North Korea Creates Urgency to Fix Defense Flaws

The United States has spent billions on a system that is designed to intercept missiles speeding towards our borders. It has been tested nine times, and worked less than half of those times. On Tuesday this week, the Defense Department hopes to prove they have improved their system by destroying a mock warhead.

Hopefully it works well, because the North Koreans have delivered a new challenge. North Korea has test-fired a series of missiles based on a technology that would give the United States little warning of an attack. The new missiles use solid fuels that enables them to be rolled out from hideaways and launched within minutes. Intercepting these missiles would be even more difficult than what the Americans are used, given that the flawed system works best with early alerts from satellites.

These missiles are also slightly different than what we are used to seeing from North Korea; whose missile launches usually end up falling prematurely into the sea or exploding. Their recent tests have proved successful, and why they have never tested an intercontinental missile, they have claimed they can strike the United States.

For more information, follow the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/us/politics/north-koreas-missiles-us-defense.html


Do we think North Korea poses any type of real threat to the United States or allies? Do we think North Korea has had any help producing this new technology from their allies? Would armed conflict create an international economic crisis?

Germany can no longer rely on United States

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a crowd on Sunday that Europe can no longer on foreign partners. The speech took place in southern Germany, and the remarks were aimed at the United States.

Merkel declared that a new chapter in U.S.-European relations after contentious meetings with President Trump last week, saying that Europe "really must take fate into our own hands." and that the days when Europe could rely on others was "over to a certain extent. This is what I have experienced in the last few days."

This is quite a change from the political rhetoric. And while the most famous special relation between two nations is the U.S. and the UK, the German-U.S. relationships has arguably more important. NATO's main purpose was to ensure Germany would never again pose an international threat to peace after WWI and WWII. Germany now also offers a booming industrial economy, one of the strongest in the world.

If European nations, like Germany, start isolating themselves from the United States, what will that mean for our future? Will it have an impact on our economy? Can we expect the same amount of support in times of strife? Do you think this could eventually lead to any armed conflict?


Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/28/thanks-to-trump-germany-says-it-cant-rely-on-america-what-does-that-mean/?utm_term=.7946dca2db4f

Trump aides facing perilous stage of Russia probe

Robert Mueller, the former F.B.I. Director, is named special counsel for the Russian Investigation. This includes investigating ties between President Trump's campaign and Russian officials. The investigation has only just started, but now that it has, and now that Trump and his aides and allies know it exists, they are legally responsible for preserving all available information that might be relevant. Any failure to keep track of emails, messages, and other records could expose them to criminal charges down the line.

Keeping track of information delivered through apps like Confide, Signal, and WhatsApp will be hard. These apps use auto-delete technology and are usually encrypted. Any effort to delete or hide these apps will certainly be a cause for suspicion.

Links:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/27/trump-russia-probe-risk-238878

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation.html


Do you think that Trump and his administration really do have ties to Russia? Or is this all being blown out of proportion?

Even if he does, what are the chances he will be caught?

Pope's Gift to Trump

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/pope-trump-homework/


Trump meeting with the Pope earlier this week was like being "sent to the principal's office". The current Pope is famously liberal, believing in uniting science and religion in the pursuit of bettering the world.

The Pope has refrained from criticizing the current United States President, even though Trump and Catholic Church have not always seen eye to eye. During their meeting, no reporters or journalists were allowed inside. No one is sure what the two spoke about for their 30-minute long discussion.

The two did exchange gifts. Trump gave the Pope a frist-edition set of books by the Rev. Martin Luther King. The Pope in return gave trump a medal of an olive tree, which the pontiff said symbolizes peace.

"We can use peace" Trump said.

Pope Francis also gave the President some summer reading: copies of his major writings.

The first is call "The Joy of the Gospel", which exhorts the Catholic Church to wake up from a spiritual slumber, and launches a fierce attack on modern capitalism. It blasts the "idolatry of money" and calls trickle-down economics "crude and naive".

The second is called "Laudato Si, which calls for a revolution to halt climate change. Trump is known to believe climate change is a hoax. Currently, the United States is considering reneging on the Paris Climate Agreement.



Do you think that Pope Francis' gifts will have an impact on Trump's upcoming decisions and term as the United States President? Why or why not?

China Warns U.S. Navy Destroyer to Leave South China Sea

A U.S. Navy destroyer in the vicinity of a man-made island in the South China Sea was told to leave the area by Chinese warships. China sternly warned the U.S. over its patrol near the disputed territory and that the moves were "not conducive to peace and stability" in the region. The destroyer was as close as 12 nautical miles from the man-made island.

A Pentagon spokesman replied that "We operate in the Asia-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea. We operate in accordance with international law." And that patrols were not about any specific country or body of water.



Do you think there is any real danger of armed conflict between China and the United States?

They have significant influence in the world-economy, and hold the majority of United States Debt. If there ever was conflict between the two economic super powers, what would it mean for the two countries?

Manchester Bombing

On Monday, May 22, there was an attack during a concert in Manchester. In all, 22 people died and 59 others were wounded when Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton of Libyan descent, detonated a homemade bomb outside Manchester Arena on Monday night, at the end of a concert by the American pop singer Ariana Grande.

