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Javier E

Opinion | Why So Many Children of Immigrants Rise to the Top - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...mmigrants-success-america.html

immigrants US history analysis success trends

shared by Javier E on 11 Jul 22 - No Cached
  • Immigrants and their children are assimilating into the United States as quickly now as in the past
  • “first-generation immigrants are more costly to governments than are the native-born,” according to a 2017 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the “second generation are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.”
  • Second-generation-immigrant success stories have long been a part of America’s history. Looking at census records from 1880, the researchers found that men whose fathers were low-income immigrants made more money as adults than the sons of low-income men born in the United States
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  • Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan observed the same pattern a century later. Children born around 1980 to men from Mexico, India, Brazil and almost every other country outearned the children of U.S.-born men.
  • “America really does have golden streets that allow immigrants to quickly make more than they could have earned at home,” they write. But, they add, “moving up the economic ladder in America — and catching up to the U.S.-born — takes time.”
  • They are more likely, Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan found, than immigrants of the past to come from countries that are significantly poorer than the United States, including El Salvador, India and Vietnam
  • They arrived at two answers. First, the children had an easy time outdoing parents whose careers were inhibited by poor language skills or a lack of professional credentials
  • Second, immigrants tended to settle in parts of the country experiencing strong job growth. That gave them an edge over native-born Americans who were firmly rooted in places with faltering economies
  • If immigrants are so upwardly mobile, why doesn’t it seem that way? One reason is that there are more newcomers than there have been in decades and most haven’t had time yet to get ahead. The share of foreign-born people in the United States is back to the levels of the first two decades of the 20th century.
  • they tried to figure out why those children did so well
  • In contrast, affluent, educated immigrants tend to be the least upwardly mobile, simply because they’re already at or near the top.
  • Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan dispute the argument that immigrants frequently take jobs from native-born Americans. Less skilled immigrants gravitate toward jobs for which there is relatively little competition from native-born Americans, such as picking crops, while highly skilled immigrants often create more jobs for native-born Americans by starting businesses and inventing things,
  • The notion that immigrants have become a permanent underclass, isolated from the American mainstream, is popular among immigration restrictionists — as well as among some pro-immigration groups that say immigrants need more help to break out of poverty
  • The truth is that today’s immigrants are advancing just as swiftly as those of the past. “The American dream,” Mr. Abramitzky said in an interview, “is just as alive now as it was a century ago.”
Javier E

Amazon Has Escaped America's Retail Malaise - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...caped-america-s-retail-malaise

amazon retail model business model

shared by Javier E on 29 Jul 22 - No Cached
  • The company’s growing emphasis on third-party selling, a very different business model than the big-box stores’, has helped lift the tech giant while competitors are forced to offer big discounts.
  • While Amazon does sell some items directly, the company is predominantly an online marketplace like EBay Inc., meaning it collects commissions and fees when shoppers purchase things on the site without having to actually buy that inventory. In the three months ended June 30, 57% of all things sold on Amazon came from independent merchants who bear all the inventory risk—the highest that number has ever been.
  • when a merchant selling goods on Amazon cuts prices, Amazon still gets paid—even if that means the company takes a smaller commission on the sales, and even if the merchant loses money. 
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  • Unlike store shelves that have to be physically rearranged, the online marketplace’s search engine surfaces what you want when you want it from a deep inventory of hundreds of millions of products. Meanwhile a big-box store can only carry approximately 100,000 different goods.
  • The marketplace model also helps Amazon shift more quickly to things people want to buy. Its hundreds of thousands of merchants scour search engine trends in real time to know which products they should be selling and when
  • Amazon’s revenue from third-party seller services—a category that includes commissions and fees for things like warehousing, packaging and delivery—increased 9% in the second quarter to $27.38 billion.
  • Another positive note was that subscription services revenue, which is mostly Prime memberships, grew 14% in the quarter, reversing three consecutive quarters of slowing growth—meaning shoppers still see value in the membership, despite a $20 price hike in February to $139 a year.
Javier E

As Russia Chokes Europe's Gas, France Enters Era of Energy 'Sobriety' - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...russia-gas-europe-france.html

energy france europe conservation crisis policy

shared by Javier E on 05 Sep 22 - No Cached
  • “We have been confronted with a series of crises, one more grave than the other,” Mr. Macron said in a televised speech to the nation late last month. “The picture that I’m painting is one of the end of abundance,” he added. “We have reached a tipping point.”
  • The national effort calls for businesses and individuals to embrace energy conservation by increasing car-pooling, lowering thermostats and shutting off illuminated advertising signs at night — to name a few — or face the risk of rolling blackouts or energy rationing.
  • The government has been spending lavishly — over 26 billion euros ($26 billion) since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — to keep gas and electric bills affordable, and last week it announced that its cap on household energy bills would be extended until the end of the year. The moves to control energy costs, including the re-nationalization of the energy provider EDF, have helped give France one of the lowest inflation rates in Europe, at 6.5 percent. (The overall eurozone rate for August was 9.1 percent.)
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  • France would seem to be less vulnerable than its neighbors: It boasts the biggest nuclear energy arsenal of any European Union country, and is one of the least reliant on Russian natural gas. But France faces an energy crisis of its own, as its nuclear industry addresses cracks, corrosion and other troubles that have forced EDF to temporarily shut down 32 of France’s 56 nuclear reactors.
  • The outages at EDF, which is also Europe’s biggest electricity exporter, have sent France’s nuclear power output plunging to its lowest level in nearly three decades. In addition, France’s worst drought in 30 years this summer has lowered river levels, cutting supplies of hydroelectric power.
  • On Friday, wholesale electricity prices for 2023 in France set a record, surging past €1,000 per megawatt-hour. Many French companies and retailers buy their electricity with three-year contracts that are set to expire, meaning they will have to be renewed at peak prices.
  • President Macron, who faced a stiff presidential election campaign in April that saw the far-right challenger, Marine Le Pen, gain ground by addressing French families’ worries over purchasing power, has focused on shielding households from rising energy costs.
  • Without the cap, French inflation would be about three percentage points higher, the French statistics agency Insee said in a report issued Friday.
  • In recent days, the government issued announcements calling on the French to curb a range of activities, in hopes of collectively saving energy. Among them: refraining from running washers at night, keeping thermostats at 66 degrees Fahrenheit and increasing use of public transportation
  • Many municipalities outside Paris started closing swimming pools intermittently this summer to save money. Other cities are restricting public lighting, which can account for over 40 percent of electricity bills.
  • The town of Thouars in western France has been turning off streetlights from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. since June and plans to replace bulbs with LED lighting. Strasbourg, a mid-size city on the German border, will close museums two days a week instead of one.
  • In northern France, some high schools in Brittany will lower their thermostats, while the neighboring region of Normandy will experiment with using wood-burning furnaces for heat in some schools as an alternative to gas.
  • “We need a radical change,” Ms. Borne said. “Everyone must ask themselves what they can do to consume less.”
Javier E

