rather be unregulated, but that is not realistic) - but they sure can make it work to their advantage and use it to game the system.
"Pretend regulations" also remove some political pressure - if there are no regulatons at all, there would be calls by the electorate to have some. Weak regulations that the profiteers can circumvent provide some cover. All the better if they are complex or have sneaky loopholes, the voters will not register the fine print. Colluding media and politicians can sell that as solution to the voters.
The extra costs to circumevent the regulations (more red tape) will be added to the costs. In the end the patients and tax payers pay for it.
In a single payer systems the agency sets up the framwork and the doctors then use the "tools" as they see fit. They will chose whatever they think can help their patients. On the other hand they have no reason to be wasteful with the resources. If they are not squeezed by the management of a for-profit company common sense, human decency and professional standards and ethics will prevail - IF the profit motive is not allowed to play any role and has been eliminated from the process.
They have NO profit incentive (hospitals are non-profits, and doctor practices are small companies and not allowed to become larger than that, no chains). So the doctors make the decisions based on medical criteria only. Every resident is covered and everyone has the right to the same treatments if the doctor thinks it is medically warranted.
The patients cannot prevent frivolous use of resources - the doctors can - and the agency must have an overall look at the costs. The system must be set up to deal with the players that would potentially cause dysfunction, waste and rigging - and who have the expertise to evaluate the decisions.
So NOT the patients.
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npr Nov. 2016, but after the election. We followed a fake news creator into the suburbs (It was a LA Democrat with a degree in political science) Started out doing this as social experiment, and it looks like it is (or was) highly lucrative. He had a team of anoymous contributors (he does not know their clear names or at least he says that) and every once in while someone invented a story that really was a hit. (like the one that got npr investigating, they tried to find out who had paid with a credit card for the domains. They had an investigator, and no doubt it was not perfectly legal ;) but he got a name and an adress, the fake news creator made a mistake.
They created the sites (not hard to do, and the right wingers do not fact check), and did a little seeding on other platforms to get the stories going, some took off, others not.
That stood out to me: how easy it is to fool rightwingers, that there were facts given that were obviously wrong (city does not exist, a murder case is invented, the sheriff of a town has a different name). They tried the same with liberals or lefties, but invariably someone would fact check and protest in the comment section, so those stories never took off.
The Congressional hearings to "Russians" on social media had following results: 50,000 USD spent by Russians (that must not mean any ties to the government) on Facebook for ads before the election and the same amount after the election.
Google ads: under 5,000 USD.
That's not even small change.
Of course one could include for sites run by Serbs or other nations that are friendly with the Russian Federation.
That does not sound like the Russian government did it, the sums are not large enough.
The Russian government has of course their online trolls, but that is costly (if we talk about trolls that engage with others in comment sections).
Would they rile up the U.S. voters ? since Nixon Republicans, Evangelicals, gun fetishists have done a pretty good job in riling up the voters, that is on the U.S. and not on the Russians.
the npr team found out a name and adress behind the fake local news sites, he initially sent them away when they knocked on his door, but was willing to give them an interview a few hours later (they had left a card). I guess he might have reconsidered this stream of income (they give his name in the piece).
What he noticed years before 2016, was the eagerness of the right wingers to get "red meat". They have been primed by grifters for decades: Preachers, rabid radio hosts, FOX, Republican politicians. Think tanks that defend the fossil fuel industry and rile up people against all actions on climate change. Highly biased people that like their outrage porn, fear to not be part of the dominant group anymore (white), and very EAGERLY fall for ANY lie as long as it aligns with their bias.
That is human nature, but they are super & eagrly gullible.
(On the other hand talk to someone adoring Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. No point in bothering them with facts, or their record ...)
I recommend to visit The Victory Channel (they mean it, see the video after Jan 6h, 2021) and Religious Koolaid (satire) - to see what the religious arsonists and grifters are up to.
The Soiets had disinformation tactics and a lot of these people may be out of a job or have passed on their skills, times are hard, one has to make a living, ....
There is money to be made with advertising in the U.S., (probably more than in some poor fmr Soviet Republic) and they will
pander to whatever the audience demands, in order to get the clicks and the ad revenue.
The U.S. has a prepper scene that has non-traditional manufacturers that will also (and gladly) advertise on obscure sites. The man from CA said if he is banned for the ads of the larger businesses on social media - he has lots of offers from other manufacturers to make money from ads and clicks.
Now, the lefties and liberals (neoliberals) can also be a highly tribal lot, but fooling them takes a little more sophistication.
at least that Democrat made a point that the stories could be fact checked. Suicide / murder story related to a Hillary Clinton investigation. The name, the city the sheriff it was all invented. That story went viral and npr decided to dig into it. The sites were imitating the looks and feel of legit local news (weather, obituaries). They also tried to have names that sounded plausibe. One was denvernews com - or something like that.
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As for the main character of "Brainwashed". The father of the film maker likely was a "nice" guy within his TRIBE (friends and family). That does not make you a good person. Every Homo Sapiens that is not a complete sociopath behaves in a decent manner towards "tribe members", evolution made us that way.
Of course old age (dementia) can turn lovely people into very unpleasant fellows.
Also: Outrage, contempt, and anger are emotions of power. Some people may prefer them very much to feeling taken advantage of or to feeling helpless. So they do not develop the anger against those on the top (against whom they feel pretty powerless), they did not kick those on the top, they kick sideways or down. Against the scapegoat du jour, Jewish people, Black people, another ethnicities immigrants, women - suffragettes of feminists, homosexuals, other religions - it is a phenomen we can witness throughout reported human history.
Especially when folks were brainwashed to accept the narrative of U.S. exceptionalism and are not into crtitical thinking and reading.
People sense something is not wrong (it never was O.K. but in the past it ONLY hit poor brown people in far away countries, like in Latin America, Vietnam, Korea). So the U.S. citizens could easily resign themselves to the misery of other nations who were under U.S. military or economic attack (and the citizens of other wealthy nations, like Canada, or in Europe were not better). The citizens especially in the U.S. were spoon fed with "patriotism", "exceptionalism", selfishness and tales how they had made it all on their own (pleasing their vanity).
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@TheRobertibiris The last presidential election was not legitimate you say ? And what about the election of the national assembly (the parliament ?) in 2015 - is that also rigged (since it happened to give the opposition a majority for the first time in 15 years or so). How about the legitimacy of the Saudi elections - or the brutally crushed protests in Bahrain (the latter is a reality).
btw war mongering CNN is NOT a good source.
People do not "happen" to vote. the election system in Venezuela works - and much better than in the U.S. You may think that the people are stupid to have voted for Maduro. i assume if there was one halfway reasonable moderate politician that the population trusts to NOT SELL them out he or she would already be the president.
Given that the opposition called to boycott the last presidential election AND that the economy was already in bad shape Maduro did pretty well, voter participation was not that much lower than in the last U.S. presidential election (with 2 controversial candidates - such races should trigger 80 % - but in the U.S. only 55 %).
I am sure that Maduro gets a lot of flak even from the poor people, which shows you HOW bad the opposition is viewed among low(er) income people - even if the Western regime-change-loving media, the U.S. government and the ruling class of Venezuela does not like it - they are the majority. The same set of people ruled Venezuela before Chavez that is now the opposition, there is a reason they could not get a majority in the parliament for so long - the population knows what they can expect (see Haiti, see Honduras, see Mexico - or Brazil)
Btw: one opposition policician broke ranks and did join the presidential race, so there was an alternative to vote for if voters just wanted to slap Maduro - they did have the candidate to vote for in protest.
My educated guess. The opposition did not get their act together, they could not agree on who would get the spoils if they won - and the Trump admin already then promised them that the election would be dismissed. So "not playing" when you know you you are not going to win (even with that economy !) is just as well. It would also have robbed the U.S. of the narrative of the not legitimate election. They knew they could make the problems of Venezuela worse if they had more time - so then they might get more support for the U.S. approved candidate or at least less support for Maduro.
As for making the economy worse: recently they had introduced a crypto currency that was tied to the oil price - needless to say the U.S. threatens everyone that would use it (in the U.S. and abroad). Now with that currency they could have imported food, fertilizer, spare parts .... but then the economy might function somewhat ... can't have that, can't we.
Until the economic crisis there is not doubt that the elections were democratic and were confirmed as such from independent international monitors (so your claim is There was unusual activities going on senseless violence against poor people even lynchings. The crime rate is high, the motive is clear when there are robberies - but roadblocks dragging a dark men on his way to work and lynching him or setting food storage on fire (the military hands out supplied to poor people) or attacking maternity clinics and public transprotation does not make sense - for normal crime. They would steal the food to try to burn the place down. Unless you want to target poor people which are the folks that are the most dedicated supporters of the party. (That is the rational behind lynching arbitrarily a black man who did nothing to the people blocking the street - if he is not a Chavista than some of his relatives or friends).
The opposition may have found out that that worked agaist them, because it was too transparent.
The constitutional assembly election may or may not have been legitimate/ a genuine grassroots effor. Morevover I heard also opinions that the parliament with the majority is not passing any laws and refuses to do its job. No indepth information on that - nor do you dwell on it.
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When commercial banks create approx. 90 % of the loans (FIAT money - not fractional reserve banking !) that means they have to pay dividends, or interests for the 10 % of the money which they are legally required to "have". Those approx. 10 % are the base that determines what they are allowed to handle in LEVERAGED loans - but they also pay something for the 90 % which the Central Banks/the law allows them to create.
I think the banks have day to day flexibility in the 10 : 90 ratio or whatever the "capital requirements" are, that is looked at at longer time frames (quarterly or yearly). And they have of course ways to work around that.
with the 10 % it is easy. What they pay for those deposits or capital of owners in form of interest and dividends - the interest they demand for loans is higher and the banks keep the difference - paying for costs of course and part is profit. But THAT is only the much smaller part of whatever they lend - the OVERWHELMING VOLUME of loans they create.
Working around showing the loans in the balance sheets:
In the buildup to the GFC the U.S. banks gave out loans to consumers in a reckless manner. European banks simply cannot do that (not for mortgages for consumers - lots of other shady stuff going on but that segment is still regulated). So the next best thing for them to profit from such such schemes was to buy the bundled U.S. loans and to act as if they believed the certificates of good quality.
For the European banks (those who engaged in the con) it was a quick buck. To hedge the risk they were looking for actors accepting BETS on the default risk (Credit default swap) - so the idea was to pass on the risk to other financial institutions - they knew not exactely HOW BAD it would be so better have some backup .... that was when it got crazy and the risks MULTIPLIED - because the bets become popular and did not only cover the volume ONCE.
Risks being the claims in money and the maximum losses if the risk manifested and the loans defaulted. 50 million defaulting could mean: loss of the 50 million to whoever held the bundled loans plus it triggered many bets being lost - and each and every them meant a high claim of people who had no stake in the game whatsoever. (they had speculated like they specualte on oil. currencies, wheat, ...)
(Technically it is more complicated - but that was the effect of the derivates - and they are bets).
For the U.S. banks it meant that they could create money - and the money did not fund the creation of products - or only partially. Lots of houses were built - BUT the value was inflated. So the volume of money created and the value that was REALLY created did not match.
The U.S. banks did not have too many loans (reg. legal requirements how much they were allowed to lend) in the balance sheets - the loans were "exported" to Europe. and the U.S. bank either got money or had a claim on a European bank.
If you simply look at the balance sheet in good faith it is not as high a risk (with cash no riks) than having open loans from consumers.
So their balance sheets looked good. Rinse and repeat - and they could easily outsmart the legal regulations of how much money they were allowed to create.
As no one looks how much money they create to keep the TRILLION derivate and stock exchange bets going. with shares there is at least some connection to the real economy. As for the 700 TRILLION derivate "market" in 2011, reduced to still insane 300 - 400 trillion: see my other comments.
The central bank sets a BASE RATE and then the banks lend out for base rate plus some to companies and consumers. Now it would be interesting what the commercial banks have to PAY to the central bank for that created money. (and the fed partially belongs to the large commercial banks. Who owns the fed is a hot issue, the banks must have an account with the fed - all banks must have one with their central bank - but the large banks also get some of the revenue / profit in the U.S. (not in other nations).
That base rate is a way to finetune the economy, it is not "necessary" to earn interest for that (remember it is created !).
But what the commercial banks give is not "money" it is PURCHASING POWER and access to the (untapped) resources of the economy. That can be underused assembly lines, unused patents, unemployed people, the educated workforce, having a safe country with legal standards, infrastructure, etc.
the banks are allowed to be the gatekeppers to those resources. They can be activated and to some degree there is "leverage" - but the resources of the economy - what the economy CAN DELIVER are not unlimited. So the banks prioritize (not every project gets the loan - many are pie in the sky, some may not get the approval although they would be interesting, the banks of course leaning on the side of caution - well they used to ! - and even when it worked reasonably well the system favored people that were already wealthy. Those who have will be given).
so not ever loan is granted on individual considerations. And then there are general considerations of the economy.
If the economy is under full steam, there is no reason to make new investmenst overly attractive - t he central bank will raise the BASE RATE - and loans become more expensive. If there is a downturn the interest rates can be lowered to incentivize new projects thus giving a boost. That also smoothes out the spikes.
That works only as finetuning - not as tool in major recessions - as is proven by history * although the "experts" act as if they are oblivious to history. The cure for a major recession would be keynsian spending and central banks are usually captured by Big Finance so they have an ideological reason to act as if they could apply low interest rates:
* Japan in the 1990s until now, interest policy after the GFC - and even before, interest rates were too low. Back in the day that would have led to rising wages, but Clinton, Bush 2 could spoil Big Finance with too low interest rates - the workforce had been disciplined with outsourcing of jobs.
Alan Greenspan saw disciplining labor as major achievement of Clinton), so no danger that the workers would have it too good because low interest rates would create jobs for them IN the COUNTRY (and good wages would allow them to take out prudent mortgages for homes to LIVE IN - not for speculation).
I think another reason for the 90 : 10 ratio (if 90 % can be created, 95 or 100 % are technically possible as well, a bank could only lend out money w/o handling savings) was to incentivize the banks to make attractive offers for saving accounts for regular people.
The small savings accounts were not cost-efficient (no computers then, they needed a lot of tellers for that. I think they used punch card systems for data processing back in the day), but every dollar they collected from the little people, they could leverage with being allowed to lend out 9 times more. And loans ARE lucrative for banks.
Banks had the infrastructure to handle large fortunes and loans (accounting, regular money transfers, money coming in and out - they could use the same infrastructure to integrate the whole population in a system that is less cash reliant. For instance many workers got their wages in cash weekly or every 2 weeks, that was not efficient. And the shopping was done with cash as well. When people became wealthier they would have more cash at home (risk of stealing) etc.
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@michelle-vl3me health care "workers" can be nurses or administrative staff. And to the degree that nurses leave (assuming that is even true in any relevant numbers) because they do not want to get the vaccines - they should frankly know better, but they are not in research and have limited authority when it comes to treatment.
So if a biased nurse is unable to interpret the DATA, that does not signify much. She may be good with taking blood samples, finding the veins, change dressings, help a person to wash, change their diapers, coloston bags, and know when vital signs are worrying (alerting doctors). Or setting up and minitoring a blood infustion, or infusion to nourish a person.
that does not mean that she has an academic mindset or is right on medical issues.
She / he may be good in practical skills of care, and may have learned to the test to pass the exam. With luck she can also remember and apply what she learned. But knowing about anatomy does not give you critical thinking skills.
And if she has critical thinking skills she is not going to refuse a vaccination when 1 billion doses have been given globally. At most she would rather get a vaccine that is no mRNA (and also not Astra zeneca).
She would have a look at the vaccination campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s where people (objectively) took a little bit of leap of faith.
She would realize that the risk to die in a car accident is even higher for a woman in her reproductive years when she gets Astra Zeneca (it has never been approved in the U.S. and was stopped in Europe for "not being safe enough". The standards are THAT high.) And the risk to die (1 out of 25,000 to 30,000 - in that range) she has year after year. The "risk" of any bad effects of the vaccine are minuscule and ONCE.
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I would not even say the sun controls our weather - the sun is very stable. There are chaotic processes on earth that come into play with weather (plus the influence of climate). The sun definitely controls the AVERAGE temperature and the CLIMATE on the globe. The movement of the solar system (sun and planets) through the galaxy does not matter for the climate. And what is it with the "milky way" - that's our galaxy !
The energy of the sun fortunately is very stable, it was a tiny bit less in the last decades - but global average temperature ROSE sharply and in the EXTREMELY SHORT period of only 50 years. so this time it is NOT the sun. Scientists KNOW these cycles, and they emerge slowly and very predictably.
The tilt of the earth does not matter over 50 years - that cycle last much, much longer. It is correct that those cycles (tilt, distance from the sun) play an important role - over 10 and hundreds of thousands of years. Not 50 or 100.
These cycles IN COMBINATION with the greenhouse gases determine the climate on earth.
For instance if new mountain ranges were folded up (and the new rock reacted with Co2 from the air - thus fishing Co2 out of the normal carbon cyle). Or when extraordinary volcanic activity over 100,000 years spewed a lot of methane or Co2 into the atmosphere. (in India or Siberia, the lava covered the size of countries and grew as high as mountains)
Sometimes these factors (tilt, distance, extra realease or removal of gases) aligned for a "perfect storm" and sometimes they neutralized or weakened each other.
SCIENTISTS !! know how to calculate these influences. the sun cycles are like a clockwork, and the mountain ranges, volcanoes etc: they find fossil evidence for that.
Being able to exlain what happened with the climate in the past (and these usually took ten ouf thousands of years, if not longer) also helps with predicting how it will play out now - when the atmosphere had such an quick rise from 280 to over 400 ppm Co2.
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@lolouro2266 I challenge you to come up with a peer reviewed study that says the earth is only suited for 2 billion people. That is not even possible - it depends on HOW these people EAT and how they have ordered they other energy use (like having a lot of public transportation - China, well insulated homes - Germany, or building more modestly - U.K. and Japan - well most countries other than the U.S. *)
At the rate the rich countries squander the resources (the U.S. being the first) 1 billion is too much. And with careful use I think 10 billions should be possible. Not with the current economic system that makes GREED the cornerstone. Going for the highest profit or the lowest prices (incl. the lowest price for human labor) and not factoring in the costs and damage done to others - in our normal relationship be would detest such persons for being greedy bastards and void of any morality. (Think your neighbour disposing their waste or toxic waste onto your lawn - just because they can and because it would cost a little (or a little effort - which in the world of economics amounts to costs) to take care of that in the proper manner.
* the German middle class may have slightly smaller homes on average. On the other hand their middle class is not nearly as much under assault. They ALL have 5 week vacations. parents do spend time with children, vacations, extra holidays, the 40 hour week is still a thing, not as long commutes, etc. They do not save up money for the later college education for kids or a good private kindergarden. And they have not nearly as many homeless persons - there it is mostly related to people who have a personality disorder but will refuse the treatment that is available or even more often people that lost they way because of addiction.
There are other luxuries than having a huge home and a lot of material possession.
TIME and being worry free. Free from the competition to amass a lot of material possessions (the hoarding and consumerism is still bad enough in Europe).
In the U.S. there are studies (!) that show that being content / happy does not increase with income, there is a threshold of 70,000 USD yearly income. 70k can buy you the good life and some luxuries - and freedom from WORRY (in most parts of the U.S., in New York it is merely a middle class income). Money does not buy happiness, but freedom from worries and assistance when necessary. So until 70k there is an increase in well-being with higher income - beyond that more money does not equal living better.
People get USED to whatever BETTER level they reach quite quickly (lottery winners after one year have the same level of happyness. So they may be happy - if they were good in the art of being happy to begin with).
The increase in consumer spending, the larger home becomes the new normal. Splendid vacations may be enjoyable, but if your marriage does not go well, if your work a lot, if you are a grumpy person they will only have a short impact on your overall well-being.
Money does not buy you more joy - but the high income in many cases comes with a sacrifice - like working long hours, a long commute, stress. Surrounding yourself with people that are very much into consumerism, and trigger you to keep up.
Humans are very status driven social animals, if your peer group does consumerism it is hard to not join the race. And the home in the nice neighbourhood has that attached to it. It is not only the nice and safe space, it comes with certain attitudes and level of spending. Your instincts drive you to keep up with the Jones. Whatever the Jones are in your environment. The self-segragating U.S. society (according to wealthy) is especially prone to that. The mix is a little better in the countries that come from a Social Democratic tradition, and they have more people in the middle. Less underclass and less very wealthy or rich people.
the Germans are into fine (and costly) cars - but even in the premium segement energy wasting cars would not be tolerated. The owners of the high end Mercedes and BMW could easily afford double the gas prices - but they demand that their sophistaced car also must be energy efficient. so the industry delivers - relatively speaking.
The combustion engine is a waste of energy on principle - a study of one of the major, major flaws of capitalism. Thus we get a technology that is refined over 100 years. But all the big players cannot be bothered to INNOVATE. They worked around the fringes but never challenged the status quo of having a combustion engine at all (they would have needed to educated the buyers which is a risk, and they had always investments in the retro technology).
Combustion engines by law of physics use less than 30 % for movement (the rest of coal, gas, wood becomes heat). In Germany they use a part of that energy to heat homes and water - so the energy efficiency for electricty production in gas and coal plants can be raised to over 60 % - which is still not good.
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The Brownshirts were also inspired by the KKK - the intereresting part is that Hitler and Roehm could turn them against the unions and labor. The wealthy and influental Conservatives tried to rewrite history after WW1 and blame Social Democrats for the catastrophically lost war.
It is like the legend that slavery was a side issue for the Civil War. It helped the elites to cope with the loss, the wounded pride and it was a good deflection because THEY had been so eager to start a war. In Germany Social Democrats were against it and only reluctantly went along while the Conservatives and the monarch stoke a patriotic frenzy. The "elites" had dragged the country into the war that they so catastrophically lost (the South and Germany).
They too had lost, financially but also status in society (or more precisely the unwashed masses got the vote, women got the vote, separation of church and state). All things that were a major shift in society and incensed those who had lived will under the old more rigid order.
But the losses of the German middle and upper class were nothing compared to the sacrifices of the masses. Which were tha majority, and the Conservatives for sure needed a good deflection to stay politically relevant.
These poor men were made to HATE the left parties, and unions - despite the fact that most of them were poor (unemployed) working class. They may have gotten financial compensation, after some times the Industrial leaders in Germany found it convenient to have such a mob, or the Nazis as a party - to stick it to the Left. So the party that was allegedly for the little people got financed by the Rich Industrialists but they were discreet about it.
The party may have had funding for helping the storm troopers out financially. Or even to invite the group to a beer after a successful raid - even that was something.
Truth is: these people hadn't exactely thrived even before WW1 (unlike the middle and upper middle class that was sentimental for the lost monarchy). It got worse after WW1 and they needed a target for their free floating anger. See the legend who was to blame for losing WW1 (a ridiciulous narrative, but it was eaten up by certain circles nontheles).
In the paramilitary organized mob (it had elements of both), the members could experience themselves as powerful when they were part of the group. They had a purpose in life (a goal larger than themselves), status, could overcome the humiliation, defeat, and despair the nation felt after WW1.
The treaty of Versailles was that humiliation, it was not only the lost war, the bad economy, the many men that had died.
Only a very restricted army was allowed to Germany - so France could invade Germany in the 1920s, and occupy the coal and steel region to extract with force the payment of reparations (in form of coal and steel), when Germany couldn't pay them.
The population was fiercly opposed, the rest of unoccupied Germany was livid. The French had to use martial law, with civilians being executed for sabotage (damaging infrastructure, they did not kill people, but were sentenced to death nontheless to scare off others). All railway workers in the region walked off the job so the French had to bring in their own people, and the technology and norms were different, so it was not a smooth transition.
The German government paid the striking railway workers - one reason they printed a lot of money and got hyperinflation. Civil servants tried to be as uhelpful as they possibly could towards the occupies. So France found out that the occupation (likely also political signalling towards their own voters) cost them a lot, they had to pay the soldiers, and production and transportation in Germany was slowed down by the locals.
Britain did not corner Germany once they had defeated a rising potential competitor (one of the major real reasons for WW1), the U.S. did not ask for reparations, but France had lost a war against Germany in the 1870s and had old scores to settle. They doubled down. With excessively stupid actions. Even the most peaceloving Germans were then convinced that Germany needed a strong army again, and that helped the Nazis.
The Brownshirts usually did not use firearms, even though they may have been trained. THAT would have likely gotten the too lenient authorties breathing down their neck. The authorities were "conservative" leaning, shocked that the working class people and unions had a say after WW1, and were often somewhat gleeful that the lefties were being "roughed up" - but 500,000 well oganized people (or then 4 millions in the 1930s) with a mob mentality and the police looking the other way (even before the power grab), can do a lot of intimidation with other weapons.
Shooting people (when Germany was a democracy * would have made good society nervous, that would have been taking it one step too far. What the brownshirts did was seen and downplayed as "roughing the other side up", and if there were casualties it was not followed when only lefties were the victims.
Germany was a democracy between 1918 and spring 1933 - but often in an impasse abour economic measures because of the immense economic pressure: Reparations on top of a bad economy in all of Europe), and there were divisions within society that were cynically intensified for political gains. If was a politcally very active time too, the unwashed masses got democracy, the reactionary forces did not take that laying down.
See during and especially after the end of reconstruction in the South, or after the Civil Rights movement, or how the election of Obama animated the racists. There will be backlash if the status quo in a society changes. The reactionaries among the pillars of society were not unhappy about Brownshirts being an increasingly intimidating force. They would not get their hands dirty, they found the mob of course also uncough. But these uncough brownshirts were useful to show uppity lefties their place, democracy or not.
I can see parallels with the KKK in the South. There were many covert ! KKK supporters as late as in the 1980s among well situated citizens (polite society) - they got visited by the FBI at the workplace when the FBI got a notebook with names by an informant - and were not pleased about it.
