Tag Archives: economic

Everybody Is Wrong

by SonyaSleeman7 Posted on March 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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Atrios is unhappy with how the left is treated:

I’m struck by how everything The Left does is wrong. Not just in terms of policy, but tactics. Running a third party candidate is wrong (I actually agree with this generally!), running in a major party primary is wrong, protesting is wrong, protesting the wrong way is wrong, not protesting is wrong, having a journal of important Lefty ideas is wrong, not catering to the feefees of Real Americans is wrong, proposing legislation is wrong, objecting to racism and sexism is wrong. There’s a longer list, I’m sure, but self-styled “moderates” chastise Lefties no matter what they do.

I dunno. I’m pretty sure we all feel this way. I’m a more moderate liberal than Atrios, but as near as I can tell I’m also wrong about pretty much everything. Hillary is a liar, Glass-Steagall did too cause the economic collapse, nobody votes for a squish, it’s all just privilege, Bernie is going to lead a revolution and his numbers add up just fine, I’m a shill for big corporations, Obama is a total sellout, etc.

On the conservative side, where I can take a more Olympian view of things, it’s pretty obvious the same thing is true. The tea partiers hate the RINOs, the RINOs hate Trump, and the Trumpettes hate everyone. One side are sellouts, the other side is just a bunch of purity mongers.

That’s life. In politics, you’re always wrong according to everyone who’s not you—and the more extreme you get, the wronger you are. That’s the price of being in the arena, or even just being a spectator cheering against the Romans.

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Everybody Is Wrong

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Leonardo DiCaprio attacks climate change deniers running for president

by VicenteSommers Posted on March 24, 2016

Leonardo DiCaprio attacks climate change deniers running for president

By on 24 Mar 2016commentsShare

Famed person Leonardo DiCaprio stunned audiences in Japan recently by discussing climate change at a press event in Tokyo. Just kidding! He talks about it all the time — sometimes with an e-cigarette or a model hanging from his mouth.

DiCaprio — who was in Japan promoting his Oscar-winning film about a bear cape — used the occasion to slam Republican presidential hopefuls. “We should not have a candidate who doesn’t believe in modern science to be leading our country,” the actor said in Tokyo. “Climate change is one of the most concerning issues facing all humanity and the United States needs to do its part.” The GOP electorate pays this no mind: Their frontrunner has repeatedly said that climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese to steal American dollars and make the U.S. look like a yuge loser. Donald Trump says he’s not a “big believer in man-made climate change.”

In recent years, DiCaprio has matured from a young international playboy to an older international playboy, and he has increasingly focused on activism. In his Oscar acceptance speech last month, DiCaprio said, that climate change is “the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.” DiCaprio attacked “corporate greed” of the fossil fuel industry at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. “You know better,” DiCaprio said. “The world knows better. History will place the blame for this devastation squarely at their feet.”

Expect to hear more from DiCaprio soon enough. His upcoming documentary about climate change, a collaboration with Fisher Stevens, producer of the 2010 Oscar-winner The Cove. DiCaprio visited both the North and South Poles, as well as China and India, for filming. No word yet if the bear cape will make a cameo.

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Leonardo DiCaprio attacks climate change deniers running for president

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A eulogy for Marco Rubio’s political career

by KyleKeegan0 Posted on March 16, 2016

A eulogy for Marco Rubio’s political career

By on 15 Mar 2016commentsShare

Little Marco! O, the waterfalls we shed for your departure!

Senator Rubio! How we weep for your consistency.

When the climate changed, Marco, you refused to do the same. We don’t remember you voting much at all in the Senate, but when you did, we remember you voting against an amendment that said human activity significantly contributes to our climate woes. “The climate is changing and one of the reasons why the climate is changing is the climate has always been changing,” you trumpeted. You were steadfast: a Florida coastline refusing to be swallowed by the rising seas of scientific consensus.

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“America is not a planet,” you once sighed. There was nothing we could do to change the climate, you explained. And there was nothing we could do to change you.

You pointed to China’s coal, to the fallacy of economic and environmental tradeoffs, to governmental overreach of the sordid left. You supported Keystone XL and lifting the crude export ban. You were the climate bad boy: the Daniel Desario we knew we shouldn’t hang out with — but you were just so dangerous. Like February 2016, you were just so hot.