Kevin McCarthy Found Out He's No Donald Trump - 0 views

plus.thebulwark.com/...ccarthy-no-donald-trump-budget

congress GOP compromise commission politics US policy crisis

shared by Javier E on 07 Oct 23 - No Cached
  • Here’s the thing: MacGuineas, the GOP, most Democrats, and people like me, unnerved by the trend and worried that interest payments on the borrowed money will prevent spending on real needs, agree that we are on an unsustainable fiscal course. Gaetz & co. are not wrong to want to cut spending. They are just wrong about everything else—where and how much and how fast to cut, and their iron rule that taxes should never, ever be raised and should always be reduced, especially for corporations and the rich, who would use their new cash to create jobs. (Spoiler: They didn’t.
  • Trump theoretically was leading a GOP populist revolution, but in reality the massive tax cut he signed was more of the same deficit-swelling, trickle-down delusion.
  • As I wrote in my book on political negotiations, the conditions for success include patience, reliance on facts, and the maturity to understand that you won’t get everything you want—but that all sides need to walk away with a few things they can feel good about, or at least can defend to their supporters.
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  • McCarthy managed to do this with Biden on the debt deal, to the fury of Republican hardliners. But how else can you govern a country of 330 million? It’s hard under the best of circumstances, and it’s impossible when you only control a tiny slice of government—and not by much. Here we are talking about a 221-212 GOP majority in one half of one branch, Congress, in a government that has three branches.
Javier E

Climate Reparations Are Officially Happening - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...676183

climate damage reparations fund

shared by Javier E on 01 Dec 23 - No Cached
  • Today, on the opening day of COP28, the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, the host country pushed through a decision that wasn’t expected to happen until the last possible minute of the two-week gathering: the creation and structure of the “loss and damage” fund, which will source money from developed countries to help pay for climate damages in developing ones. For the first time, the world has a system in place for climate reparations.
  • Nearly every country on Earth has now adopted the fund, though the text is not technically final until the end of the conference, officially slated for December 12.
  • “We have delivered history today—the first time a decision has been adopted on day one of any COP,”
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  • Over much opposition from developing countries, the U.S. has insisted that the fund (technically named the Climate Impact and Response Fund) will be housed at the World Bank, where the U.S. holds a majority stake; every World Bank president has been a U.S. citizen. The U.S. also insisted that contributing to the fund not be obligatory. Sue Biniaz, the deputy special envoy for climate at the State Department, said earlier this year that she “violently opposes” arguments that developed countries have a legal obligation under the UN framework to pay into the fund.
  • The text agreed upon in Dubai on Thursday appears to strike a delicate balance: The fund will indeed be housed at the World Bank, at least for four years, but it will be run according to direction provided at the UN climate gatherings each year, and managed by a board where developed nations are designated fewer than half the seats.
  • That board’s decisions will supersede those of the World Bank “where appropriate.” Small island nations, which are threatened by extinction because of sea-level rise, will have dedicated seats. Countries that are not members of the World Bank will still be able to access the fund.
  • the U.S. remains adamant that the fund does not amount to compensation for past emissions, and it rejects any whiff of suggestions that it is liable for other countries’ climate damages.
  • Even the name “loss and damage,” with its implication of both harm and culpability, has been contentious among delegates
  • Several countries immediately announced their intended contribution to the fund. The United Arab Emirates and Germany each said they would give $100 million. The U.K. pledged more than$50 million, and Japan committed to $10 million. The U.S. said it would provide $17.5 million, a small number given its responsibility for the largest historical share of global emissions.
  • Total commitments came in on the order of hundreds of  millions, far shy of an earlier goal of $100 billion a year.
  • Other donations may continue to trickle in. But the sum is paltry considering researchers recently concluded that 55 climate-vulnerable countries have incurred $525 billion in climate-related losses from 2000 to 2019, depriving them of 20 percent of the wealth they would otherwise have
  • Still, it’s a big change in how climate catastrophe is treated by developed nations. For the first time, the countries most responsible for climate change are collectively, formally claiming some of that responsibility
  • One crucial unresolved variable is whether countries such as China and Saudi Arabia—still not treated as “developed” nations under the original UN climate framework—will acknowledge their now-outsize role in worsening climate change by contributing to the fund.
  • Another big question now will be whether the U.S. can get Congress to agree to payments to the fund, something congressional Republicans are likely to oppose.
  • Influence by oil and gas industry interests—arguably the entities truly responsible for driving climate change—now delays even public funding of global climate initiatives, he said. “The fossil-fuel industry has successfully convinced the world that loss and damage is something the taxpayer should pay for.” And yet, Whitehouse told me that the industry lobbies against efforts to use public funding this way, swaying Congress and therefore hobbling the U.S.’s ability to uphold even its meager contributions to international climate funding.
Javier E