While Britain has experienced terrorism over several decades, the attack in Manchester was met with particular revulsion because it targeted young people. The Islamic State has said it was responsible.

Those killed in the attack include Saffie Rose Roussos, 8; Georgina Bethany Callander, 18, a health and social care student; John Atkinson, who was in his late 20s; and Kelly Brewster, 32, who had been trying to shield her sister and niece from the blast. A police officer has not been identified. As more victims are identified, parents of the young concertgoers emerged as particularly hard hit.

For more information about the attack, follow the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/world/europe/uk-manchester-bombing-victims.html?_r=0


We have been discussing the end of capitalism for the past quarter, and yesterday we debated whether or not it would be a violent ending or a peaceful one. Radical terrorist from the middle east and other parts of the world have stated their desire to put an end to western culture. Do you think attacks like these have anything to do with the end of capitalism?

Furthermore, have the terrorists been successful over the last decade at eroding confidence in our governments and their ability of to protect us? Does this have an effect on our economy?

American wage growth stagnant: why?

Go here for link.  

The key graph is:


Since the Great Recession of 2008, wage growth in the US is below the long run trend of recent decades.  Workers have little power in the market; technological change is allowing more substitution of capital for labor.  Its tough out there.

American Dream Quiz

The questions in the quiz are interesting.  You can read about it here.  And then click in the body of the article on the quiz to take it.  Thoughts?

Trump Pentagon Budget Adds Ship, No Planes, to Obama Plan, Officials Say

President Donald Trump is expected to propose a $603 billion defense budget for the year beginning Oct. 1 that would add one warship but no more F-35 and Super Hornet jets than the Obama administration had projected, according to officials.The proposal sticks with President Barack Obama’s plan to request 70 of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35’s and 14 of Boeing Co.’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, said the officials, who discussed the budget proposal due to be sent to Congress on May 23. The officials asked not to be identified discussing the defense budget before it’s made public and cautioned that some details may still change.While the Obama administration had anticipated buying eight ships in the coming year, Trump’s budget would ask The fiscal 2018 proposal is something of a placeholder until the Pentagon completes a new National Defense Strategy that Defense Secretary James Mattis commissioned on February 1. It also doesn’t reflect results of a pending review that Mattis requested in January -- in response to a Twitter posting by Trump -- to evaluate the cost and operational advantages of buying improved F/A-18E/F jets over the F-35C model designed for use on aircraft carriers, the officials said.The decisions from those reviews will be reflected in a five-year plan for fiscal 2019-2023.

The proposed fiscal 2018 budget is about $18.5 billion, or 3.2 percent, larger than the comparable plan left by the Obama administration for fiscal 2018, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. “With just $18 billion in new spending penciled in,” the Trump administration “is going to be pitching a paper buildup to the Congress,” Katherine Blakeley, budget analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said in an email.The $603 billion includes funding for defense-related spending by the Energy and Justice departments. The Pentagon-only defense request is $574 billion, or about $17 billion more than the Obama administration planned for the year.

In guidance in January, Mattis said the fiscal 2018 proposal would focus on rebuilding readiness, such as “buying more critical munitions” and funding facilities maintenance “at a higher rate” and “growing force structure at the maximum responsible rate.”

The plan to buy more Tomahawks is in line with that guidance. Raytheon has said it would need to produce 196 of the cruise missiles annually to keep the Arizona assembly line open. Obama’s final defense budget ended Tomahawk production in favor of upgrading existing missiles and focusing on the next versions of long-range strike weapons.The Trump budget also would add funds to buy more precision-guided munitions from Lockheed, Boeing and Raytheon to be used in the fight against Islamic State terrorists. The U.S.-led coalition dropped 3,878 munitions in March, the most since the operation began in August 2014.The budget request’s addition of one newer model Flight III destroyer falls short of the accelerated shipbuilding pace the Navy has said is needed to reach a fleet of about 350 ships, up from about 275 deployable today -- a goal endorsed by Trump during the campaign.In a February 9 white paper to Mattis, the Navy said it needs 29 vessels over those currently planned through 2021 to accelerate past the Obama administration plan of a 305-vessel fleet. The service had called for 12 vessels in fiscal 2018 instead of the nine being proposed.The $603 billion defense request is about $54 billion over spending caps established in the 2011 Budget Control Act. It proposes equivalent cuts in discretionary domestic spending to pay for the defense increase, an approach that congressional Democrats have vowed to fight.

Trump’s proposals for major cuts in domestic spending reflect priorities that “aren’t necessarily ours,” and he can expect a Republican-led Senate to make changes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview Tuesday with Bloomberg News. “It will be a process of negotiation,” the Kentucky Republican said. “We haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to any president’s budget since I’ve been here.”**

What do you guys think the increase of the defense request from Trump’s administration?