After Hitler had seized power (spring 1933) he got rid of the SA after 1 year. With brutal efficiency. The Night Of The Long Knives. The leaders were killed extra judicially and they were surprised in one night because they allegedly planned a coup. Which likely wasn't even true - so they were surprised. A few got warnings from the insiders (if there were personal friendships, but most were killed before they had time to process how the situation had changed for them).
Hitler feared their power (after they had helped him get into power) and he feared (rightfully or not) competition from SA leader Roehm. Hitler - unlike Trump - was smart and strategic. He also had distinguished himself in WW1 and I think he didn't do it for money. He was a lot of things but not a grifter.
Hitler had paid attention to the adage: the Revolution eats its children and the power struggles that followed if one system of governance was replaced FAST with another (and with force). (And maybe other insiders that also disliked Roehm and the fact that he was a homosexual did not let Hitler forget that Roehm could be a challenge to his power).
4 millions Brownshits in the 1930s was a sizeable mob (to give you an idea: Germany now has over 85 million people, likely they had as many people before WW2).
Those stormtroopers had a blast after their side had "won" and ended democracy, and even terrorized "good" political Nazis (think towns and cooperative mayors). So on the one hand - the population did not mourn their swift and violent end.
On the other hand it signalled what would happen if anyone resisted the regime. These had been former and longtime allies and important for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis from an obscure little party.
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She serves the big donors, probably auditions for a job (with all the grandstanding) that pays better that 176k before taxes as Senator. She might already have a job lined up and may not want to be in politics anymore.
The big donors support such shills, she will not be of direct use if she ends her career or gets voted out. BUT:
They need the other shills to serve them and that can mean losing elections for those politicians (they can't run on popular positions, can't they ?). So the shills that still have the vote in the House or Senate and are in committees must feel confident that they too will get the Golden parachute. Especially if they have a few terms under their belt - all the more reason to be really nice with the party leadership, that also allows access to the cushy jobs.
Else the sellouts that are still active in politics might consider working for the constituents for a change. Can't have that !
and then there are perks, like lucrative real estate deals around 3 corners, the books bought up by think tanks (have you ever wondered who buys the books, every politician seems to have one, and they are printed ! - the publishers know they Will. Be. Bought. Not talking about Obama or Dick Cheney, obviously the will have an audience, but all the other books.
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There is not enough work for everyone and not enough CONSUMER demand worldwide (which is driven by the wages of workers worldwide). The corporations need alternative strategies to sell enough stuff - marketing, inventing consumer debt on the credit card (that "solution" is over since the financial crisis) and in the last 20 years even more throw away stuff, fast fashion, throw away furniture etc. Reducing production would neutralize the advantages of the mergers of Big Biz - Big Manufacturing more precisely..
Search for "planned obsolescence" - fewer and fewer corporations are producting MORE and MORE (there are concentrations processes going on thanks to globalization, also trading their shares on the stockmarket and the rules for it helps them buy up smaller competitors, or to merge).
The disposable income of consumers does not grow (well paying jobs in the rich countries are replaced by not so well - or poorly - paid jobs in developing countries. Sure there is SOME improvement in China for instance - it is bought with a decline elsewhere. So in total they cannot sell MORE in value - if they want to sell more STUFF it has be CHEAPER.
The race to the bottom regarding product price and quality:
Cutting corners in production naturally limits the lifespan and quality of products. And they also intentionally limit it by using components that are carefully chosen to fail reliably but only after the warranty time. So a washing machine will cost half of what a good, durable machine used to cost. It will give the impression of having a lot of features (that is easy with electronics) - a cheap machine can boast easily 20 programs. Does not mean they all were carefully tested to make sense or actually improve washing results (or use of resources). And use the alleged multitude of options - as long as the machine is functioning.
That cheap machine has a good chance to fail after 5 or 6 years (pumps and seals usually). Sometimes earlier. And repairing it is not an obvious option. If the basic quality is not there, the often costly repair will be a gamble. And a new machine with warranty will not cost that much more.
Why is reparing expensive ? Human labor, spare parts - often you have to replace one large component even if only a small part is affected (they do that with cars as well), they just do not offer the small parts separately.
So they pay the workers less who produce the machines, automation brought more efficiency. But the consumers (who lose their jobs due to outsourcing) do not even get the advantage of lower product costs (if you factor in the use over longer time).
Products cost half of the price and last only half as long. Plus the hassle to get the new machine. Never mind the damage to the environment and use of energy for needing a new cheap machine every few years.
Plus IF a quality machine needs a repair, it would be warranted - you could have it for many more years afterwards. I know of machines that worked for 16 years (lots of use, 1 repair inbetween). Now, 16 years was good but no uncommon lifespan - with that type of quality machine one could expect to get at least 10 - 12 years of regular ! use out of it.
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+centinel20 Modern Monetary Theory. - Please, please unlearn what you think you know about money. For a start I recommend the pdf of Bank of England: Money Creation in a Modern Economy * that does some myth busting, of course the site of M. Hudson, and also positivemoney(dot)org (search forSovereign Money or QE for the people).
Also see the term: FIAT money (money created "out of thin air" ).
* We are taught that the banks collect money of savers and then they use the collected money to give out loans - that's complete nonsense, please see the BoE pdf, I highly recommend reading it, it is easy understandable, not too long, good that such an influental Central Bank made that information available for the lay persons.
If I would lend money to a person, first I would need to HAVE that money before I can lend it to someone else. Citizens intuitively think that is how money functions at the large scale - no it doesn't. Not at all.
Banks actually "invent" money every time they give out a loan (Prof. Hudson mentions that). Until the early 80s that meant usually some PRODUCTIVE project, it meant entrepreneurs getting orders and people doing jobs (and making an income from it).
Of course a state cannot (well it should not ! ** ) create money just like that - well the task of "creating money" is usually left to commercial banks (although the state/central banks CAN create money - they did so when creating TRILLIONS in the U.S. and Europe for the bailed out banks in order to improve their balances. What Prof. Husdon talks about would be in the line of QE or the people.
IMPORTANT: The amount of money in an economy (currency) should correlate to the amount of goods and services provided by that economy (so if that volume increases as it did during the Economic Boom after WW2 - of course the volume of money which we use after all to exchange those goods and services, must increase as well. (And until the 1980s it was like that.)
How was the additionally needed money injected into the eocnomy ?
Not by "printing" it (or creating it virtually in the books or now with the help of computers).
Imagine the bank notes coming from the press, the bundles packed into cartons sitting on shelves where it is printed or at the treasury. Now what ? - How does the money GET INTO CIRCULATION ? Do they throw it on the streets, send it out with postal services ??
This is how it really worked (and worked well until the 80s): the economy was going well, corporations and citizens were asking banks for loans to expand business and produce MORE. The banks confidently gave those loans - after ASSESSING if the projects and investments seemed "economically reasonable". Then they used their PRIVILEGE to "invent money" - effectively giving out PURCHASING POWER to the borrower. The borrower signed a contract to "pay back" - that meant they assumed they would have an income from which they could pay back in the future. And that usually meant they provided goods and services to other participants of the economy (by being an employee or an entrepreneur).
So the loan enabled them to take some larger chunk (goods and services) out of the economy, of the pool, right away - and then they gave back to the system over time by providing goods and services to others.
Legal requirements for the banks forced banks to have a good look at the projects for which they created money (allowing access to the pool of resources of human labour and goods). Would there be that "payback" ? Would the economic system get the later contribution of the borrower ? Was it likely that the balance of take and then give would be kept ?
Since the resources of the economy are not unlimited, such a testing for the most worthwhile projects is essential. Banks that do not / did not follow the rules could get into legal or at least economic trouble.
If the economy was booming the interest rates would be set (by Central Banks like the Fed) at a level that would make borrowing less attractive (the lead rates are set by the central banks, which then influenced the lending banks).
So the interest rate is the instrument for fine tuning the economy.
Creating money means for a bank: writing a number at one side of the bank balance sheet ( = the account which gives the borrower the purchasing power) - and when the loan is paid back, a series of numbers booked on the other side of the balance, until it evens out.
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+centinel20 part 2 The bank does not "have" the money to give out the loan nor do they "keep" the money when the borrower "pays back".
There is money banks do keep: On top of the nominal value of the loan, they also get money in form of interest, fees, charges etc. When they receive the regular payments they are splitted into loan + interest/fees - and the latter are booked on OTHER accounts. THAT is the compensation for their services - which they get like every other service company.
The loan is created out of nothing - and the amount vanishes from their books when the loan is completely paid back (the amount on one side is balance out by the amounts on the other side) .
The banks do not need to HAVE the money - the government, society grants the banks the right to give access to the resources of the economy. They can use that privilege for their business model, and can earn money with their service for the economy (interest, fees).
And with loans they can earn the money that will enable them to offer other necessary, useful banking services (savings or cheque acounts, money transfer) at reasonable costs.
THAT is the real reason that the governments in all modern economies required the banks to have a certain volume of savings (or proprietary capital from large investors). From a technical standpoint it would not be necessary (banks need a little bit money in form of cash for daily handling, but not much).
It is costly for the banks to collect money in form of smaller savings accounts - but if they are allowed to give out let's say ten times of that volume in form of loans - that is the area there they can make a nice profit. So the government effectively forced the banks to show some interest in providing bank services for the little people - and at costs where the little people would actually use those banking services.
That was a huge advantage for the economy. Consumers/workers were used to handling cash in the 1940s and 1950s, and would not have changed if the bank services would have been too expensive.
Please note that since the the 1980s that beneficial model (creating money to give out loans) to finance an EXPANSIVE economy has been perverted. Then money creation was almost always TIED TO PRODUCTIVE projects, it resulted in jobs, companies having orders, value being created.
Now a lot of the money that is created, fuels speculation (stock markets, derivatives). Speculative "instruments" can be used to create money (no ties to the productive economy whatsoever !), the central banks have mostly lost control over the process of money creation (or more accurately: the leading figures plus politicians assist the Big Casino and have no intention to exert control for the benefit of the economy and the regular citizens).
Since the 1970s the growth of GDP (worldwide and in the U.S.) has lost all correlation with the growth of money volume.
The volume of money has exploded.Times 13 resp. times 18 - compared to what would be justified by GDP growth - that is INSANE.
It is the effect of deregulation, of "financialization" resp. money creation for and by ** speculation.
** One bubble feeds another bubble which feeds another bubble. They end up writing all the vitual wealth onto their accounts and use it as base to speculate some more - all with the help of the central banks and the "authorities).
So what you - falsley - fear MMT would do, is already the INSANE REALITY.
If so much money CREATED than is justified by GDP growth (much, much more than is justified by increase of goods and services exchanged) why does it not show in INFLATION or even hyper inflation ?
Because that money does not show up in the REAL economy. Not in the pockets of regular people who would spend it. - Also try getting a loan as smaller company or start-up, or for financing a home. At that level ! the banks will have a very, very critical look. Banks have widely lost interst (and confidence) in fulfilling THAT task, to finance such projects - which is the ONLY RATIONAL to grant them the legal right to create money in the first place.
The money exists in the virtual world, - there is the "inflation" happening.In the derivative markets and in the value of shares.
A lot of money was injected in the financial "markets" - QE for the banks, TRILLIONS in the U.S. and Europe.
The profits of the speculative transactions (that do not serve the real economy at all) land on the accounts of very few people.
The very rich pack some additional billions on their offshore accounts (it the money is sittling idly on those accounts is does not INFLUENCE the real economy, thus it does not cause inflation in the economy sphere * of the regular people. Inflation is a phenomen that shows up when REAL goods and services are exchanged.
* Income inequality shows also in the fact that wealthy or rich people have occupied real estate, education, healthcare as fields of "investments" - which means the costs of living are rising for most of the population (and those costs are not more than offset by financial gains of the investments). That drives inflation. That has however not directely to do with FIAT MONEY.
The well paid ! employees in the financial "industry" are not numerous enough to spend so much money into the economy that it would be felt (wealthy people keep additional income, only regular or low income people spend more when they get more money).
There is much more money on those offshore accounts and at the disposal of there few, very rich people. More than they could ever spend.
BUT the problem is that even a fraction of that money gives very few people enormous influence, they can buy politicians, media, acamdic mouthpieces, laws, "free" "trade" deals, price out their competition, finance mergers (eliminating competition), buy up interesting technologies and patents - and even finance armies of mercenaries,
Rich financiers and the financial industry (and their bought shills - media, politicians, even academics) would have us believe that we need wealthy and rich investors to get worthwhile projects financed.
With the idea of QE for the people becoming meanstream (as opposed to banks needing to collect money from wealthy people) that position of power is undermined.
Sure the money creation by QE for the people must be democratically controlled, transparent, prudent. But it would end the narrative of "We need the investors or the too big to fail banks ".
No we don't - and we are not supposed to know that. They need us, and the economic and legal system kept afloat by ALL members of society (even low income people, who often provide workforce and are definitely consumers - the most important part of the economic web).
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As for the costs of living: Housing, healthcare (even more expensive than housing for a family), education, and transportation/cars are the larges chunks of the budget. - If those needs are well taken care of in a society, its members can make do with less work hours even ! if that means less income.
European style single payer healthcare is possible at USD 5 - 5,5 k per capita per year - expenditures when all of the population in in the same risk pool ( most wealthy European nations are in that range - even though they usually have an older population than the U.S.).
Anyway: that would mean approx. 20,000 USD per year for a family of four. If you have that covered (like in Europe where you pay a percentage of your wage, so it is always affordable, the family is insured with you, individual risk does not matter, and not payments when you need treatment) you can afford to have less in your pockets.
Now with housing: a nation could do QE for the people and finance well built and planned flats with it - QE means the state creates the money for it directly instead of making it a business opportunity of the haves with bonds with interest.
Advantage: it could be done with almost no interest, thus low cost when stretched over 30 or 35 years. It provides basic safety, having people live together is much more EFFICIENT than individual houses - use of energy, land, needs for streets, sewage systems, etc.
The banks are not going to like that idea - they insist that injecting money into the economy should only be done with bank loans, or with bonds which they handle for the issuers and buyers. Or of course QE for the Banks.
Nor would wealthy people like it who "invest" in housing and then rent it. Or buying up homes (foreclosed homes !) in the hope of selling them with a profit later (such institutions were rescued - ony recently at the end of 2016, see Blackstone).
If folks have affordable housing or OWN the flats they will just refuse to upgrade if it gets to expensive. And people will not panic if they lose jobs, they have alternatives.
Under FDR, and maybe also after WW2 workers were encouraged to get mortgages - people with such financial liabilites do not go on strike. If a modest but safe way of living with a lot of free time is possible the ruling class would lose their grip over the unwashed masses. If you do not like you boss and your partner still has a job - you can quit and look for another annoying boss. Hard to to strongarm and blackmail people if they have the basics well covered.
One could allow people to buy such flats over a span of 30 or 35 years. Meaning of course that the children would inherent what their parents created. So over generations the costs for housing in the population would decline.
Well built houses can be used much longer - 100 years are fine for brick and mortar, even much older and when renovated they allow a good quality of living. Sure there will be need for renovations but that is cheaper than building new - and much more stustainable as well.
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That narrative (intermediaries, savers are "rewarded" with interest for providing the banks with money so that they are able to give out loans - is a narrative that serves Big Finance. - Banking, interest, the stock exchange, money = currency are concepts that were invented to help the rich and powerful - and the myths around it prove that.
When you take the money to the bank it is not a deposit. It becomes "capital" of the bank (that is a legal provision), and that means it can be lost. Whenever banks get in major trouble it turns out that the regulators didn't do their job.
On the other hand in this economy it is almost impossible to not have a bank account and there is a push to do away with cash. So people with savings have no choice but become involuntarily "investors" in more or less risky endevours. Plus the banks are left off the leash and have formed an oligopoly.
But after all if you want INTEREST on your modest savings the bank obviously must lend out your money to make it "work" (not not really !) so that is the rationale to make the people with normal savings accoutns PARTAKE in the risk. (that is not the case if a person rents a safe with the bank and DEPOSITS valuables. In case the bank is bankrupt those valuables remain the property of the owner. Which is NOT the case if you bring the money to the bank).
That means regular citizens = VOTERS become HOSTAGES for reckless banks and the LARGE SHAREHOLDERS of these banks. As long as the party lasts good profits can be made, management is highly paid (much more pforits than with prudent banking), and when it they crash the VOTERS have a situation where the banks can make their politicians sell the narrative of how they MUST BE SAVED, that they are TOO BIG TO FAIL, etc. If everyone would keep their deposits (or the state allow MONEY CREATION for that ! as well) the incorporated structure could go bankrupt. And new corporation would take over the savings accounts, loans, employees, software, etc. (incl. the pension plans) and just go on.
Of course no prudently acting bank got ever into that kind of massive trouble - so it begs the questions WHO else (apart from the people with savings accounts) has claims on the bankrupt bank. What shady projects have they funded, WHO got that money, and why did they not spread out the risks. (There are cases of banks that are not doing well, which may have to do with projects gone wrong, wrong strategy etc - but these are NOT the spectacular failures). usually they are taken over.
The OWNERS that either make large deposits or usually they have SHARES have a VOTE on management and have influence. They have and accept entrepreneurial risks. So THEY would lose their money. So WHAT - they could have done something about it.
Other banks might have CLAIMS on the bankrupt bank - often coming from shady biz, from speculation. (like with the GFC: not only did the U.S. banks give out shady loans and sell them off to European banks - which knew what they were doing btw. Lot of institutions then started BETTING on the default risk of the bad loans. This is when the risks MULTIPLIED. The risk of a default was not only covered ONCE and by the party that would actually lose money in such an event (which would be an "insurance" but many used it as another "commodity" to bet on: like oil, currencies, interest rates, pork halves, wheat, ....
One of the first that needed a bailout in the U.S. (under Obama) was AIG, that is an insurance company and they got into trouble over such bets. Now Congress demanded that all financial institutions had to make public WHO would get the money of the bailout (it turns out Deutsche Bank had major claims against AIG, had AIG gone bankrupt their troubles would have been already out in the open THEN. The German government was not so nosy, they gave bailout money without forcing the banks to declare WHO would profit (that is why a completely unknown investment bank - no dealings with normal savings, loans, and business accounts - was rescued and an investigative reporter found out that bailout ALSO served DB, because they would have lost money).
Deposit insurance is not for all you have in the bank, not for higher sums, and not in a major crash where all the banks go under (countries have different regulations, but it is possible if a person has the maximum of 100,000 with one bank and 100,000 in another bank that they will miss out on the money when BOTH banks fail - because there is a total cap of 100k for instance).
That has already happened in Cyprus and Iceland - and needless to say the really large deposits got a warning in advance (in Cyprus), so that will hit businesses or wealth people but not the super rich.
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The U.S. under LBJ had gotten bugs into the embassy of the South Vienam AND even into the office of the "president" (read the U.S. puppet dictator). LBJ had escalated the war in Vietnam, so it is possible he prefered Nixon over the candidate of his own party, a president Nixon would continue the war and if he "won" then he - LBJ - would be justified after all.
(at least I think that is a possible motivation).
But LBJ had to initiate peace talks, the Democratic party and the campaign of the candidate got nervous, this was 1968, MLK was murdered in spring, in Juni Bobby Kennedy was murdered, and more and more soldiers died (or came home broken).
The public got very negative about the war, it was a traumatic year overall - and if the war had ended before the election, it would have increased their chances to win the presidency.
Because of the bugs the LBJ admin KNEW that Nixon had contacts to the puppet in Vietnam and had advised him to sabotage the peace talks. With the information I got from this segement by Thom Hartman - that he had a lot of dark money by the mob - I assume he bribed the president / U.S. puppet. It was by no means certain that Nixon would win, so refusing to showing in Paris and not negotiating at all - would not have strengthened the position of the puppet dictatr, if a war adverse Democrat had won. After all he depended on the support of the U.S., and the U.S. government had increasing trouble to sell the war to the population. Some willingness to get at the table would have been wise.
I guess the Vietnamese U.S. puppet got well compensated by Nixon for such risks (like the uttelry corrupt president of Afghanistan, a complete DC creation, he was not that much into political power or transforming the country. This was just about the grift, I assume he too ran tail beween legs and had transfered the money out of the country).
So Nixon was not smart enough or did not anticipate such an intel succes (the bugs in the embassy and the presidency). President Johnson could have busted Nixon and forced him to step down from his campaign for "health reasons" - I guess they did not want to expose the Vietnamese collaborators that had installed the bugs.
But IF they would have needed to go public to FORCE Nixon to step down - it would have reflected worse on Nixon: For undermining the U.S. intel agency successes, because the Vietnamese would have known who had the ability to place the bugs for the big "partner".
Either LBJ wanted the talks to not happen and just pretended, or he had skeletons in the closet (most likely he had them and he knew about the skeletons of others, too. The question is if that could be leveraged against him). Or it was unimaginable for him to expose someone of his class. They were both not shy to throw the punches. LBJ was a sleek actor himself, although likely not as criminal in domestic affairs.
There is an audio where JBJ comments on Nixon undermining the peace talks. But we do not know why he decided not to bust his sorry ass. The Dems could have smoked the presidential candidate of the Republicans, tying every dead soldier to his treason.
Conservative voters are into loyalty (that is why they do not care if their guy is a thug, see the reelection in 1972). But if "our guy" costs the life of young servicemen that is another story.
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@zippydodahquirk9039 A man in California, 30 years. 3 kids (all under 8), wife due to give birth to another one in September. Organizing anti mask ralleys and harrassing school boards was more important than care for his pregnant wife (she and his daughters could not get the vaccine, and he was - of course also against getting vaccinated. ).
Funny how he got into the hospital. First he refused to test, then he decided to self medicate, (vitamin C, D, ivermectin, zinc), after 4 days he was in bad shape and got admitted (end of July), he needed 4 weeks to die.
His wife opened a gofundme after 2 weeks, likely he got his wages every 2 weeks. For paying essentials and for the mortgage.
What business did he have running around to play the contrarian, no matter what - while he had 3 kids, soon 4 and a preganant wife that was more vulnerable. Even if she had only gotten a "harmless" case no hospital needed. People have if very mild others say it is like a bad cold or the flu.
Imagine that in the last month of pregnancy or while she gives birth.
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@spreadingrumors But the fossil fuel industry now admits that CC is real and caused by humans. (Not that they would DO something about it, but at least no denial). However: dealing with CC would always have needed invervention from big, bad guberment. It might even result in more taxes on the rich. and it would mean "telling people what to do".
Like eating less meat or not driving wasteful vehicles.
There is a streak of "liberterians" which have sugar coated selfishness and glorified it into a political standpoint. Individualism, low taxation, the state has ONLY to defend their property rights (not the rights of other people to live, or be healthy, mind you).
That was of course a project of the oligarchs.
At some point the Republicans decided to not accept climate change (there was a time when it did not seem an urgent problem and they were not as a party so biased). But then they decided this was more of a "liberal" issue and thus is was appropriate to be against it. (they already had groomed the Evangelicals and fished for the votes of racists, so ....)
Now the mind of the gullible has been poisoned, the Frankenstein monster got out of hand (the Republican party is not too happy with Trump either).
These voters do not value education, knowledge or science. I wonder what would happen if their favorite preacher, Trump himself or their favorite blogger or Fox News told them that Climate change is real and caused by burning fossil fuel. Their heads would explode most likely.
Also enough bloggers groom that base, one can make a good living of it. It helps with the branding and audience loyality to appeal to their EMOTIONS and get them annoyed and enraged.
No doubt most of these bloggers believe what they say and they too cannot be bothered to check
potholer54 debunks them and clueless or biased journalists all the time. Highly recommended channel btw, facts, science, well explained, not too long, 10 - 20 minutes.
It does not help much to point out that NOW Exxon and Chevron admit that burning fossil fuel is a major cause of global warming which will lead to major climate change.
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Hitler had a MINORITY GOVERNMENT (35 %) which was expected to fail btw. German Conservatives rolled over every step on the way of the power grab - and the Democratic Party takes that role NOW. The Dems do it to keep the Big Donations flowing (from the people who PAY BOTH parties. - And they are careerists w/o strong convictions so why take the trouble to fight ?
Never mind that in most cases they would need to oppose the donors to do so.
The Conservatives in Germany in winter 1932 - spring 1933 (gladly) cooperated because they had so much contempt for the Left even the moderate Left.
And the Nazis targeted the Left and their rights not them (their civil rights, elected Communist members of parliament were excluded or even thrown to prison for the arson of one member of the Communist Party etc).
Society was much more authoritarian, many were nostalgic for the good old times under the emperor where everyone "knew their place". Now they had to put up with the fact the the unwashed masses had a voice - and those times were very politically active.
In summer 1914 they were (well siutated) citizens in a strong nation (trying to compete with the British empire also regarding military strength) - in 1918 they found the monarchy dismantled and democracy slapped on them by the winners or the war.
Not to help the Germans. Democracy was meant to remove the old monarchy and therefore curb any unifying force for a militarily ambitious Germany.
The U.S. post WW1 economy was doing better Although wages were stagnant while productivity increased vastly. So output grew much more than disposable income of consumers - which ultimately was a strong incentive for speculation. It did not make sense for the rich to invest more in manufacturing, the people could not afford the stuff that was already being produced resp. there were over capacities.
And consumer debt had not yet been invented, but the haves of course insisted that the already existing fortunes should make them MORE money. The only thing that can earn money in a healthy way is economic activities, profitable production of goods and services. So it got unhealthy. But the U.S. population had some tolerable years until 1929.
On the other hand the economy was not doing well in Europe generally. On top of that the Germans had to pay crippling sanctions.