Opinion | 'Killers of the Flower Moon' Is Coming to Theaters, But Being Erased from Cla... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...wer-moon-oklahoma-history.html

murder American Indian rich tribe Oklahoma movie Scorsese oil racism

shared by Javier E on 22 Oct 23 - No Cached
  • Numerous other Osage had died suspiciously — the cause of death often cloaked behind alcoholic poisoning or wasting illness or as simply unknown. Despite evidence that the victims had been murdered for their oil money, the cases were never properly investigated. Moreover, they could not be linked to the same killer caught by the bureau. The history of the Reign of Terror was less a question of who did it than who didn’t do it.
  • It was about a widespread culture of killing. It was about prominent white citizens who paid for killings, doctors who administered poisons, morticians who ignored evidence of bullet wounds, lawmen and prosecutors who were on the take and many others who remained complicit in their silence — all because they were profiting from what they referred to openly as the “Indian business.” The real death toll was undoubtedly higher than 24. One bureau agent admitted: “There are so many of these murder cases. There are hundreds and hundreds.”
  • The Osage had these events seared in their memories. Yet most Americans had excised even the bureau’s sanitized account from their consciences. Like the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred during the same period, the Osage Reign of Terror was generally not taught in schools, even in Oklahoma
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  • even now, as their stories are being dramatized in a movie and shown in theaters across the country, there is a campaign in Oklahoma — this time with legislation — to deter the history from being taught in schools.
  • The movement to suppress elements of American history extends well beyond Oklahoma. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, more than two dozen states have adopted laws that make it easier to remove books from school libraries and to prevent certain teaching on race, gender and sexuality
  • In 2023, PEN America, which defends freedom of speech, reported that book bans in U.S. public school classrooms and libraries had surged 33 percent over the previous school year, with more than 3,000 recorded removals; among them are classics by the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison (banned in 30 school districts) and Margaret Atwood (banned in 34). School curriculums are being revised to mask discomfiting truths — so much so that in Florida students will now be taught that some African Americans benefited from slavery because it gave them “skills.”
Javier E

Foreign Firms Pull Billions in Earnings Out of China - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...earnings-out-of-china-0423b68a

china earnings investment

shared by Javier E on 06 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • Foreign firms yanked more than $160 billion in total earnings from China during six successive quarters through the end of September, according to an analysis of Chinese data, an unusually sustained run of profit outflows that shows how much the country’s appeal is waning for foreign capital.
  • The outflows add to pressure on China’s currency, the yuan, when the country’s central bank is already battling to slow its decline as investors sour on Chinese stocks and bonds and new investment in China is scarce. The yuan has depreciated 5.7% against the U.S. dollar this year and touched its lowest level in more than a decade in September. 
  • A range of factors have contributed to the profit exodus, economists and corporate executives say. Those include a widening gap between China’s interest rates and those in the U.S. and Europe that has made it more attractive to park earnings in the West.
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  • many foreign firms are looking for better uses for their money, as China’s economy slows and geopolitical tensions rise. Chilly relations between Beijing and the U.S.-led West have pushed global companies to rethink their supply chains and exposure to China.
  • The data show that for all but two quarters between 2014 and the middle of last year, foreign firms were reinvesting more in China than they were transferring abroad. In 2021, for instance, firms reinvested a net $170 billion. 
  • That shifted in the middle of 2022, when China was under sporadic lockdowns and the U.S. Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to combat rocketing inflation. Outflows have continued in each quarter since. 
Javier E

Sam Altman's ouster at OpenAI exposes growing rift in AI industry - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...m-altman-ilya-sutskever-openai

AI threat silicon valley rift industry coup

shared by Javier E on 19 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, one of OpenAI’s independent board members, told Forbes in January that there was “no outcome where this organization is one of the big five technology companies.”
  • “My hope is that we can do a lot more good for the world than just become another corporation that gets that big,” D’Angelo said in the interview. He did not respond to requests for comment.
  • Two of the board members who voted Altman out worked for think tanks backed by Open Philanthropy, a tech billionaire-backed foundation that supports projects preventing AI from causing catastrophic risk to humanity
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  • Helen Toner, the director of strategy and foundational research grants for Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown, and Tasha McCauley, whose LinkedIn profile says she began work as an adjunct senior management scientist at Rand Corporation earlier this year. Toner has previously spoken at conferences for a philanthropic movement closely tied to AI safety. McCauley is also involved in the work.
  • Sutskever helped create AI software at the University of Toronto, called AlexNet, which classified objects in photographs with more accuracy than any previous software had achieved, laying much of the foundation for the field of computer vision and deep learning.
  • He recently shared a radically different vision for how AI might evolve in the near term. Within five to 10 years, there could be “data centers that are much smarter than people,” Sutskever said on a recent episode of the AI podcast “No Priors.” Not just in terms of memory or knowledge, but with a deeper insight and ability to learn faster than humans.
  • At the bare minimum, Sutskever added, it’s important to work on controlling superintelligence today. “Imprinting onto them a strong desire to be nice and kind to people — because those data centers,” he said, “they will be really quite powerful.”
  • OpenAI has a unique governing structure, which it adopted in 2019. It created a for-profit subsidiary that allowed investors a return on the money they invested into OpenAI, but capped how much they could get back, with the rest flowing back into the company’s nonprofit. The company’s structure also allows OpenAI’s nonprofit board to govern the activities of the for-profit entity, including the power to fire its chief executive.
  • As news of the circumstances around Altman’s ouster began to come out, Silicon Valley circles have turned to anger at OpenAI’s board.
  • “What happened at OpenAI today is a board coup that we have not seen the likes of since 1985 when the then-Apple board pushed out Steve Jobs,” Ron Conway, a longtime venture capitalist who was one of the attendees at OpenAI’s developer conference, said on X. “It is shocking, it is irresponsible, and it does not do right by Sam and Greg or all the builders in OpenAI.”
Javier E