Mere days before your dear departure from the race, you doubled down. The 21 Floridian mayors’ letter begging for reason on climate was met only by your trademark dismissal thereof. You always sounded so convincing! You teased and toyed with Jake Tapper: “I think the fundamental question for a policymaker is, is the climate changing because of something we are doing, and if so, is there a law you can pass to fix it?” There were plenty of laws that would do exactly that, but you preferred the rhetorical question. Denialism had such a palatable face with you on the stage. We wanted to believe.

And now you leave us bitter. Climate denial in the remaining Republican pool sports a different mask; a mask wearing a zanier expression than yours ever did.

¡Marcito! Your interventionism terrified us all, but your Spanish was so smooth. You disagreed with abortion, even in cases of rape — but you did have that one polished October jab against Jeb. “Donald is not going to make America great,” you said. “He is going to make America orange!” And now, sweet Marco, sad clown: You only make America blue.

Readers! Mourners! A man’s presidential hopes have faltered! He has traveled far and wide; he has sweat torrentially. But let us dispel with the notion that the wanderer is lost. Let us dispel once and for all with this fiction that Marco Rubio doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is pulling himself up by his chic boot-zips and dusting the cobwebs from his Senate seat. Until, of course, he breaks our heart again, in 2017.

Marco Rubio is survived by the Zodiac Killer, the Frontrunner Who Shall Not Be Named, and his extraordinary, unforgettable glitch.

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A eulogy for Marco Rubio’s political career

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Top Ten List of Things That Are Going Great in America

by HalPXOcxgddti Posted on March 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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I get requests from time to time:

I can do better than that. How about a top ten list of all the things going well in America right now?

  1. Unemployment = 4.9 percent. By virtually every measure, more people are re-entering the labor force and more people are finding work.
  2. Inflation = 1.4 percent. The annual inflation rate for food is 0.8 percent.
  3. Economic growth = 2.4 percent. This could be better, but it’s not bad: the US economy is stronger than China, Japan, or Mexico. We’re not losing, we’re winning.
  4. The average price of a gallon of gas is $1.81, its lowest price in a decade.
  5. 20 million people have gained health insurance since 2013, and health care costs are rising at the most moderate rate in decades.
  6. The abortion rate has been declining for 30 years and is now lower than at any time since the early 70s.
  7. Among teens, alcohol use is down, crime is down, violent behavior is down, illicit drug use is down, sexual intercourse is down, condom use is up, pregnancy is down, and cigarette smoking is down.
  8. High school test scores and graduation rates are up.
  9. There were only 22 US military fatalities in the Middle East in 2015, the lowest number since 9/11.
  10. Net illegal immigration has been negative for seven straight years. Since 2008, the population of undocumented workers in the US has fallen from 12 million to 11 million.

Unfortunately, there is also one big thing that’s not going so well:

  1. Despite a reasonably strong economy, wages have declined since 2000 and have rebounded only slightly over the past couple of years.

It’s quite possible that this one thing is more important than all the others put together. And needless to say, anyone can put together their own list of ten things that are going badly: police shootings, ISIS, income inequality, etc. Nonetheless, when you look at the big picture, there’s an awful lot going right at the moment.

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Top Ten List of Things That Are Going Great in America

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Donald Trump’s Yooge Flip-Flop on Outsourcing

by LizetteSymon Posted on March 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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On the night of his big Super Tuesday victory, GOP front-runner Donald Trump gave a winner’s press conference and, as he often does, railed against the evils of outsourcing.

“You look at countries like Mexico, where they’re killing us on the border, absolutely destroying us on the border. They’re destroying us in terms of economic development. Companies like Carrier air conditioner just moving into Mexico, Ford moving into Mexico, Nabisco closing up shop in Chicago and moving into Mexico,” Trump said to supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. “We have to stop it, folks. I know how to stop it: We’re going to create jobs, we’re going to create jobs like you’ve never seen.”

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Donald Trump’s Yooge Flip-Flop on Outsourcing

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Hillary Clinton Crushes Bernie Sanders in South Carolina

by StefanieLuce Posted on February 28, 2016

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This is nuts. Yesterday Pollster had Hillary Clinton ahead in South Carolina by about 20 points. Today they added one new poll, and they have her ahead by 50 points—which is about what she won by.