Plus: they had to dismantle most of the army (a Conservative bastion). Another hit against the pride of the nation, and it allowed France in the mid 1920s to invade a region across the common border when Germany could not pay the reparations
The Germans tried to print their way out of that obligation - which caused a quick dropping of the value of the currency = hyperinflation. Tthe allies refused to accept the "paper" money and demanded gold. Well Germany did not even have goldmines and could not pay at least not w/o impoverhishing the population completely. So France invaded the coal and steel region and established martial law there.
They left after some time, I think the conditions were softened a little bit. During the hyperinflation time the wages had to be constantly adapted, at the worst time twice a day. Which of course irritated and scared people and did not indicate stable times.
That said everyone who had machines or goods or could produce was on the good side of inflation, so there was also an incentive for EMPLOYMENT.
After that they had AUSTERITY - then they had deflation and real problems with unemployment.
Hyperinflation was not that bad for blue collars, people with small to medium savings (as opposed to real estate, things, machines) lost their nest egg, rich people had of course ways to protect their fortunes in money. And usually also houses etc. to soften losses. Plus these were the "elites" that could have prevented the war.
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1 - the unquestiond 40 hour workweek: In the U.S. the 40 hour workweek for all was introduced in 1940. (Some branches or large corporations had it before, for instance railway workers, or FORD). - If your commute is not too long a 40 hour workweek allows you to enjoy your income, you have free time. That is especially true if the adult wage earner and maybe parent (usually a man) with the salary could finance a middle class life, and a wife as stay at home mum and homemaker (as it used to be at least for white Americans in the 50s - 70s. She would take care of the clean house, the kids, the warm meal, and all the other conveniences. - I am not for that 50s model BTW - another model would be that men and women could make a nice living with 20 hours each (or 30/10 or 40/0 or whatever). So both genders would test and improve their skills in the work force (and have that boost for self confidence and self reliance) and both could also have time for the unpaid work at home and time to spend with the kids, etc.
So 40 hours was was perceived as O.K. - but there is no LAW of nature that we MUST work HARD or LONG hours, or even "only" 40 hours in PAID LABOR. Actually productivity has dramatically improved since the 1940s and 1950s (in Europe the 40 hour week came a little later)..
In the U.S. from 1947 - 1970 productivity grew by 112 %, the plus with average wages was 97 %. so we can say approximative ! that purchasing power almost doubled and that most of the gains of productivity landed in the pockets of the workers. The advantage for the businesses was 15 % in 23 years.
Pro business advocates might find that unfair - but all philosophy aside - it worked splendidly for the economy (and thus the entrepreneurs !) The ever increasing output could be soaked up by consumer demand because the wages = disposable income kept up with the output in produced goods and services.
Industrial mass production requires mass consumption - and that needs an income for the consumers (which are WAGES).
Since 1970 productivity has risen again: by 69 % if I remember correctly until 2011. But this time wages have only improved by 9 %. (The wages in both time periods are adjusted for inflation of course).
So the working time WITH the SAME income (purchasing power in the 70s) could have dramatically shortened, that would mean unemployment would stay low, people could enjoy their life better, more customers for holidays, etc.
Even more important the BALANCE of POWER between employers and workers would have been upheld. (Things went well for businesses after WW2, not only for workers).
People could avoid doing unpaid overtime (unpaid but even paid) if it easy to find another job. And wages WOULD not be lowerd, if the businesses have to make attractive offers ot the workforce to convince them to become employees and help them make a profit.
Instead the 40 hour workweek was not questioned when unemployment rose in the late 1970s (for several reasons), and the higher unemployment meant that the bosses got the upper hand.
Villifying the unions was part of the plan to reverse the New Deal, and later "free" "trade" agreements - which are a scheme to pit the workforce of wealthy and poor countries against each other. The "trade" provisions include that no prohibitive tariffs can be slapped on such imported sweathshop goods and that the plants and investments of Western Big Biz in the exotic countries would be proteced.
These protections for Big Biz ) are valid 20 - 30 years AFTER such a trade deal would be abolished. This applies also and especially to the very important protection from import tariffs of the wealthy nations - Big Biz (whether it is owned by Western fat cats or Chinese) have to sell most of their stuff in the wealthier countries, the underpaid workers do not have enough disposable income.
Politicians (Bush1 and then Bill Clinton) on behest of Big Biz made sure even future governments would lose the ability to reign in Multinationals and protect their workforce. They made sure the successful model after WW2 would NOT be applied to the developing countries, that the workers of these countries could be exploited, their environment polluted, and unions kept down there.
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Punitive states doing jobs programs - not sure about that. In order to help their buddies they might make it as unpleasant as possible. To spare the employers the COMPETITION on the job market. That competition kept wages good until the oil crises in mis 1970. Then automation, computer use, immigration, women in the workplace led to more competition for the workers. It really showed with the economic crisis because of the oil price shock. and stagflation = high inflation and high umemployment (which was not dealt with correctly - the rich countries were not very proficient in dealing with the crisis everywhere).
After the crisis was over it would have been time to go green energy AND use the still increasing productivity to reduce worktime (with the SAME wage). Before (1947 - 1970) the gains in productivity (most of it) was paid to the workers in form of higher wages (plus productivity 112 %, plus average wages adjusted for inflation 97 %, so purchasing power almost doubled, which was important because it meant the ever increasing output of goods was matched by disposable income = wages)
So in the 1940s it was the 40 hour week for one adult in the family, in the 70s it was time to consider to switch to 2 jobs (man and wife) with maybe 30 or 25 hours.Or an eventual journey to 20 hours.
Instead the ruling class used the crisis and the shock to undermine the New Deal completely. It helped that the workers had profited from the boom after WW2 - but did not completely understand how it worked. - the unions were already under attack.
The ruling class stroked the vanity of people, the attitude "everyone is on their own", and that they would proudly attribute their success to good work ethics and negotiating well with your employer. And a certain disdain for unions was cultivated (I am sure some unions or their leaders were corrupt).
The honest American blue collar did not need no unions to do well, he made it all on his own.
Well - no.
As soon as the negotiation power of the workers went away (higher unemployment for the first time, creating anxiety) - the haves hit back.
And unleashed the think tanks to train the regular people to accept neoliberal economic policies that would only profit the top 20 or 30 % of the country.
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3 - the unquestiond 40 hour workweek: Both genders could have it all. - There are a few cases where CEOs share their leadership position (? was it Ikea or H&M, a German subsidiary of those Multinationals (headquarters I do not mean shop management) - both were young parents, a woman and a man, I think they talked about 25 - 30 hours for each of them).
Of course that means a culture of COOPERATION. If you have a corporate culture where one sociapath (living for nothing but work and professional success) tries to get the upper hand of the other sociopaths in order to rise to the (extremely highly paid) top, SHARED LEADERSHIP will not work.
If it is more about power and prestige and less about getting things done it will not work.
Of course the current system encourages leaders that lust for power, prestige and no salary will ever be high enough (on the surface it may look like a good thing if such a bully is "our bully" , but all that grandstanding and the intrigues are costly and cause a lot of inefficiencies - those costs are just not obvious from the books and more indirect - so they are hardly ever calculated, estimated, or considered).
From real live experience: shared jobs at the lower ranks but still with a demanding and qualified work (4 hours before noon, and 4 hours in the afternoon) CAN work.
But you need intelligent, flexible, well organized, co-operative people who can think "around the corners" and who consider details.
Meaning they are able to deal with the requirement: "What do it need to tell my co-worker when I hand over the shift, what information do I have (and these are usually smaller things) that I must not forget telling him or her ?"
You must have the ability to think along for the other person as well.
And you must be very well organized. The reward for the company is that the performance in 4 hours will be higher than in 8 hour days. And that such skills will be trained (because they are necessary) and there will be a strong incentive to BE COOPERATIVE - and there is nothing like a cooperative, capable and motivated, supportive ! workforce to solve problems.
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2 - the unquestiond 40 hour workweek: Reduced worktime with the SAME wage: for the businesses the situation would stay the same as in the 70s. Disadvantage: not more profit than in the 70s, and they would have no chance to squeeze the workforce.
Advantage their would be a solid base for consumer spending w/o credit card debt of consumers ! And in that climate of confidence it would be easy to start new businesses. - In the late 70s consumer debt on the credit card became a thing - it bridged the gap between output of goods and stagnant disposable income. That "solution" is maxed out now. (and of course it was never a good or sustainable or honest solution).
Advantage for the state and society: confidence, the good life for all, a healthier not as stressed out population, having time to participate in grassroots, charity, inform themselves about politics.
Low welfare costs !
Even people who are a little bit off track or did not do so well in school would have a chance to be and remain a part of the workforce, they would HAVE A PLACE in society. And the problem of the inner cities could be solved.
Work time unfortunately was not shortened in the 70s - the 1 % and the haves had their chance to get their revenge for the inconveniances they had to "endure" because of the New Deal . Which were higher taxes for them, and they had to put up with a confident and selfassured workforce, the destinction of rank (those who mercifully "give" jobs vs. those who do the work) got fuzzy in an economy where it was easy to change a job, or make (organized) demands on employers.
On the contrary: the 40 hour week was practically ABOLISHED in the U.S. and to some degree also in Europe (many contracts include unpaid overtime, people are forced to make unpaid overtime or unpaid internships even in professions and positions with low(er) pay .
Or their workday is splitted. Starbucks got some backlash for that some years ago - in the wealthy European countries the workers are protected from the bosses monopolizing the time of their employees.
Like that you have to be 10 hours available just in case they need you, but your acutal PAID shift is much shorter (with a lot of unpaid breaks inbetween when business is expected to be slow).
Or that people do not know how their shifts will be in 1 or 2 days.
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Kristallnacht WAS government sponsored - of course. The police was INSTRUCTED to look the other way AND to hinder any citizens taking the side of the prosecuted. Hindering the firefighters. No doubt they would have killed any Jews defending their property. The police chased away shocked regular citizens (witnesses).
The Nazi government put their civilian ground troops to good use, at that time they had enough time to consolidate their power. That "spontantanous" show of the "disgust" of the "Aryan" German people against Jewish PROPERTY was OF COURSE planned and well organized by the regime. (the Germans are not into rioting, they like things to be orderly and the law to be followed. that is why the government created the illusion that normal "citizens" did it. But they were not bad rioters, no - so they also avoided to have people killed, and the police was engaged to make sure that there were no non-Jewish witnesses.
In this display they restricted it to systematically destroying property. It was a sign to the Jewish people, but also a sign for anyone who would dare to show support for them, or anyone who disagreed with the regime. And they waited with that until after the annexation of Austria.
The Nazis took over as minority government in fall 1932 (35 % of the vote - in summer it was 45 % so that was seen as a good thing. The summer election had to be repeated, none of the parties could find coaltion partners to get the practically necessary majority of plus 50 % - there were 6 - 8 parties in parliament. The Nazis were the only party which could have prevailed with only ONE coaltion partner - but no one wanted to work with them).
In 1928 they had polled at a few %. But the small recovery of the post war misery after 1916-1918 was crushed with the Great Depression that rippled over from the U.S. to all other nations.
Their decline in fall 1932 showed they also got a lot of the protest vote. The result was met with a sigh of relief, but among the many parties and the split vote they were still the strongest party.
Hindenburg the president (a staunch conservative, fan of the gone monarchy, but with a lot of standing in ALL of society) did not like them. But he let Hitler's party try to form a government - expecting them to fail.
The rich German industrialists covertly funded the Nazis - covertly because they ran under "being for the little people", that is why they used Socialist (National Socialist) in their name.
So I gues the Conservative party would not openly form a coalition government with them, but they were maybe expected to do the dirty work for them - crushing the left, the unions. It is possible that the party leadership got a stand down order.
Anyway: Hindenburg was on his deathbed a few months later, if he had wanted to he could have stopped the power grab of Hitler.
The Nazis had successfully infiltrated the police and to some degree the justice system. That helped.
And in the course of approx. 6 months the conservatives in parliament and in society went along whenever the Nazis made the next move to undermine the institutions, passing laws, how they were enforced.
The Nazis needed the votes to hand over all powers of parliament to the government - and they got it. Hitler could not have gone against the military. (Germany had to drastically reduce the military. But the officers of WW1 were very much respected, even if veterans. Hitler could not have taken the Republic only with the hooligans. And the military man were drilled to obey their leadership (which was the president not the chancellor of the active government).
The military fell in line when the "legal" coup was finished - a violent power grab by Hitler and the Nazis would have been another thing. And of course not nearly all of the 35 % that voted for them 6 months earlier would have followed them in a violent uprising.
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The anti vaxxers are only refusing to vaccinate because they think being unvaccinated will not harm THEM or their family (or if they get infected it will be harmless for THEM, they very willfully ignore that they are also better spreaders, and were the ONLY spreaders that opted for being that before DELTA gripped the nation - being vaccinated helped against being a spreader with former variants).
It is not a principled (if mistaken) stance, as soon as they get severly ill, they "see the light". It is the Screw you, I got mine mentality. That is different than Jehova's Witnesses refusing to get blood transfusions for religious reasons, they KNOW they have higher risks. The anti vaxxers do not accept higher risks for themselves, they just assume there will not be any bad consequences for THEM.
A person that overeats does not gladly accept to cause harm to others, they even accept harm to themselves in many cases - deep down they know it can shorten their life span and reduce their quality of life, they just can't help themselves.
Overeating, working too much, too little - or too much - exercise. These are decisions / urges / addictions that can be revised. A smoker can quit next year, an obese person can try to eat differently and starting to exercise. They often have to fight their own demons - it is not that they do not care about others.
The normal "preventable" conditions that land in hospitals (but do not overwhelm them) normally do not include willful ignorance and stubbornly insisting on their freedom to do whatever they want - while reasonable people plead with them to think of all of society ! during a PANDEMIC.
They are not addicted - or maybe they are - to being contrarian no matter what. And to have their point of view confirmed by grifters in politics and online. Getting their bias confirmed (it aligns with "owning the libs" no matter what) is more important than anything else incl. caring for their family or avoiding excessive costs for the healthcare system (the party of family values and fiscal responsibility).
Addiction :
the U.S. governments did their part to promote the spread of drugs (while puporting to have a "war on drugs) and the addicted and reckless drivers (or careless drivers, or overweight people, or smokers, ....) DO NOT CAUSE THE NEED FOR TRIAGE.
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In this case the CoVidiots were refusing to show solidarity during a pandemic and do not care for others (* the usual remark of people that have seen the light: I did not think I could get it, my late husband felt invincible, ... In other words: if only other people die, they do not care at all). So I would be for cooperative persons getting the resources first.
Never mind: the Covidiots may have gotten other people into the hospital, by infecting them, thus filling the beds (or fiercly opposing measure and leading protests), and those people may not be able to get the vaccine, may have a weak response (immuno compromised) or need other care.
It is like a person chosing to drink (they fancy they can handle that, they will drive carefully and are that special, ....).
They cause an accident with severely injured persons.
And then the drunk driver (young, healthy before the accident) would get scarce resources and the care for their victims is delayed (increasing the risk for bad outcomes for them).
Because the driver in younger and was in better shape than his or her victims.
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Who USES the main part of fossil fuel despite being only about 12 - 15 % of the global population ? - Yes many humans are born - and they live on 1 or 5 USD per day - they are not eating meat nor do they use a lot of fossil fuel. Look at WHO eats the meat (it needs a lot of resources and also energy - the ratio of (grain) fodder to produced beef is 1 : 7 - so with a grain / soy or bean based diet one can sustain a much, much larger population w/o overusing farmland. The ratio is better for pork and chicken - but still factor 4 or 5).
There are a lot of human tragedies resulting from a high procreation rate in developing countries (that is typical for poor agricultural societies, it was the same in the U.S. or Europe btw - only 100 years ago). The exploding population is a political problem - potential breeding ground for mass migration, terrorism etc. - but despite the high numbers THEY have LITTLE impact on the fossil fuel side.
The Western nations that are shrinking in numbers (mostly) are the heavy users - per capita and also for the total volume !
For U.S. and European meat the forests in developing counties are cut down to make space for soybean production. those soy beans do not feed the people in the country. they are the CHEAP FODDER for the meat producers of the First World.
In the countries with high population growth there is pressure on wildlife (big predators going extinct, elephants, lions, gorillas, elephants, ...) yes. But while that is more than a national problem - it is not as dramatic as the global consequences of climate change triggered by global warming.
The orang utan is not in danger of going extinct because of the demands of locals - they are threatened by the insane EU program to have plant based fuel - that is one of their "save the climate" schemes, no doubt highly lucrative for a few special interests. In that case the appearance of doing something replaces doing something that would really help. They could get the oil from European grown countries - but palm oil is cheaper.
The oceans are not overfished for the needs of poor people (they hardly evers see animal protein), a chickenor an egg here and there if they are lucky.
And of course there is another use for palm oil - driven by Western multinationals and Western consumers (and increasingly China). For industrial production of food, and other articles (like shampoo, ...) They could use oil from plants grown in the West. But there they cannot simply take over all forests or dispossess small farmers. The production costs would be slightly higher. Not that it would matter - it would add maybe a few cents to the breakfast cereals, ice cream, detergents.... - but since only a few multinationals control most of the influental (food brands *) - even the cents add up to their profits. The prices for these products - often conveniance food and treats are not set by mere cost calculation anyway. Somehow they always end up with ,99 - so the sellers most likely would not even raise prices but rather decrease volume (might not be a bad idea) or just leave everything as is.
That would mean slightly decreased profits.
(* despite the many brand names they companies that own them are highly concentrated, all the medium sized companies who had a product that sold well, were bought up, taken over, ... look for the infographs on Who owns the food brands)
So the Asian rain forests are destroyed.
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good point - our current system - capitalism - does not factor in the external costs, poisoning, pollution, health risks of workers (especially when they are in poor countries). - We need to take advantage of the inherent advantages of industrial mass production but not driven (solely) by the profit motive.
Else we end up with a consumer society and throw away products, and huge parts of the product price used for "marketing" while the sweatshop workers work almost like slaves, .... or that we are "unable" to deal with our carbon footprint, or methane footprint.
It is maddening because we have the technology (or could quickly develop it). Unfortunately the bold "we will get the technology no matter what it costs" only applied to the development of nuclear fission or the Race to the moon.
Civilian, life nurturing efforts - no money can be found.
Raising the U.S. military budget by more than Russia spends in total in one year: Yes please. (to 680 billion USD, Russia spends between 70 and 80 bn per year).
We could work 25 - 30 hours per week (with enough income to make a living), we would eat much less meat, have more durable devices, less but enough clothes (they did not go naked in the 70s and had a sense of fashion).
There would be less frivolous "innovation" - no I do not need a new car model or type of smarthphone every year.
We would have more of a very valuable commodity: time.
We would have good public services, incl. excellent public transportation.
And some basic decent publicly funded housing (with good infrastructure) would be available - and much cheaper
Check out Prof. Richard Werner Debt and Interest free money.
Those lower costs would compensate for higher energy prices and higher food costs.
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if the money that is created lands and SITS on the accounts of rich people it does not create inflation (no money chasing goods) that is the situation we have right now. I think if the petrodollar crumbles the U.S. will get higher inflation - then because of imports costing more because of the weaker currency.
Due to outsourcing so much has to be imported now. If the USD would be valued on its economic merits Export/import trade imbalance. Debt - fed, state, local, consumers - it would have dropped long ago - which would have undermined all that outsourcing.
Imports become more expensive and it becomes an advantage to produce IN the country.
What is more: the pitchforks would be out - there is no glossing over inflation or gaslighting of the population.
If Sanders gets an infrastructure program through (with jobs that cannot be outsourced) and wages rise then there would be (some) inflation.
Not every kind of inflation is destructive. Sometimes it is the inevitable sign of a booming, healthy economy. It was higher during the time of the Economic Miracle.
Inflation is not the enemy of the workers if they CAN demand higher wages to compensate for that - and the right kind of giving the workers the fair shair of productivity wins should result in a modest desired inflation in the range of 2 % **
(depends on how much is imported, what is made in the country, outsourcing). It is also not the problem of entrepreneurs that are invested in machines to produce or people paying down a loan.
** see Heiner Flassbeck on the AGREED inflation goal in the EURo zone, how that agreement - that would make the Euro work - has been undermined by neoliberal politics since the introduction of the EURO, especially by Germany.
They keep the wages stagnant which allows them (in addition to a too weak currency, the EURO is not as strong as the Mark) to boost their exports to insane and unhealthy levels. That helps ONLY the OWNERS of the export industry and is on the back of every other participant of the German economy (incl. companies that serve the domestic demand).
Only France meets the goal of 2 % (they used to - not sure about 2018) because their strong unions make the companies pass on a good chunk of productivity wins.
But the people that have fortunes on accounts and in USD denominated bonds do no like inflation. At. All.
(that includes Saudi Arabia and China who hold a LOT of US bonds propping up the USD as world reserve currency - so far.
And of course all the rich people that hold fortunes in USD. Now they would try to switch to other currencies. Which those countries (Europe. Yen) certainly do not want, they would get even more problems to export to the U.S.because that would increase the value of their currencies.
All of that under the conditions that we let Big Finance and the speculators determine the value of a currency - it used to be differently. Directly after WW2 there were fixed exchange rates (which was an advantage, it made exports / imports plannable).
The governmetns / central banks COULD do something btw - like limiting transfers. If there are not companies bought in other countries there is no need to to send the billions around the globe.
So far media, politics, central banks see the world from the viewpoint of the rich. (and money, currency, banking, interest, stock exchange had always been tools of the rich).
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Thom what happend to your criticial thinking skills ?????? do you mean to imply that Obama, Clinton, Kerry, Bush, Cheney, Bill Clinton, Alas Greenspan, ... were better ? One could argue that many of them are worse than Trump because they are not stupid clowns, they had the ability to recognize what they were doing, if they were willing to be honest with themselves.
The only halfway decent person I can think of is Jimmy Carter. As shows his conduct AFTER the presidency. The office must do something to people - Carter supported the dictator in Indonesia and did nothing against his genocide (on the contrary they got more weapons by the U.S. or with the help of the U.S. to unleash more atrocities). Under Carter also the infiltration of sort of secualr Afghanistan with foreign - often Saudi - Islamic terrorists started. Even Carter followed the common U.s. policy to make pacts with the devil, when it seemed ! to help the interests of the U.S. - more precisely the U.S. empire and the U.S. oligarchs.
Carter confirmed/signed a budget 6 months BEFORE the Soviet army invaded/moved to Afghanistan in Dec. 1979. Now the Soviets shared a border with Afghanistan and had some interest what was going on there (espcially if the U.S.was busy buidling an Islamic terror network in their backyard). What was the excuse for the U.S. meddling ?
Carter was very much influenced by Brzezinski - who came up with the idea to have peace in Israe - good idea.
But it seems he was very, very much against the Soviet Union and wanted to do everything to limit their influence. Brzezinski was an intelligent, knowledgeable, smart proponent for the idea of an U.S. all dominating empire (and let me add in such an empire you can expect Big Biz and Big Finance to call the shots but maybe Brzezinski despite his intelligence did not realize that - it is no advantage to be the regular citizen of an aspiring empire). In the context of insisting that the U.S. must be the only dominant nation on the planet Afghanistan, or Indonesia had some importance.
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I do not even think Trump - left to his own devices - would WANT war with Iran. The people around him want war (count Mike Pence in, big time). - Of course war can always be an attempt to get the ratings up. - Also consider the VILE MEDIA eager to profit of military conflict (ratings, their owners might have shares in the Military Industrial Complex).
The mainstream media were criticizing Trump right, left, and center this spring. Then he had the huge bomb dropped on Afghanistan and he let Syria's airbase bomb - and all of a sudden they were fawning about him and he was called "presidential".
It shows that the "journalists", "news presenters", and their rich owners do not have any relatives in the military and are not hindered by any ethical scruples either - the airstrike on Syria to "punish" the government for allegedly killing their own citizens cruelly and unnecessarily - killed around 40 MORE civilians (and some of them were children). I am sure they were glad to have died courtesey of the U.S. for a "good cause".
The bombing in Afghanistan was pointless (there are bombs that PIERCE deeply if you want to destroy tunnels - a system that was errected with U.S. financial help btw in the 80s).
In Syria there was NO proof that there even was a poison gas ATTACK, let alone "who did it" and "what DID happen". - People were actually killed and harmed (as much is sure).
There are well educated guesses (Seymour Hersh): the Russians did an airstrike - and they had informed the U.S./NATO forces about it in advance as usual - to avoid trouble among the superpowers and their military. (And the Russians were under the impression that the U.S./ NATO had informers where they intended to bomb and wanted to give them opportunity to get them out of harms way).
The bombing was targeted at a building that very likely was (also) a warehouse and there are assumptions that there were unintended chemical reactions triggered.
It is enterirely possible tha they stored Chlorine, and fertilizer there. And it is possible the jihadists even stored poison gas and explosives there.
All of that could have been set off unintentionally. The Russians KNEW that the warehouse was a location where the jihadists met all the time but not what was going on there - incl. they did not not know that it was a warehouse.
(although that is likely - the jihadists control the population by giving them the things they need, like fertilizer in this rural region, or the Chlorine which is necessary to "wash the death", to prepare them in the proper way for burial according to their traditions).
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Ossoff: Another attempt of the Democratic Establishment to NOT CHANGE the substance. Ossoff a Corporate Democrat (with the usual rhetoric, incl. the values, opportunities, flexibility, bla bla bla). Affordable healthcare bla bla bla (but no talking about single payer, heaven forbid). No clear populist profile ! But he is sleek, at the coass he would be liked (I think for this conservative district he was looking a little bit too young) - And another try to fix an election with money.
Did not work for HRC. Did not work with Ossoff. Not all wealthy people are greedy a**holes, one COULD explain to them how single payer is even good for solid middle class people (net they still pay less, the system is so much more cost efficient, you deduct 45 % of the U.S. expenditures = German expenditures - and Germany is on the higher end of the average among wealthy European countries, and their system is good).