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-16/trump-pentagon-budget-said-to-add-ship-no-planes-to-obama-plan

Emmanuel Macron picks a centre-right prime minister

   THE contours of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency are beginning to emerge, as the 39-year-old French head of state begins his first week in office. A day after his inauguration at a solemn ceremony at the Elysée Palace on May 14th, he named Edouard Philippe as his new prime minister. This is a coup of sorts. The centre-right Republican mayor of Le Havre, and a parliamentary deputy, Mr Philippe brings crucial political balance for a president whose own roots are on the left, and who promised to govern from the centre.

    The symbolism of Mr Philippe’s appointment was as important as the practical political value it represents. When Mr Macron launched his political movement, En Marche! (“On the Move!”) in April 2016, he vowed to “unblock” France by overcoming the partisan differences between left and right. Since then, however, almost all of those who have defected to En Marche! have come from the left or the centre. The bulk of the Republicans, who want to form a solid block in parliament after legislative elections in June, have turned out to be immune to Mr Macron’s charms.

    Mr Philippe, however, succumbed. He is the former right-hand man to Alain Juppé, a centre-right ex-prime minister who came second in the Republicans’ presidential primary late last year, and whose economic programme was broadly in line with Mr Macron’s. Although they are on opposite sides of the political divide, he shares “90%” of Mr Macron’s thinking, Mr Philippe once told a French newspaper. Like the new president, he was educated at the high-flying Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which has trained three of the past five presidents. But he will appear to the French public less as a product of the elite than as a fresh face. Relatively young at 46, born in provincial Normandy and with no ministerial experience, Mr Philippe in this sense fits Mr Macron’s promise to renew political life.

     Equally important, Mr Philippe could help Mr Macron unlock further defections from the Republicans at a time when he badly needs to broaden his base if he is to form a stable government. Mr Macron’s movement currently has no deputies in the National Assembly elected under its banner, but says it will field candidates in most of France’s 577 constituencies. Now transformed into a political party and rebaptised La République en Marche! (“The Republic on the Move!”), polls suggest it could be the biggest party in the assembly after two-round elections on June 11th and 18th; but it may well fall short of a majority.

     Mr Philippe could help make up that gap. He is likely to be joined by some other members of his party, such as Bruno Le Maire, a former Europe minister, who could be part of the government that Mr Macron is expected to announce tomorrow. Once the new team gets to work, it will have less than a month to persuade voters that it is worth backing with a proper legislative mandate in June. Given that Mr Macron wants to push through a controversial labour bill this summer, such support will be crucial.

    The early signs are that the Macron presidency will be heavy in symbolism, and not just of a party-political nature. Mr Macron seems to have a carefully conceived idea of the sort of presidency he wants to embody. On the night of his victory, he prefaced his speech with a solitary walk out from under the arches of the Louvre, a former royal palace, to a stage in front of the modernist glass pyramid in its courtyard, accompanied by Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, the European Union’s anthem. The spectacle spoke of Europe and France, old and new, the monarchy and the republic. On inauguration day, he rode upright in a jeep on the Champs-Elysées after his investiture, in a nod to Charles de Gaulle, founder of the Fifth Republic. Over the past decade, the French have worried that the office of the presidency has been badly damaged, whether by bling (Nicolas Sarkozy) or ineptitude (François Hollande). Mr Macron, it seems, is set on restoring the office’s dignity, as well as the country’s self-respect.

      http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21722042-choosing-edouard-philippe-french-president-makes-good-promise-govern

     I don't have a particular question for you guys, you guys feel free to comment here. You guys can connect this article with our chapter 4 reading too.

What’s Next for Comey? Probably Not ‘a Normal Job’

Few can boast of a résumé like James B. Comey’s: top federal prosecutor, chief lawyer for both the world’s largest defense contractor and the world’s biggest hedge fund, and most recently director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

There’s just one problem: He was fired by President Trump, who has called him a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”

So where does Mr. Comey go next?

The next act for a former top government official is typically a large financial firm, corporation or law firm. And those jobs, as well as teaching, remain strong possibilities for Mr. Comey. Still, his firing and the furor over his impact on last year’s presidential election could give some potential employers pause.

The same is not true for literary agents and publicists who try to get clients on the speaking circuit — the more controversial the better. And Mr. Comey brings with him plenty of controversy.

“I don’t know what his next job will be, but I can tell you there is a really big book in Comey if Comey wants to write about the facts,” said Robert Gottlieb, chairman of Trident Media Group, the literary agency.......

.........

Not every potential employer would have qualms about hiring Mr. Comey. Indeed, being fired by Mr. Trump is a badge of honor in some quarters. And while Mr. Comey might not be a candidate to lobby the current administration, his experience with financial crime and cybersecurity would appeal to most Wall Street firms and corporations, recruitment executives said.

Full text link is here:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/business/dealbook/whats-next-for-comey-probably-not-a-normal-job.html?ref=business

Isn't scary that "The next act for a former top government official is typically a large financial firm, corporation or law firm?"

U.S. Crackdown on For-Profit Schools Is Said to Go Idle

The Education Department’s sweeping crackdown on fraudulent practices at for-profit colleges has stalled under the Trump administration’s appointees, several current and former department employees say.

Current and former employees, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said tight restrictions have been put on staff members scrutinizing for-profit institutions, constraining their contact with other state and federal agencies without high-level approval — a contention a department spokesman denied.