Did Bernie really lose 30 points of support in the past two weeks? That’s what the polls seem to show. But why? And how did the press not pick up on this? Most of the coverage I’ve seen has suggested that, sure, Hillary is going to win, but she’s really being pressed in the black community and Bernie could do better than expected. But according to the exit polls, she ended up winning 84 percent of the black vote. And perhaps even more worryingly for Bernie, she even crushed him among voters who agree that our economic system favors the wealthy. That’s his wheelhouse, and he won only 30 percent of their vote.

We’ll know more after Tuesday, but this doesn’t look good for Sanders. If Hillary racks up a big win on Super Tuesday, she’ll be so far ahead in the delegate count she’ll be almost mathematically unbeatable. At that point, it will be pretty hard for him to justify staying in the race.

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Hillary Clinton Crushes Bernie Sanders in South Carolina

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Worldwide Water Shortages Might Be Worse Than We Thought

by DevinGeer32262 Posted on February 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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The world’s water crisis might be much worse than we thought. Four billion people, or two-thirds of the global population, face severe water shortages for at least one month out the year, according to a study published on Friday in Science Advances.

Arjen Hoekstra, a professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the study’s lead author, says better living standards and the expansion of agriculture are among the factors that have increased demand for water and caused resources to dry up across the globe. And during the hot months of the year when water is already scarce, people draw from rivers and groundwater, further threatening water sources and the people who rely on them.

“Direct victims of the over consumption of water resources are the users themselves, who increasingly suffer from water shortages during droughts,” according to the study’s authors, who add that even one month without reliable access to water affects quality of life.

Of the 4 billion people who face severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, 130 million reside in the United States, mostly in Western and Southern states like California, Texas, and Florida, where drought is already a common aspect of life. But those dry spells are made worse by the rising demand for water. In the West, the vast majority of water flowing from the all-important Colorado River goes to agriculture, and federal subsidies actually encourage farmers to plant the thirstiest crops, like cotton. On top of that, state laws push farmers to flood their fields with as much water as they can.

The remaining 3.8 billion people affected by severe water shortages are outside the United States, in places like Africa and the Middle East, where access to water has long been a source of concern. This January marked the fifth year in a row that the World Economic Forum ranked water crises among the top three risks to the world economic stability, alongside climate change and weapons of mass destruction.

Increased water depletion could also create fodder for increased political tensions. Volatile places like Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Somalia are among the countries where large portions of the population experience severe water scarcity all year-round. A Yemeni newspaper estimated that 70 to 80 percent of conflicts in rural areas of that country were about water. Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch has even exploited the shortage, winning over support by digging wells and providing villages with water.

Hoekstra’s findings paint a much bleaker picture of the global water crisis than most previous estimates. Both the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations have said it would take until 2025 for two-thirds of the world population to be without access to water, meaning today’s findings put us a decade ahead of schedule.

“We have generally underestimated the risks associated with water scarcity,” Hoekstra told Mother Jones in an email. But, he adds in a press release, there’s a bright spot: “All over the world, it is clear that the risks associated with high water consumption are being increasingly recognized.”

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Worldwide Water Shortages Might Be Worse Than We Thought

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Jeb Bush May Seek a Campaign Boost From His "Very Popular" Brother

by JeanIRXvukhs Posted on January 5, 2016

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With Hillary Clinton bringing her husband (and 42nd US president) Bill Clinton on the campaign trail with her in New Hampshire, Jeb Bush may soon follow suit with his presidential kin. The former Florida governor appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, and host Brian Kilmeade asked whether he would follow Clinton’s lead and recruit his brother, former president George W. Bush, to boost his struggling campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Yeah,” Bush replied, “it is something to consider. ‘Cause he is very popular.”

At the time of his departure from office, George W. Bush held an approval rating of 22 percent. But as the economic and foreign policy travails of his presidency have faded in the national memory, the elder Bush brother has gained in popularity, with a slim majority of Americans holding a favorable opinion of him as of last summer.

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Jeb Bush May Seek a Campaign Boost From His "Very Popular" Brother

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"I Rap About a Lot of the Stuff You Rant About": Killer Mike Interviews Bernie Sanders

by MildredWhittle Posted on December 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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When Bernie Sanders held a rally in Atlanta last month for his presidential campaign, the senator from Vermont was introduced by local rapper Killer Mike. Prior to the rally, Sanders and Killer Mike sat down to record an interview, which was released in six parts on Tuesday. “I rap about a lot of the stuff you rant about,” Killer Mike says at the start, before delving into a broad conversation about economics, criminal justice, gun control, and everything in between.