Explain to them how upper middle class people (even if THEY pay slightly more) can be PROUD of their contribution. How this would be a boost for the economy, help smaller businesses. Transfer money from the rich regions of the U.S. to poorer areas like Georgia (more nurses more disposable income, less stress on the low income people, they can spend more money too). How it would make life so much easier for doctors (they know they will be paid, no hassle if a bureaucrat will allow a certain treatment). And the planning (and the paments) are so much easier for hospitals.
How their contribution will propell the country forward. Single payer can be sold to wealthy individuals as well. It is only the Pharma and Healthcare industry (and their RICH shareholders) who do not like it. And the owners of MSM (who are likely to hold such profitable shares and on top despise any proof that solidarity can provide better solutions than the mythical "free market". And of course the politicians who get their share of the loot(campaign contributions, cushy jobs for ex politicians).
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45 % of the vote in summer 1932, election had to be repeated. The Nazis did not have the majority and no other party wanted a coaltion (and the rest of them were too fractured and at odds with each other to form a coalition either, there were at least 6 parties on the ballot). In late fall 1932 they got 35 % - and were the first to be asked by president Hindenburg to try and form a government (as is usual for the largest party, but he had the authority he could have asked parties. He was a staunch conservative who did not like Hitler and the Nazis, he expected them to fail).
Instead they formed a minority government right away. the industrial leaders funded them covertly. They may have leaned on "leadership" of the conservative and the right (who would not officially go into a coalition with the Nazis) to support them.
so they voted with them every step on the way to dismantle democracy, separation of powers, due process.
The Nazis got a lot of protest vote, the economy was really bad after WW1 short recovery, boom ! Great Depression swapping over to Europe. In 1928 the Nazis had less than 5 %
45 % or then 35 % (with low turnout) did not care about the ugly rhetoric (about Jews for instance). They either liked the othering or were desperate enough about the economic misery to not care.
Nor did the right parties care - their leadership, the industrial leaders expected the Nazis to do the dirty work for them, go after the unions, the left parties.
Nazis had undermined the police, even the justice system. (recruiting members). The other narrative was about the violence of the Left - the Right instigated fights, and the police tended to ignore right wing violence and harrassment. The police went more after the left transgressions.
The Nazis after the power grab were free to pull off (covertly) a MMT related scheme, they partially financed the build-up of the military with it. The Industrial leaders cooperated, they would not have done that for a centrist or left government. And with parliament being fractured and not cooperating during the democratic times it might have not been possible to do it. - The economic recovery gave the Nazis legitimacy even with people who had not voted for them.
After WW1 the nation and especially the conservatives/the right (the dominating part of society) were in shock: in summer 1914 the world was O.K., in Nov. 1918 they had lost a wold war, the old order of society where eveyone knew their place had been turned upside down.
The right cultivated the narrative that the left was to blame for losing WW1- or more precisely, they could have lost less badly and gotten a better peace deal. The reparations were crushing.
That was delusional and unjust on top: the Left had demonstrated in the rush to war (1 month in summer 1914), but they went along in parliament (war funding) once war was declared. The conservatives in parliament and in society (calling the shots everywhere) took the country into war. Germany, well the emperor could have refused to support Austria-Hungary (they would not have started the war - falling dominos - w/o Germany on board).
The war was lost when the U.S. entered WW1 to help U.K.
Many things look similar, even deflection of blame.
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+Clare - you misrepresent what he said or at least what he means (I heard him talk about MMT so he "gets" it). - That said: he and Hartman are not completely right - the theoretical concept of fractional reserve is that the banks only need to have 10 % of the loan volume, the rest they "get" in form of an accounting exercise from the central bank (which also does not "have" the money).
Fractional reserve banking is not practiced - and likely never has been done in the way the theory describes it.
It is FIAT money not fractional reserve banking - and the Bank of England is very explicite about it (Money creation in a modern economy, the pdf is online, you can only read the summary - they spelled it out clearly).
- The banks lend out money they do not "have"
It is an accounting exercise, they do not so much "create money" - they create purchasing power and access to the resources of the economy. And commercial banks have to legal privilege to be the gatekeepers to that in individual cases, while the central bank sets the overal picture regarding availability of loans with the BASE interest rate.
Money creation in itself is not a bad thing.
Money creation is either done by commercial banks (Fiat money), or directly by the government / central bank. Think QE, or Bradbury pound, MMT, Debt and Interest Free Money.
The Nazis used such schemes to finance the buíld-up of the military (partially). And from an economic point it worked well. They turned the economy around (which gave them legitimacy with the population - of course the industrial leaders were SUPPORTIVE with the fascists when they would not have done that for a moderate or even left leaning government. Germany did get the weapons, planes, highways, railway modernization, .... and the jobs to end mass unemployment.
The banks and the rich do not like the unwashed masses to know about money creation in form of Fiat Money (it would destroy the myth how we "need" the rich investors, or how capital must be placated in certain scenarios with higher interest rate to stay in the country / currency).
and they definitely do not want the concept of direct money creation to be widely known (QE for the Banks was O.K. but it had to be explained in a way that the unwashed masses did not understand what is going on).
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2:30 One of the most important principles in Marxism is "the workers own the means of production". NOT the STATE OWNS the means of production. (Lenin in an assessment of the "state of the revolution" a few years after the Bolshevic power grab called that STATE CAPITALISM. Which is accurate.
The state dictated what, where by whom would be produced. And who would get the products at what price and who would do the transport and selling. And wages and who would get a job. (So people who were not completely obedient to the system could be threatened with loss of job, very much like in capitalism).
State capitalism meant: Top dow hierarchy and micromanagement instead of grassroots.
The "Bolshevics" used the trick to equate state power = the power of the workers to decide about their economic fate. - Right, that's why the Bolshevics took over all the grassroots groups (the co-ops = Soviets) that had been formed in the short time of the fledgeling democracy.
Marx said that only organized mass action could counteract the ruthless opposition of the ruling class and that the workers would need to capture the institutions and the state government. Did he mean a dictatorship ? Or did he mean the working population could only exercise that souvereignity in a very indirect form (via the state institutions).
My take on this: Marx was very correct about the RUTHLESS, BRUTAL opposition that workers and the low income people in general could expect if they wanted to better their lot by getting a say in what happens in a country and if they wanted a fair share of the pie.
I have not read all of his works so I do not know how democratic or undemocratic his stance was (for instance ideas like "the good cause justifies the means" - like the workers using a violent revolution. His phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" is quoted - but I do not know the context of that. If he thought that - he was wrong. Violent revolutions that topple undemocratic systems almost always breed a new dictatorship. if violence rules and the normal order breaks down, the most ruthless actors in the game have a natural advantage, they will sideline the moderate forces and use the power vaccum to their advantage. And often that ends in former revolutionary allies fighting each other - "The revolution eats its children".
Back to the status quo: The few on top had been using the military, the administration (if the culture had one, advanced civilizations have one) and religion for MILLENIALS to keep the masses down. They for sure would use EVERYTHING to screw the masses - legally and illegally.
We can see that btw in the way the Democratic Party now stoops to all sort of shenanigans to cheat the emerging progressives. The usual institutional power, influence and money they have isn't enough anymore - so they "step up" their game.
And the "elites" might stress the importance of rules and punish those who do not follow them. The minute THEY are challenged they will feel no need whatsoever to stick to the rules themselves.
The Nazis had some luck that they could capture the power in Germany (with spineless Conservative parties helping them). However, even though it appears like a totally avoidabe accident of history - on the other hand they had been capturing the INSTITUTIONS for 10 years (justice system, making friends with the upper middles class and the class of officiers who enjoyed a lot of respect in society. And especially the police !)
The Nazis - like Marx - KNEW how important it is to control the institutions.
You know the joke: heaven and hell discuss to have a soccer championship. The folks of heaven are pretty sure they will win anyway - they have the best players.
"So you think you will win, do you ? " says the devil. "Sure - you have the players - but we have the referees".
And a quote that is attributed to Lenin or Stalin: It does not matter who runs in an election or who votes - it matters who COUNTS THE VOTES - hackable US voting machines anyone ?
Power never concedes anything without a fight - it never has, it never will.
In 1800 or 1850 or 1900 the people at the top were FIERCLY opposed to the unwashed masses having any say or influence. (And at that time they still could feel comfortable to show that ideology). Some of that contept was still alive in the 1950 until the 1970s - and in the 1920 and 1930s it was very apparent also in the "low(er) income white collar class". I can speak for countries like Germany and Austria, Switzerland.
The people who were all for the traditional distinction between the classes had to be dragged into the new era. In post WW2 Germany the "elites" did well financially, but they did not have THAT much of a say (well at least they abstained from all too open attempts to shape public opinion) - after all they had been a major factor why the Nazis had a chance to come to power. Plus the thriving economy placated the hostility somewhat.
I am not so sure that Marx meant that the state should own the means of production. If so, he had illusions that the workers could keep control of the state administration, hierarchy, bureaucraZy. Of course there is nepotism and bureacracy exploding if you leave the organisation of a manufacturing plant to the "state". These decision have to be made at a much lower (not so indirect) level.
The more levels, the more indirect the decision making (and having to live with the results) the more you dillute common sense, accountability, transparency.
For me the "workers owning the means of production" would logically mean the people working in a plant (helping to CREATE THE VALUE) have some LEGAL STAKE (ownership - which is maybe tied to working there), that they have regular meetings, everyone has one vote, and at least the important decisions are voted on. And the body of workers hires (and if necessary fires) management.
In short GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION. Like in co-ops.
As for now: the "investors" and fund managers hire management and to THEM and only to THEM management is accountable.
In a Marxian run business the body of workers would replace the "investors".
So if you will: the workers become the capitalists.
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The Pareto principle applies. You get 80 % of results with 20 % intput. Getting the consumption of fossile fuels down fast (cheaper solar panels, storage costing considerably less, and not relying on scarce resources ! **) would be the first step - We can take it from there, even if still some fossil fuels are needed as backup.
**
Sites on land that are suited forwind, or for pumped hydro. These are solutions that can work, but in many regions they would be too expensive or have other negative impacts.
And for batteries: materials that are more common, are mined in many nations, and production is not as much impactful as for instance Lithium.
Now they are exploring floating wind (offshore, no problems with residents, stronger and more reliable wind),
there are (more) test proujcts using wave / tidal energy, and of course a few floating solar panel plants are in the process of being built.
All these projects get public funding from their governments (Indonesia, Singapore, Germany, France, ..... Japan), most ideas will never work, at least not at a mass scale, but it does not matter, some might contribute niches (covering a few percent of global demand), others might be too complicated.
But with the mass of approaches (and very different ones) - there will be a few hits.
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@adama5929 No, a small number of individuals willing to make sacrifices will not make a dent. There are simply not enough of them to _change the paradigm_. they would have to beat the system, the economic power of all important industries in the world. - for instance as an individual you might need transportation to get to work:
What if there are no other choices to BUY than cars with combustion engines. What if public transportation is not even offered, if it is not safe or takes so long that it becomes impractical.
Zuerich in Switzerland is the city of millionaires.
It is also the city where almost everyone uses the TRAIN to get there. Affluent and lower income people share the system. It is very affordable, clean, safe, high frequency (practical, little loss of time). Swiss citizens can buy a yearly ticket for ALL mass transportation in the country, bus, railway, underground, cable care - public and private.
The offers are highly integrated. (connections, frequency, routes). Since the offers are GOOD they are used by a lot of people which means they can service a lot of connections and routes, which makes it even more practical for the users ....
That was a political decision and of course the fruits of decades of effort. Switzerland is a small country - but those tunnels are not cheap. And anyway there are plenty of densely populated FLAT areas in the U.S. that would have excellent conditions for good mass transportation.
That could save a LOT of energy, costs (in the cities you you live w/o car), the cities would be cleaner and more silent, more space for trees, and less for parking lots. It would have extra advantages for low-income people. They could have their transportation needs met w/o the expenditures of a car.
people live their daily lives, use the devices as allows and rich people splurge .... what else is new. That is human nature,
The rich might be made to pay more for their flights. Maybe they will be taxed extra for having private jets.
Regular people will not be able to fly as much. That is not a problem within the U.S. Not a technical one at least. China got bullet trains while the West was dealing with the Great Financial Crisis. France has had the TGV for many, many decades
These trains are as fast as flying if you factor in all the delays at the airport.
That would be a WISE investment - but of course the airlines would riot and the project cannot be realized by a few individuals.
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@adama5929 The sun sends SO MUCH energy to the earth that as soon as we can harvest it efficiently (even better than now ) and store it * we do NOT have to return to the primitive life. - What became of the "Can Do" attitude they had during WW2 and later ? Manhattan Project ?? - it was not clear at all that nuclear fission was possible.
Well, they tried and they meant business: One city in the desert for 50,000 people.
Eisenhower thought flying to the moon (especially with humans) was way too expensive.
There came the Sputnik shock - They were going to make it happen. Money and experts were allocated, it was an ongoing serious effort over some years (approx. 10). Again successful.
The sad thing is that these efforts so far are only politically supported when it is about war, distraction, and adversity among nations.
Imagine the same attitude applied since the 1980s - we would already be well into the transition. The weather would be less erratic. The wars in the Middle East would not have been started.
Fraunhofer Institut is engaged in material research - incl. for photovoltaic, I saw a video
* Lots of interesting things are in the pipeline globally. More cost efficient production, or better performance for panels
Price is ONE variable, it has fallen dramatically because more panels are produced. Like with computers, processors, mobile phones, TVs you can expect lower prices and higher performance once the technology has a market that allows mass production and pays for ongoing research.
If the panels are cheap it does not matter if you have surplus electricity at times - worst case you heat your water or send the energy deep into the earth if the electric grid is not yet able to manage it. (The German net became much more stable. Not that it was bad before, but especially with thunderstorms and extreme weather, there were blackouts sometimes.
The German energy providers were forced to step up to deal with more fluctuations. So the occasional hickup in the traditional steady sources are easily and always compensated as well. the German grid has halved the "off grid" times (there is a industry parameter) since 2006, while France and U.K. still operate under the old standards.
(you could have an arrangement with a neighbour that uses a heat pump (in the soil) for heating. The heat you take out of the soil in winter must regenerate, you need to drill deeper and the heat is regenerated with rain - so it works the best if the surface is not sealed (sand or soil would be best), cobblestones are less ideal, tarmac does not work at all.
if you install a little PV panel to help along (or get the occasional surplus of your neighbours), you do not have to drill as deep (cost saving) and have less restrictions regarding using the surface area. The donor has the advantage that the panel can be protected from overheating. It might be a decision to not even send your surplus into the electric grid.
** A mega game changer would be batteries. (if possible not Lithium). Many promising projects for solid state. Better or cheaper batteries would make the whole system more economic and bridge much better peak production and peak demand.
The moment batteries become cheaper people could satisfy most of their needs, at least in the sunnier season and over night. (PV works very WELL on a sunny winter day, and they work better if they do not get too warm. Those household batteries could also be adressed by the providers to extract electricity exactely when the grid has extra demands.
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6) Dems are financed to keep progressives out, their job is to win primaries - NOT necessarily the GENERAL ELECTION. NOTHING is more important than keeping the big donors happy - not even winning the general. - Dems occasionally use the same tactics that the Repubs use to rig the general - they do it in the primaries, should that be necessary to help a neoliberal big donor darling to win. See Greg Palast.
That explains the deafening ! silence of the Dems on many outrageous R voters suppression tactics. Either they do not want to draw too much attentiion (they do it too, on a smaller scale) or they just cannot be bothered.
Careerists and opportunists do not fight for a righteous cause (like easy access to voting for ALL). They have given up on the South, and Mid West, (the farmers that handed the unexpected ! victory to Truman in 1948). so the Repubs were free to gerrymander and suppress the vote as they saw fit.
It is not like the Dems would have a relentless campaign to call them out. Like the Repubs have a RELENTLESS campaign on every issue THEY find convenient for electoral wins (Remember the niche of the fierce ideologues is occupied by Republicans). Single issues like guns, abortions, gay marriage (that has now swtiched to going after transgender people, they found out that too many affluent R voters are also gay, there are too many of them and they often have support from friends of family, they are not a good target anymore.
And now immigration. ACA death panels (ACA is bad but not that bad).
Decades of claims of rigged elections, justifying their need for measures who happen to suppress the vote of low income people which coincides with people of color for the most part. (and Establishments Dems were unfazed).
There was NO campaign on the D side about REAL stealing of elections: 1) the COMMON donors do not want the sheeple to get upset 2) Dems find those tactics also useful form time to time. 3) they are getting a cushy job when losing elections, and while they might prefer to win, it is not the most important issue. Nothing is more important than serving the big donors. If a candidate gets carried away and tries to win on populism - the big donors pay the party establishement to reign such rogue elements in - or to get rid of them by all means necessary.
Then Democrats can fight just fine.
Like many hours wait times in GA for black voters. I was astonished that Stacy Abrams got a little airtime in 2018, then they wanted a Blue Wave so much and the symbolism of GA getting a black female as governor, that Dems and their buddies from liberal media broke the rule to report on systemic voter suppression.
And Stacy Abrams is unusually feisty for a Democrat.
The oligarchs do not finance democracy, they finance Democrats to sheepdog the part of the population that is out of reach for Republicans.
Dems can and do fight, incl. very shady tactics - they just do not use that ever against the other wing of the one-and-only-big-donor-party.
Sure they would like to win the general (some like HRC very much, Al Gore was more the opportunistic, not-so-ambitious type, he went away quietly in 2000 and was rewarded for not rocking the boat. The oligarchs want quiet in their empire. They did not care if Bush or Gore got it - both would sign the Chinese trade deal, that the Clinton admin had prepared).
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+ Paulette - I am STILL not sure that Clinton would have been better that Trump. She would not attack the dreamers and immigrants - admitted.Nor would she do anything substantial for them or help the working people (legally here or not). - Clinton also would not OPENLY DISMISS the Paris agreement. MEANINGFUL ACTION against Global Warming means much more than paying lip service and some of the actions would not be liked by the Big Donors (the relevant industries of course generously donated) - so aint gonna happen not under Trump or Clinton.
The Republicans do nothing and deny the reality of man made CC - the Democrats admit it and still do nothing (or not nearly enough).
When she become Secretary of State she promoted fracking all over the world on behalf of U.S. companies (no doubt donors to the party and also donors to the Clinton Foundation) - fracking is a DESASTER when if comes to the Methane footprint. Leaked UNBURNT fossil gas - some marketing genius coined the term "natural gas" for it - is a STRONG greenhouse gas, it has 28 times the effect of Co2.
Of course methane produces Co2 like every other fossil fuel when used in the regular manner and burnt, but the trouble starts when it escapes before being burnt. The only advantage is that Co2 can stay in the atmosphere up to 1000 years, while methane is mostly broken down after approx. 100 years (some of it becomes Co2 though. And some of the Methane reacts with the Ozone layer high up - that protects us from radiation).
There is a reason scientists talk about "runaway Global warming" and the "methane" bomb.
Now I have been knowing these things as an interested citizen (no professional ties to the filed) since the 1990s - so how come Clinton and Obama who allegedly admit to the reality of GW - show this schizophrenic behavior of saying one thing - and then doing the other.
As CITIZENS can easily know the health costs for the people who live nearby fracking sites - Mr. Hope and Change or Mrs. "I am with her" could not be bothered to at least re-introduce the the "Clean Air and Water Act". Cheney/Bush knew full well why they made the fracking industry exempt from that protective law (Nixon had signed it).
Trump may be compromised with Russia - they are obviously playing that "advantage" with a very light hand if they have it.
I would see that as advantage. if THAT is what makes Trump stay out of Syria and avoid the constant, reckless, unethical poking of the Russian Bear - so be it.
HRC is as hawkish as they come. Would she have announced twice that the U.S. would disengage from Syria in April 2017 and April 2018 ? Which in both cases was followed within a week by a social media storm claiming to "prove" a chemical attack (2017 could have been an accident caused by regular bombing, and this time it is not even sure if it was only people being hosed down after they came to the hospital - lured there either by the promise of sweets for children or they had relative harmless respiratory problems because of the dust caused by bombing).
Funny enough: neither the big attack in 2013 (which we know DID happen, many people dead, and in that case Sarin was used) nor the alleged events in 2017 and 2018 could ever be proven to have been caused by the Syrian government army.
And in all cases the "rebels" (the Syrian and the foreign jihadists) were losing against the regular army and had very good reasons to draw the U.S. in - they had all to win and nothing to lose. in 2017 and 2018 they were negotiating the conditions for an amnesty and free passage (in 2018 3000 fighters had left, while those who still were in the contested area wanted to take 900 million USD with them - according to Peter Ford former UK embassador to Syria in an interview with Ron Paul).
In all cases the U.S. government immediately claimed (w/o any possibility to KNOW) that the government army did it, in all cases the media and the vasalls of the U.S. (aka NATO states ) picked up the claim and repeated it like the gospel - no questions asked.
In 2017 and 2018 Trump gave in - and the U.S. carried out a chest thumping act of airstrikes (and in both cases the back channels between the U.S. and the Russian military negotiated a "face-saving" deal to prevent outright war, the airstrike of 2018 had 8 targets, no casualties, 4 injured. The Russians and Syrians KNEW what was going to be targeted, they might even have "provided" the sacrificial lambs".
This was the suspicion about the 2017 airstrikes and it was confirmed by the Russian foreign minister (in a BBC interview he gave after the airstrike) for 2018. No details but that the backchannels had talked and "found a solution".
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Transition to renewables. the red-green * Social-Democratic / Green Party coaltion (a force for neoliberalism btw **) passed an orderly transition out of nuclear power. The Exit from nuclear power. Slowly shutting them down. Merkel was elected and did her buddies a favor, that was revised and the
population was told it was all safe, they had checked out the safety of the plants.
Nuclear power and especially the question of the waste is more controversial than in most nations. I guess one third are against , one third for nuclear power, one third does not care either way and hope they know what they are doing.
So Merkel did the "Exit from the exit".
* Internationally red is the color of the Lefties, unions and Social Democrats, only in the U.S. it is the Conservatives that have that as signature color.
** like Bush could not pass NAFTA it needed Bill Clinton to screw the working class, this was the era when types like Clinton, Blair and Schroeder were at large)
Then Fukushima happened in 2011. Germany took notice. BIG TIME. They respect the Japanese as their equals when it comes to technology, the failure of the power plant was NOT because of the earthquake it was the flooding and both are well known risks in Japan. Tsunami is an old Japanese word. The Soviet failure could be put on the flaws of Communism - but Japan ??
In one state dominated by the conservatives (for decades) a red-green state governments seemed possible according to polling. The Green party of Germany has many anti-war and anti nuclear power activists. A not a few weeks before that election Fukushima happened.
I think world wide many government and agencies had a good hard look at their nuclear power plants. They were shut down 1 month for stress tests etc. Also in the EU.
The German plants had just been evaluated for risks (or so they said). Their run time (they are rather old like in most nations) had just been extended (instead of following through with the plan of the former government) and the population had been told that was safe (corks popping in the industry).
After Fukushima they were evaluated again (??!!).
The Conservatives lost in that state, they did get a red-red-green coalion (with a few seats of the far left) and that was a blow.
Merkel - which exells ! a opportunism if at nothing else, and is an adminstrator of German stagnation (living of past investments) - said she had a change of opinion (??) No, she hadn't. She is a phycisist by training. If she truly believed nuclear power was safe (to please the buddies / donors / job providers for ex politicians of the party) she still believed it.
She took the wind out of the sails of the Green party and to a degree Social Democrats, and adopted their position (criticism of nuclear power validated) - and put up a new program with a strong NEOLIBERAL twist.
The Exit from the Exit form the Exit (Germans call the 180 of Merke that) became an investment model with a lot of subsidies. And unlike the former red-green party plan it was done so hastily that it opened a chance for the industry to SUE the government. I do not think that was a stupid mistake ! They could dupe the voters AND help the industry to recoup some of their costs (the former plan did not offer any chance to recoup money from the government, their run times were not extended. and reasonable safety requirements were made).
"Energy transition" (an euphemism, it was only switch from nuclear to renewables !) was an investor-friendly scheme. And it was not a comprehensive plan, it shows that her heart is not into it, she is not into renewables. Storage - as a future chance for Germany was completely neglected. The government should have thrown money at research so now batteries could be the next export hit of Germany and SUPPORT a large scale ! transition in the country.
Large scale transition was NOT the plan - it would challenge the established players !
Insulation is much better than in the U.S. for newer homes - codes, and little was done to bring old housing up to modern standards (think 1970s, 1980s). At least NOT with consistent policies and subsidies. Insulating homes and buildings that housed lower income people would lower their costs of living and would also provide a lot of jobs IN the country.
Solar panel industry in Germany was getting a lot of subsidies (that I think was more under Schroeder) but went under because of Chinese competition (which was also heavily subsidized). Of course one could have subsidized the German industry, put tariffs on the Chinese imports and have required quality standards (back in the day there were major differnces, and they still exist, although the Chinese panels have become better. Quality pays off, for a 20 year investmtent, the costs for "made in Germany" can be spread out over 20 years, especially with generous low or no interest loans). But that would be against neoliberalism so to the new solar panel companies in Germany that had been propped up before went under (a lot of them). because they produced in GERMANY and that costs more than in China. But of course lots of jobs in Germany.
Some residue of unemployment is good. For the neoliberals.
Insulation is a job motor also in rural areas, and the materials are also produced in Germany so the effect on the economy (reduced unemployment, training the workforce) is higher because more value is created in Germany.
That is not all good if the government continues and doubles down on wage stagnation that was started under red/green Neoliberals. Germany has enough unions left that high employment and robust job numbers would result in higher wages. And the cost of living for the low income folks could fall - long term (if their landlords are incentivized or mandated to invest. And in condeminiums it is also hard to convince all owners to insulate or get a shared solar power installation or insulation - unless it is mandated).
