U.S. workers received their biggest pay increases in nearly a decade over the 12 months through June, a sign the strong labor market is boosting wages as employers compete for scarcer workers.
The Labor Department’s employment-cost index rose 2.8% in the year to June compared, the government said Tuesday. Wages and salaries, which account for about 70% of all employment costs, also rose 2.8% from a year earlier, the strongest gain for both measures since September 2008.
Why is so little plastic actually recycled? | ScienceNordic "A group of Danish and Swedish researchers have now tackled this exact question. Their answer? Money. Recycling is not just about consumers separating used plastics, paper, metal and glass into the right bin. It’s all about markets for our used goods. A group of researchers decided to figure out why most plastic that is recycled in the Nordic countries eventually finds its way into the trash. The bottom line answer is simple: It’s just not profitable enough to use recycled products..." Read on.
...it's obvious that the already near-peak resentment among the Trump base of the hated MSM is reaching new highs lately...
But yelling at the press is not unique or new in American politics, and in fact, compared to the past, this week's display of displeasure for Acosta and co. was positively mild.
Let's go on a Throwback Thursday trip to 2008.
This is video I captured myself during the Recreate 68 protest march at the DNC in Denver. (Language Warning)
That is a Fox News crew covering the protest.(2008)
I was watching as the crowd figured out who they were and went from zero to zeroing-in in a matter of minutes.
At the center are reporter Griff Jenkins and his camera crew.
The guy holding the camera had it shoved forcefully into his face, leaving a bleeding wound on his nose.
It was an ugly scene.
But you may not remember it. No president was asked about it. No Democrat candidate was made to disown it. It didn't get much press..."
Here's another one. (More language warning.)
Oh, also, here's another one. (Language warning some more.)
...Oh, I forgot, here's one more. (Even more language warning.)
Why is Trump fighting the trade war? "Why is Trump fighting the trade war? Here's why. Critics of Trump's trade policies think everything is okay if we don't do anything. The chart below shows that everything is not okay if we don't do anything. This is a chart of capital spending in the U.S. from 1968 through to the present. It is a straightforward presentation of monthly data from the Commerce Department. There is nothing clever, nothing tricky about this presentation or about the time frame chosen. The Commerce Department started this series in 1968. It superseded another series on capital spending. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce. Why is this chart important? It is a death sentence for America. ...Why is this growth in capital spending important? Even in our increasingly service-oriented economy, it is capital spending – the stock of capital equipment – that sustains our standard of living. Healthy capital spending is critical to – really identical with – a thriving economy. This is why the flat capital spending that America has experienced since 2000 is so grave a condition. ...The only person in public life who understands this chart is Donald Trump. ...Among other things, this chart is the opioid epidemic – the despair created by permanent unemployment. The lack of capital investment is what has created the regions where people have dropped out of the workforce and thus are no longer counted as being in it..." Much here, read all!!
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro admitted on Tuesday that the economic models of his democratic socialist regime have "failed."
"The production models we've tried so far have failed and the responsibility is ours, mine and yours," Maduro told his United Socialist Party-controlled congress, AFP reports.
"Enough with the whining," he said later, AFP reports. "We need to produce with or without (outside) aggression, with or without blockades, we need to make Venezuela an economic power. ... No more whining, I want solutions comrades!"
The Best Health Care System in the World: Which One Would You Pick? - The New York Times "To better understand one of the most heated U.S. policy debates, we created a tournament to judge which of these nations has the best health system: Canada, Britain, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, France, Australia and the U.S. ...“Medicare for all,” or “single-payer,” is becoming a rallying cry for Democrats. This is often accompanied by calls to match the health care coverage of "the rest of the world." But this overlooks a crucial fact: The “rest of the world” is not all alike. The commonality is universal coverage, but wealthy nations have taken varying approaches to it, some relying heavily on the government (as with single-payer); some relying more on private insurers; others in between. Experts don’t agree on which is best; a lot depends on perspective. But we thought it would be fun to stage a small tournament. We selected eight countries, representing a range of health care systems, and established a bracket by randomly assigning seeds..." Read all.
History for August 4 - On-This-Day.com Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 - Poet, Louis Armstrong 1901 - Musician, singer, Raoul Wallenberg 1912 - Sweedish humanitarian during World War II
John Riggins 1949 - Football player, Barack Hussein Obama 1961 - 44th President of the United States, Jeff Gordon 1971 - Race car driver, Jeff Gordon 1735 - Freedom of the press was established with an acquittal of John Peter Zenger. The writer of the New York Weekly Journal had been charged with seditious libel by the royal governor of New York. The jury said that "the truth is not libelous." 1790 - The Revenue Cutter Service was formed. This U.S. naval task force was the beginning of the U.S. Coast Guard. 1821 - "The Saturday Evening Post" was published for the first time as a weekly. 1944 - Nazi police raided a house in Amsterdam and arrested eight people. Anne Frank, a teenager at the time, was one of the people arrested. Her diary would be published after her death. 1972 - Arthur Bremer was found guilty of shooting George Wallace, the governor of Alabama. Bremer was sentenced to 63 years in prison. 1983 - New York Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield threw a baseball during warm-ups and accidentally killed a seagull. After the game, Toronto police arrested him for "causing unnecessary suffering to an animal." 1987 - The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded by the Federal Communications Commission. The doctrine had required that radio and TV stations present controversial issues in a balanced fashion. 1991 - The Oceanos, a Greek luxury liner, sank off of South Africa's southeast coast. All of the 402 passengers and 179 crewmembers survived.