Opinion | The OpenAI drama explains the human penchant for risk-taking - The Washington... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...nity-risk-alignment-technology

AI threat human weaknesses policy

shared by Javier E on 21 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • Along with more pedestrian worries about various ways that AI could harm users, one side worried that ChatGPT and its many cousins might thrust humanity onto a kind of digital bobsled track, terminating in disaster — either with the machines wiping out their human progenitors or with humans using the machines to do so themselves. Once things start moving in earnest, there’s no real way to slow down or bail out, so the worriers wanted everyone to sit down and have a long think before getting anything rolling too fast.
  • Skeptics found all this a tad overwrought. For one thing, it left out all the ways in which AI might save humanity by providing cures for aging or solutions to global warming. And many folks thought it would be years before computers could possess anything approaching true consciousness, so we could figure out the safety part as we go. Still others were doubtful that truly sentient machines were even on the horizon; they saw ChatGPT and its many relatives as ultrasophisticated electronic parrots
  • Worrying that such an entity might decide it wants to kill people is a bit like wondering whether your iPhone would prefer to holiday in Crete or Majorca next summer.
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  • OpenAI was was trying to balance safety and development — a balance that became harder to maintain under the pressures of commercialization.
  • It was founded as a nonprofit by people who professed sincere concern about taking things safe and slow. But it was also full of AI nerds who wanted to, you know, make cool AIs.
  • OpenAI set up a for-profit arm — but with a corporate structure that left the nonprofit board able to cry “stop” if things started moving too fast (or, if you prefer, gave “a handful of people with no financial stake in the company the power to upend the project on a whim”).
  • On Friday, those people, in a fit of whimsy, kicked Brockman off the board and fired Altman. Reportedly, the move was driven by Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist, who, along with other members of the board, has allegedly clashed repeatedly with Altman over the speed of generative AI development and the sufficiency of safety precautions.
  • Chief among the signatories was Sutskever, who tweeted Monday morning, “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
  • Humanity can’t help itself; we have kept monkeying with technology, no matter the dangers, since some enterprising hominid struck the first stone ax.
  • a software company has little in the way of tangible assets; its people are its capital. And this capital looks willing to follow Altman to where the money is.
  • More broadly still, it perfectly encapsulates the AI alignment problem, which in the end is also a human alignment problem
  • And that’s why we are probably not going to “solve” it so much as hope we don’t have to.
  • it’s also a valuable general lesson about corporate structure and corporate culture. The nonprofit’s altruistic mission was in tension with the profit-making, AI-generating part — and when push came to shove, the profit-making part won.
  • When scientists started messing with the atom, there were real worries that nuclear weapons might set Earth’s atmosphere on fire. By the time an actual bomb was exploded, scientists were pretty sure that wouldn’t happen
  • But if the worries had persisted, would anyone have behaved differently — knowing that it might mean someone else would win the race for a superweapon? Better to go forward and ensure that at least the right people were in charge.
  • Now consider Sutskever: Did he change his mind over the weekend about his disputes with Altman? More likely, he simply realized that, whatever his reservations, he had no power to stop the bobsled — so he might as well join his friends onboard. And like it or not, we’re all going with them.
Javier E

A Tale of Two Moralities - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...14krugman.html

discourse morality public conservatism liberalism welfare state politics

shared by Javier E on 14 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • the great divide in our politics isn’t really about pragmatic issues, about which policies work best; it’s about differences in those very moral imaginations Mr. Obama urges us to expand, about divergent beliefs over what constitutes justice.
  • the real challenge we face is not how to resolve our differences — something that won’t happen any time soon — but how to keep the expression of those differences within bounds.
  • The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.
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  • One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.
  • This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. Commentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it.
  • we have, for the most part, managed to agree on certain ground rules in the abortion controversy: it’s acceptable to express your opinion and to criticize the other side, but it’s not acceptable either to engage in violence or to encourage others to do so. What we need now is an extension of those ground rules to the wider national debate.
  • When people talk about partisan differences, they often seem to be implying that these differences are petty, matters that could be resolved with a bit of good will. But what we’re talking about here is a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government.
  • Today’s G.O.P. sees much of what the modern federal government does as illegitimate; today’s Democratic Party does not
  • This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development.
  • There’s no middle ground between these views. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care
  • The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose.
  • We need to have leaders of both parties — or Mr. Obama alone if necessary — declare that both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds. We all want reconciliation, but the road to that goal begins with an agreement that our differences will be settled by the rule of law.
Javier E

Studios Are Loosening Their Reluctance to Send Old Shows Back to Netflix - The New York... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...netflix-licensed-shows.html

netflix license movies streaming media

shared by Javier E on 15 Dec 23 - No Cached
  • around five years ago, executives realized they were “selling nuclear weapons technology” to a powerful rival, as Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger, put it. Studios needed those same beloved movies and shows for the streaming services they were building from scratch, and fueling Netflix’s rise was only hurting them. The content spigots were, in large part, turned off.
  • Confronting sizable debt burdens and the fact that most streaming services still don’t make money, studios like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have begun to soften their do-not-sell-to-Netflix stances. The companies are still holding back their most popular content — movies from the Disney-owned Star Wars and Marvel universes and blockbuster original series like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” aren’t going anywhere — but dozens of other films like “Dune” and “Prometheus” and series like “Young Sheldon” are being sent to the streaming behemoth in return for much-needed cash. And Netflix is once again benefiting.
criscimagnael