Such installations (larger buildings sharing one solar power installation, they could produce for the grid) have NEVER been encouraged. At all.
it was a niche for investors AND for for the affluent citizens that typically vote Conservative. They did not get much on their savings (interest or bonds) in 2011, stocks are not that popular and that was after the financial crisis. So anyone with a house and a roof in the right direction and some money in the bank could consider getting solar panels, the subsidies made it a SAFE and lucrative investment (more so than bonds).
people that rent or only own a flat. THEY were stuck with the high electricity prices to finance that. The living expenses of the low income people financed the green investments of the affluent, the 30 - 40 % in Germany that still do well.
The transition to renewables did some good - still. but it also gave it a bad rep among low income people, and it was a lost chance. So much more could have been achieved it Merkel had come from a place of conviction - not neoliberal service for big biz and opportunism.
If you are low income you still want to be in Germany and not in the U.S.
It is very telling that the Germany government under Merkel threw money at the car industry in the financial crisis. And of course banks.
Old cars were taken out of use and the owners got high subsidies to buy a NEW car. (They found out that sales went down in the next years, people bought earlier but not MORE. And it was of course also a program for the middle class, low income folks cannot afford a new car, not even with massive subsidies.
Like the cash for clunkers program (only that the cars in Germany by and large are much more energy efficient, even older ones).
Alternative: the car industry worker get higher unemployment, and the industries must invest big, big time into battery research.
very basic knowledge about renewables will tell you - wind and solar can only work if you have storage or battery solutions. Especially in a country like Germany. In california or Australis peak production of solar meets peak demand (A/C) much better. So they need less storage to make it economically viable. And with solar you have to do something with the electricity, you cannot turn off the panels, the over production would cause a blackout. There are times when German (or Californian, ....) producers give away electricity for almost free just to get it out of the system. Of couse if companies and households would have cheap, and robust batteries that electricity would go into storage. Where it would save them costs (especially with the HIGH German electricity prices).
BUT good,cheap, robust, residential storage (other demands than for cars, weight is not an issue and fast charging isn't an issue either) would make renewables a mass solution.
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The German government (2019, 2020) put a CAP on larger installations that now would be viable w/o subsidies. They discouraged large installations (home owners, companies) with taxing ! the power that is harvested. ONCE (a fee to providers) if the energy is directly used by the producer. TWICE if the producer sells the energy to the grid (sales tax AND the fee).
I think the latest dire news about climate change prompted a partial change on that policy. Only small (too small) private installations were excempt, and it is possible they very recently reneged on that.
A neighbourhood doing their thing as energy cooperative ? Nope ! they are an electricy provider with ALL the massive red tape that comes with it. De facto impossible.
A landlord installing solar and selling power to renters ? Nope !
A large production hall getting solar and the company produces a lot of what they need - and they could even be off the grid - they have the resources to run a diesel or gas generator and also use the heat * * *
Definitly NOPE. That would be the nightmare scenario. For providers.
* * * more than 2 thirds of the fuel become heat (not motion) in steam engines or combustion engines. Only a small part of the fuel becomes motion that turns the generator (or motor). That inefficiency of heat engines is a law of physics (the theoretical limit is under 25 % I believe - in that range, 21 - 23 % in practice would be considered good). But if they use the waste product heat (warm water for neighbourhoods or for heating their own halls) they achieve better efficiency. Over 60 %.
(Heat can even be used for COOLING .- and ice can store heat, crazy as that sounds. That is not even a new concept for industrial use. Ice as temperature storage / BUFFER).
Waste (what is left after recycling) is burned in German and Austrian plants. Some use that heat to produce electricity and hot water. There are even some wood burning stoves for homes and farms that produce electricity (peak demand) and the heat produces warm water. For burning waste they need to add fuel (especially if a lot of the plastic is sorted out). But they can recoup some of the fuel costs when producing peak electricity and some more if they sell warm water. Plus no transmission losses if electricity is used on site or nearby.
Providers were propped up as for profits and with all the neoliberal "free market" gibberish. Dividends, over payed management, cushy jobs for former politiicans.
I disagree: they have a natural monopoly and of course in a time of disruption for an established, highly important sector a for profit will get into trouble. And they cannot really plan, the unknown technology that might be available in 10 years can totally undermine their business model.
providers need to have the reserves when solar or wind is not delivering. Solar NOW provides a lot of energy during midday (when they used to get good rates for peak demand). They need to maintain the gas and coal turbines - and sometimes renewables beat the heck out of them and supply at very low costs they can impossibly compete with. And the times when they used to make good money (midday, summer heat) are also spoiled by renewables.
A public non-profit could finance the necessary reserves and would not need to worry about the future, they are still a very much needed backup and reserve of the system and if they use their financial resources in a reasonable manner they will be kept open. But no investor get's rich of it.
Of course the transition phase needs reserves. Of course times of luw supply of renewables (winter !, rainy periods) need reserves - and reserves cost money. Investment that does not always bring a Return On Investment.
So which way is it - for profit free market ?
They can't have it both ways - when consumers and companies buy less electricity and at buying when providers do not find convenient they ask for protective regulation and for sidelining COMPETITION. If things go well, then it is the free market narrative. And lots of dividends for the investors.
The fee (just for being ON the grid as backup when renewables do not deliver or if you have technical problems) is not per se unfair. Unless of course the providers otherwise insist that the free market rules (in energy). Which is a ridiculous stance anyway.
And a sales tax and regulatory hindrances for TINY grassroots producers ?? Who would massively boost installation of renewables and batteries.
WTF
If only Germany had kept the solar panel producers in Germany and had invested in battery research. Because then it would create TONS of jobs. IN Germany.
But it is very obvious the government under Merkel wanted it to be a niche for investors - not a MASS SOLUTION. That could make a dent regarding climate change.
Nothing that goes beyond a lucrative, half hearted (climate change), investor friendly, kinda green pet project.
Nothing that would directly go against the interests of the LARGE PROVIDERS. Which have been paying out secure proifts (from their natural monopoly) over decades and never bothered to have a nest egg or to invest into adaptation - unless they got a lot of subsidies for it.
NOW solar power has become so cheap, and batteries have become cheaper too (and there will be a price drop in the next 5 years) - that the providers are getting a LOT of pressure. We can see that in how THEIR government reacts.
So now they have extra fees for power that a home owner or company produces and directly consumes. Yep, the power goes from roof to the appliances and never leaves the property and you pay a fee on that. Also for installations that got NO subsidies.
Only small (too small) private installations are excempt. And companies are completely excempt. Halls of commercial buildings must be more solidly built in Germany than in the U.S. (insulation, stability overall), so they could carry panels. if they produce sometihing they have the electricians for the set up and maintainance, so a larger installation would often cost them less. More exertise in the house and economy of scale effects compared to home owners.
Nope, can't have VIABLE solar energy that would be a REAL competition for the big providers.
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The most effective way to suppress the vote is long waiting lines. And surprising people that they are NOT on the rolls anymore. Both things can be easily counteracted with MAIL VOTING. That is the reason Republicans hate it that much.
They have worked diligently and for decades on their death-by-a-thousand-cuts strategies to eek out a 0.1 margin her and 0.05 margin there. It adds up. And mail voting undoes a LOT of the effort to make it really a hassle for low income people (many of them of color) to vote.
No long waiting times, voting is comfortable and easy. No need to show a NEW driver's licence (that may have been needed when the person registered the first time, which could have been many years ago). , some people (the elderly or disabled !) let it expire.
Some state's seize the driver's licence if a parent (usually a father) does not pay child support, so if they do not have a passport they cannot vote. Some states accept active duty ID, but NOT a veteran's ID.
NGO's can register people to vote.
The next best thing for voter suppression is to make it very easy to throw people off the roles and very hard to get back on. Especially for people who need to show ID. (or up to date ID. Yes they show them (outside of villages), the driver's licence from 50 years ago, or the passport that has expired 15 years ago.
Many European countries demand ID, which is useless, but on the other hand it is common and easy to have it, and they need passports for travelling much more than U.S. citzens. If you drive 3 hours in any direction you are in 1 - 10 other countries (more if you start out in one of the many small to medium sized nations).
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NOTHING is more important for Dems than keeping the big donors happy, not even winning the general. Dems would like to win the general of course but they cannot offend the big donors with running on economic populism.
Not all will lose their races in the general (although it gets harder in the Senate), the districts for House seats are more often safely blue.
If they lose - the big whigs are getting a golden parachute.
So if needed they use the same voter suppression strategies as Republicans in the general, albeit not at the large scale like Republicans. But if there even IS a challenge to the status quo, Dems mean business. They can fight and be sneaky - they just never use that against Republicans.
Closing polling stations at universities, closing other polling stations, kicking lots of minority voters from the rolls. Greg Palast remembers one of the most brazen purges he has ever seen in New Mexico (and he has seen a LOT) in order to disenfranchise poor Latino voters when a neoliberal Democrat was challenged in the primaries.
Or the "mistake" that happened in Brooklyn in the D primaries in 2016. They were not sure if Sanders could win in New York (Clinton had been a Senator there, that would have been embarrassing), and they took no chances.
In the end she would have won NY, but likely with a much closer margin. The polls had been off in Michigan. Like I said the party machine jumped into action. No one was punished, the civil servant happened to make a VERY favorable real estate deal later. (Selling well over market value).
Big donor serving Democrats typically run (and typically lose) on a lame Republican Lite platform (see the lost Senate seats of "conservative" Democrats)
The leadership tries to eek out a NARROW win in Congress. That suits them just fine, then they can always blame Republicans if they do not make good on campaign promises (the few populist they make).
The bluedogs are gladly tolerated, they do not get the hositility that progressives get. Manchin and 2 other Senators with a D to their name undermined the attempt of the Obama admin to pass an infrastructure bill with simple majority (of course the Repubs were not on board).
That was in 2013.
In 2009 Lieberman and a few like him killed the Public Option.
Now the same playbook regarding filibuster and federa minimum wage (15 in 2024 and 9.60 soon).
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The most important elections in the U.S. are the D primaries, that is the ONLY race where you might have the chance to vote for a We The People candidate. (and legally they are not elections but a selection process of a private org, the Democratic party). This is March 2021: Yes Joe Biden and Dems throw money around, I am not complaining, but that is a temporary fix.
But no fighting for STRUCTURAL CHANGE, that would cost the big donors, so far it is all added to debt. (again: I do not want to fear monger about debt and deficit, on the other hand at the current levels they need to have an eye on it, and it is crucial to spend the money wisely).
Federal minimum wage USD 15 till 2025 (and 9,60 soon) was pathetically abandoned. (It should be over 10 since 2018 if the U.S. would only have 1968 levels ! in purchasing power) *
Medicare for the uninsured ? (It would have been the chance for an experiment, and it is time limited, so what was the reason not to do it ?)
Nope ! The 1.9 trillion package gives plenty of subsidies to COBRA so unemployed can have low cost health insurance. Which is good for them, but of course the prudent and rational way would have been to not hand over those customers to the for-profits with 20 - 30 % overhead but to Medicare agency with 3 % overhead and the much better rates. That would have cost less (it is added to the debt pile after all), they could have tested it with a no too large but substantial number of insured.
2 millions and likely family members but younger folks (working age), so they are less likely to need it than the over 65 year old (they are the most costly group among the insured).
And as this was only for the pandemic time even the professional pearl clutchers need not worry (that their big donors are getting permanent competition).
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They are not getting rid of their dictator in NK anythime soon (Qatar, Brunei, KSA, China, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Jordan - anyone ?) the next best thing is to give them some carrots. And PUSH for better human rights (that is that the West NEVER can be bothered to do with the "good" brutal dictators. WHILE the dictator or authoritarian leader can feel safe from external "regime change".
Even dictators have to solve the problem of the economy. AND: if the dictator feels less threatened that foreign forces will assassinate him there is a chance they will be less brutal and paranoid.
Maybe the BRUTUAL genocidal bombing of Korea, especially NK explains something about the NK psyche. The "need" to have a god like "dear leader".
How many admitted plots to assassinate Castro do we know ? I may have contributed to internal suppression, spying and paranoia in Cuba.
Little unimportant, Cuba. Weak regarding the economy and the military. They did not send terrorists to the U.S. - but the U.S. committed acts of terrorism against Cuba (bombs in shipping containers, civilian goods, the iconic Che photo was made during the burial procession for the killed dock workers).
in 2002 the U.S. backed a coup of right wing forces in Venezuela. They did not dare to kill Chavez - and it failed. What business had the U.S. to meddle with Venezueal ?
As for Cuba: U.S. could have just ignored them and let them do their thing. No one cared when dictator Batista and the mob ran the place. Instead the U.S. placed sanctions on Cuba longer than on any other nations - and rabidly forced other nations to keep those unjustified sanctions as well. Whch of course made the Cubans circle the wagons. And rendered Castro paranoid.
The West knows only two ways to deal with dictators: sell them everything they need to brutally suppress their own people, as long as they cooperate with the U.S. and let Westenr Big Biz explit the country.
OR - for some reason the dictator stands for some reason in the way (geopolitics, has crazy ideas to use natural resources for the citizens, is allied with countries which the U.S. considers adversaries).
Then xyz has to go. Often these countries are not real democracies - but it does not matter. selective coverage and making stuff up or ramping up some invented danger will do just fine (Red Scare for mildly left leaning Chilenan policies in the 1970s).
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Burning fossil fuels is the most important factor ! - as far as Global warming goes (not talking about other things). Steam engines have an efficiency of under 24 %, most of the energy of the fuel (coal, gas, oil ) goes into heat not motion, (combustion engines are also very inefficient, in that range).
Replacing a LOT of that electricity with help of increasingly cheap solar panels and falling battery prices goes a long way.
In sunny regions the providers already have a hard time competing with solar, so when the realistic costs for energy are put on the fossil fuels (it is not only the costs of GW, also the risks for accidents / oil spills, and also the pollution and healthcare costs), then every spot on roofs that is a good fit, will be covered by solar panels.
Electricity from gas powered plants etc. will not be able to compete, they have a hard time alrady in sunny regions if the electricity is not dirt cheap. In the United Arab Emirates they installed solar anels in 2012 (around that time before beg. of 2014, I heard a speech), that was cheaper than building a gas fired plant.
They have excellent conditions for solar (and need most for A/C when supply is high) but they also have the gas for practically nothing.
Falling prices and mass deployment of solar power will help with electricity and fuel for cars. Homes can be insulated - if done right it helps against cold and heat. (heat: the windows must be shaded and of course no single pane windows. The strategy is to keep the windows closed from late morning till sunset and to only open them during night. It also helps so have MASS that sotres hear and acts as a buffer - in summer and winter).
The deforestation, factory farming, big ag methods comes from the same mindset that hindered rational action regarding GW.
Meat is another part of the equation, but fossil fuel BURNING has more impact (on GW).
Dairy is a fairly efficient use of land, btw - i think with optimized methods (smaller farms, rotational grazing cows only eating GRASS) it may be able to beat even plant production per acreage. One aspect is that it is easier to maintain fertility with manure. So even farmers that mainly produce plant food (for humans) have some animals, to help with that.
Animals (a few cows, some pigs, chickens) provide synergies, that is especially important for SMALL farms (which are desirable for many reasons). The advantages can only be gained if a farm does not get too large, and it gives the smaller operations an edge.
They do not use the huge machines, they have trees and niches on the farm (which is good for a roubst ecosystem, but stands in the way of conventional "efficiency"). So they need to benefit from the other advantages they have - and integrating animals into growing plant food is one of them.
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@127cmore Piers Corbyn is NOT famous. you get a _reputation in the SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY by presenting PEER REVIEWED studies and exposing your findings to the critique of the experts in the field. Not by making your case to the laypersons (be it in books, on a blog, or even on TV as beloved pop science presenter). - Piers Morgan is a name in the denier community, but not among CLIMATE SCIENTISTS.
Not sure about his training (astro physicist ?). If so, that does not qualify him to contradict scientists who work in the field. Climate science is complex, encompasses many fields, is very split up among many experts.
A scientist that presents peer reviewed studies for let's say ocean streams and how they impact surface water temperature would be very careful about contradicting other scientists that examine the glaciers of Greenland or that work at a partial issue regarding the atmosphere.
Not because they do not dare - but because they know how specialized their own field is and how much work, expertise goes into their studies.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread - if you get what I mean.
Since science and especialy climate science is so specialized and is covered by so many fields there is little chance that an unrelated person / scientist with expertise and WORK in another field can make a contribution - or find flaws in a study that the experts have overlooked.
The experts (and the universities) worldwide subscribe to the very specialized peer-review magazines (the subscriptions are very expensive. Studies are often behind a paywall, only the abstract is public . Today they are all on the internet (not sure if they still print, the most famous journals might).
Scientists makes an impression (and work towards tenure) by
1) publishing in peer reviewed magazines (and they have to find ones that think your work is up to standards and provides insights. That can be confirming or contradicting other studies. No one proves or denies climate change btw - they work at small parts of the puzzle. Climate is hihgly complex. You cannot pay your way into publishing, not with the respected journals. With the interntet some magazines publish that accept payments for that - and there have been problems, that they will accept sloppy or biased work)
2) ripping a study of a collegue apart - or at least finding a flaw ;)
so they have swarm intelligence of highly trained experts going on. That process is not perfect - but the arch bends very much towards finding the most obvious flaws, bullshitting is not possible, and over time the insights get better, more accurate.
PEER REVIEW is a major element of the scientific method. Scientiest are not necessarily much more ethical (although hardly anyone becomes an astro physicist or biologist as a get rich quickly scheme). But they keep each other straight.
If memory serves Piers Corbyn had a for profit company where he tried to predict the weather for a few months (as data base to speculate on crop prices). Seems to have worked for a time and he became known to investors (not sure about the big guys), but it wasn't an ongoing success.
He can make money by authoring a book or holding speeches that contradict that there is problematic warming going on or that it is a manmade issue - of course alway adressing the laypersons not the experts.
That can generate much more income than working as a scientist in the field and meeting the rigorous standards. If he is a useful surrogate for special interests (because a degree in ANOTHER field gives him credibility with laypersons) - that does not help him with the scientific community. It is still a meritocracy. Also being good in communicating and tricks in presentation and changing graphs or cherry picking ("Lord" Monckton) - might impress viewers but not scientists.
The shorter the time the more erratic the predictions are.
Climate is the averaged weather (over regions and time).
You cannot say what the temperature will be on March 2nd 2023. But you can confidently assume that March in 2023 (or 2021) will be on average warmer than January (in the Northern hemisphere). And there is a good chance that the highest temperature in January is lower than the highest one in any March.
Statistcis, large numbers, longer periods of time.
Versus trying to predict weather beyond 5 - 10 days.
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Merkel is not "beloved", people got used to her, and tolerated her - her unassuming attitudie covers for a clever opportunist. Her way to preside over stagnation and the slow economic decline (from former glory) meets a fairly conservtive, self absorbed relatively old population. Where 30 % are still well off. And the young that don't do too well can still hope to inherit from the parents.
She is a staunch neoliberal, a sellout. See how she dealt with the financial crisis. True some help for the masses (or it would have been the pitchforks and lost elections) but after the immediate crisis it was austerity for the masses.
Joseph Ackerman of Deutsche Bank was her "advisor". Mr. 20 % ROI set up the bank to its current problems (with a lot of shady derivatives in the boods).
The way economically harmful austerity was forced on Greece. This was ideological and to "discipline" France, Italy and Spain (same structural problems), and to preventively take the side of big biz and finance (who of course got bailed out). Germany knew it did not make sense economically, austerity would even reduce their chances to get the loans ever paid down - and it would devastate Greece. (Wolfgang Schaeuble and Varoufakis). They did not care. This was not about the economy and not even about protecing the interests of German citizens.
And last but not least the "energy" reform.
If a person has the average wage in Germany they will be just above poverty line with their old age pension (Social Security). They have been talking about old age poverty in Germany for 15 years now.
the red-green Social-Democratic / Green Party coaltion (a force for neoliberalism btw - like Bush1 could not pass NAFTA it needed Bill Clinton to screw the working class, this was the era when types like Clinton, Blair and Schroeder were at large) passed an orderly transition out of nuclear power. slowly shutting them down. that was the only thing the Greens were good for in that government. They supported the lies that led to the CRIMINAL NATO boming of Serbia (there were no massacres going on at the time, and no planning. They had ONE source for the alleged plan of ethnic cleansing - driving out one minority group. a colorful character to put it mildly.). The bombing escalated the situation and sidelined the moderates on all sides. Clinton WANTED war. But with Germany NOT going along he could not have had it. Germany did not share a border with Yugoslavia (little Austria is in between), but the bases were necessary and the MORALE support.
The Green party had also absorbed the anti war movement of the 1980s, it was shameful that they supported the war mongering. Economic help would have gone a long way to ease the tensions. Would have been also cheaper - but setting a bad example (other nations in Europe would also have needed a "Marshall plan" and totally against the neoliberal ideology. The Greens could have ended the coalition over it, and challenged the government on the necessity of war. Instead they styled the Serbs as new Nazis (Never again) in order to justify the betrayal. The Serbian rhetoric was inflammatory, some atrocities happened (on ALL sides) but there were no massacres nor were they planned).
Then - after the bombing - of Servian civilians, TV stations the scene was set up for further escalation and masscres. Sending in Islamic extremists from Afghanistan (they were done fighting the Soviets) helped with the escalations. The Croats had a fascist group that fought the Serbs. German media (undermined by Nato loyal think tanks and CIA) fell in line.
Internationally red is the color of the Lefties, unions and Social Democrats, only in the U.S. it is the Conservatives that have that as signature color.
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A comment from an Austrian pulmonologist (head of inner medicine and pulmonology in Floridsdorf). They have some Covidiots, too. They are not as vocal, not even the right wingers (the party) dare to pull it off like the Republicans. A lot of people are unfortunately still in the Let's wait and see camp. That could have worked without the Delta variante, that they could have taken a free ride on herd immunity w/o contributing).
He said: we have the ICU beds and then we have the beds that require MORE care and monitoring but that amounts to: they get some oxygen, ar checked upon more often, and are released within a few days. He calls that "intermediary care".
[Maybe these patients also get infusions so they do not have to eat (and spend energy on digestion).]
We have hardly any of the ICU cases among the people that got 2 shots.
He complains that the statistics about "ICU beds" or the communication im media is unclear.
The two categories are not the same regarding severity, costs, and chances for a relatively good outcome despite the need for (a few days of) hospital stay.
The average time for a stay is given with 2 weeks but that is missleading. For one group it is much shorter and for the ICU (where the unvaccinated dominate it is at least 2 weeks, often 3,4 and up to 6 weeks. And it is hard to ramp up those capacities because the care is so specialized, staff and machines. If persons only need more oxygen and a frequent check up that can be scaled up to a degree, calling in retired nurses or even rookies).
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3,8 % of those who tested positive died (certificate that they died OF corona and only specialized doctors are allowed to issue that), versus of 3,9 % died WITH corona virus) in Austria (in theory the person could have died of something unrelated while having tested positive. But the number is tiny).
They don't do mass testing, but contact tracing based testing, and strategic testing (care homes, ...).
There is also no incentive for the population to not get testing or seek mediical help or to do the quarantine. Single payer healthcare, and mandatory paid sick leave and protection from being fired during that time.
With the children and teenagers out of the picture (they could be asymptomatic carriers, but schools just reopen) they found hardly any asymptomatic or mild cases that would have gone unnoticed. 16,000 tested, because of a cluster. 7,000 tests were due to contact tracing, but the rest was strategic testing to be on the safe side.
And they found only 2 asymptomatic carriers.
Under these circumstances the 3 - 4 % death rate (of all that are infected) seems to be realistic.
With flu people tend to die fast and not that often with complications that get them into the hospital.
So the complication rate (think: 1 - 5 weeks ICU, or 2 weeks normal hospital bed) is also much worse than with the flu.
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it is only "murder" if you assign personhood to the zygote, embryo, fetus. _The law and medicine/science does not define the fetus as human. The beginning of "life" (egg and sperm cell unite) does not count - a lot of beings and plants, bacteria, are "alive" (the more developed species have a heart, a spine, limbs or the beginning of limbs)
... All of that does not mean they are human Even if the form starts to look like a tiny human being 3 months into the pregnancy - it has no or only a very undeveloped brain, no thinking ability.
Having a heart or the start of a nervous system does NOT constitute a person or a human.
It is the POTENTIAL to become a human if the pregnancy is carried to term, and the potential is more realized as with an egg or a sperm cell before they united.
Overjoyed hopeful soon-to-be parents will talk about the "baby" and psychologically treat the situation as if the child was already born and they have it for sure. The people around them naturally go along, congratulate and everybody refers to the "baby".
But that is not the REALISTIC situation, it is testimony to the hopes for the future, and the emotional investment of the aspiring parents.
The pregnancy can fail - once the child is born and healthy the expectation that the child will stay with you as family member is realistic. But many miscarriages happen at the stage of 3 - 4 months.
The overwhelming majority of abortions also happen at that stage of 3 - 4 months into the pregnancy (since so many pregnancies end spontanuously then, most nations feel comfortable to set that as the time limit when a woman can dedice to not have a child or another child. Later abortions usually require exceptional circumstances).
In the early stage there is no "grey zone" (as would be with a 6 month old fetus - which could survive with extensive medical care, althoug often with damages).
The Catholic church used to date the "begin of life" with the time when the pregnant woman could feel the movements for the first time. They later changed that stance - update to modern medical insights about the start of a pregnancy.
The Old Testament does allow abortions (when the man suspected the wife of cheating but did not catch her red handed and could not prove it). And they had no problem to order to stab the pregnant wives of the enemy into the womb to kill them and the fetus in a very gruesome manner. Not even a quick end.
