- 'Work Less, Make More': Labour Party Introduces Plan For 4-Day Work Week
‘Work Less, Make More’: Labour Party Introduces Plan For 4-Day Work Week
As Labour’s 2019 party conference started yesterday, the party’s leadership was busy selling their slate of far-left policies.
In addition to support for a ‘Green New Deal’ (not dissimilar to the one from the US) and the abolition of private schools, the Labour Party is pushing a plan for a four day work week. But don’t worry: workers will still earn the same amount of money, they’ll just need to work less for the money.
By Labour’s reasoning, since the link between increasing productivity and expanding free time has been broken, it’s time for the government to step in and set the trend right. After all, increasing automation was supposed to allow Britons to work less, not more.
But with the next general election expected in the coming months, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell pledged during a speech on Monday that Labour would implement the 32-hour-work-week within 10 years if votes deliver a majority.
McDonnell’s pledge stopped short of making a 32 hour week compulsory, saying that only “average” hours worked would be cut. But he insisted that lower in the number of hours worked by most Britons is the right course of policy: “millions are exhausted from overwork,” McDonnell said to the audience at Labour’s Party conference in Brighton. And that must end.
“As society got richer, we could spend fewer hours at work. But in recent decades progress has stalled,” McDonnell added. “People in our country today work some of the longest hours in Europe.”
That’s actually not true, according to official EU data, which found that Greeks put in the longest work weeks (at an average 42.3 hours per week), followed by Bulgaria and Poland. The only western European nation that made the top ten was Portugal.
Before the conference, a report commissioned by crossbench peer Robert Skidelsky found that working fewer hours would be good for Briton’s wellbeing but that “a rigid four-day week was not realistic or desirable.”
But Labour clearly can’t resist the headline: A 32 hour work week! With no loss in pay!
Unsurprisingly, McDonnell received a standing ovation when he finished his speech. But just wait until this crosses the pond.
Biden: I promise a 4 day work week
Harris: I promise a 3 day work week
Warren: I promise a 2 day work week
Bernie: I promise a 1 day work week
Yang: I will pay you to never work again https://t.co/dnx73yM9Tj— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 23, 2019
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/24/2019 – 02:45 - The Collapse In Germany Is Real… And Accelerating
The Collapse In Germany Is Real… And Accelerating
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats’n’Guns blog,
Back in April I told you that Germany was a “Dead Economy Walking.” Today, I get to tell you that it’s legs are gone.
Yesterday morning’s manufacturing PMI print was the worst news Angela Merkel could have imagined, 41.4. A figure so awful dogs will want to roll on it.
Overall, Germany’s economy at the purchasing manager’s level is contracting. And with Merkel masking a massive tax increase as a political cave to the rising Greens the future for Germany’s economic growth looks as bad as the following chart.
Aside from the obvious, the big takeaway from this chart is the consistency with which analysts who are paid a lot more than me over-estimate this number. It’s a brilliant depiction of confirmation bias.
And you can see why this happens. Conventional wisdom tells us that an accommodative central bank, and the ECB’s negative interest rates are the height of accommodation, should support continued manufacturing growth because credit is cheap.
But, it doesn’t if there’s no capacity for the buyers of German goods to take on more debt. Negative interest rates are supposed to increase currency flow because who wants to lose money on their savings, right?
Paging Larry Summers (you incompetent halfwit!) that’s not what they actually signal to the markets. They signal that things suck and the central bank has no confidence in the economy.
It should be no surprise to anyone that the ECB became dovish the minute they got the data that Germany’s economy was shrinking. Because without Germany expanding exports there can be no support for a stable euro, regardless of Brexit.
And as the Remainiacs continue to play games to scuttle Brexit their arguments look weak as it is obvious to all that Europe needs the U.K. more than the other way around.
But, hey, don’t let facts get in the way of some people’s religion.
In fact, every time they try to create a headline to blame things on Brexit uncertainty, it further highlights just how much it is they who are creating it by dragging out the process.
Yesterday’s data from Europe hit the markets hard. Oil prices resumed their fall on the heels of this news and speculation that Iranian President Rouhani will meet with both President Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week.
Though Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zavir ruled out a meeting with Trump, the Iranians prepped the stage with Johnson by releasing the U.K. tanker Stena Impero.
Though I suspect nothing will come of that while Johnson is embroiled in Brexit.