Fast-forward to June 2018, and there’s this: “Millennials are most likely to stiff servers. Ten percent of Americans ages 18 to 37 say they routinely leave no tip. Nearly one in three leaves less than a 15 percent tip at restaurants. … Overall, just 21 percent [of all adults surveyed] favored higher food prices and no tipping,” CreditCards.com reported. How are the two matters connected?
A study conducted by three researchers at Harvard University finds that people actually experience more anxiety and "emotional vulnerability" when given "trigger warnings" prior to reading disturbing content.
The authors caution that further research is needed, however, saying they plan to conduct two additional studies to see whether they can replicate their findings.
A recently published study by three Harvard University researchers claims that trigger warnings “increase peoples' perceived emotional vulnerability” and “increase anxiety.”
The study, “Trigger warning: Empirical evidence ahead,” published last week in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, concludes that trigger warnings may not be beneficial.
"Trigger warnings may inadvertently undermine some aspects of emotional resilience." Tweet This
“Trigger warnings notify people of the distress that written, audiovisual, or other material may evoke, and were initially used to provide for the needs of those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” the study’s abstract explains..."
Trump’s rollback could zap California’s electric car industry | McClatchy Washington Bureau
"California helped birth the nation’s electric vehicle industry. It used its laws and market size to prompt automakers to make and sell electric vehicles.
It encouraged Tesla and other innovators to build manufacturing plants.
Over the years, California spawned an entire industry devoted to EV batteries, charging stations and utility collaborations, with billions of dollars invested. Now, all of that is at risk.
On Thursday, the Trump administration proposed freezing Obama-era rules that require automakers to build cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars, including hybrids and electric vehicles.
The proposal would also challenge California’s authority to set its own greenhouse gas restrictions on cars, including a mandate that automakers sell a certain number of electric cars in California.
If the administration prevails, it could upend numerous California enterprises devoted to clean cars, some of whom are already reeling from market uncertainty..." Read on!
Petersen then responded with an animated picture (better known as a gif) of Joseph Stalin waving with the caption “off to Gulag now.” It’s a gif that Petersen took from Twitter’s own library of shareable gifs. In other words, Twitter banned Petersen for using content that the website itself recommended to him.
In fact, it’s the very first gif Twitter recommends to you if you search for “Stalin” in the website’s gif library:
It’s Time To Stop 7 Day Insurance Policies "What is a 7 day insurance policy?
It’s a low-cost car insurance policy that lasts only one week. After seven days, coverage under the policy ends and, unless a driver takes specific action to renew, the policy will automatically expire.
The 7 day insurance policy is frequently used by drivers to get their vehicle registration, plates and tabs without having to pay the high prices associated with a longer term insurance policy.
Subsequently, many drivers will then allow coverage to lapse and they drive without insurance for the remainder of the year. What’s wrong with 7 day insurance policies and why should they be stopped?
It’s where the greed of Michigan No Fault car insurance companies merges into the reckless indifference of Michigan lawmakers.
It enables massive insurance fraud in many Michigan cities like Detroit.
It jeopardizes the public’s welfare. It allows up to a 1.5 million people to drive without insurance in this state.
The seven-day car insurance policies pedaled to Michigan drivers, especially in Detroit, by outfits like L.A. Insurance, are ultra-short term No Fault insurance policies that are created to help people violate Michigan’s mandatory requirement that owners of motor vehicles have auto No Fault insurance.
...The proliferation of these one-week auto insurance policies has led some cities in Michigan, such as Detroit, to have now more than 50 percent of drivers on the road uninsured.”..." Read all!
Straight ticket voting (STV) to remain an option, federal judge rules | MLive.com:
"U.S. District Court Judge Gershwin Drain wrote in a 103-page opinion that the law, passed by a Republican-led Legislature, discriminates against black voters, who vote straight ticket at higher percentages than white voters.
A federal judge ruled that a Michigan law banning straight-ticket voting would place a disproportionate burden on African Americans' right to vote.
...The law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, according to Drain..." Read all. Imagine if blacks do something "at higher percentages than whites" is the rule for other things.... like exercise their right to NOT vote! This is nuts!
U.S. workers received their biggest pay increases in nearly a decade over the 12 months through June, a sign the strong labor market is boosting wages as employers compete for scarcer workers.