In the Chinese and Indian and other Asian cultures having a lot of children is valued (as is the tradition in EVERY agricultural society with a lot of poor people). However, there seem to be no "religious" or absolute cultural ban on abortions.
The U.S. constitution does not give one religion preference over the other, and no religious view should inspire the law. All religion - and cultures - recognize that (some) murders, theft, etc. have to be outlawed in order to have a functioning society.
They differ on other issues howerver: matters of inheritance. Some societies do (did) not allow divorces, others made infidelity an offense or even a crime (or being gay). Drug use and posession (if it is not much) is decriminalized in Portugal and Switzerland). In Singapore and I think in Thailand and now also in the Philippines you would be in deep trouble, probable a life sentence of death sentence (never mind the fundamentalistic Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia. Speaking of which: Alcohol ! And it used to be outlawed in the U.S. The mormons claim to be Christians and do not allow alcohol, they skipped the part where Jesus turned water into wine to provide for a wedding).
One does not need religious rules as base for the laws necessary to have a stable society. It just used to be that organized religion propped up whoever held power in soicety and religion was pervasive.
The constitution of every modern state with good reason separates church and state.
If your religion of personal philosphy inspires another stance on abortions and from what stage on the zygoe or fetus should have the same protection as a human being - that is fine, don't have an abortion - and do not work in a field where you could be asked to participate in things that are O.K. to use for other people and that are allowed by the law.
That includes the bigot that works in a pharmacy and felt entitled to refuse to give the medication necessary to drive out a fetus that had already died. The body of that woman (who wanted another child) failed to abort the dead fetus - so her doctor prescribed her a pill that would trigger the miscarriage - else she would die of the infection.
An anti-abortion staff member felt entitled to put his or her personal views over the directions of the doctor and over the needs of the patient. - A Catholic working in a pharmacy may be required to sell birth control. Or the morning after pill (which is ALSO contraception). Or the abortion pill.
In short: follow the constitution that grants freedom of religion and opinion for all as long as it does not hurt other PEOPLE - meaning your personal (religious) beliefs cannot dictate the decisions of other people about their pregnancies. Or influence the law.
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1) The deal was about NUCLEAR weapons - and there it worked PERFECTLY. - 2) The funding of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah was a strategic priority. They did not need any "improved" economy for that - that funding was always found if they wanted to.
3) And the economy did not improve much, anyway. - They had to do their homework and get some good grades (8 times visited by UN weapons inspectors) and would get the economic sanctions GRADUALLY lifted. It would have started around last summer - I think in July or August there was an inspection report.
They got the frozen accounts earlier - but that is not REALLY relevant. people think that is important - not really in the big picture. They made it all the years just fine w/o that money.
Consider the size of the country and their oil revenue. The problem for them is that even a healthy economy needs to import a lot of things (spare parts, chemicals, ...) there are ways around or they can trick and import via a country that is not bullied by the U.S. - like China or India - but it makes things more complicated and expensive. And dampens the entrepreneurial spirit.
Also: in 1980 Saddam Hussein (then still cozy with the West, especially the US) was encouraged to start a war against Iran, 10 years, 1 million people dead in total. That was devastating for Iran, war is very expensive, the human cost, the disabled veterans, the people crippled by mines - and they were under sanctios then as well.
Still they persevered. -
It helps that Iranian oil is cheap to extract.
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The U.S. does a fine job to counter their own interests in the Middle East - no Iranian help for that needed. - Iraq is a country with a Shia Muslim majority (like Iran) but the Iraqi ruling class (Saddam Hussein and his clique) were Sunnis. They were a secular dictatorship. And like I mentioned they were at war with Iran from 1980 - 1990.
Since the regime change in Iraq the Shias (the majority) are in charge (still a secular country although the sectarian divisions became more important). So Iran naturally can increase their influence in Iraq NOW - and they need to - if only for their OWN security interests. Especially since Iraq is not very stable (they could not even contain AlQaeda or ISIS). A lot of extreme militant Sunni groups (Saudi sponsored !) are active in Iraq, too.
In the interview it is mentioned that the Iranians COULD leverage some Shia groups agains the US troops in Iraq and cause trouble (and they did in the past to some degree) - but they don't do that - NOW.
That suggest to me that they are rational players, that one can do deals with them, and that they calculate their costs. Unlike the crazies of ISIS or also AlQaeda who have a purely ideological agenda (the caliphate, the jihad). Iran also gets along fine with Syria - and Syria is a secular society.
Take a map and look at the shared borders - the borders are hard to control for Iran, they need Iraq to be stable and if possible friendly. and no marauding Sunni militias.
In Iraq many Sunni Muslim that had formed the backbone of the military, the leadership but also lower ranks, the public adminstration, even teachers were kicked out. Not all had been raving fans of Saddam Hussein.
So the experienced military leaders and soldiers lost income, pension - many enlisted as mercenaries with groups like Al Qaeda (extreme Sunni terrorists), didn't even matter if they were into jihad or not.
A former military leader (?general ) founded the group that morphed into ISIS.
The Iraqi government tolerated by the U.S. had promised to have a strategy of integration and reconciliation. But they didn't do that, nor did the U.S. hold them to account when they foolishly kicked out the experienced soldiers and public employees.
When ISIS started fighting for real in Iraq the new U.S. trained and equipped Iraqi "army" rolled over before even being pushed. They ran and left the shiny humvees and the other new equipment behind.
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The Danish McDonalds worker already get the equivalent of 15 USD (by now likely more, I watched that clip during the Obama years). Plus paid sick leave, maternity leave, universal healthcare free at the point of delivery, 5 weeks paid vaccation time, likely some paid holidays on top of it.
At the moment they are getting some pandemic related relief. They were willing to set that up in Europe
80 - 85 % turnout in high profile elections are realistic in Europe (or Australia where voting is mandatory - well people have to show up and sign off, they can of course refuse to fill out the ballot).
They have popular vote which means even 5 - 7 % parties get seats in parliament. That gives choice to the voters. No lesser evil. The small parties can breathe down the neck of the larger more mainstream parties.
So letting the population hanging when it comes to pandemic response and relief like in the U.S. is not an option.
"What is the base gonna do - vote for a Republian ? - Or the Liberal_ ?" if the shoe is on the other foot. That cynical game does not fly in the U.S.
Voters can and will abandon the complacent established parties, their vote is NOT wasted, and the smaller parties can grow fast. In the meantime the voters can punish the governing party (or parties) in the nex major election (state / province level for instance).
Not necessarly because those politticians had any direct power or are to blame. The terms are longer, so voters use any chance to show their frustration.
That means that the lower levels push the the party "leadership", they fear that they will be kicked and through no fault of their own.
all of that straightens out politicians - at least to a degree.
Danes have especially good public afforable childcare. Childcare staff is well paid (the profession also attracts males), and well trained (public training, so that is standardized and monitored, and of course also free).
The facilties well equipped and funded. Same is true for Japan btw.
In the last 10 - 20 years forest kindergardens have become very popular in Denmark. Not sure if those are private. I saw a BBC clip. Lovely.
Now, the burgers in Denmark might be slightly smaller and cost a little more than in the U.S. I assume (but have no numbers, that the chains play less of a role in most of Europe). Starbucks for instance does not stand a chance in italy or Austria. They have a tradition of the coffee shops, and Starbucks is not as attractive.
They also have smaller businesses, shops, restaurants in Denmark (or Italy, or Germany,... ) The Danes like good food.
A McDonalds worker in Denmark is also lower income - but with those provisions they cope well enough. Or one spouse makes a little extra money with part time work.
More importantly: the income status of the parents does not hinder the children. If the child has a learning disability the well trained child care workers will realize that.
And it does not depend on the knowledge of the parents, or the patience or skills to explain things whether a child will get help if they fall behind in school. Parents are also not as overworked as in the U.S.
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In Germany, Austria and Switzerland they long ago decided that the land is too valualbe to dump garbage on it. A lot of separation and recycling is going on for metals, incl. Aluminium, glass, wood, paper (admitted plastics is a mess) they BURN the rest (and use the heat to produce peak electricity and hot water. The plants have to be nearby settlements so they need to hve good filters. It is important that the population does not dump consumer batteries and paint and things like that in the trash. And also no material that is wet and could becomposted. Tehy have tons for that as well (ir suburban and rural areas people often have a compost heap).
Companies have strict rules for their waste. consumers can dispose of toxic garbage in communal centers and usually that is free of charge. In Austria it costs an arm and a leg to dispose off the materials when taking down a building. ONLY if the waste is sorted (concrete, bricks, wood, glass, metall, styrofoam, cables / copper) the costs for dumping the waste are bearable.
Even with high labor costs they do sort the the waste of the construction site.
Concrete, bricks take up a lot of space and are heavy. The energy needed to burn cement, lime, or bricks make them valuable resourcea.They use that as bed for streets, and construction projects, not sure if they can meanwhile recycle it / upciycle it to higher value building materials. So it is not mixed with other trash and takes up space in landscapes, the material is put to use.
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Did you listen too much to Rachel Maddow ?? IF the system is hackable - I would not be worried about the NATIONS. I would be worried about rogue actors. - Neither nation - the U.S., China, Russia, any European country - could protect itself sufficiently. It is like the nuclear threat of mutual destruction. They all are hesistant to start it - and with good reason.
IF the U.S. would have reasonable suspicion that Russia or China had carried out such an attack - it would be a declaration of war. And the Russians and Chinese KNOW how grave that would be.
Likewise the U.S. will not hack major facilities (well let's hope they are so reasonable). There are attacks of course ("see what we could do if we meant business").
- China and Russia have (de facto) dictatorships. That allows to play for the long game in foreign policy.
both nations had famine, civil war and suffered a lot. The Soviet Union lost 27 millions in WW2 (soldiers and civilians). I do not know the numbers of China, they had civil war, paused that when the Japanese invaded them, and continued the civil war after the end of WW2.
Their leaders are likely the same selfish, greedy bastards as our leaders - but the collective memory contains FEAR of war.
The Europeanas are also more hesistant regarding war - they had WAR, RATIONING, OCCUPATION, almost famine, bombing, and people fleeing in masses (German speaking minority from Czech areas, Eastern Germany) during and at the end of WW2. The Titanic was NOT the shipping accident that cost the most lives. If was a ship with German civilians fleeing from the Eastern areas, that was attacked.
That sobers up a nation. The U.S. civilians have not experienced war in the homeland. which may explain the hysteria after 9/11.
After all: the FIRST 9/11 (coup supported by the U.S. on September 11th, 1973 in Chile) also cost 3000 lives immediately. And ended a legitimate democratic government, that was not a threat to the U.S. (and could not have been if they wanted to be a threat). Look at the size of the country, no major military, no nukes, no geostrategic importance.
No one bat an eye. The U.S. citizens let their government get away with it. (and the other Western democracies colluded with the U.s. - meaning those voters allowed that to happen as well).
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Trump blew Helsiniki. Unger got that wrong, too. They did not get what they wanted. At all. - The extension of the deal was very necessary, good for the U.S., Russia, the world. Trump could have wagged his finger at Putin for the (alleged) "interference" in U.S. elections or attempts, end then have a phrase ready to elegantly gloss over it. Or just not holding a press conference, giving a statement, both of them and the (war / military spending lusting) media could not embarrass him. Grilling the press secretary, who should have been able to deal with it.
Invoking Reagan, let bygones be bygones, this is larger than us, a weapons deal for 30, or 40 years.
The Russian were pleased in Helsinki, but there are many actors in the U.S. who WANT a new arm's race and Trump made it so easy for them to derail him. The media COULD attack him because he is so stupid. So as soon as he returned home he did not dare to go on, has of course not the knowledge to get it started and did not surround himself with the people wanting to do it.
Likewise every time he wanted to bring the troops home from Syria chemical weapons attacks were claimed. (the second time it was allegedly chlorine, but poison gas sounds better, a lot of people could get their hands on cholrine). Trump the coward gave in and attacked Syria twice. BEFORE the fact finding mission. Theodore Postole from MIT says they were hindered to express their findings in the report.
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@sharonmores8697 Even IF Donziger's sentence gets overturned (AFTER he has served it) - the goal is to put fear in any lawyer daring to represent the vicitims of big biz, and fear into activists. And that was already accomplished - even IF Donziger would have been cleared now. He already had house arrest for over 700 days, he was disbarred for a while (until the board found they had nothing to justify that), he had no income, the stress, the costs of the lawsuit (the corporate prosecutor gets paid from public funding, and Chevron is not directly engaged in that case. The judges also get paid for their "services").
Donzige is a target so new clients would think twice. Lawyers like him are a potential threat because if you hire them (could be another case) they could be ordered to violate attorney / client privilege and if they have to surrender a comupter ALL information can be abused. Even if not related files are deleted. the crooks can easily restore them, leak them - it is not like anyone would hold them accountable. The reason for such a leak would be to make it impossible for law firms to get any work, the damage to other clients would be collateral damage.
The pretext for having a case were trumped up corruption/ extorition charges against Donziger. Those were the pretext to demand that he surrender his laptop and violate private / attorney privilege.
Anyone that has the laptop (the hardrive) can restore ALL files that were deleted (if he deletes non related cases or private communications and info). They knew of course that he would refuse to surrender the laptop, it would endanger the activists - if he had names in the CONFIDENTIAL files that were not already known to the crooks of Chevron. Not hard to find a killer in a poor country.
So the sham trial provided the pretext to have a sham contempt of court case. (Note how did NOT sentence him on the original charge that Donziger extorted Chevron, well even in the U.S. that might be a hard case to win. And the judge could not avoid a jury because blackmail is more than a misemeanor (under 6 months prison time they can deny the defendant a jury).
The corrupt players - Chevron, and the judges, and that private lawfirm - needed to have a LOT of things going their way - and all things did go their way. Incl. the ABSOLUTE COMPLIANCE of all politicians and mainstream media that cannot be bothered to report on the case.
Where is Michael Moore on this ??
Chevron WANTED the trial to be in Ecuador. That way they could - IF they would get sentenced - ignore the sentencing of another country. If they would have been sentenced in the U.S. and lost the case up to the Supreme Court their assets in the U.S. would be seized, and how would they can claim that the court case in the U.S. had been corrupt, so no we are not paying.
And they would have had a jury trial in the U.S. - so everything can happen if the pollution is so easy to prove.
But they just claimed there had been corruption against them (in Ecuador) after they lost the case, and they brought ONE witness to prosecute Donziger because he allegedly tried to extort them (or they claimed that a witness in Ecuador lied and Donzinger had something to do with it. Note how he was NOT the only one on the team of lawyers. And that pollution case was glaringly obvious they did not rely on one witness or soil or water probe to make their case).
That witness for the alleged extortion by Donziger is a former judge from Ecuador. He got help from Chevron to migrate into the U.S. and was on their payroll.
He recanted his testimony. The corrupt U.S. judge ignored that change of heart and did not allow it to be considered as new evidence (they have no case, it was flimsy anyway, but now it has collapsed. But if they have no case - how is the surrendering of the computer still relevant).
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Climate is not of human origin - but it has always been - among other factors affected by CO2 and methane output. For the effect on climate it does not matter HOW additional CO2 or methane comes into the atmospere - it will trigger some warming (or counteract a cooling that would otherwise be on the schedule). That warming can result in a feedback loop and cause runaway warming.
The main factors are sun activity (which increased over the course of billions of years), the cycle around the sun - distance and cyclic wobbling of the axis of the earth, and greenhouse gases). There are other greenhouse gases, but CO2 and methane are the most influental little hinges that swing big doors in the history of the globe.
CO2 triggered warming or cooling has happened in the past (it was not always the cause, with a natural occuring warming CO2 and methane did become increasing factors, they were released from the oceans, or wildfires caused by drier conditions increased output).
There were times when volcanoes released greenhouse gases over hundreds of thousands of years.
Since humans NOW have the ability to put Co2 into the air that took millions and millions of year to sequester inot an inactive form (in the cold oceans or buried as coal, gas, oil) - humans CAN now influence the climate. They cannot control it - but change it. Like we can create death zones in the oceans, or engineer mass extinction of species.
Which is under way and can be observed (by scientists) - that would be even going on w/o climate change caused by humans.
Humans move more earth now on the planet than the natural processes like erosion, floods, .... No other species (other than insects) has done that !
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In the UK they had a snap election (general election out of order) in 2017. 65 million inhabitants of which 2 (TWO) millions registered to vote (first voters, and people who moved, students for instance CAN be registered in one place, but are only allowed to vote in one place of course). Registration can be done online. The UK government had a well made ad for that, encouraging people to register and how to do it.
On the last possible day 650,000 people registered. (the whole campaign lasted 6 weeks, the registration phase maybe was shorter).
Else it is good old fashioned "technology". Paper ballot, hand count. The results of each district are read to the public. They are counted in sports halls by pairs of volunteers under the eye of the public.
So if one was inclined to do it, one could add up the numbers manually (the U.S. has 325 million people, that is more - but definitely scaleable).
They do use computers to aggregate the votes, but it is all out in the open.
And it is possible that the results per district are conveyed by phone (too). They show that on TV (Manchester calling, etc.)
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Lessons to be learned: a) it is the economy stupid (many European countries went to the far right in that time)
b) it is a danger to hollow out or have infiltrated the institutions, parliament, agencies, justice system - or in the case of the U.S. undermining the constitution. No more due process, mass spying allowed.
That does not necessarily mean a dictatorship - but it is the first step. And whenever a power grab is attempted it is very convenient when the formal rules have been weakened.
In the case that the crazy people rise up it is essential what the police, and the military will do !! The members of police, the justice system lean to the right anyway. If they are willing for tribal reasons to apply the law selectively ....
The right hooligans in the Weimar Republic had often free reign (it depended on the local leadeship). Often the left (activists or union members) had to defend themselves while the police looked the other way.
Then the narrative was created how the "left" was responsible for the "violence" - setting the tone so that later an exasperated population under a lot of economic stress would agree to be ruled by a strong man. Anything to have order and someone who would take care of the economy.
c) progaganda works (see the current liberal Trump derangement syndrome that matches the uncritical support of the Trump Cultists). It helps to justify a later power grab. If there is so much "unfair" resistance going on from the "others" than it "justifies" the power grab and overrreach of the stong man.
d) the "haves" and the "elites" are quite cynical and cowardly in exploiting a stressful situation. The conservatives in Germany then.
The Democrats NOW. They could win in a landslide with a left populist message - but they would rather not bother their Big Donors, they want to keep the gravy train.
The Consevative / Right parties in Germany after WW1 did that for class reason, for petty hate of the left and unions.
The left in Germany was divided and did not get their act together.
The conservatives and right wingers (the parties) were hell bent after the war to NOT cooperate with the left. And the economic situation was especially difficult, and they did not have the economic insight (as if in academia) to deal with it. So they applied "kitchen table" economics = austerity. (FDR was smarter he tried out the new ideas of John Meynard Keynes, 1933 and following, but that wasn't a thing in the 1920s).
The German middle class and conservative leaning people were shell shocked after WW1. In summer 1914 they had a strong monarchy, and no idea that war was coming.
In winter 1918 they had lost the war, the emperor was dismantled, the unwashed masses (incl. women) had gotten the vote, the blue collars had their say, too. And the times were really, really bad.
Not that it had been rosy for the low income people before, but then it got worse and much more unstable (hyperinflation, followed by austerity and deflation, mid 1920s France occupied the steel and coal region - Germany had not been allowed to have much of a military after 1918 to enforce payment of reparations).
The world had turned upside down. Even the lower white collar middle class did not like "democracy". Before they were at least "better" than the workers.
Now they were hanging on to the middle class for dear life.
And another thing:
The conservatives created the myth how the "Left" was to blame for the harsh peace treaty of Versailles and how the war could still have been won (or lost less catastrophically) and therefore the peace treaty would have been less desastrous.
That was a) reinventing history
b) ignoring the fact that the war was not winable after the U.K. had successfully dragged the U.S. into the war (allegedly there was a Jewish conspiracy)
c) ignoring the fact the the monarch and the conservative establishement were all FOR the war while the Left had demonstrated against it in July 1914 when tensions increased.
They should have refused to vote in parliament to fund it likewise (war bonds). And called the young men to refuse service.
But they did not dare to do it once the pro-war decision was made and war had been declared. They were afraid of being called unpatriotic. And I suppose the emperor would have gone ballistic and dissolved parliament and sent the police and / or army against them.
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I just crunched the numbers of Austria: 3,8 % of those that were tested positive died, these are the aggregated numbers since end of February - then testing certainly was not deployed like it is now (but case numbers were low in Feb, too, they shoot up in the 2nd week of March).
They have free and strategic testing in place, and people also have paid sick leave (by law) and single payer healthcare, so no reason to sit it out and NOT get tested.
IF people have the typical symptoms they will be tested now. And those around them, too.
Now there may be still a few cases that are so mild, that they are not found (or were not found in the past).
They are reopening, and sure enough had a cluster in a postal distribution center (temps !), they did contact tracing, and found some infected, and some w/o symptoms, too.
It spread to 1 teacher and to 1 childcare worker - partners of men working for the postal center. (The country has emergency child care if parents work, else the kids incl. students are at home, and the schools are just reopenening - online learning so far.
The military staffed the postal center for 2 weeks while they quarantined workers. Two soldiers tested positive later, but they are young so we can hope they will be fine. Which makes me think about airborne transmission, maybe a ventilation setup in that center. it may be mainly spread by droplets, but aerosols must play a role.
See call centers in the U.S. or the choire in Washington.
They did a lot of contact tracing / testing- and they found asymptomatic carriers (mum of child that still went to school, she was infected by the teacher), and the infection was spread within families, too. Authorities did a few thousand tests to contain it - 130 infected (= tested positive) were found, and they tested 16,000 people to find those (7,7000 as ontaczt tracing, and the rest some strategic testing - care homes etc.)
So it obviously CAN spread quite easily, at that time it was the first phase of reopen (retail, restaurants - with masks, distance rules etc.).
The reproduction numbers immediately went up with the first phase of reopen (but based on a relatively low number of cases in total).
If a country "spikes" to a R0 of 1,03 with around 800 people being sick (most at home) they can handle it. Versus let's say you have a 3 % growth (R0 = 1,03) but for 10,000 or 100,000 cases.
3 % is not exponential growth (if you let the novel coronavirus run its course it is exponential growth at least 3, so numbers tripple every 5 days.), but 3 % is something to watch VERY very closely. the R0 is influenced by behavior. Never mind the virus can mutate as well. And ONLY more infectious mutations will replace the currently dominant strains (there are a few).
If we would be VERY lucky a more infectious but non-mortal strain would appear (with de facto tiny death rates). Because even 1 or 0,1 or 0,01 % mortality rate result in huge casualties if you have a few billion people infected. It would have to be almost as harmless as the common cold while also giving some immunity against the other strains. That: or waiting for a vaccine.
OR an equally or more infectious strain could emerge - with much higher death rates. Then we would be really screwed.
So the current more infectious mutations (dominant since early March) are less deadly, the percentage is less than the 3 - 4 % of the confirmed infection cases (in a first world country that is set up to get better results than the U.S. or developing countries though)
because there are (or were) cases that were not diagnosed (or no symptoms at all, person got infected but not sick).
But now, they eventually should find even more of the asymptomatic and mild cases in Austria - they have ramped up the testing and contact tracing, and watch the infection numbers like hawks.
Even IF the undiagnosed cases bring the REALISTIC mortality rate down to let's say 2 % - that is still more than the Spanish Flu had (it was in the 1 - 2 % range). It also means it is MORE infectious than we think (the other side of undeteced cases, which statistically lowers mortality rates).
And if it spreads like wildfire you WILL have the global fallout, it is a numbers game. Again see Spanish flu.
Compare that with flu pandemic of 2009 (estimate: 700 million to 1,4 billion infected, that disease had really a relatively low mortality rate, I think it was 0,1 %. As a percentage there were not nearly as many people that needed the hospital, let alone weeks of intense care. There were not as many complications.
Either people died or they were on the path of recovery after 1 - 2 weeks and almost always could recover at home. Still a lot of people died and hospitals were full. But not at breaking point.
No one discussed closing down the economy, restricting travel, not even wearing of masks or social distancing for 2 weeks (which likely could have helped a lot because it was also less infectious than the novel corona virus).
For public health reasons (and for being able to open the economy) a disease with higher mortality rate BUT less infectious would be preferable. Because then it so much easier to CONTAIN.
The R0 was in the 2,5 - 3 range (doubling to trippling !) when lockdown started in Austria on March 15, cases shoot up despite decisive lockdown measures, they had it down to 1 after 3 weeks.
(ONE is the magical number where 1 person on average infects only one other. Then the number of new infections is stable. Of course it matters a lot how many infected cases you have )
After one more week (so 4 weeks lockdown) reproduction number dropped to 0,63 - 0,68 - but then it stagnated between 0,68 and 0,8. While CASE NUMBERS went down - but slowly.
The situation was comparable in Germany with 10 times the population (lockdown measures the same, started also at the same time, development, reopening, even the clusters caused by low income temp workers in the first phase of reopening. In Germany it was meat packing workers).
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How the brave protest movement of Eastern Germany SAVED THE RECORDS of the dictatorship spying on its own citizen
Eastern Germany was always Soviet obedient. After Gorbachev had called for openness and change in the Soviet Union (Glasnost, Perestroika) the dictatorial bureaucratts in Eastern Germany for the first time did NOT fall in line.
But the opposition there sniffed morning air and over the course of 2 years the movement grew and dared to act more in the open. There were demonstrations, which was unheard of before. And the regime likely would have brutally cracked down on them - but no one knew what would come out of the whole situation. The Soviets might stop protecting them (the hardliners of the current government). A massacre could not be pulled off w/o Western Germany noticing (they wanted loans from them). And if the dictatorship would be toppled or at least a more moderate leadership would come into power (and w/o the protection of the S.U. that could happen within some years) then those ordering to shoot at protesters AND those following orders would be held accountable. So they felt compelled to show more restraint than they liked to.