The Euro lost $1.10 and gold resumed its rise in all currencies, including the U.S. dollar.
And with the dollar funding markets in serious turmoil, Martin Armstrong reminds us that both the Fed and the ECB are trapped. The Fed will keep their emergency repo window open until October 10th.
With the rising pressure outside the USA to eliminate cash in order to confiscate money from their citizens to support the broadening collapse of socialism, there has been a MAJOR panic pushing into the dollar.
Despite the fact that early in 2019 the headlines were that foreign governments were dumping US debt spinning this into stories that the dollar would crash. In reality, selling of US debt at that point in time was an effort to stop the dollar’s rise.
Martin has always been right that falling confidence in Europe and the Euro are what’s driving the current dynamic of strong U.S. asset prices.
Last week I speculated that there’s a connection between this window and the upcoming $200+ billion in auctions at the U.S. Treasury this week.
The primary dealer banks have to be flush enough with cash to ensure they could take down their part of the issuance because any tailing in the yield will be bad.
The dollar funding crisis is real and accelerating as is the implosion of the German economy. And it’s not just Germany anymore. The French PMI print was terrible and the whole of the composite PMI for the Eurozone teeters on contraction.
What everyone needs to worry about now is the reversal against the huge move into European sovereign debt. These bond yields have defied gravity all year and cannot be sustained against a falling euro.
The German yield curve is beginning to rise at the short end. The inversion is worsening. U.S. Treasury demand is still rising.
Is it any wonder that the European Council is finally beginning to change its tune about a potential deal with Boris Johnson on Brexit?
Germany is in trouble and with it the entire European Project. Good.
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Join my Patreon if you want to stay up on the collapse of the Euro-zone Install Brave if you want to keep Google from letting you talk about it.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/24/2019 – 02:00 - Evidence That Iran Violated The Nuclear Deal Since Day One?
Evidence That Iran Violated The Nuclear Deal Since Day One?
Authored by Dr. Majid Rafizadeh via The Gatestone Institute,
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The IAEA first ignored the reports about Iran’s undeclared clandestine nuclear facilities. This should not come as a surprise: the IAEA has a long history of misreporting the Islamic Republic’s compliance with the deal and declining to follow up on credible reports about Iran’s illicit nuclear activities.
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New evidence shows that Iran’s theocratic establishment was most likely violating the nuclear agreement since the day that Obama’s administration and Tehran struck the deal in 2015.
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The international community would truly do itself a great service to recognize that the nuclear deal was nothing more than a pro-mullah agreement which provided Iran’s ruling clerics with billions of dollars to pursue their anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Iranian people and pro-terror activities, while simultaneously providing cover for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions.
The Iranian government is advancing its nuclear program at a faster pace. Recently, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) declared that Tehran took the third step in increasing its nuclear activities by activating advanced centrifuges: 20 IR-4 and 20 IR-6 centrifuges.
The previous two steps that Tehran took included: increasing the enriched uranium stockpile beyond the 300kg cap, which was set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and enriching uranium to levels beyond the limit of 3.67 percent.
As part of its rush to a nuclear breakout capability, the Islamic Republic of Iran is also expanding its research and development work beyond the limitations set by the JCPOA. Iranian nuclear agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told a televised news conference, “We have started lifting limitations on our Research and Development imposed by the deal … It will include development of more rapid and advanced centrifuges.”
The ruling mullahs are claiming that Iran’s recent moves and violations of the nuclear deal are the fault of the US government, because the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA, but the claim is a lie. New evidence shows that Iran’s theocratic establishment was most likely violating the nuclear agreement since the day the Obama administration and Tehran struck the deal in 2015.
To clarify: Do you remember when the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano immediately to inspect an “atomic warehouse” in Iran last year?
Netanyahu stated in his speech to the UN General Assembly that Iran had a “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.” Tehran claimed that the warehouse, which is located in a village (Turquz Abad) in the suburbs of Tehran, was a place where carpets were cleaned.
At the same time, two non-partisan organizations based in Washington, DC — the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) — released detailed reports about Iran’s undeclared clandestine nuclear facilities as well.
The IAEA first ignored the reports. This should not come as a surprise: the IAEA has a long history of misreporting the Islamic Republic’s compliance with the deal and declining to follow up on credible reports about Iran’s illicit nuclear activities. Iran’s clandestine nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak were revealed by the opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
In any event, after a significant amount of pressure was imposed on the IAEA, and after the IAEA’s chief passed away and Iran was reportedly able to moving the suspected materials out of the secret nuclear facility, inspection of the site was recently implemented.