Kevin McCarthy hammers Biden admin's agenda as gas prices surge: 'Create more supply' |... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...carthy-biden-energy-gas-prices

shared by criscimagnael on 01 Jun 22 - No Cached
  • House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy slammed the Biden administration amid rampant inflation, arguing the White House caused the surge in prices as Americans battle sky-high costs at the pump.
  • It weakens America. Think about, this is our reserves. In case we got in trouble, we can actually create more diesel. We can create more natural gas. It not only harms America, it harms the world by not being safe.
  • He emboldened Putin because Putin got more money to put into his own war.
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  • If America has more jobs, America energy independent, America supplying our allies with natural gas. And also think of this: American natural gas is 41% cleaner than Russian natural gas, so the environment would be safer if America was able to produce it.
  • He has done every decision wrong in the process of going and to use our reserves now for in the future, why doesn't he create more supply to make the price go down? That would be the answer.
Javier E

Of Course Putin Is Being Canceled - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...626978

cancel ostracism russia invasion

shared by Javier E on 09 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • The ancient Greeks understood the power of creating outcasts. Athenians had a range of punishments available to them that would make even a southern Republican governor queasy, including death by exposure or being thrown into a chasm.
  • A true cancellation typically involves the subject being cast out of their professional network, denied the ability to make money, and rejected by their social circle.
  • Economic devastation and cultural deprivation are powerful punishments. They are also an accurate description of what is happening to Russia as Western sanctions bite, private companies break links with the region, and Putin’s regime is excluded from international organizations and alliances.
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  • Russia’s status in the world has abruptly and obviously changed. Russians cannot escape their isolation as long as they cannot watch Netflix, access TikTok, or see their footballers play in international competitions. Pro-regime oligarchs, who once spent holidays in Europe, bought mansions in Mayfair, and visited their children at English private schools, now face visa restrictions and asset seizures. They have been denied the ability to use the rest of the continent as their gilded playground.
  • When a Russian spymaster complains about his country’s cancellation, our response should not be to laugh at an idiot confusing a culture war and a real one. Instead, we should recognize that economic and social isolation is a powerful weapon, and resolve to use it with the same restraint as any other weapon.
jaxredd10

Renaissance Period: Timeline, Art & Facts - HISTORY - 1 views

www.history.com/...renaissance

shared by jaxredd10 on 25 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages.
  • Some of the greatest thinkers, authors, statesmen, scientists and artists in human history thrived during this era, while global exploration opened up new lands and cultures to European commerce. T
  • Galieo (1564-1642): Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer whose pioneering work with telescopes enabled him to describes the moons of Jupiter and rings of Saturn. Placed under house arrest for his views of a heliocentric universe.
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  • Some historians, however, believe that such grim depictions of the Middle Ages were greatly exaggerated,
  • Among its many principles, humanism promoted the idea that man was the center of his own universe, and people should embrace human achievements in education, classical arts, literature and science.
  • In 1450, the invention of the Gutenberg printing press allowed for improved communication throughout Europe and for ideas to spread more quickly.
  • Great Italian writers, artists, politicians and others declared that they were participating in an intellectual and artistic revolution that would be much different from what they experienced during the Dark Ages.
  • Although other European countries experienced their Renaissance later than Italy, the impacts were still revolutionary.
  • Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519): Italian painter, architect, inventor, and “Renaissance man” responsible for painting “The Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper.
  • Also known as the “Dark Ages,” the era is often branded as a time of war, ignorance, famine and pandemics such as the Black Death.
  • By the early 17th century, the Renaissance movement had died out, giving way to the Age of Enlightenment.
  • Raphael (1483–1520): Italian painter who learned from da Vinci and Michelangelo. Best known for his paintings of the Madonna and “The School of Athens.”
  • Michelangelo (1483–1520): Italian sculptor, painter, and architect who carved “David” and painted The Sistine Chapel in Rome.
  • Art, architecture and science were closely linked during the Renaissance.
  • For instance, artists like da Vinci incorporated scientific principles, such as anatomy into their work, so they could recreate the human body with extraordinary precision.
  • Renaissance art was characterized by realism and naturalism. Artists strived to depict people and objects in a true-to-life way.
  • Some of the most famous artistic works that were produced during the Renaissance include:The Mona Lisa (Da Vinci)The Last Supper (Da Vinci)Statue of David (Michelangelo)The Birth of Venus (Botticelli)The Creation of Adam (Michelangelo)
  • Also, changing trade routes led to a period of economic decline and limited the amount of money that wealthy contributors could spend on the arts.
  • Donatello (1386–1466): Italian sculptor celebrated for lifelike sculptures like “David,” commissioned by the Medici family.
  • While many scholars view the Renaissance as a unique and exciting time in European history, others argue that the period wasn’t much different from the Middle Ages and that both eras overlapped more than traditional accounts suggest.
Javier E

Schools to blame for boys idolising Andrew Tate, says sacked teacher | News | The Times - 0 views