The peaceful prostest movement was somewhat aware of the dilemma of the regime (and hoped it would be enough to give them some protection of the worst abuse).
So dissent and demonstrations increased.
When the Berlin Wall fell, the citizens just entered the "holy halls" of the very powerful spy agency (the Stasi).
The Stasi had a lot of snitches, many of them were working for them secretely, they called them "informal employees" - spying on the regular citizens. It could be the neighbor, co-worker, even a close family member, that let the regime know if you said critical things about them or - worse - planned to leave the country w/o permission. When it was clear that the dictatorship would not stay in power, the agency started to destroy the files (which in a very German fashion they had meticulously kept, including the clear names of the snitches, the contracts and the payment for them).
The officers in the spy agency were shocked that the citizens would dare to just enter the building in large numbers and prevent the further destruction of the files. Sure they could have shot them, but it was clear it was over for the regime and someone would pay for the killings. The demonstrators knew it and the servants of the falling dictatorship knew it too.
Which is why one can make a FOIA request today if the agency had a file about oneself (incl. the clear name of the snitch - unless that person was a minor at the time when the snitching happened, then the identity will not be disclosed).
Yes, the Stasi approached vulnverable teens (loners, nerds, kids with problems at home) to recruit them for spying at their fellow students, teachers.
They also employed citizens of Western countries for instance they had "informal employees" in the redactions of influental newspapers of Western Germany. And they even spied on persons of public life (and of only medium importance) in other countries like Germany, Austria - and even their children at the university.
Of course the Stasi has nothing on today's surveillance programs. When it come to efficiency.
The human impact of never knowing if people you thought were friends would betray you .... that's another story.
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March 2021 - if it is still of interest: Most uploaders enable automatic transcript or it is a default setting (and most of the time in the correct language). Go under the video window, right bottom corner. Click on the 3 dots. there you have the options. you can mark and then copy the text in the little box that opens at the side. With CTR + C key, and then paste into a word doc or a text file with CTR + V.
Will need some editing, and skills to do automatic editing (replace) will be useful.
But it is good considering it is automatic. If the uploader even provided subtitels, you have an even better version for the transcript, then usually alreadly nicely edited.
Sometime it is uploaded with the wrong language setting (if English is supposed to be treated like Korean, it will be nonsense of course). Or no transcript is enabled.
I guess there is software that turns audio into text, maybe there are offers online. you could even download a video, upload it to your channel (privately as to have no copy right violation) and have transcript enabled this time.
I usually transfer the pasted text it into a table. then only copy the column with the text (disregard the time stamps), then automatically replace a paragraph switch with a blank. (I think you can select view w/o timestamps, then you can skip that step. If you click at the timestamp you will switch to the time in the video.
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Dr. Eicke Weber (Fraunhofer Institure - think M.I.T.) if you double the capacity of installed solar panels (for electricity) you can expect a price drop of 20 %. - Let me add: The German Energy Transition was a flawed project of political convenience (Merkel is not one for green energy - or the little people). BUT it did increase installed panels (paid for by the German consumers!)
which gave a boost for production and research.
So prices became good enough for California, Texas, Australia (without high subsidies). Countries with IDEAL conditions for solar electricity (excellent harvest AND due to demand for cooling peak production and demand align much better. So less need for storage, which then was still in the beginning).
Now when those sales kicked in, the issue of STORAGE finally got more attention.
Dr. Eicke: the panels were invented to power satellites, price was not an issue in the 1980s for THAT use. Since then the price drops per doubled installed capacity is a steady trend. And it is not a function of time but only a function of sold and installed units. The awarness of solar power and renewables was fairly high in Germany, Switzerland, Austria. (They were busy with solar for heating water. So they would have enthusiastically embraced developments from the U.S. - and of course put their engineers to work (same with Japan they also do not have oil, so also a high incentive to replace oil with technology).
Being frugal with energy use is part of the culture (shpaed by WW2 among other things), high appreciation of clean environment and a stronger than usual anti nuclear sentiment (Germany, Austria).
In other words had Carter stayed 4 more years the technology would have made these jumps much earlier (there are enough sunny states in the U.S. to pave the way). And that would have affected the world markets.
But no more NEED to control the Middle East and its oil reserves (that is how the U.S. keeps the "allies" (vasalles) in line. Citizens and communities could do their thing - no need for huge CENTRALIZED companies (those who donate and offer cushy jobs for ex-politicians).
The war mongers and profiteers and the oligarchs did not like that idea.
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Bullets in Bacon Grease At the end of March (the time when you claim the Italian government intentionally promoted spreader events) the authorities informed the Italian hospitals about the rules of triage - official ! ethic rules whom the doctors would give treatment (especially ICU) - and whom they would let die. People over 80, with a bad prognosis, people with severe underlying conditions even when younger (also and for all if their need for help had nothing to do with corona virus).
If I remember correctly ALL of Italy went into lockdown in February already (that means all provinces, after lockdown of only the most hit region did not work at all. On the contrary, people were allowed to leave the region, the wealthy went on vacations or went from Milano to Rome - and spread it even further. China did better, the military made sure no one could leave Wuhan. China dropped the ball - but once they got into action they got it right).
Then - end of March 2020 - the neighbour nations (who had gone into lockdown mid of March, take or add a few days), did not yet dare to help out Italy.
Once they realized they could contain the pandemic and the case numbers (with their lockdowns) that they could avoid the scary state of hospitals in Italy (completely overwhelmed because they got the pandemic first in Europe and did not contain it soon enough) ..... Germany and Austria flew in some Co-Vid-19 patients (military transports) to treat them in their hospitals. Germany also took in patients from France (they had also a phase where it was bad although not as dramatic as in Italy).
As far as I know triage was never officially practiced in Italy, but they were within 2 days of it - then they reached the peak of the crisis and case numbers. But because staff and hospitals were so overwhelmed there were a lot of cases that died (but would have had a chance in a normal setting), they could not provide the best possible care for all anymore, even if triage was not officially used.
So once lot of people died and they did not get quite as many new cases because lockdown started to show its helpful effects - the numbers went down. Slowly.
They just scraped by.
Italy got doctors from Cuba, and equipment from China and Russia.
They did a lot of things in March and at the end of March, but certainly NOT having any events where the virus could spread even more. You bet that would have been headline news. In all of Europe not only in the Italian households where people could not even leave the house for a solitary walk.
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It wasn't the earthquake, it was the flooding because of the tsunami that caused the meltdown in Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.
Both ! plants (they are 20 km apart) were built to withstand an earthquake of 6 - 7. Now that earthquake in 2011 was stronger, but the epicenter luckily was away far enough. The sensors started the automatic shutdown in both plants. In Fukushima Daini they pulled off an orderly shutdown (they had some troubles and no electricity in the beginning, but they pulled it off).
Fukushima Daiichi was built directly at the coast and at sealevel. That was an advantage when they used seawater for cooling. They had a 3 m concrete wall. After the catastrophic Tsunami in 2004 caused by the earthquake of Sumatra (which did not harm Japan !) there were discussions to raise that wall to 5 m. The wave in 2011 was 8 - 9 m high. Well, it would have kept some of the water off the site, it certainly would have improved their chances because the level of water would have been lower.
But the governor of the province saved TEPCO from having to make that investment.
Also: ONE generator was placed higher - that was the one generator that survived, was not flooded and continued to do its job (cooling the reactors after the shutdown to make sure they would not go out of control). ONE generator was not enough to uphold the cooling cycle (I think it was dedicated to specific reactors, so at least one reactor remained unserved). Therefore they got the meltdown (In Fukushima Daini they were able to start the emergency generators and maintained the necessary cooling).
Add to that that the Japanese should have asked for help earlier. The ordered a replacement generator immediately, but the truck transporting it got stuck in the traffic when civilians fled the area.
Tsunami is an old Japanese word, there is a reason for that. The wave had 8 - 9 m, which is high - but there had been much higher in the last 1000 years (up to 20 meters). Japan is an old culture, the catastrophes are on record and if the wave had 20 m the marks may be found even w/o written record.
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@thomashusted I can tell you the numbers of Austria * 631 patients that died and it is certified (died FROM corona virus), that is 3,8 % of all that were ever tested positive, died. Versus 25 or so more who died WITH corona virus (tested positive, but may have died from something else or cause of death is unclear).
Which is 3,9 % if you take the higher number.
The gap was around 55 in mid April (shutdown was on March 15) but they revisted cases from the early stage, and/or it was a statistical or reporting hickup (something to do with automatic reporting, I spare you the details, but they are transparent about it on the website).
That means 3,8 percent of those who tested positive died.
(or 3,9 if you base it on "died WITH the infection" numbers)
There may ! be a unknown number of mild cases, that never make it in the stats.
(testing, and treatment is free, mandatory sick leave
So people that suspect they could have the virus, have no reason to not get tested or get medical help. and if they need quarantine there would be strong ! social pressure on companies that fire them because of that (they would find themselves in the news).
But considering that authorities watch new (potential) cases and potential infection chains like hawks while reopening (tourism will be the next BIG issue) I do not think a LOT of cases go unnoticed, since that testing is deployed and protocols are in place.
More may have escaped notice in the early stage (think the first month maybe, numbers spiked within 3 weeks after lockdown on March 15).
Undetected cases are not necessarily good. sure these people have no major problem and they should have (some, ? time limited) immunity. But they can spread it to others, who are not so lucky. And the harmless cases are also not enough to give us herd immunity with little sacrifices.
See Italy, in the wealthy region of the country doctors had to use triage (or were within 2 days of having to decide who would get treatment and who not. They had the official instructions (a letter was sent out to the hospital). They may have applied that inofficially or by default: because hospitals and staff were overwhelmed more patietns died than in countries with a less stresed system, they just could not give all patients the best possible care.
Germany and Austria helped out later and took in patients but not when things were the worst in Italy (and they did have a shutdown in place and in desperation people were even restricted to take a walk with maybe family members, rules in Germany and Austria allowed that).
IF there are a lot of unreported mild cases, it means the damn virus is also MORE INFECTIOUS. From a healthcare system standpoint you would prefer it to be more deadly BUT also less infectious - because then it is much easier to CONTAIN it.
A verson of SARS emerged in ? 2012. MERS in the Arabic countries: bats / dromedars / humans) that has a 30 % death rate - but it is not very infectious.
But recently there was a cluster, in a postal center in Austria and they found 130 infected people (testing positive) while testing around 7,700 because of that cluster. Postal center workers, those infected 1 teacher and 1 woman working in (emergency) childcare (provisions for parents who can't keep the children at home). There also was some spread among familiy members.
They found 1 or 2 asymptomatic cases (I think 1 mum that got infected by a teacher was such a case). Out of 7,700 tested (but they could be super spreaders so no need to get cavalier about it).
The city of Vienna did some more "random" testing. Not completely raddp,_ they checked care homes, places where a lot of interaction happen tec). So total number of testing related to that incident (which was found in the first place, because of mass testing) 16,000. And not many cases with mild or no symptoms were detected that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
So those asymptomatic cases do happen and they can be important when the person is a good spreader and has a lot of interactions. But the theory that there are masses on unnoticed cases does not bear out - not from what we know so far. (it might be different with children, if they have a chance to become the asymptomatic carriers. currently they don't, no school, and emergency services for kids until age 14 if parents work, and have no supervision).
And with contact tracing / testing they find the people soon, before they develop symptoms: on average after 5 days
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In Germany and Austria much more people have an ID (travelling), and everyone has a birth certificate (and a statement of citizenship) shortly after being born. One uses those documents to get an ID and the requirements and systems are the SAME everywhere.
Poor (often black) persons born at home have a real struggle with it. Heaven forbid someone made a small error for instance with your middlename. (I read a case where a voter had an ID in a state and was able to vote with it.
He came with birth certificate and a drivers licence and the rental contract into the new state, but there was a slight difference - not his fault (middlename not mentioned in ID but in birth certificate or abbreviated - something like that) It took several visits, 2 flights, the vaccination records and school records, and I do not know what else, and he still could not get the new ID required in that state to be elligible !! to vote. Then he decided a) not to move to that state that disgusted him meanwhile and b) to sue them.
In Germany, Austria, ...the public offices are better staffed. You go there with your papers and will be served right away. It is possible they send it to you or you have to get it in person on another day. But it is not that complicated or takes that long.
At least in Austria one can vote if the election commission knows the person (so in a small village no one shows their ID). If you forgot to take the ID, it is possible for another person (either with an ID or known to the commission - at least 2 persons if I remember correctly - to confirm your identity.
Voter participation is high, so ID showing HERE this is not a hindrance obviously. And the polling stations are plentyful and well staffed, and elections are on sundays or holidays.
And there is automatic voter registration. When an election comes up and a person will be 18 on election date a letter with the invitation and details come to the place where the young person is registered, usually still with the the parents. When you move you have to register once (and for other purposes like driving licence) then you will be automatically updated in the CENTRAL voter register.
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Governments that are in control of their own currency can create money as well. even to help struggling home buyers hit by a global financial crisis. - One exampel of government creating money was of course QE for finance. (No - they do not start the printing press, less than 5 % of the money we use is in form of coins/banknotes. And printing the money would not help anyway, who would SPEND the money into circulation ?). - The FED that is cooperating with the government arranged for QE for the finanical institutions, not sure if Congress was involved too.
And in case government would ever want to serve the citizens they could arrange for QE For The People 2)
Back to the theoretical help for struggling home buyers defaulting on their loans.
Allow lower interest rates for smaller loans that had been given before 2007 (including student debt, that is a complete rip-off, they pay way more than for a normal loan in this low interest environment). And extend the time for paying back - for instance for houses 30 years, because then even lower income people might be able to handle the monthly payment.
I think there were many people who could have kept their houses with low interest AND as long as they had a job. The moment they lost the job with the economic crisis they were in danger of foreclosure.
Such borrowers are not "good" borrowers anyway. Well no one bats an eye when they DO PAY for interests and bank loans when they are forced to RENT (the rent of course covers those loans and costs) w/o ever building their wealth.
Of course the state COULD help them - but such "welfare" is only for the already rich, for the pepole who brought the financial global system almost down.
"Bet" on rising market prices, take a risk, take the loan that is so easy to get (thrown at you really), try to become a home owner. - and when the bubble bursts you are scolded as "irresponsible". By hypocrites like Hillary Clinton (which funny enough did some speculation on derivates, highly speculative contracts 3) Whitewater investigations - which for HER was O.K.
And everyone else busy in deflecting from the criminal and reckless behavior of the professional and powerful players - the banks 4) The banks which were first creating a real estate bubble, then a speculative bubble by placing bets on those shady loans).
The Bush admin was glad about the seemingly booming real estate market, it made the economy and the jobs market look good - as long as the game of musical chairs lasted.
If a company buys up real estate and hope for rising prices and take out loans to finance that - they are smart, dynamic, good capitalists and admirable entrepreneurs. In case that goes wrong - oh well - see Trump's banrupcies.
The ordinary family aspiring for ONE home to live in were ALSO relying on rising house prices and a booming market.
Unlike the big players that enjoy so much help and have so much prestige with politicians and media .....the professional players who have easy access to expertise and insider informatio - those one time home buyers depended on and trusted the information of the media - and the banks. And they were lured in by informal information about how this was a chance to get a loan. The banks had very WELL HONED, refined sales and marketing PROCESSES in place.
The banks were extremely eager to sell those loans, no matter how.
Ted talk of Bill Black, "The way to rob a bank is to own one". If a bank does not bother to make sure such loans WILL be paid back (and house loans run over long time) - then they engage in a fraudulent scheme, wanting to make the quick buck, knowing that it will fail at some point of time (but then the manager and the bonus were already paid, it is like the game of musical chairs.
The only thing: in the 80s many managers were prosecuted in the aftermath of the Savings and Loans scandal wer prosecuted and Prof. Black had helped with that.
Fast forward not even 30 years - they had bought the political process, they had bought Obama, the Democratic and the Republican party) and could act criminally with impunity).
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Obama protecting the banksters: his Attorney Generals (both, but especially Eric Holder) carefully avoided !! prosecuting ANY of the banksters. A few out of court settlements for show (if they could not avoid them - see for instance Rolling Stone article "The 9 billion USD witness" it is about J.P. Morgan and Alayne Fleischmann.
City Group suggested Obama's cabinet picks - he obeyed their wishes - see Podesta emails. That was the first thing Mr. Hope and Change did when he got into office - make the foxes - more like the wolves - the guards of the hen house.
(And then starting the healthcare negotiations with a WEAK position, even the public option was thrown out right in the beginning - this was the next betrayal).
Obama could have been the next FDR, he had the mandate, he had the public and the enthusiasm behind him.
If - as was to be expected - a sell-out Congress would not comply (including - especially ! - the Corporate Dems) Obama could have told the public in detail what Congress COULD and SHOULD do for the voters - with some very strong hints about midterms in 2010. And what he would achieve for the voters if they just gave him a Congress with some willing and maybe NEWLY elected representatives.
FDR did exactely that, he strongarmed the members of the Democratic Party that were unwilling to support his efforts for relief for the people. Like today politicians were well off or even rich people.
Now, some were smart enough to see the pitchforks coming. In the year before the unions had won 1 million members, strikes and demonstrations everyhwere, FDR was the "lesser evil" when it came to having a left-leaning populist polician in charge. At least he was a rich person coming from a rich and well connected family and understood the upper class too. I assume many also were aware of the Russian Revolution of 1917 - in 1932/1933 that was not THAT far away.
So enough of them went along with his unheard of ideas when pushed gently, others he needed to strongarm (he would personally campaign to make them lose their political position.
No doubt many rich Republian AND Democratic politicians remained resentful (in the 1940s FDR considered the threat to not running for president again - there was no 2 term limit then). They just could not do much about it right away - the relief program, the New Deal made FDR very popular. So the "strongarming" of FDR paid off, it gave him even more political leverage about the Nay sayers in his own party.
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How the Great Financial Crisis REALLY came about: first the banks started giving out shady loans (they could not find enough GOOD borrowers, the real economy was not THAT good).
So they found out they could lower the standards, the regulators did nothing about it, then they started to sell mortgages aggressively to low income borrowers. Low income people do not compare interests, they must be glad to get a loan at all - so in the short run they pay higher interest = more revenue, and more bonuses for management.
We know that the banks honed and reworked their sales process.
That created a growth in real estate prices. People also were encouraged to borrow more money than they needed (the house AND the new car) - that was the sales gig if they were more middle class.
Government (Cheney/Bush) was happy, no need to do something for the unwashed masses or spend money on infrastructure programs, etc. The "free market" seemed to take care of it all.
Construction jobs and perceived wealth in real estate let the economy look good and and the mood was optimistic.
The financial "information" industry (media) was cluelessly enthusiastic, the free market fans were happy, deafening silence from the Fed (Alan Greenspan), the regulators, the government, and mainstream ! academia.
The reckless banks intimidated the professionals that make the value assessments = appraisals of the property that is going to be financed. Those professionals are hired by the banks, - that is if they are not blacklisted for a honest appraisal. Many of them sent an open letter of prostest to a major newspaper. Maybe the New York Times - that letter was of course ignored.
The banks bundled and repackaged those loans, sold themto get them out of the books. They rubberstamped them as excellent quality with the help of criminal rating agencies (the largest in the world) or by intimidating internal law departments (J.P. Morgan, Alayne Fleischmann).
So they sold them internationally to large banks who also had some inklings that something was not quite right (they have whole departments of lawyers and analysts and economists - for instance Deutsche Bank).
They made sure to keep the option of plausible deniability, they kept the official paper record "clean". Of course no one realy KNEW the whole picture for sure, some "experts" and "professional" may truly have been overwhelmed by their greed
(DB CEO Joseph Ackermann, best buddy and advisor of Angela Merkel in the crisis, proudly announced in the years before, that they wanted to increase the return on investment from 17 % to 25 % for their large share holders. There is no way one can make such huge, obscene profits with honest banking, not even investment banking if it is legal. For single transactions yes, but not for the whole broad base).
Just to be on the safe side, these large banks, the buyers of the shady loan packages started offering bets to other actors in the global casino. They were searching for speculators that would compensate them in case those allegedly good U.S. mortgages would default.
= Credit Default Swaps.
Then ADDITIONALLY many financial institutions that had no stake at all in the underlying real estate loans started placing their bets on that risk TOO (the risk of the default of the loan packages).
This is where massive leverage entered the "market".
What was a real estate bubble in the U.S. (a major one, but manageable) almost brought the financial system down.
If DB had defaulting loans - they would lose the money. If some actors in the UK for instance would take that risk from the shoulders of DB (for a fee) but ONLY for the total volume of the loans- well then the risk was only shifted from on player to more and other players (it is the principle of insurance).
Within the system the potential risk has not grown, the maximum volume of losses is not larger - just someone else has the risk.
What happened instead:
the whole world and their dog started making those bets.
The underlying US mortgages wouldn't really default - would they ?
And as long ! as they did not default they could cash in on the fee (that they got in exchange for a possible future obligation to stand in for defaulting loans).
The institutions that facilitate such speculative transactions ( in that case the Credit Default Swaps) get a fee as well.
Those bets BY FAR far SURPASSED the volume of loans - so of course no one really was able to meet their obligations to stand in for the payment once the loans started defaulting. But the banks before had paid them the fees, they had the costs, but they did not get any revenue for the loans anymore - the original homeowners could not meet their monthly payments anymore.
Of course the speculators that held the Credit Default Swaps would have gone under, some of the banks that were willing to "rely" on such bets to "insure" the loans (when they had a pretty good inkling the loans were not really that safe) would NOT have been compensated for their losses.
Many international banks that held those loan packages (Mortgage backed securities) would have ended up with foreclosed real estate on another continent.
With quickly dropping real estate prices. Good luck with covering your losses. and of course no one can sell huge volumes of real estate quickly - and the banks needed money quickly.
So they would have been in severe trouble or in danger of going bankrupt. And management would have had to face public outrage. And worse the outrage of their most important shareholders (rich and influental people). You can screw the little people, but good luck when rich people lose money (that is whey Bernie Maddow was prosecuted).
Government for the citizens would have let the domino effect play out, - and when the dust settles, resuce the savers of the involved banks. Plus take over those bankrupt banks, hold them provisory (good access to the files for prosecution if the government owns them !).
The taken over banks could have meanwhile engaged in the boring and necessary and productive banking services, no one needs "investment banking" anyway.
And then they could be broken apart (maybe into citizen-owned small banks, cooperative banking, etc.)
The big share holders of the banks would have lost all their investments (but they had of course the ability and in theory the expertise !! to know that all that speculation could not go well).
The even greater upheaval would have meant rolling heads for politicans AND the regulators asleep at the wheel.
And the upheaval would have challenged mainstream economics even more.
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Thom gets this wrong and sees it too rosy. If they could - I guess half of the "Conservatives" in Europe would privatize the healthcare system, with all the corruption scandals that go with it. They are neoliberals and they are worse than the many neoliberals among the bourgoise left and greens. The far right nationalists often to the populist economic rhetoric (for OUR people) but serve big biz as soon as they get some power (they are authoritarians and adore those at the top of hierarchies so of course they collude with big biz.
Even Hitler and the Nazis had a lot of populist rhetoric and more importantly also the populist policies. Incl. healthcare ! * Now - most of the time it also had to be good for big biz. But they pulled off many highly popular and populist policies.
But it is hard to privatize something (in wealthy countries) that is running well and cost efficiently, is highly popular and has been established for 7 decades - and with the U.S. as warning example. It is not a conviction, it is being born and raised with a system taken for granted (incl. by the families of the conservatives), so even attacks at the fringes have to be very sneaky.
Most of them do not have the rabid belief it should be completely privatized. That would come 20 years later with the "next gneration" that grows into the mindset. Most of them have not been thinking it through.
Non-profit public healthcare contradicts their pet belief that private for profit is always better. so surely some privatizations would make it even better. (no, it would open a can of worms).
But the more left and Green parties and the populist wings in their parties hold against it, so the only way they can go about it is to slowly defund the universal non-profit systems, - that is also kind hard to pull off if a country is as rich as Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, ...
Not even a well run highly efficient system can perform well with defunding creeping in - not in the long term. Then it can be bad mouthed and partial privatization can be proposed as "solution". In countries with a strong and rabid right wing press and an intimidated public TV where the staff fears for their well paid jobs (BBC or PBS) that can work. See the U.K. and the tug of war in Australia. (Murdoch press. PBS was threatened by Bush and they now need to go to big biz for donations. Incl. Koch Industries. It explains the way they interviewed Sanders and how they stay clear of certain issues).
Hard to pull if off in other nations that are still wealthy and do have the money, the population does not fall for it and it could lose them elections. They are waiting for the next 15 years when more and more people age and it puts more financial burdens on the system. Of course those older people are voters. (77,6 % of the eligible voters voted in Germany, which is not too good. It would be record in the U.S., the recent 68 or 69 % were a 100 year record, in Germany 85 % would be good and 77 % is mediocre. The old and affluent vote more.
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And in general citizen funded TV is more critical than in the U.S. (even the BBC), there are citizen funded non-profit TV networks (of course undermined by CIA and NATO friendly think tanks. They have a large audience in Germany, and are also watched in Switzerland and Austria). So a defunding of the healthcare system would be blasted. In the U.K. the government has too much influence on the BBC, can get people fired and can threaten to pass bills that would defund the BBC.
These are cushy posts and they fall in line. (Thatcher, the reporting on the police escalation with miner's strikes. The wars. And again under Blair, and the Iraq war). so they defend the government wars, the gov. posiiton on Syria and Russia, Israel .... and only meekly report about the neoliberal onslaught. Also the attacks and defunding of the NHS.