What was the outcome? Even though the Iranian leaders had cleaned up the facility, the IAEA’s inspectors were able to detect traces of radioactive uranium at the site. Israel’s warning and other reports had proved accurate.
Now, Tehran is declining to answer the IAEA’s questions about the secret facility. More importantly, one of the most basic requirements of the nuclear deal (while it lasted) was that Iran had to reveal its nuclear activities to the IAEA — a condition with it even overtly failed to comply.
In other words, the detection of radioactive particles in Turquz Abad, Iran’s reluctance to answer simple questions about the secret facility and non-partisan evidence about Iran’s nuclear activities at the location, all point to the fact that Tehran was most likely violating the nuclear deal since it was reached.
Where, you may ask, are the strong advocates of the nuclear deal after the new evidence revealed that Iran has long been violating the nuclear deal and pursuing its nuclear ambitions? They are silent.
The international community would truly do itself a great service to recognize that the nuclear deal was nothing more than a pro-mullah agreement which provided Iran’s ruling clerics with billions of dollars to pursue their anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Iranian people and pro-terror activities, while simultaneously providing cover for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/23/2019 – 23:45 -
- In Trade-War Win For Trump, Apple Will Make New Desktop At Texas Factory
In Trade-War Win For Trump, Apple Will Make New Desktop At Texas Factory
In what looks like another trade-deal victory for the Trump Administration, Apple announced on Monday that it would manufacture its Mac Pro Desktop at a factory in Austin, Texas.
After the US government approved tariff waivers on 10 key components for the Mac Book Pro that the company sources from China.
“Manufacturing of the new model was made possible after the US government approved on Friday Apple’s request for a waiver on 25% tariffs on 10 key components imported from China.”
Some analysts have warned that key components will still be made in China and exported to the US for final assembly in Austin, but the number of components for the new desktop increased by 2.5 times from the previous model.
In an interesting about-face for Trump, the president had previously signaled that he wouldn’t grant the waivers, but has apparently decided to cave. We imagine the softening in his approach is related to the tit-for-tat pre-trade-talk detente going on new between Washington and Beijing.
Trump had previously signaled that relief from tariffs on the Mac Pro would be rejected, saying in a July 26 tweet that “Apple will not be given Tariff waiver, or relief for.” Mac Pro parts that are made in China. Make them in the USA, no Tariffs!” However, the president later told reporters that the two families “we’ll work it out.”
Still, with five other requests pending before the DoC, Apple has plenty of reason to be anxious. So far, Cook has been spared from most duties. But products such as the Apple Watch, AirPods and iMac computers were hit by 15% tariffs earlier this month, while the iPhone, iPad and other major Apple products are set to be impacted later in December.
Apple said construction for the new desktop will begin “soon,” which roughly equates to: “Before the holiday shopping season ends.” Meanwhile, the revamped model was announced in June at the company’s annual conference for developers, with a starting price of $6,000. Compared with the previous version, the new model is far more customizable and integrates with a new high-resolution external monitor.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/23/2019 – 23:25 - The Saudi Arabia Drone Attacks Have Changed Global Warfare
The Saudi Arabia Drone Attacks Have Changed Global Warfare
Authored by Patrick Cockburn via The Unz Review,
The devastating attack on Saudi oil facilities by drones and missiles not only transforms the balance of military power in the Middle East, but marks a change in the nature of warfare globally.
On the morning of 14 September, 18 drones and seven cruise missiles – all cheap and unsophisticated compared to modern military aircraft – disabled half of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production and raised the world price of oil by 20 per cent.
This happened despite the Saudis spending $67.6bn (£54bn) on their defence budget last year, much of it on vastly expensive aircraft and air defence systems, which notably failed to stop the attack. The US defence budget stands at $750bn (£600.2bn), and its intelligence budget at $85bn (£68bn), but the US forces in the Gulf did not know what was happening until it was all over.
Excuses advanced for this failure include the drones flying too low to be detected and unfairly coming from a direction different from the one that might have been expected. Such explanations sound pathetic when set against the proud boasts of the arms manufacturers and military commanders about the effectiveness of their weapons systems.