Some state officials who had collaborated with the Education Department in bringing legal cases against for-profit schools say their joint work has ground to a halt. They also say they are troubled by an apparent slowdown in granting debt relief to students who were cheated.

“The department has become a black box since the Obama administration left the building,” said Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, whose office is one of dozens that have been involved in prominent cases against the for-profit sector.

The Education Department said Friday evening that Secretary Betsy DeVos “is committed to protecting students who have been defrauded by schools,” that it had not stopped approving loan relief and that a review of the program was being led by senior career staff members.

During the Obama administration’s second term, the department put both financial and regulatory muscle into the policing of a sector that was frequently criticized for deceiving vulnerable and poor students about the cost and benefits of signing up to get a degree.

Ms. DeVos has brought aboard officials who have worked in the for-profit college sector and have expressed skepticism about the Obama administration’s aggressive regulation and enforcement. Supporters say that for-profit colleges provide a ladder for the most disadvantaged students and that any misdeeds represent a tiny fraction of the industry.

Advocates, state prosecutors and some members of Congress have expressed concern that Ms. DeVos will weaken regulations that were put into effect to curb abuses by for-profit colleges.

While some career training schools have delivered as promised, critics argue that tens of thousands of students were lured by misleading advertising and illegal recruiting practices to enroll in expensive programs that failed to deliver what they promised — while reeling in millions of dollars in federal aid......
Full article is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/business/education-department-for-profit-schools.html?ref=business

In Streeck's book, he argues that "Capitalism’s moral decline may have to do with its economic decline, the struggle for the last remaining profit opportunities becoming uglier by the day and turning into asset-stripping on a truly gigantic scale. However that may be, public perceptions of capitalism are now deeply cynical, the whole system commonly perceived as a world of dirty tricks for ensuring the further enrichment of the already rich. Nobody believes any more in a moral revival of capitalism."(pp.71)
My question is why Trump's administration is trying to stall sweeping crackdown on fraudulent practices?

Uber Has a Union of Sorts, but Faces Doubts on Its Autonomy

Uber was a pioneer in seamlessly connecting passengers and drivers through an app. Now a union-led group meant to represent its drivers is also taking an unorthodox approach — as well as Uber’s money.

The group, the Independent Drivers Guild, was formed roughly one year ago as part of an agreement for the New York City area between Uber and a regional branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Guild officials say the unusual deal was simply the most practical way to improve the lot of drivers, whom the union has a proud history of organizing.

“The drivers need help, and they need help now,” said James Conigliaro Jr., the founder of the guild and a senior Machinists official.

And the guild, which says it represents about 50,000 ride-hail drivers in the New York City area, has produced concrete victories. It took the lead in persuading the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission to propose a rule that would require a tipping option on Uber’s passenger app, potentially increasing drivers’ income by hundreds of million of dollars.

But the group’s relationship with Uber has also inspired considerable suspicion among labor leaders, activists and experts.

“The way Uber operates, it makes me very distrustful,” said Janice Fine, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University and a former labor organizer, alluding to the company’s sometimes cutthroat posture toward rivals and regulators.

The guild has even attacked Lyft, Uber’s top competitor, using questionable tactics.On May 1, the guild sent an email to members urging them to help create an afternoon work stoppage at Lyft. In the email, Ryan Price, the guild’s executive director, instructed members to order rides on Lyft so they could urge its drivers to join a stoppage. If the driver was “a scab” and refused, the email said, the member should cancel the ride.

Mr. Price, who previously did advocacy and organizing work for a nonprofit group and a union, acknowledged in the email that the tactic violated Lyft’s terms of service, but said the company’s refusal to negotiate with workers justified the action. Besides, he added, “nothing has ever been won without taking a risk.”

Full link of the article is here:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/business/economy/uber-drivers-union.html?_r=0

My major question is that should we tip Uber drivers?

Why capitalism clings to fossil fuels

The hopeful predictions that a new era of renewable energy is here are dangerously premature, writes James Plested in an article written for Australia's Red Flag.

April 20, 2017

WHO CAN forget the image? George W. Bush's stupid, blank face staring out across the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln under a giant banner emblazoned with the words "Mission accomplished."

The date was May 1, 2003--a little over a month after the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq--and Bush was there to declare an end to major combat operations. As it turned out, this was somewhat premature.

Today, the environment movement seems to be having a "mission accomplished" moment of its own. With the price of renewables such as solar in free fall and new battery technology coming online, many environmentalists are sounding the death knell of fossil fuels.

A recent article by Australia Institute strategist Dan Cass in Meanjin, titled "The Sun Rises: The democratization of solar energy might change everything," makes the case. The cost of solar power has decreased to the point where it's now as cheap as, or cheaper than, coal or gas. "As late as 2007", he writes, "Australia had only about 8,000 solar systems in total. As of June 1, 2016, there were more than 1,548,345."

Globally, it's a similar story. According to a Frankfurt School of Finance and Management report, in 2015, for the first time, renewables made up the majority of newly built electricity-generation capacity. Investment in renewable energy, at $265.8 billion, was more than double the $130 billion invested in fossil fuel power generation.