Shows in how they covered Corbyn, Labour - under Corbyn ! not before - made the brazen defunding of the "beloved" NHS an issue (Tories also claim to cherish it) - if the BBC had blasted the Tories they would have lost elections on that. The angle was to report about "problems" but not to point out how the the already lean but just sufficient budgets had been reduced under Tory governments for over 10 years. If you have mass immigration (from Eastern Europe) but do not ramp up housing or healthcare, and the wages are suppressed so the contributions are not high enough - it is de facto defunding. Even if nominally the budgets remain the same (never mind inflation that was also not covered).
If the budgets and state revenue are not enough to cover healthcare - voters could get ideas like "taxing the rich". The global evasion is only possible because ALL highly developed nations collude with big biz or have to go along if they are smaller nations. France had tax evasion - because they can now. They couldn't int he 1970s and the couldn't in the U.S. with over 90 % top marginal income tax rate between 1944 and the late 1960s. As long as the U.S. helps multinationals /finance tax evasions flies. The European Union is as neoliberal as they come BUT the population behind them is less brainwashed. So they could do something - and the EU and the U.S. could really kick the rich and multies - if they wanted to.
The multinations would have nowhere to go. China might disregard their property rights and dispossess them. Where would they park the money ? in Libya, Vietnam, Pakistan, Russia ?? Saudi Arabia with their superb justice system ?
Never mind governments could CREATE money (and use QE for the masses).
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During and after Allied occupation the Germans voted center right (which likely helped to placate the communism fearing U.S.) governing conservatives had to observe the "Social Pact" - they reinstated / overhauled healthcare with some 2 class twists after WW2. You can still notice that, the overal consensus prevents the worst fallout from that, only 10 % of the population is fully privately insured - only a small part of the population even have the choice, if they want to opt out from mandatory unversal non-profit insurance.
Which in Germany is provided by highly regulated private non-profits. There is mandatory private insurance (but it is more or less like single player except there are more insurers, and it is not a public agency that offers coverage) and there is "private" insurance (that also can be offered by for profits) that covers more. Either for 100 % or - and that is more common and helps the buddies of conservatives - as addition to the basic and mandatory coverage.
The private non-profits that cover 90 % of the population are so regulated, and also backed up by a societal consensus ! that dates back to 1884 - that they could as well be a government agency like in a single payer country.
But the higher number of actors introduces slightly higher costs for admin.
Some of that complexity (it does not help but it also does not create too much ineffiency so it does not overcome the inertia of a historically grown system) can be explained from the long time that Germany - as a pioneer - had same kind of "universal" healthcare. They grandfathered in a lot of solutions in 1884 - they had many thousands ! of insurance non-profits then. Some local government, co-ops, unions, larger companies that had it for their workers, civil servants, railway workers, ..... Then it was a 2 class system and that was not opposed to the zeitgeist. The unwashed masses could be glad they got an universal system with 2 classes no one challenged the fairness of that.
Now:
CHOICE only for higher income (and some self employed professionals that tend to do well financially, like doctors, lawyers, ... Plus public servants which in Germany have super job security and can rely on regular raises (they are unionized). That adds up over time even it they only have a mediocre position. It is well known that they have it easier to get mortgages and get better conditions by the banks.
If those that even are allowed a choice, have preexisting conditions they chose the better deal from the universal services (which covers 90 % of the population), else it is highly regulated private for profit (or private non-profit) with better coverage. So the non-profits that cover 90 % and are not accetped by all doctors with a practice - miss out on the people that are young, healthy and would pay higher than average contributions (although there are yearly caps).
That is a gift to affluent voters, to the doctors that get higher rates from private insurers and of course the insurance industry. Who also get a cherry picked group for marketing. If a person has "private" healthcare insurance in Germany - they belong to a highly interesting market !
The affluent get the best of both worlds in Germany - to the degree that private insurance _can- be good (better services in practices, 2 class system). Mind you ONLY for doctors with a practice, the "private" for-profit insurers are not interested in the most costly services = hospitals. There all get the same treatments, the privately insured only get their own room and better food (and a little more attention from head doctors who get a part of the higher rates). But when it comes to care in hospitals it is not a 2 class system when it comes to what is medically necessary. A low income person with only the regular coverage will not be discriminated against. In the ICU there will be no difference.
In areas with clusters of "privately" insured (affluent areas, urban, Munich, Berlin, ..... lots of civil servants) it is hard(er) to find a doctor that will accept only the insurance coverage for the masses. Long waiting times. Not for hospitals, and for emergencies - but for eye examinations, health check, imaging, OBGYN, etc.
That can delay timely diagnosis. Or people have to pay for an upgrade (to the insurance of the masses) - biz for the industry. doctors get higher rates (and it makes admin more complicated. And of course doctors try to MILK those policies).
The most cost efficient solution would be to offer out of pocket payment - not sure IF that is possible and legal in Germany though - I think IF a doctor also has a contract that covers the 90 % with the generic insurance, it is VERY restricted what they can ask for in direct payments. Taking money directly was banned to prevent extortion through the backdoor. A GP can offer extra massage or physiotherapy and accupuncture and it would be O.K. to ask for cash payment. But not for a more thorough checkup or eye examination. IF the basic insurance would cover that kind of service, no cash payments. ONLY some form of insurance (basic or better coverage) can pay for it.
They do not have a denial industry though, that would not fly. Being denied surgery or medication is not a thing in Germany.
Although it turns out is is expensive despite all the regulations that provide some cost control. - In Germany if a procedure is covered by the insurance services for the masses - the "private" offer cannot deny them , so the "privately" insured have by default much better protection. And if a drug has a price for the masses - it is not like it can cost more for the privately insured.
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The Conservatives are typically the neoliberals. The nationalists are normally the far right parties which pay lip service to economic populism. Of course now the also move the neoliberals to the right or they will lose part of their voters. See Germany, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Netherlands, Poland, France, ..... - If the far right get into government as coaliton partner - usually with conservatives - they side with big biz, and help conservatives to privatize and undermine the welfare state. Plus some half baked "improvements" of the non-profit healthcare system, at least they will try or float the ideas. See Austria (discussions), see Netherlands.
Even the Tories that were fiercly against the NHS in the 1950s do not dare to talk bad about it, they have found sneaky ways to defund it and do a backdoor privatization.
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Yes there are racists, lots of them - but Clinton did not need them to get elected. The quesition is: why did people change to Trump that had voted for Obama twice (those racists) or they could not bring themselves to go and vote for her - not even with Trump being the other option ! Hint: sellout Clinton, betrayal by Obama. - I guarantee you if Sanders had not been cheated constantly during the primaires - it would have been much closer, might have been a tie.
Now a gracious and patriotic Clinton could have stepped down for the SAFER candidate (considering it was Trump on the other side). She would be cementing her legacy with Clinton Care right now (going full circle with her efforts as First Lady in the 90s) instead of making a fool out of herself with the "everybody but me".
But it was alway about her and not about the country. Like the Libya war was meant to be a feather in her cap - while Libya is in catastrophic shape now. They have slave markets in a country that was stable, secular, womens rights, relatively wealthy for a North African nation. Sure a dictatorshop, but certainly not as bad as the Saudis, and much more open to the West.
Christians could exercise their religion in peace under Gadaffi.
Like in Syria !
So why is it that Gadaffi had to go, or Assad has to go - when the alternative is worse, much worse ?
That's right: the state of Israel wants it. As long as Syria and Iran are intact no chance to annect Lebanon or a piece of Syria.
As for Libya: it has resources (a lot of gold in their treasury - it is gone, and oil and WATER) - the French and the UK supported Clinton very much when she lobbied heavily an initially hesistant Obama admin for the next war (2010 and 2011)
But the Multinationals for sure had their interests.
I wonder what those 30,000 deleted emails on her server really were about.
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The guy who resigned did not get it right in the resignation letter (he was responsible for Cyber security regarding voting) 2:24. That "the "moral" infrastructure is the foundation of the pysical infrastructure". - No, you have physical and organizational hindrances for cheating in place. Make it watchable, public, regional, and manual. That will take care of "moral" just fine.
If there is moral and the law on the one hand - and the advantage for the powerful and well connected on the other hand - the latter will ALWAYS win if the hardware and the process let's them get away with it.
Infrastructure, processes, applied law, and hardware guarantee the integrity of the vote (so of course the process is severly corrupted in the U.S. - Greg Palast: "The Democrats steal primaries, the Republicans steal General Elections").
And you bet the the "Resistance" aka the Corporate Democrats are not going to protest that undermining of the integrity of the vote.
They did not bother to in 2000, knowing full well, that Al Gore would NEED Florida to win (the purge of black men in Florida was major headlines in Europe thanks to Greg Palast - and this was months BEFORE the election.
Neither the sitting president Bill Clinton, nor Al Gore could be BOTHERED to raise a stink about it.
The owners of the political process (the Big Donors) have a role assigned to the Neoliberal Democrats and it is to suppress any progressive movement should it ever arise. That is a task they can fulfill and the Republicans can't. Sure the Dems would prefer to win, but in the end making sure to get the Big Donations in the future is more important. And the Donors will provide the lucrative jobs/contracts for ex politicians (that is very important for the influence of Big Biz on politics and often overlooked).
At least those who call the shots in the parties will always be well taken care of (in office and after they left office) provided that they served their owners well as long as they held office.
And no party is EVER supposed to rock the boat, or AWAKEN / WORRY the unwashed MASSES and STIR UP DOUBT if this is even a functioning democracy with fair elections (never mind any alleged foreign interference, the Dems and the GOP need no help in rigging elections and undermining real democray , they do just fine on their own. ).
The elites in the UK would very much have liked to suppress the progressive takeover of the Labaour party that is currently going on (the neoliberal wing of the Labour party AND the Neoconservative Tories as well). - They just can't.
In the last GE (snap election in June 2017) on a workday, people could vote until 10 p.m. and there are enough polling stations because that is the custom in the U.K. and it would trigger MAJOR UPROAR and MASS PROTESTS if they tried to make voting harder (so the political tradition and the grassroots and even some traditional media outlets guard that aspect of the process).
In the U.S. they just shorten hours and close down polling stations in the poor areas to suppress the vote of the poor - because the law and the public does not prevent them from doing so.
In the U.S. they CAN PURGE voter lists - so that is what they do (the Republicans AND the Democrats). That process is just not possible with the UK civic adminstration.
In the UK it is EASY to register to vote (millions have in the last election) and one can do so ONLINE . (And I guess they have the government offices staffed so that older people can do it offline and in person).
Young people in the UK are notorious for not registering for the first time - and they move more (whic requires registration change) than the older groups which have a much higher participation rate. Well in the last election that changed, even though the 18 - 30 year old still have a lot of potential to increase the participation.
For the voting process the UK uses infrastructure and methods that ressemble those of centuries ago. No voting machines - of course not.
Some processes look like cherished tradtions or folklore: I saw long lines of volunteers who pass on the boxes with the ballots. Some cities tradtionally have RUNNERS delivering the ballot boxes. They have fun competitions among some cities about which one has the fastest delivery and the fastest count.
To me it indicates that it is custom in Britain/U.K. (with their very old parliament !) that the ballot boxes are ALWAYS VISIBLE to the public eye, no transport in closed carriages, or now in cars (where the boxes could be theoretically swapped or disappeared).
The boxes are opened in sport halls, there are pairs of volunteers on long tables with a pile of ballots before them. They open the covers and do the hand count. Of course a lot of citizens, cameras, media are watching them. Then the results are disclosed to the citizens in the hall and they are reported by phone to the election headquarter (and live on TV especially for the larger or contested cities - a certain district of London or Manchester , .... "calling")
So citizens could do the math manually with the publicly available sub results if they wanted to. It is not like in the U.S. where the votes (or sub results of each polling station) are transmitted electronically (no visibility for the citizens), and then processed in a "black box" (with secret, privately owned = proprietary software and hardware). Electronic procesing of course allows to swap and disappear secretly a lot of votes.
In the U.S. the public has to believe whatever results are published - because there is NO WAY to VERFY them.
On top of that the exit polls (a survey of people just leaving the polling stations) are "adjusted" to fit the published election result. And the unadusted polling results are secret.
The processes in the U.K. guarantee the integrity of the elections in a country of 65 million people (and something like that is at work in Europe, no country there even allows electronic voting machiens).
What works in a country of 65 millions can be made to work for 325 millions, there is no need for electronics in the voting process.
The manual processes, every step with many witnesses, make it practically impossible to rig the results. And even if someone would be able to pull off some cheating (which would be risky because at every level there are so many witnesses allied with different parties, and the "manual" processes only allow to manipulate a LIMITED number and it would also be REGIONALLY restricted. So there is a very good chance to be found out and go to jail and no chance at all to make even a dent in the end results. If one subresult would deviate too much (for instance a lot of valid votes being sorted out as "invalid") it would not have an impact in the larger scheme, but would be a VERY VISIBLE red flag. It would likely trigger a recount or investiagtion and the "deviations in the count" could be attributed to certain persons.
Sure the U.K. is more densely populated, the distances are longer in the U.S. , if they wanted to deliver the ballot boxes with cars they could do so with a bus and a few witnesses to be the watchdogs over the ballot boxes.
In a narrow race it may take the whole night in the UK to come up with definitive results (well that is true for the U.S., too). They have predictions based on the exit polls which they publish at 10 p.m. and then adjust as the night goes on - the 10 p.p. estimates were pretty accurate the last election.
A few hours waiting time because of old fashioned SAFE methods is well worth the integrity of the vote.
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I think that a certain requirement to have cash / capital (the 90 : 10 ratio is common) was also to push the banks to make good offers for savings and cheque accounts for regular people. Having many small customers helps to keep the MYTH alive that banks are intermediaries (which has advantages when the economic "narrative" is framed in favor of the rich, and Big Finance).
If 90 % can be created, 95 or 100 % are technically possible as well, a bank could only lend out money w/o handling savings.
incentivize the banks to make attractive offers for saving accounts for regular people
The small savings accounts were not cost-efficient (no computers after WW2), they needed a lot of tellers for that. I think they used punch card systems for data processing back in the day. If the offers cost too much, the consumers would have continued to use cash (they were used to it).
Every dollar the banks collected from the little people, they could leverage with being allowed to lend out 9 times more (or whatever the allowed ratio was).
And loans ARE lucrative for banks.
Banks had the infrastructure and processes to handle large fortunes and loans (accounting, regular money transfers, money coming in and out - they could use the same infrastructure to integrate the whole population in a system that is less cash reliant.
For instance many workers got their wages in cash weekly or every 2 weeks, that was not efficient. And the shopping was done with cash as well. When people became wealthier they would have more cash at home (risk of stealing) etc.
Banks (or before money lenders) always worked with IOUs and borrowed money which they did not have, but there was a time when that was not protected by the law. Now it is.
Ann Pettifor says FIAT MONEY is around since the 17th century.
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I recommend Dr. Richard Wernter Debt and Interest Free Money. Or Ann Pettifor (12 minutes, economic myths in the U.K. election 2017 - it is generally applicable). Or Stephanie Kelton or other MMT proponents. Affordable housing and a good public transportation system could be financed by the government without more debt or deficits ! - Both INVESTMENTS bring down the costs of living for the population. Housing has been left to the landlord class and many nations and communities allowed foreigners to "invest" in real estate.
That is luxury "development" - the appartments and houses are not used all year round (or they serve the wealthy who take up a lot of space where space is scarce) That drives up the prices for the people living and working in the densely populated centers and they have longer commutes (less quality of life).
That is a political decision where the conservative AND the allegedly Social Democratic parties side with the landlord class and rich people. New Zealand, Germany, Austria have reigned in the real estate "investments" (NZ in general, in Austria the communities can forbid that foreigners can buy real estate. That means Austrians, EU citizens and other buyers. A peson must live most of the time there of they cannot buy. In Germany at least Berlin did something like that.
In Vienna in the 1920s groundbreaking affordable housing projects were built (brick and mortar, 3 - 4 storeys). Good quality for the time and they also had some city planning going on, parks, streets, sewage system, water, public transportation. The appartments are STILL owned by the city of Vienna, many people live in them (so it is no stigma, on the contrary people are happy if they get one). That also means a mix of lower and middle income people. There are no ghettos in Vienna anyway.
Renovations was done over the course of 100 years. They are well kept, the rent is very affordable for a city, those house can serve for centuries (!) to come.
If a government (federal or local) invests in quality building and gets the population mix right, that is an investment for the centuries. The new roof every 40 - 60 years (longer if they are lucky), new windows every 30 years, new heating and plumbing every 40 years is less than building new homes.
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6:22 Bush1, the first US war against Iraq was supposed to help him get reelected, Bush 1 encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait so he could have his "clean little 3 days war".
- Thom does not cite any sources for that. - I read about the female ambassador to Iraq then being left w/o ANY instructions when she met Saddam Hussein for the last time (last official meeting before the invasion).
If that ambassador was set up from the beginning to be a failure the Bush admin would not want to waste a good male candidate on it - just a thought - she vanished from public life after that "blunder" to warn off Saddam from touching Kuwait - well I guess she never should have prevented Saddam from doing that.
The U.S. and the Gulf states had encouraged Saddam Hussein to start a war against Iran in 1980 or 1981 (and the West sold weapons to Iraq AND Iran). That war did not go well for Iraq, after 8 years, huge loss of life, enormous costs they had not been able to shift their borders and capture Iranian oil fields that were supposed to pay for the war costs of Iraq. Plus I think Iraq had a major problem with a pipeline or extraction site (so more loss of revenue).
I think the Gulf States had promised some money if Iraq would go after Iran (and might not have paid as promised). Kuwait was accused by Iraq that they siphon off Iraq fossil fuel by horizontal drilling (accesssing fossil fuel accross the border).
Anyway: the U.S. knew of these tensions and controversies, in the last official meeting between the U.S. and Iraq before the invasion (that was several weeks... few months before) Saddam told the U.S. ambassador they he would continue to negotiate these cotroversial points with Kuwait, that they wanted a solution for that. Since she had no instructions she was very friendly, assured him of the goodwill of the U.S., etc. No harsh (or even polite) warning: Don't start any military trouble. The U.S. KNEW of course of the impending invasion, the troops getting ready). Still no harsh warning.
The elites of Kuwait were warned ahead of the "surprise" invasion. They gave interviews from Egypt some 12 hours later.
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Putin is not really concerned with American "democracy" and could not care less. Trump is an idiot, you cannot fake that, a smarter person putting up an act would slip up at some point and there would be signs of intelligence and knowledge. I think it was Putin who convinced Trump to engage in renewal of Reagan era treaties (they expired, Trump was too stupid). To not start a war with Venzuela (while Pompeo and maybe Bolton pushed for it). To retreat from Syria, which would be a blessing for the Syrian people (Saudi Arabia and the U.S. and major Nato countries plus Turkey have started and fuelled that proxy war. I know not the usual narrative. That war has been considered in early 2002, it did not start in 2011).
Like the U.S. the Russians / Putin do not care whether a country is a democracy or dictatorship. True: with a less erratic democracy (where the grifters that rile up voters, audiences and congregations are rewarded, which leads to crazyness) it would be much easier to deal with them.
a part of the Military Industrial Complex is hell bent on having a good enemy for another Cold War and Arm's race.
Some dream of small nuclear weapons for the winnable nuclear war.
Others want to sell fracked liquified gas to Europe, who currently buy cheap Russian gas. And the new pipeline was hotly contested, but this is an issue the Europeans will not fold. Energy is more expensive in Europe anyway, and they will not explain the favors for the U.S. to the voters.
The U.S. and Nato have been meddling in the backyard and on the door steps of Russia for at least 15 years. Likely longer. Offers of Putin to cooperate (he came into office in 2000) were rebuffed.
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The old among the primary voters (South Carolina ! due to the influence of Clyburn) have chosen Biden, and the younger could not be bothered to come out in sufficient numbers for Sanders. So The Democratic exercise of testing how little they can give to the voters and how much they can backpaddle on the (few) campaign promises continues. After all the Republicans reliably come up with terrible candidates, so voters have nowhere to go - Well until the clueless but increasingly angry sheeple will go for the next Trump, who will be not so stupid as the former one.
Biden just eeked out a win. In an election with 160 million votes cast it came down to 43,200 votes in 3 states (AZ 10,500 GA 12,000 WI 20,700). PA was won with 81,000 more votes and that was the most "solid" win in the 4 states that were nailbiters (because it was so close that they needed days of counting the mail ballots. A more decisive win of at least over 2 % like in MI and NV also manifests earlier, the statisticians can project that earlier.
But Biden absolutely needed 2 out of the 4 in any combination. Pennsylvania was not obligatory, but Biden needed at least 2 to come at least at 270 (with the 2 smallest = AZ and WI).
The 7 million more in the popular vote & still lost the election in the Electoral College were a real possibility.
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some accountability because voters can vote (typically 80 - 85 % turnout) in other rich democracies.
It is easy to vote, 15 minutes wait time would be considered extraordinary. Mind you that is with paper ballot, and hand count, and typically 70 - 85 % turnout.
70 % would the local races in smaller communities, there typically the center right parties have solid majorities and even people that vote differently on the state and national level are O.K. with the mayor, and the council. If not, it is not hard to form a local opposition and straighten out the local establishment.
The hand count for EVERY election happens in every polling station (and of course they keep the ballots as proof), and the result is signed off by the election board whose members were there all day watched the ballot box, the checking off on lists and each other - and then did the counting together. The board consists of civil servants (getting Sunday overtime pay) and volunteers or election helpers on behalf of all parties.
Then they report the numbers per polling station for tabulation, which are numbers the voters can find out (although the numbers that are widely reported are aggregated at the city / town / village level. In a village they have only one polling station, but in the cities they aggregate the numbers, people like to know "how my town / state voted" so that is more convenient. But voters, journalists, independent statisticians can get the raw date PER polling station.
At that BASIC level rigging per polling station is almost impossible (they would have to bribe all board members) and on top of that it would be utterly pointless because it coult not change the outcome. If one polling station (which represens from 500 to a few 1000 people) would have "unusual" results, they STILL would not make a dent, but they would draw attention. The civil servants that are responsible that the procudures are followed, would get into trouble or major trouble (losing jobs, pensions, of course legal prosecution - and even ardent volunteers that root for one party strongly, would not do it. Normal people do not try to rig elections, they just don't).
If regions have a power blackout - they still could hold the elections. (I guess it could delay processing the data, but it would not hinder the voters to cast the vote).
The "tech" is robust, they system is completely safe from rigging. and the tech is "off grid". There is no chance to arrange for old machines, and technical glitches to disadvantage certain areas with certain voters. You cannot mess with paper ballot and pen and cubicles and voter lists printed in advance. If they can't print the lists within 2 weeks or cannot provide all polling stations with a sufficient number of ballots and envelopes - they would not have any plausible deniability.
There are no "convenient technical glitches" possible (in low income areas) Mind you, Corporate Dems ALSO do not want THOSE people to vote in the primaries. If the ballot is more complicated (or they combine it with local races to save costs) and that could create a bottle neck - well have a few more cubicles and pens. It is very easy to scale that up, there are not more "machines" needes.
The voter rolls are printed in 2 weeks before the election. The turnout is predictable, and even if they would expect unusually high turnout, it is low cost and easy to scale it up. Let's say from 70 to 80 %, or 80 to even 90 % for big races: more cubicles, more pens, and printing enough ballots is easy, low cost, and can be arranged quickly.
It does not matter much cost-wise (considering the total costs of the elections, staff is the most expensive) if you print 20 million or 25 million ballots, there are fix costs - once the printers start the machines ... Nor should it be a problem in a first world country to provide each and every polling station with enough ballots and some reserves. They have to sign off on them, and they must account for the unused ones, after the election is over.
Not being on the voter rolls is unheard of (citizens have to announce if they move, all nations figured out a way to have a reliable (central )register. Most nations have a central register (not the U.K) from there many important informations (birth, marriage, death, school, child benefits, driving licence ....) and also the voter rolls are taken. Updating THAT information is easy as well if citizes move, and of course young adults get the voter invitaiton (that everyone gets) as soon as they reach the age where they will be eligible to vote on election day. And like everbody else the invitations for every other race.
Only in the U.K. they have to register for their first vote, and then whenever they move out of district. But that is VERY easy and the overwhelming majority do it online. The votes are handcounted, paper ballot, election is on a workday (most nations vote on sunday or holiday) BUT the polling stations are open from morning till 10 pm and there are plenty of polling stations. People CAN vote even on a busy day. No long waiting times, and polling stations are nearby.
In the U.S. it is a byzantine system, and the Democrats have no interest in changing that.
I saw a video of the Sanders campaign how to vote in the primaries in California- and in the comment sections there were statements that seemed to expand the information (what you also must not overlook, that was not even mentioned in the video. You MUST have the original envelope, if you automatically got your mail ballot and it is not the right one - a cross over. After a certain time voters could not reform that online, they only could vote in person. Hello long lines. AND they absolutely needed to have the original ballot AND the envelope).
It is byzantine, complicated, as hassle, you need to watch a 10 minute video if you prefer to not be registered as Democrat (which frankly would be the easiest way in CA if you want to vote in the D primaries - and then switching back).
Many hours of waiting times ? In primaries AND in the general ? Developing poor countries are doing better.
Updated voter rolls in countries with functioning ! elections:
Only when you are lazy with updating your residency / domicile OR you end up in the 2 week period (where they start to print the voter lists for the polling stations so they cannot adjust the info anymore), you either have to ask for a mail ballot. There are time limits - typically 4 - 7 days before the election you have to ask for it, 4 for the big races. They need some time reserves to adminstrate that as well.
But typically updating that info is necessary if you rent,drive a car - the typical exception are college students. The classic is the phone call 6 - 8 weeks before the elction. Mum calling the out of town student: We got your invitation to vote in the mail - are you coming home for election weekend ? (of course they vote on Sundays or holidays).
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