www.thetimes.co.uk/...-says-sacked-teacher-3d9ctgznb

toxic masculinity teacher uk chivalry

shared by Javier E on 25 Feb 23 - No Cached
  • The rise of the influencer Andrew Tate has vindicated the decision to show Eton College pupils a controversial video on masculinity, according to the master who was sacked for doing so.
  • It also stated that “male aggression is a biological fact” and aired concerns about women competing in sports against transgender women.
  • “I think Tate is a symptom of what’s currently going wrong regarding the teaching of boys in schools,” Knowland said from his home in Stowmarket, Suffolk.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • “In a properly functioning education system, that’s giving them really robust messaging about what it means to be a man, they would have antibodies to fight off the sick messaging that Tate is giving. All they see is the guy who’s got a Bugatti and joking about telling women to make him a sandwich.
  • “When teachers try to explain why Tate isn’t someone to look up to, the teenage boys ask them, ‘Well, what colour is your Bugatti?’
  • “The premise needs to be attacked directly, which is that ‘no, money isn’t the main index of masculinity’. Otherwise, we would all just be looking up to gangsters and criminals.”
  • Knowland, who teaches English and has forged a career as an online tutor, was sacked in 2020 after refusing to take down a video he made for his students called The Patriarchy Paradox, which repeated claims that women would revert to a primitive life without men.
  • Knowland believes the issues he was seeking to address in the lecture, which is still on his YouTube channel and has had 255,000 views, have only increased since his sacking.
  • The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) decided to take no action against Knowland after an inquiry. Eton College has previously said that the ruling did not undermine its decision to dismiss him.
  • The school reported the lecture to the TRA, which considered charges of undermining tolerance and failing to safeguard students but closed the case with no further action. In a statement, the school said: “This does not mean that Mr Knowland did nothing wrong or that Eton was not entitled to dismiss him.”
  • He added: “I think the most interesting part about the lecture and what resonated with my supporters was my stress on chivalry and the idea that a man’s strength should be put to the service of the weak and his family.
  • “Chivalry is the thing that we’re missing today and it’s become deformed and turned into machismo, which is masculinity without any sense of humility or meekness. I think this is what we need to return to. Some of the problems that Tate is addressing, things like men should be assertive, men should be competitive, men should be strong, etcetera, chivalry agrees with.
  • “But chivalry says, ‘Why do they need to be those things? Because it’s to serve the weak, not themselves.”
  • Knowland, 37, believes that Tate — who rose to infamy last year after videos of his diatribes led to him becoming the world’s most googled person — has tapped into a “malaise” among young men caused by the teaching of boys in schools.
  • As an example, last month Scotland had to pause movement of transgender prisoners after a row over whether a transgender female rapist should be imprisoned with biological women.
  • “For some, even saying that there are biological differences between men and women is offensive. That’s what my lecture said, that men are stronger,” Knowland added. “I don’t think that [women] should [compete in sport against transgender women]. I don’t think it’s safe.
  • The example I gave in the lecture [was] of the transgender fighter who fractured the woman’s skull, and could easily have killed her. I think there are good reasons why sporting bodies are moving towards and in some cases have already decided that there’s not going to be next events like that.”
  • During the Eton furore Simon Henderson, the head master of Eton, was criticised in some quarters for pursuing a “woke” culture at the school and his critics referred to him as “Trendy Hendy”. They pointed to pupils being asked to wear Black Lives Matter waistcoats and decolonising its curriculum as examples of the institution being captured by ideologues.
  • The content Knowland produces on his YouTube channel continues to be controversial. A recent video by the devout Catholic is entitled “Eight facts that killed evolution for me”.
  • “The lecture was addressing some very live issues at the time and it’s only got worse since then,” he said. “Women now feel that they haven’t got safe spaces to get undressed to go to a swimming pool. So those concepts in the lecture were hard hitting and provocative, because these are topics that are big ones that people have strong feelings about.”
  • While Knowland does not agree with the term transgender — “there are only two categories of sex, using the term transgender concedes too much ground” — he is alive to the issue of transphobic bullying. The issue has been in the spotlight this month after Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old transgender girl, was stabbed to death in a park.
  • “People being subjected to transphobia is terrible,” he said. “People shouldn’t mistreat anybody just because they’ve got a mistaken idea that they are a woman. They need to be treated with compassion, not attacked or bullied.”
  • Knowland’s newfound career as an online tutor, as well as hosting a podcast, has eased some of the pressure he felt after his sacking. He said: “At Eton our family home was a benefit, so that was on my mind when I was leaving. I had to wait a couple of years after leaving to get a home because being self-employed, you have to get all the paperwork to get a mortgage.
  • “I’ve actually had parents get in touch because they supported me over what happened at Eton and wanted me to tutor their children.
  • “Losing my job was concerning but it gave me an insight into what it feels for someone to be cancelled. Fear is such a powerful weapon to stop people believing what they’re passionate about.
  • “People feel they can’t say anything, because consequences are going to be too severe, but now I’ve been through it I’ve actually found it freeing.”
Javier E

What Progressives Get Wrong About the Gilded Age - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...get-wrong-about-the-gilded-age

gilded age history crisis policy inequality

shared by Javier E on 01 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • America’s plutocrats are transforming themselves into hereditary dynasties, thanks to a prolonged campaign against inheritance taxes (or “death taxes” as they have been ingeniously dubbed).
  • The research firm Cerulli estimates that almost half of the estimated $72.6 trillion that will be transferred to the next generation between 2020 and 2045 will come from the richest 1.5% of households. Welcome to the world of trillion-dollar trust fund babies.
  • The rise of such dynasties clashes with America’s fundamental belief in equal opportunity and upward mobility. It leads to social closure as the children of the privileged hoard positions at the top of society.
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  • It produces economic distortions as high IQ types get jobs as “money butlers.” (Chuck Collins, the author of “The Wealth Hoarders,” estimates that at least 90,000 people are employed in what he calls the “wealth defense industry.”)
  • Today the educated are losing their faith in upward mobility.
lilyrashkind

Biden says he'd be 'very fortunate' to face Trump in 2024 - 0 views

nypost.com/...ortunate-to-face-trump-in-2024

biden trump us politics

shared by lilyrashkind on 25 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • President Biden said Thursday he would welcome a 2024 rematch against former President Donald Trump while insisting that European leaders have confidence in his leadership.
  • Trump is openly teasing a potential 2024 bid and has blamed Biden for mismanaging relations with Russia — pointing out that Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t invade neighboring nations while he was in charge.
  • As president, Trump ruffled feathers among US allies in Europe by insisting they spend more money on their own defense and by weighing a drawdown of US troops from Germany. Ironically, six NATO members responded to the Russian invasion by increasing their defense budgets.
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  • “He was asked what he thought. He said they are very good people on both sides. And that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to be quiet any longer,” Biden said of Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. The president, eschewing the historical norm of avoiding domestic political commentary while traveling abroad, proceeded to claim that even US news outlets that oppose him know of his commitment to do “the right thing.”
  • The president added, “The first G7 meeting I attended, like the one I did today, was in Great Britain. And I sat down and I said, ‘America’s back.’ And one of my counterparts, colleagues, who is a head of state, said, ‘For how long? For how long?’ And so I don’t blame, I don’t criticize anybody for asking that question.”
Javier E