Cass declares that "renewables have won the energy wars." Crucially, he argues, this isn't happening because of government intervention, but is in line with "capitalism as usual":

Consumers are rushing to a new technology that saves them money. Capital is flowing to the next big thing. Conservative critics of clean energy can't quite admit it yet, but the rise of solar and the collapse of the old-energy utilities is "creative destruction." It is the Kodak moment for big energy.

According to this logic, we needn't worry too much about continuing with environmental campaigning. Naomi Klein was wrong. It's not, as she had it, "capitalism vs. the climate," but rather capitalism for the climate. Put simply, technological developments mean that, while it may not yet be apparent, fossil fuels are dead in the ground.

All this is very comforting for those of us who have been alarmed by the headlong rush of global capitalism toward climate catastrophe. But just as with George W. Bush's arrogant imperial overreach, this kind of triumphalism is unlikely to end well.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHEN IT comes to the environment, we would do well to adopt the motto of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci: "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." There are some reasons to be hopeful about the possible transition of the global energy system to renewables. It's clear that such a transition now makes perfect sense, not only from a moral and social standpoint, but also economically.

Unfortunately, in a chaotic, irrational system like capitalism, making sense doesn't count for much. And contrary to the comforting arguments of Cass and others, there's ample reason to think that relying on "market forces" to drive the change is a recipe for disaster.

Despite recent gains, renewables still make up only a small fraction of global energy production. Electricity generated from renewable sources (excluding hydro) made up just 7 percent of the global total in 2015. Fossil fuels accounted for 80 percent. Even if investment in renewables continues to grow at its current rate, progress toward a new energy system will be slow. Given the mounting evidence of the damage already being done by global warming, that's something we can ill afford.

Then there's the continuing power and influence of the fossil fuel industries. Cass' "Kodak moment" reference is cute. But to compare the situation facing big energy today to that of camera and film companies overtaken by digitization is to understate massively its centrality to the capitalist system globally.

It's not just that big energy has captured politicians, who might easily be won away from them if only there was a crackdown on corporate "dark money." It's that in many countries, the capitalist state is dependent on fossil fuels--most obviously as a source of revenue, but more importantly as a means to maintain their position in the competitive global scramble for economic and military power.

It might make sense, in the long run, for countries such as Australia and the U.S. to become global leaders in renewables--giving them genuine "energy independence" and creating new and potentially lucrative export industries. But capitalists don't look at the world in terms of what makes sense in the long run. What matters to them are the profits they're making today.

Maximizing profits means squeezing the most out of the resources at your disposal. This includes human and natural resources, as well as the productive infrastructure through which human labor is transformed into commodities for sale on global markets. And it means squeezing harder than your rivals.

In the case of both Australia and the U.S., fossil fuels are central to the productive infrastructure on which the wealth and power of their respective capitalist classes is based. Historically, a "cheap and easy" supply of energy sources such gas, coal and oil has boosted profits across the entire economy. Particularly in the context of the emergence of new global rivals such as China, this is a hard thing to give up on.

Donald Trump's recent executive order on "energy independence," which winds back restrictions on domestic fossil fuel production enacted under Obama, has commonly been referred to as a straightforward gift to U.S. mining and energy companies. There is an element of truth in that. But it's far from the whole story.

Breathing new life into U.S. fossil fuel production is part of Trump's broader project of putting "America first" and attempting to see off the challenge posed by the rise of China. In fact, Trump has framed the entire issue of climate change in terms of the U.S.-China rivalry. In 2012, for example, he tweeted, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

This is laughable. But it points to how a section of U.S. capital, personified by Trump, views the issue: not simply as a matter of the profits of the fossil fuel companies, but as something with ramifications for the economy as a whole and, by extension, the continued ability of the US to occupy top spot in the global imperialist pecking order.

Trump isn't alone among recent U.S. presidents in wanting to boost the U.S.'s global competitiveness by exploiting its untapped reserves of fossil fuels. Obama may have presented himself as an enlightened crusader for sustainability, but he presided over an unprecedented boom in U.S. oil and gas production--driven largely by the environmentally damaging technique of fracking.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THERE ARE other problems with relying on market forces to drive a "renewable revolution." One of those was highlighted in a recent issue of the Economist, under the tantalizing headline: "Clean energy's dirty secret."

This wasn't, as you might think, a form of clickbait for coal industry executives or Australian politicians looking for a "dirty" centerfold spread on how wind farms and solar panels are bad for the environment. As a mouthpiece for the liberal wing of the Anglo-American bourgeoisie, the Economist is prepared to admit the benefits of moving toward a decarbonized global economy.

The "dirty secret" is that renewables are too cheap. "It is no longer far-fetched," the magazine says, "to think that the world is entering an era of clean, unlimited and cheap power." There is, however, "a $20 trillion hitch":

To get from here to there requires huge amounts of investment over the next few decades...Normally investors like putting their money into electricity because it offers reliable returns. Yet green energy has a dirty secret. The more it is deployed, the more it lowers the price of power from any source.