Debate is ongoing about whether it was the Iranians or the Houthis who carried out the attack, the likely answer being a combination of the two, but perhaps with Iranorchestrating the operation and supplying the equipment. But over-focus on responsibility diverts attention from a much more important development: a middle ranking power like Iran, under sanctions and with limited resources and expertise, acting alone or through allies, has inflicted crippling damage on theoretically much better-armed Saudi Arabia which is supposedly defended by the US, the world’s greatest military super-power.
If the US and Saudi Arabia are particularly hesitant to retaliate against Iran it is because they know now, contrary to what they might have believed a year ago, that a counter-attack will not be a cost-free exercise. What happened before can happen again: not for nothing has Iran been called a “drone superpower”. Oil production facilities and the desalination plants providing much of the fresh water in Saudi Arabia are conveniently concentrated targets for drones and small missiles.
In other words, the military playing field will be a lot more level in future in a conflict between a country with a sophisticated air force and air defence system and one without. The trump card for the US, Nato powers and Israel has long been their overwhelming superiority in airpower over any likely enemy. Suddenly this calculus has been undermined because almost anybody can be a player on the cheap when it comes to airpower.
Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, succinctly sums up the importance of this change, writing that “the strikes on Saudi Arabia provide a clear strategic warning that the US era of air supremacy in the Gulf, and the near US monopoly on precision strike capability, is rapidly fading.” He explains that a new generation of drones, cruise missiles, and precision strike ballistic missiles are entering the Iranian inventories and have begun to spread to the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Similar turning points in military history have occurred when the deployment of an easily produced weapon suddenly checkmates the use of a more complicated one.
A good example of this was the attack on 11 November 1940, on five Italian battleships, moored at their base at Taranto by 20 slow moving but sturdy British Swordfish biplanes, armed with torpedoes and launched from an aircraft carrier. At the end of the day, three of the battleships had been sunk or badly damaged while only two of the British planes were missing. The enormity of the victory achieved at such minimal cost ended the era when battleships ruled the sea and replaced them with one in which aircraft carriers with torpedo/bomber were supreme. It was a lesson noted by the Japanese navy which attacked Pearl Harbour in similar fashion a year after Taranto.
The Saudis showed off the wreckage of the drones and missiles to assembled diplomats and journalists this week in a bid to convince them that the Iranians were behind the air raid. But the most significant feature of the broken drone and missile parts was that, in full working order, the weapons that had just rocked the world economy would not have cost a lot. By way of contrast, the US-made Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, the main air defence of Saudi Arabia that were so useless last Saturday, cost $3m (£2.4bn) apiece.
Cost and simplicity are important because they mean that Iran, the Houthis, Hezbollah and almost any country can produce drones and missiles in numbers large enough to overwhelm any defences they are likely to meet.
Compare the cost of the drone which would be in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to the $122m (£97.6m) price of a single F-35 fighter, so expensive that it can only be purchased in limited numbers. As they take on board the meaning of what happened at Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities, governments around the world will be demanding that their air force chiefs explain why they need to spend so much money when cheap but effective alternatives are available. Going by past precedent, the air chiefs and arms manufacturers will fight to their last breath for grossly inflated budgets to purchase weapons of dubious utility in a real war.
The attack on Saudi Arabia reinforces a trend in warfare in which inexpensive easily acquired weapons come out on top. Consider the track record of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), usually made out of easily available fertiliser, detonated by a command wire, and planted in or beside a road. These were used with devastating effect by the IRA in South Armagh, forcing the British Army off the roads and into helicopters.
IEDs were used in great numbers and with great effect against US-led coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Immense resources were deployed by the US military into finding a counter to this deadly device, which included spending no less than $40bn (£32bn) on 27,000 heavily armoured vehicles called MRAPs. A subsequent army study revealed that that the number of US servicemen killed and wounded in an attack on an MRAP was exactly the same as in the vehicles which they had replaced.
It is unthinkable that American, British and Saudi military chiefs will accept that they command expensive, technically advanced forces that are obsolete in practice. This means they are stuck with arms that suck up resources but are, in practical terms, out of date. The Japanese, soon after they had demonstrated at Pearl Harbour the vulnerability of battleships, commissioned the world’s largest battleship, the Yamato, which fired its guns only once and was sunk in 1945 by US torpedo aircraft and bombers operating from aircraft carriers.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/23/2019 – 23:05 - General Dynamics Unveils 'Light Weight' Tank That Could Be Deployed By 2025
General Dynamics Unveils ‘Light Weight’ Tank That Could Be Deployed By 2025
The Department of Defense (DoD) is anticipating the next-generation of main-battle tanks to hit the modern battlefield by 2025.
