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Fair Pay or Fire Strike

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/01/fair-pay-or-fire-strike/
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 12:00

Ben Selby served as a firefighter in Lincolnshire for almost 20 years before being elected as the next Assistant General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. He joined the fire service shortly after the 2002 firefighter dispute, the first nationwide firefighters’ strike in the UK since 1977. ‘It’s a dispute where we won 16 percent […]

The kookiest proposal from the House kooks yet?

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/29/the-kookiest-proposal-from-the-house-kooks-ye…
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 12:00
I don’t know if you’ve heard about the latest Republican “economic proposal” to abolish the IRS but the details are simply stunning. It’s going to get bottled up in committee most likely because even some of the loons are nervous about it. If you want to see the caliber of “policy” coming from these loons, check this out from the American Prospect: During the negotiations for the recent election of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House, one of the demands of the extremist Freedom Caucus was for a vote on the so-called Fair Tax proposal. This would abolish the IRS along with all existing federal taxes, and replace them with a 30 percent national sales tax. The bill is a political dead letter. Not only could it never possibly pass the Senate, let alone be signed by President Biden—Axios reports that he will deliver a big speech Thursday lambasting the idea—but McCarthy himself recently came out against the plan. It might not even make it out of committee in the House.

How sick can they get?

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/29/how-sick-can-they-get/
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 10:30
Very, very sick I’m not talking about COVID patients. I’m talking about COVID deniers: A Midvale plastic surgeon and three other Utahns were indicted on conspiracy charges last week after prosecutors say they dumped nearly 2,000 doses of COVID vaccine down a drain, distributed fake vaccination cards — and, at the request of some parents, injected children with saline to convince the young patients that they had been vaccinated. Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr., 58, allegedly ran the scheme out of the Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, located at 7535 Union Park Ave., along with two other institute employees — Kari Dee Burgoyne and Sandra Flores. Moore’s third codefendant, Kristen Andersen, is his neighbor, court documents state. Andersen and Moore were both members of an unnamed private organization “seeking to ‘liberate’ the medical profession from government and industry conflicts of interest,” court documents state.

British voters depressingly caught between a rock and a hard place — Bill Mitchell

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/british-voters-depressingly-cau…
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 10:21
Britain is now in a very undesirable state. The governing Tories are bereft of any sensible ideas and likely to lose the next General election in 2024 to Labour, who are promising to be the party of ‘sound finance’, which means they will be incapable of dealing with the challenges that face the nation in a highly volatile world and will likely end up losing popularity and ceding government back to the Tories. And just as in 2010, the Labour reputation will tarnished and they will be lost again for another sequence of elections. That sort of future prospect is not inspiring is it. Caught between a rock and a hard place.
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
British voters depressingly caught between a rock and a hard place
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Inflation’s Drivers on The Geopolitical Hour

https://michael-hudson.com/2023/01/inflations-drivers-on-the-geopolitical-hour/
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 10:07

In this episode of Geopolitical Economy Hour, economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss inflation: what it is, what causes it, and what are the problems in how the Federal Reserve and other central banks respond to it. Transcript RADHIKA DESAI: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the second Geopolitical Economy Hour. I’m Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: Continue Reading

The post Inflation’s Drivers on The Geopolitical Hour first appeared on Michael Hudson.

The Real Failure of January 6th

https://tomdispatch.com/the-real-failure-of-january-6th/
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 09:22

Americans tuning into the television news on January 8th eyed a disturbingly recognizable scene. In an “eerily familiar” moment of “déjà vu,” just two years and two days after the January 6th Capitol insurrection in Washington, D.C., a mob of thousands stormed government buildings in the capital city of another country — Brazil. In Brasilia, what New York Times columnist Ross Douthat ominously labelled “the first major international imitation of our Capitol riot” seemed to be taking place. As the optics suggested, there were parallels indeed, underscoring a previously underappreciated fragility in our democratic framework: the period of transition between presidencies. Wreaking Havoc Those January 8th rioters in Brazil were protesting the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better... Read more

You can’t negotiate with toddlers or terrorists

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/29/you-cant-negotiate-with-toddlers-or-terrorist…
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 09:00
Yes, I’m talking about the House Republicans Former Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer on the looming debt ceiling hostage situation in his newsletter today. (You should subscribe if you can — it’s always good.) He knows whereof he speaks. And so does Joe Biden (hopefully): I worked in the West Wing during a financial crisis, a pandemic, multiple active terrorist plots, once-in-a-century storms, and the rise of ISIS. None of those threats were anywhere near as frightening as the two times the House Republicans tried to take the full faith and credit of the United States hostage. In both cases, a group of radical extremists with a faint grasp on reality led by a weak Speaker almost stumbled ass-backward into a global financial crisis that would make 2008 look like an economic head cold. Well, here we are again. A group of radical House Republicans led by a Speaker in name only is threatening a confrontation over raising the debt limit. Like President Obama in 2013, President Biden is refusing to negotiate with House Republicans. And like in 2013, all of the usual voices are raising concerns about that strategy. What’s the harm in talking?

The red state killing fields

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/29/the-red-state-killing-fields/
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 08:00
Via Axios The murder rates in Trump-voting states from 2020 have exceeded those in Biden-voting states every year since 2000, according to a new analysis by ThirdWay, a center-left think tank. Why it matters: Republicans have built their party on being the crime-fighting candidates, even as murder rates in red states have outpaced blue states by an average of 23% over the past two decades. Four reliably-red states consistently made the top of the list — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Missouri. Driving the news: Third Way’s report analyzed homicide data for all 50 states from 2000 through 2020, using CDC data. They used the 2020 presidential election results to characterize “red states” from the “blue states.” The findings build on a previous Third Way report that only analyzed murder rates from 2019-2020. This time, they write, they wanted “to see if this one-year Red State murder epidemic was an anomaly.” Zoom out: In Oct. 2022 — just before the 2022 midterm elections — a record-high 56% of Americans said there was more crime where they live, per Gallup.

Trump back on the campaign trail

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/29/trump-back-on-the-campaign-trail/
Created
Mon, 30/01/2023 - 06:30
They say he’s going more mainstream… You be the judge: “Through weakness and incompetence, Joe Biden has brought us to the brink of World War III. We’re at the brink of World War III, just in case anybody doesn’t know it. As president, I will bring back peace through strength.” Donald J. Trump campaigned during his first presidential race in a distinctly audacious style, giving free helicopter rides to children at the Iowa State Fair and using his Trump-branded 757 jetliner as an event backdrop. For his third campaign, it’s back to basics — for the first time. More than two months after formally opening his White House comeback bid, the 76-year-old former president will hold his first two public events on Saturday. Both are the type of textbook campaign stops he mostly skipped in his first two runs for office. I confess that I will enjoy this part: On Saturday, Trump took his sharpest swings at DeSantis to date, accusing the governor of “trying to rewrite history” over his response to the Covid-19 pandemic.