The problem, in other words, is that the rise of renewables is making it more difficult for big energy companies to make the kind of profits they're accustomed to. The Economist argues that this will create a drag on investment and make the transition to a sustainable energy system impossible without direct government intervention: "Theoretically, if renewables were to make up 100 percent of the market, the wholesale price of electricity would fall to zero, deterring all new investment that was not completely subsidized."

Cass is right on one point. If we sit back and let the market rip, the rise of renewables could propel us into a situation of "creative destruction" in our energy systems. Contrary to what he implies, however, this isn't something to be welcomed.

Big energy will not allow its profits to be whittled away. It will fight tooth and nail to stop the further deployment of renewables. And to the extent that they fail in this endeavor and profits begin to suffer because of it, companies will attempt to make up the shortfall by squeezing more out of their existing, creaky infrastructure and charging us more.

In his rush to declare "mission accomplished," Cass doesn't give much attention to this side of the equation.

The rise of renewables is cause for hope. But the triumphalism of Cass and others--their confidence that we can sit back and let the market do its work--is a recipe for disaster.

Now more than ever, we need to fight. We need to fight to challenge and disrupt the continuing power of the fossil fuel industry in the global economy and in politics. And we need to fight for an energy system that centers on human need, rather than private profit--one that can utilize the very latest in renewable technology to provide a cheap and reliable supply of energy to the benefit of all.

First published at Red Flag.

What is ‘democratic capitalism’ anyway ?

"The first thing to understand is that “democracy’ is a system of governance, and “capitalism” is an economic system. The genius of America has been to unite these two elements into a synergistic whole with the goal of providing every American “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The foundation of capitalism is “profits.” A profit occurs when you sell something for more than you paid for it. All taxes depend on profits — no profits, no taxes; no taxes, no government. So, if governments (combining local, state and national) take too much of the profits generated by businesses, there will not be any profits, and the economy will fail — and people will go hungry. Thus, there will always be a tension between government and business over the amount of profits government takes and the amount kept by businesses. Since there is no accepted “balance,” there is always a tug of war between advocates of “big government” and “limited government,” generally represented these days by the Democrats and the Republicans.

There are some basic issues at stake. First of all, governments generally have the guns, meaning the resources to enforce whatever they want to enforce, whether through confiscation (taxes), incarceration (prison), or militarization (martial law). The basis of democracy is to limit the powers of government so that it treats its citizens according to rules set by the representatives of those citizens. It is the responsibility of these representatives to in fact control the police, the military, and all law enforcement resources in such a way as to nurture the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all its citizens. These “rules” are what we call the “law of the land.”

Obviously, it takes money to maintain a government capable of providing all these critically important services. Thus, the need for taxes. But there are no taxes without profits. People have to be motivated to work hard and to take chances with their money. So, what motivations are there which are powerful enough to get people to work hard?

Full text link is here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/30/what-democratic-capitalism-anyway/

Four crises of democratic capitalism in the U.S., 1970-2014, How will capitalism end? ( Streeck, 87)

How you guys think the responsibility of the U.S. government in terms of the consecutive economic crises? Is government interference into the financial market a big cause of these crises?

In Trump's First 100 Days, A Dramatic Reduction In Immigration

Nearly 100 days into his administration, President Trump has drastically reduced the flow of immigration, both legal and illegal, to the U.S. He's been able to accomplish that without any new legislation — and without many of his signature ideas solidly in place, including executive orders that have been put on hold by the courts and a proposed wall on the Mexican border.
In a matter of months, the Trump administration has made it harder to get into the U.S for all kinds of people. From refugees and visa holders, to asylum seekers and illegal border-crossers arriving at the southern border, the numbers have plummeted.
And this may be just the beginning.
A leaked draft of a progress report shows that the Department of Homeland Security has begun laying the groundwork to do more. The agency has identified more detention beds for immigrants in the country illegally, set aside money to start designing the border wall and sped up the hiring of thousands of federal immigration agents.
"There's an effort now to deter, to terrify," says Donald Kerwin, executive director of the Center for Migration Studies, a think tank in New York devoted to protecting the rights of migrants. Kerwin says even Trump's own rhetoric is aimed at deterring immigrants.
"What they're trying to do are very splashy, draconian enforcement efforts that are really meant to tell people: nobody is safe, and nobody should come that's not documented," Kerwin says.
That message may be getting through. Apprehensions at the southern border fell dramatically from more than 40,000 per month late last year to 18,754 in February, and just 12,193 in March. The administration is going out of its way to highlight those numbers.
"Last month was the lowest month for immigration illegally into our country in 17 years," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a news conference in El Paso, Texas, last week. "That is a remarkable thing to accomplish."
Away from the border, arrests by immigration agents were up by about a third during the first three months of the year, to 21,362, compared with 16,104 during the same period in 2016, according to data provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The data also show that federal agents are arresting more unauthorized immigrants who don't have criminal records: 5,441 during the first few months of the year, compared with 2,278 last year.
A senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement tells NPR that the agency has been able to "open the aperture" on the types of immigrants it can target.
Reactions across the country reflect a divided America.
"We're seeing mothers and fathers torn away from their families, many with no criminal histories at all, or with just minor past convictions," says Tom Jawetz, a vice president at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.
Robin Hvidston sees it differently. She's the director of We the People Rising, an organization in California that advocates tougher enforcement. "I have not heard a presidential candidate in my lifetime address this topic," Hvidston says. "And I think he does want to take action against more criminal activity."
Courts have twice blocked Trump's effort to suspend the U.S. refugee program. In the meantime, the administration has simply stopped accepting as many refugees. The numbers have dropped significantly: from nearly 10,000 a month last fall to just 2,070 in March, according to the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
"We still have families who are separated, who we want to see rejoined," said Rebecca Liberato, a case manager in the Jersey City, N.J., office of Church World Service, a refugee resettlement agency. "They're scared for their loved ones across seas as well."
Just this week, a court in San Francisco blocked another Trump executive order, this one punishing so-called sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal authorities. But that's not stopping the administration's agenda. In fact, it's signing up other cities to help enforce immigration law.
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.