How Sunak may succeed in stopping the boats - 0 views

www.thetimes.co.uk/...n-stopping-the-boats-d9hwpzll9

immigration control policy history uk

shared by Javier E on 30 Mar 23 - No Cached
  • After all, much as its backbenchers huff and puff, even Labour has admitted an important principle: there is a limit to the number of refugees this country can accept.
  • In parliament on Monday, the shadow immigration minister, Stephen Kinnock, said explicitly that “safe and legal routes” for immigration must be “capped” and “based on prioritisation”
  • With an estimated 32.5 million refugees in the world, this ought to be a statement of the obvious
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  • yet it is one the government’s opponents are always reluctant to admit because its logical corollary is that there will always be an incentive for those not included under the cap to try their luck in the Channel — unless they perceive a high risk of deportation. You cannot stop the boats while taking in the passengers.
  • Sunak’s policy, despite its logic, faces a tortuous road ahead. To ministers’ surprise, they won their case on the Rwanda scheme in British courts last year, only to have the first flight blocked in the middle of the night by an ECHR judge.
  • Yet as the home secretary recently suggested, the government still believes it can get its way. The ECHR, despite its reputation for inflexible and expansionist application of human rights law, can be expedient when its institutional reach is under threat
  • In 2012, for example, after an unmanageable surge of cases that provoked European governments’ wrath, the ECHR agreed to limit itself to intervening only where it believed national courts had not done their jobs properly. Its caseload quickly shrank.
  • With the UK outside the EU and therefore able to leave the ECHR with relative ease, the court’s survival instinct has kicked in. Its officials are said to have been taken aback by the hostility to its Rwanda injunction last June and are in a mood to compromise to avoid the risk of losing the UK altogether
  • Even assuming the legislation takes full effect, it may not work. Migrant arrivals are expected to reach 65,000 this year. The asylum backlog stands at 166,000 and counting, hotels are full to bursting and the government hasn’t yet sent a single person to Rwanda, which in turn hasn’t built the capacity to house more than 200. No wonder most think the policy is doomed.
  • It all depends on what’s required to deter people from crossing. The aim, after all, isn’t to run a constant, high-volume travel service to Kigali, but to stop people from getting on boats in the first place. This may already be working
  • There has been a sharp drop in the number of Albanians arriving on our beaches since the government signed a co-operation agreement with Tirana, stepped up deportations and publicised both.
  • evidence from Canada in 2016, where a publicity campaign highlighting the deportation of failed asylum seekers from Hungary led to a dramatic drop in arrivals.
  • Between the prospect of being deported, housed in unappealing lodgings such as barges and RAF bases rather than hotels, and caught by the French, who are being given large sums of money to step up their coastal policing, the government is hoping it can make trying to cross the Channel sufficiently unattractive
  • This leaves the final piece, which is the expansion of “safe and legal routes” to the UK. It has taken months of awkward media interviews, select committee hearings and the threat of a backbench rebellion, but the government has finally accepted it needs a better system for taking in legitimate refugees.
  • One way is a broader, Ukraine-style scheme, so households can bring in refugees if they agree to take them in
  • Another is to allow for more extended family reunifications for refugees who have relatives here
  • And another would be to expand the practice of assessing and accepting people at UN camps, like the Syrian resettlement scheme
  • After years of ineffectual government under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, we have become used to the idea that ministers never have any ability or intention of keeping their promises
Javier E

Tween trends get more expensive as they take cues from social media - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...-tiktok-social-media-skin-care