Killer Mike (born Michael Render) is half of the MC duo Run the Jewels, and has long laced his lyrics with messages about politics, activism, and social justice. His emergence as a popular political figure dates back to an onstage speech at a concert in St. Louis the night a grand jury decided to not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown. Run the Jewels released a powerful music video tackling police violence earlier this year. Killer Mike is now the sort of artist who prompts print magazine profiles about how he’s reviving hip-hop as a political platform.

His interview with Sanders, conducted just before Thanksgiving at an Atlanta barbershop owned by Killer Mike, is not an objective examination of the candidate: Killer Mike gushes over Sanders, whom he had already endorsed earlier this summer. “That’s some bomb shit,” Killer Mike says by way of asking Sanders about his civil rights activism with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s.

“What we saw—if I can use some bomb shit—is our friends getting the shit kicked out of them and getting beaten to hell,” Sanders replies, explaining why he got involved while he was a student at the University of Chicago.

Sanders appears to be enjoying himself throughout most of the chat, awkwardly reaching over for fist bumps throughout the interview. He nods along while Killer Mike calls Donald Trump a fascist and compares him to Hitler and Mussolini. “You’re right, it is scary,” Sanders says of Trump’s campaign. When the two turn to marijuana decriminalization—”I’m a marijuana smoker and I think that’s absolute bullshit,” Mike says of the federal prohibition—Sanders backs him up. “Of course it’s crazy; everybody knows it’s crazy,” Sanders says.

Watch the six-part interview—in sections labeled “Economic Freedom,” “Social Justice,” “Rigged Economy,” “Free Health Care: It Ain’t a Big Deal,” “This Country Was Started As An Act Of Political Protest,” and “Democrats Win When People Vote”—below:

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"I Rap About a Lot of the Stuff You Rant About": Killer Mike Interviews Bernie Sanders

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Shit Is About to Get Real in California, El Niño Report Predicts

by RefugioDurbin Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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After four years of drought, Californians are bracing for another potentially destructive weather event: El Niño. Earlier this week, FEMA released a disaster plan including what to expect from the upcoming rainy season. Here are the key takeaways:

This may be the strongest El Niño on record. Weather reports indicate that this year will be warm and wet—perhaps even more so than the winter of 1997-1998, which is currently the strongest recorded El Niño. That year, California evacuated 100,000 people.
The dry conditions mean more flooding. The lack of soil moisture has made the soil “harden and act like cement,” making it, paradoxically, less likely to soak up the rain. The chance of flooding is far higher than usual, especially in the productive farm country of Central Valley and the surrounding area—including America’s the state’s capital. “The primary risk areas are in populated areas mostly notably in Sacramento,” the report reads—and because of that, “a major flood situation would have significant impact on the economic, cultural, and political life of California.” Additionally, a catastrophic levee failure in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta would jeopardize a major source of water for 60 percent of California homes and for a portion of the state’s agricultural industry.” One in five Californians lives in a flood zone.
Wildfires in the summer mean more landslides in the winter. The wildfire season this year was devastating in California, scorching more than 300,000 acres. Mudslides are common in these scorched areas, called “burn scars,” because water quickly runs off and there aren’t trees to keep the soil, rocks, and other debris in place. Southern Californians got a little taste of what this might look like when rain led to severe landslides in October.
King Tides, El Niño, and the Blob mean higher sea levels and more potential damage. Sea levels typically rise a few inches during El Niño, but this winter, scientists predict that the giant swath of warm water off the West Coast dubbed the Blob will lead to a rise of between 8 and 11 inches. State officials are particularly concerned about the potential damage caused by storms towards the end of both December and January, when the highest tides of the winter, called King Tides, are expected.
The rains may ease the drought, but won’t solve it. All this water will certainly ease the drought and raise levels in the state’s depleted reservoirs. But because the state is so behind on precipitation, it’s very unlikely that it will make up for the state’s now four-year water deficit.

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Shit Is About to Get Real in California, El Niño Report Predicts

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