What sorts of change might we expect to see in the next four years due to decreased I'm irrational?  We talked about brain drain and how making it harder for immigrants to stay in the country make for a very uninviting acedemic community, as well as a less diverse country.

The Fed Is on the Right Side of Its 'Transitory' Bet

Despite the soft first-quarter economic data, investors should expect another interest-rate increase in June.

"The Federal Reserve receives a lot of criticism for the way it conducts monetary policy, but it shouldn’t be faulted for delivering a hawkish message at last week’s policy meeting in the face of data showing a marked slowdown in first-quarter growth. The May meeting came off largely as expected, with policy makers leaving interest rates unchanged and the post-meeting statement containing a clear message that policy makers remained set on a June rate hike.

The Fed is betting that residual seasonal adjustment issues negatively impacted the first-quarter gross domestic product and that the data does not reflect the true pace of economic growth. If they are correct, then the pace will pick up over the next two months and they will likely hike rates in June. But if second-quarter data shapes up like the first, they may decide they have overreached in their policy expectations once again. And so far it looks like the Fed is on the right side of their bet. The employment report for April reveals solid job growth and low unemployment as the economy charged into the second quarter.

The hypothesis underlying the Fed’s decision is that the process used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis -- the agency responsible for the GDP report -- for computing the data leaves behind some seasonal effects that were supposed to be removed statistically. This causes the reported data to be low in the first quarter relative to the actual performance of the economy. This makes an already possibly volatile number even more difficult to interpret." 

What you guys think about the data in comparison to real life situation? Has the magical capitalism restored in the States after the 2008 crisis?

Full text and graph is here: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-08/the-fed-is-on-the-right-side-of-its-transitory-bet 

5 AI trends changing the workplace

JOHN SCHNEIDER, JIVE SOFTWARE APRIL 11, 2017 4:10 AM

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Presented by Jive Software

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By now you’ve heard that Artificial Intelligence is poised to either destroy civilization as we know it or miraculously solve all of society’s problems. If you’re a fan of films like 2015’s Ex Machina or the HBO series Westworld, you’ll be forgiven for believing that intelligent machines will inevitably lead to a dystopian nightmare. It’s also unlikely that AI will result in a nirvana of synthetic emotional intimacy or effortless commutes any time soon either. The truth about AI, as with most things, lies somewhere between doomsday and panacea.

In the near term, AI’s greatest potential to affect our lives is in the one place most of us find ourselves every day — at work. These are the five AI trends that will have the greatest impact on the workplace in the near term.

1. Wrangling big data

Data is the grey matter for AI, so for machine learning to succeed it needs access to lots and lots of information. With big data expected to grow to 44 zettabytes of storage by 2020, information is no longer a barrier. That means fragmentation is the remaining enemy of AI. With traditional stack vendors continually adding new tools to their suites and conversational apps siloing information in a mishmash of narrowing message threads, getting at that data is becoming more challenging than ever. Forward-looking organizations are using connected hub solutions and open APIs to unlock that data so future AI systems can get at it.

2. Making your company smarter with “dumb” things: The IoT

Today, there are nearly twice as many “dumb devices” connected to the Internet as there are people on the planet. By 2020, that number is expected to triple. McKinsey estimates that within the next decade the Internet of Things (IoT) could create more than $11 trillion dollars annually in global economic value. Along with that flood of cash will be an unprecedented deluge of data. It will be up to AI to make sense of all of that information, but it’s people who will decide how to deal with it. The benefits of the IoT for business are pretty straightforward. For instance, sensors might determine that a customer needs a replacement part, so your sales team will reach out and sell them an upgrade. Internally, the IoT has the potential to deliver even greater business value.

3. Gaining competitive advantage with predictive analytics

Today, capturing information within a company is easy, but gaining insights from the interactions between that information and the systems and people that rely on it is where AI will really begin living up to its lofty promises. As employees move away from routine tasks toward more agile work, processes will become increasingly nimble too. Predictive analytics can take the pressure off by not only contextually serving up the right information at the right time, but by identifying amplifiers, drivers, and experts from across organizations, regardless of role or location.