social media teen taste standards fashion expensive

shared by Javier E on 14 Jan 24 - No Cached
  • While earlier generations might have taken their cues from classmates or magazines, tweens and teens now see their peers on platforms like TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.
  • And it’s spawning viral moments in retail, as evidenced by last week’s release of limited-edition Stanley tumblers at Target. Fans lined up outside stores before sunrise to nab the cup made in collaboration with Starbucks, and arguments broke out at a handful of locations. T
  • This age group also is snapping up pricey makeup and skin care, even products usually reserved for “mature” skin. That’s given rise to viral TikToks from exasperated adults.
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  • The mania behind these products is heightened by their collectability and the sense of connection they offer, industry experts say.“Material things have always been markers of identity,” Drenten said.
  • It’s also compounded by biology — puberty and cognitive development can feel upending and confusing, said Mindy Weinstein, the founder and chief executive of digital marketing company Market MindShift. So buying into a trend or product — perhaps popularized by older teens — can ease those uncomfortable feelings.
  • It’s known as the “bandwagon effect, and it’s really pronounced in that age group,
  • “they aren’t always sure where they fit into the world. But now by buying that [item] they feel like they fit in.
  • Every generation of tween has had products, accessories, brands and styles they covet. A decade ago, it was Justice clothing, colorful iPod minis, Sidekick cellphones and EOS lip balm. In the early 2000s, Juicy sweatsuits, North Face fleece jackets, Nike Shox, Abercrombie & Fitch and Razr flip phones reigned. In the ’90s it was buying from the Delia’s catalogue magazine, Lip Smacker balms, United Colors of Benetton and Tommy Hilfiger polos. The ’80s had Guess jeans, Keds, banana hair clips and J. Crew sweaters. In the ’70s it was mood rings, Wrangler and Levi’s jeans, Puma sneakers and Frye boots.
  • More than half of U.S. teenagers (ages 13 to 19) spend at least four hours a day on social media, according to Gallup, and most of that time is spent on YouTube and TikTok
  • And it’s highly effective — consumers are more likely to consider buying a product and have a favorable opinion about it if it went vira
  • “TikTok influencers already have their trust … teens and tweens see them and they want to also be into that trend and feel like they’re belonging to that social group,
  • It used to be that our hair, makeup and skin care products were only visible to those who entered our bedrooms, scanning vanities and opening drawers. Now, teens and tweens are filming “Get ready with me” videos, showing off their Rare Beauty liquid blush ($23), Laneige lip balm ($18) and Charlotte Tilbury setting spray ($38) as they complain about school or recap a friend’s bat mitzvah.
  • Margeaux Richmond and her friends spend a lot of time talking about skin care. The 12-year-old from Des Moines said she got a $62 Drunk Elephant moisturizer for Christmas. “It’s kind of pricey, but if it’s good for your skin it’s worth it,” she said. “It’s kind of important to me and my friends because we don’t want our skin to look bad or anything.”
  • This also fuels a collectability culture. The customer no longer wants one water bottle, one pair of Air Jordans, one Summer Fridays lip balm or one Nike sweatshirt — they want them in every color.
  • “We have to think about today’s consumers, not as consumers, but as fans; and fandom has always been intertwined with collecting,” Drenten said. “In today’s culture, particularly among young people, we’ve kind of shifted away from obsession with celebrities to obsession with brands.”
  • Having and displaying a collection on shelves and on social media is seen as a status symbol.
  • Superfans also collect accessories for some of these products, Briggs said, spawning a whole side industry for some products.
  • Who’s doing the actual buying is harder to track. Not all adolescents have jobs or parents who are able or willing to spend $550 on Apple AirPods Max or $275 on a Tiffany & Co’s Pink Double Heart Tag Pendant necklace. “These products, to some extent, are a point of privilege and status,
  • Some of the spending could be attributed to more young people in the workforce: Roughly 37 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds had a job or were looking for one last year,
  • That’s the highest rate since 2009.
  • Richmond said she uses her babysitting money to buy Drunk Elephant skin care or Kendra Scott jewelry — items “my parents won’t buy me.” She’s saving up for her second Stanley tumbler.
  • Drenten emphasized that shopping or gift hauls on social media don’t reflect what every teen or tween wants. It varies by socioeconomics, demographics and personal preference. “At the end of the day, they can still be influenced by who they’re around and not necessarily what they’re seeing as the top line products online.”
Javier E

Book Review: 'Free and Equal,' by Daniel Chandler - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...and-equal-daniel-chandler.html

rawls book review social justice liberalism fairness freedom

shared by Javier E on 09 May 24 - No Cached
  • in doing the hard work of spelling out what a Rawlsian program might look like in practice, Chandler ends up illustrating why liberalism has elicited such frustration from its many critics in the first place.
  • Rawls’s theory was premised on the thought experiment of the “original position,” in which individuals would design a just society from behind a “veil of ignorance.” People couldn’t know whether they would be born rich or poor, gay or straight, Black or white — and so, like the child cutting the cake who doesn’t get to choose the first slice, each would be motivated to realize a society that would be accepted as fair even by the most vulnerable.
  • This is liberalism grounded in reciprocity rather than selfishness or altruism. According to Rawls’s “difference principle,” inequalities would be permitted only as long as they promoted the interests of the least advantaged.
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  • People might not agree on much, Chandler says, but the “veil of ignorance” encourages us to find a mutually agreeable starting point. If we don’t know what community we are born into, we should want a “reasonable pluralism.” We should also want the state “to maintain the conditions that are the basis for our freedom and equality as citizens.”
  • As an example, Chandler raises the thorny issue of free speech. “Political, moral and religious” speech “is integral to developing our sense of what is fair and how to live,” he writes, which is why it deserves robust protection. But since some speech, such as advertising, plays “no meaningful role” in helping us figure out how to live a good life, such speech can be limited. The idea is to balance individual and group freedoms with the need for peaceful coexistence
  • The state should protect the rights of gay people not to be discriminated against — even though the state cannot force anyone or any group to approve of gay relationships. Chandler, who is gay, suggests that premising gay rights on getting everyone to agree on the question of morality is a waste of energy: “For some people this” — the belief that homosexuality is a sin — “is part of their faith and no reasoned argument will persuade them otherwise.”
  • The last two-thirds of “Free and Equal” are given over to specific policy proposals. Some of them sound familiar enough — restricting private money in politics; beefing up civic education — while others are more far-reaching and radical, including the establishment of worker cooperatives, in which “workers decide how things are done,” and the abolition of private schools.
  • t despite his valiant efforts, the book enacts both the promise and the limitations of the theory it seeks to promote. It didn’t leave me cold, but it did leave me restless.
  • He persuasively refutes the conflation of liberal egalitarianism with technocracy, and helpfully points out that an emphasis on technocratic competence “leaves many voters cold.
  • For anyone who venerates consensus in politics, this sounds appealing; given the fissures of our current moment, it also comes across as wildly insufficient.
  • that’s part of Chandler’s point: A Rawlsian framework encourages people with a variety of deeply held commitments to live together in mutual tolerance, free to figure out questions of individual morality and the good life for themselves.
  • Regarding Katrina Forrester’s “In the Shadow of Justice” (2019), a searching and brilliant history of how his ideas presumed a postwar consensus that was already fracturing at the time that “A Theory of Justice” was published, Chandler has little to say.
  • “Free and Equal” includes a detailed chapter on “Rawls and His Critics,” but mostly navigates around anything that might truly rattle the Rawlsian framework.
  • Perhaps Forrester wouldn’t be surprised by this move; as she puts it, “The capaciousness of liberal philosophy squeezed out possibilities for radical critique.”
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