On one side, we have Elon Musk as a critic of fiat money. On the other, we have Ford and Edison—the tech-billionaires of their time—as fans of fiat money. Who do you trust? Neither: you work it out for yourself from first principles. And this is much harder that just ranting about “fiat money” on … Continue reading "When Billionaires Collide"
Reading
There was some polling done in Arizona recently and it’s very interesting: Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) leads Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and a series of other Republicans in potential match-ups for Arizona’s 2024 Senate race, according to a new poll. The poll from OH Predictive Insights released Thursday showed Gallego leading in eight hypothetical match-ups, four of which against Sinema running independently and four with Gallego facing a Republican in a head-to-head race. The four Republicans included in the poll was former Gov. Doug Ducey, former gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, former gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and former Senate nominee Blake Masters. In a three-person race, Gallego leads by as little as 5 points in a race with Ducey and as much as 9 points in a race with Masters. He leads by 7 points in the race with Taylor Robson and by 8 points in the race with Lake. He also leads in the two-person match-ups, but the margin varies significantly based on who the Republican candidate is.
The greatest enemy of economic development is war. If the world slips further into global conflict, our economic hopes and our very survival could go up in flames. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to a mere 90 seconds to midnight. The world’s biggest economic loser in Continue reading »
The child’s face in the Smith Family ad sums up all that is wrong with Australia. In this rich, first world nation, the Smith Family call us to sponsor a child so that she might go to school. A basic human right is being denied and in that denial our state and government stands condemned. Continue reading »
On the 28th November 2023 the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2022 (NSW) (the NSW VAD Act) will come into force. NSW Health, has a massive program of work to develop a coherent transition to the new system. As the last State to introduce legislation (absent the Territories) information is already available through published papers in Continue reading »
The good news for the Murdoch media is that it’s not the most distrusted brand in Australia – despite the efforts of its journalists. The bad news is that – according to the Roy Morgan Research Most Trusted and Distrusted Brands research – it is the fifth most distrusted behind Facebook, Optus, Telstra and Amazon. Continue reading »
“Lifters” and “leaners”; “makers” vs “takers”; “strivers” and the “skivers”. The language may be different but the pejorative sentiment around the welfare state is similar, be it in Australia, the United States or the United Kingdom. However, it is highly misleading. Government payments to people who are unemployed are a fraction of the spending on Continue reading »
In 2007, at age forty-four, I stood as a Senate candidate for Victoria in the federal election. In 2011, I moved into a shared support accommodation facility, where I suffered a severe loss of choice and control. Disability can be progressive. Supportive regimes for those subjected to physiological deterioration need to be progressive too. They Continue reading »
Ganderbal, India – The sun has just come out on a grey wintery afternoon and the snow-clad peaks of Harmukh are shining in the distance, casting sharp reflections over the horizon. When some rays fall on Rahila’s* face, sitting on the verandah of her home, she turns around and giggles. “It is too bright!” Winter Continue reading »
Difference is intrinsically good, a vital force behind creativity and innovation, and an essential ingredient for international competition. It becomes a negative force only when people or governments try to impose those differences on others, and this is not something China has done. I have a chronic, deep-seated discomfort with US President Joe Biden’s call for Continue reading »
This is a Skwawkbox edit of a guest post submitted by a Labour figure who asked to remain anonymous. Asked by journalists last week whether he would proscribe – outlaw – Momentum, Keir Starmer responded equivocally: That one is not for me. Of course, that is neither a denial nor an indicator that it’s not […]
From the founding, the loudest “believers” never did Josh Marshall finds the Times framing on “fixing” the social safety net wanting: Social Security is not broken. Or bankrupt. Or whatever other doomsaying framing its longtime enemies deploy to trick the public into thinking so. “In about a dozen years,” Marshall tweets, “it will likely require additional revenue – not even that much. When the pentagon needs more revenue we don’t know it’s broken. There are very straightforward ways to provide that revenue – mostly tied to raising or eliminating the cap on payroll taxes. Not complicated.” Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman concurs, Marshall continues. “There are no macroeconomic problems with just adding the additional revenue. None. It’s just whether you think it matters or not or whether tax cuts are more important.” What’s the issue with raising (or eliminating) the cap on payroll taxes? Marshall adds, “It’s a significant hike on anyone who makes much over 250k a year. If you make 5 million in a year it’s a big deal.
A conservative vision for America Is there a single term for describing these people? Revanchist? Political Luddite? Social Darwinist? Misanthrope? None of those quite capture it. Sen. Mike Lee (R) of Utah famously told a campaign-stop crowd in 2010, “It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up from the roots and get rid of it … Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort, they need to be pulled up.” Last week, @BasedMikeLee (yes, it’s his personal account) asked, “Until the mid-1930s, the federal government’s footprint didn’t extend much beyond the departments of state, defense, treasury, justice, and interior, along with the postal system. Are we better off with everything we’ve added since then?” His question is rhetorical. But Lee seems to think We collectively are not. We would be better off without Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a host of other public services that make the United States a place of opportunity that people from around the world want to come to. That’s a problem? Maybe making the U.S.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Doctor Who, The Flash, Loki, Community, James Gunn/DCU, WWE Elimination Chamber, Star Trek, and tons more!
A Massachusetts bill — sponsored by Democrats — proposes allowing incarcerated people to donate organs in exchange for shortened sentences.
The post No, Trading Flesh for Prison Time Is Not “Bodily Autonomy” appeared first on The Intercept.
Contempt for party staff laid bare as party reveals it abused left-wing organisers in ‘constructive dismissal’ while saying their positions were no longer needed The Labour party is recruiting twenty regional organisers on the parliamentary jobs website, saying they are needed: at the forefront of the next General Election campaign, supporting constituency parties and regional […]
The Assad regime is using the devastating earthquake to renew calls to lift sanctions, but critics argue that sanctions protect Syrians from the possible resurgence of war.
The post Are U.S. Sanctions Against Syria Stalling Humanitarian Aid After the Earthquake? appeared first on The Intercept.
Preference-based discrimination is based on the fact that, for example, employers, customers, or colleagues have a dislike for those who belong to a certain group. Such discrimination can lead to wage differences between discriminated and non-discriminated groups. However, competition can undermine these wage differences, as non-discriminatory employers will make greater profits and drive discriminatory employers […]
Why are you paying so much for everything? DOJ admits that decades-old carveout allowed even non concentrated industries to effectively build cartels to coordinate prices and wages
Always nice to discover something close to home that you were previously unaware of, in this case Nunney Castle, built around 1370 and destroyed nearly 300 years later during the Civil Wars.
Rather than settle for narrow reforms, rail workers are pushing for public ownership of the US railroad system, which is commonplace throughout much of the world.
Burt Bacharach, one of the most brilliant and successful songwriters, composers and music producers that the world has ever known, passed away at the age of 94. read now...