4. Uncovering valuable insights with the work graph

Decision-making is the next evolution of enterprise AI, but don’t look for the self-aware, vengeance-seeking androids of film; this new era will be all about the work graph. A hub that captures the conversations, content, sentiment, and actions of individuals, groups and teams across multiple collaboration tools will allow predictive analytics to do its stuff. Only when leaders gain insight into those dynamic relationships will they be free to focus on the non-routine tasks that will propel their organizations into the future. Expect to hear a lot more about the work graph in the coming months and years.

5. Increasing efficiencies with interactivity

Voice assistants like Amazon’s Echo are all the rage for consumers, but, as Mary Meeker noted in her most recent Internet Trends report, speech recognition technology is ready for the office as well. In fact, don’t be surprised if voice-first becomes the next big interface for business. Soon you’ll be ordering your very own AI assistant to prioritize your meetings, organize your inbox, and create content, all without clicking on a mouse, typing on keyboard or swiping a touchscreen. Be on the lookout for virtual reality to invade the workplace as well. Once presumed to be strictly for gaming, VR is finding plenty of use cases in business. AI-powered VR systems will allow customers to try before they buy, speed employee onboarding, and supercharge innovation by allowing experts to interact with would-be products while they’re still in the conception stage.

While today’s AI is more likely to recommend nail-biting films about AI to your Netflix queue than to unleash the robot apocalypse, its expectations for business (if not yet its advantages) are high. A well-thought-out strategy will be key to unlocking the benefits we’ve planned for, rather than the consequences we haven’t.

John Schneider is VP of Product Strategy at Jive Software.

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Health disparities county by county

And then changes in life expectancy county by county (from the Washington Post) 

Silicon Valley created its own school

See excerpt from the video transcript:

I’m Max Ventilla, I’m the founder and CEO of AltSchool. I had been at Google and left to start a company called Aardvark that they acquired in early 2010. And at the same time my daughter was 2 years old and we were in the thick of thinking about preschool. My daughter is such a different person than I am and the world that she's going to grow up in is so different than the world that I grew up in. That future is going to demand of her this ability to kind of constantly make her own path instead of, you know following a roadmap that’s given to her. And her education needs to prepare her for that.

It is really hard to run a bad school, let alone a great school. And so to kind of manage that complexity, to manage that challenge, traditional schools have to simplify and they do that through making a number of assumptions. Like, the future is largely similar to the past or 10 year olds are pretty much the same. None of those assumptions turn out to be true. You know in AltSchool if you look at “What are the objectives that 10-year-olds are pursuing,” the vast majority of them are not 10-year-old objectives. There are things that an 11-year-old, or 12-year-old, or 13-year-old would be expected to work on and in other areas maybe they're behind and you know they're working at a 9-year-old or a 8-year-old level in some domain.

Personalizing education is pretty easy to do on a screen. The problem is now kids are on a screen which is in many ways the last thing that you want. So the challenge for us is, how do you personalize education off of a screen?

A pillar of AltSchool and any school is assessment and assessment needs to be accurate, it needs to be actual, and it needs to be non-invasive. And that's hard. How do you get a signal about what kids are learning and what they know and what they don't know? You know, not just once a week but once a day, once an hour, once a minute. And again that's where technology can come in. You can allow kids to kind of naturally learn in an emergent way and you can give tools to teachers so that they can document in real time.

We believe a generation from now, the best education can be the one that the most kids get, rather than the fewest kids get. That education will be intensely personal, it will be intensely offline, but it will tie back to a digital representation of what's happening. So you'll be able to use technology to be much more flexible, to be much more coordinated, to be much more rigorous, and allow an experience that, you know, in many ways looks totally un-technical.
If you believe that to really be part of a solution, for you know, a very different education in the future versus now, you need to bring technology and great traditional education together.

What do you think of this type of 'new' school? Will merging the traditional model with technology cause any skills to be left behind? Will this grow beyond Silicom Valley or are they just concentrating their talent?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-billionaires-zuckerberg-school-altschool-2017-5

McMansions are killing the Los Angeles urban forest

Los Angeles has an estimated 10 million trees. They reduce excess CO2 in the air, act as wildlife habitat, improve water quality, reduce energy use, and increase surrounding property values.
But that number is far less than two decades ago.That's according to a new study from the University of California, which says the amount of tree cover in LA County has declined rapidly since 2000. Americans' growing preference for large single-family houses, along with the increase in driveways and swimming pools that come with home expansion, is the largest driver of tree cover loss in the US, according to the study. "These ecologically beneficial consequences occurred organically — not as the result of conscious environmental policy, but rather as an outgrowth of the cultural aesthetic and economics of the times," the researchers write. Today, nearly a decade after the 2008 housing bust, property development is as ambitious as ever. In Los Angeles, the average new home spans 2,687 square feet, and nearly one-third measuring over 3,000 square feet, according to the 2016 US Census Bureau annual survey.

 

 

Full article here: (http://www.businessinsider.com/mcmansions-suburbs-environment-2017-5)

Do you think the increase in "McMansions" has an impact on the greenhouse gases and climate change? Why are people creating these larger homes, rather than having homes that satisfy adequate living conditions?