In the meantime, General Dynamics showed off its next-generation of main-battle tanks during the 2019 Modern Day Marine expo in Quantico, Virginia, over the weekend, reported Defense Blog.
GDLS’s MPF the Griffin II MGS pic.twitter.com/Vh5o3fjpwV
— Jimkir (@Jimkir78) September 20, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
General Dynamics Land Systems, a segment within General Dynamics, unveiled the advanced, ‘light tank,’ called the Griffin II.
The DoD/Army is currently searching for new tracked armored vehicles able to defend infantry squads on the modern battlefield.
Griffin II is part of a more significant effort by the DoD to develop weapons that can be quickly deployed around the world. The new tank is light enough that it can be airlifted into battle.
The Army is shifting focus from counterinsurgency to high-intensity war-fighting against China and Russia, and will need a new lightweight tank for the next conflict.
Griffin II has a 120mm main gun and weighs around 38-tons. It will “provide soldiers with speed, protection, lethality and the ability to wage a multi-domain battle, working in concert with other ground forces to overwhelm the enemy with multiple simultaneous challenges,” said Defense Blog. It has a scaled-down version of the M1 Abrams turret with a similar overall design.
The new tank is expected to have a higher rating of survivability than the M1 Abrams, a tank that entered service in 1980, and has been used in all US involved Middle Eastern wars since the Gulf War (1990-1991).
The new tank will feature advanced armor, more lightweight than ever before, along with intelligent sensors that are integrated with the hardware, software, and effectors to create an overarching, layered system of passive and active self-defense measures, Defense Blog said.
Griffin II could enter service by 2025, and be flown to any battlefield in the world via a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/23/2019 – 22:45 - The Supermassive Black Hole At The Center Of Our Galaxy Just Got Extremely Hungry
The Supermassive Black Hole At The Center Of Our Galaxy Just Got Extremely Hungry
Authored by Jake Anderson via The Mind Unleashed blog,
Scientists believe there is a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy named Sagittarius A*. This black hole is 26,000 light-years from the Earth and approximately 4 million times the mass of the Sun.
While Sgr A* has always been thought of as a quiet, relatively modest black hole, new observations show a recent burst of unprecedented activity suggesting it is on a sudden feeding frenzy.
The observations comes from a research team at the UCLA Galactic Center Group, which published their work in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Using the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the team gathered 13,000 images of the accretion disk area of the black hole.
The accretion disk is where enormous amounts of gas, dust, and radiation accumulate and orbit outside the “point of no return”—or the event horizon. According to their observations, there has been a sudden and “unprecedented” increase in brightness from the Sgr A* accretion disk.
The paper’s co-author, Andrea Ghez, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, stated:
“We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the supermassive black hole. It’s usually a pretty quiet, wimpy black hole on a diet. We don’t know what is driving this big feast.”
Scientists say the increase in brightness means the black hole is consuming more interstellar material, including stars, planets, dust, gas, and asteroids. One of the research team’s lead authors originally believed the glow was a star because Sagittarius A* had never been observed at that level of brightness.
The advanced techniques used to gather this information is perhaps one of the most noteworthy aspects of this story. The researchers employed speckle holography to extract and analyze distant information from Sgr A* during the last 24 years. Another technique, called adaptive optics, eliminates distortion from Earth’s atmosphere. Combined, researchers were able to conclude that this is the largest amount of radiation detected from our galaxy’s black hole in nearly a quarter of a century.
Mark Morris, another co-author and UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, speculated on the cause of the increase:
“The big question is whether the black hole is entering a new phase – for example if the spigot has been turned up and the rate of gas falling down the black hole ‘drain’ has increased for an extended period – or whether we have just seen the fireworks from a few unusual blobs of gas falling in.”
Scientists believe that by recording and analyzing such increases in black hole activity, they can get a better understanding of how black holes evolve and impact the development of galaxies.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/23/2019 – 22:25 - Georgia Mulls Restoring Voting Rights To Nonviolent Felons
Georgia Mulls Restoring Voting Rights To Nonviolent Felons
Georgia’s state legislature is considering whether to restore voting rights to certain classes of felons who have been released from prison – particularly those who were convicted of nonviolent crimes, according to AJC.
Paulette Hunt, a retired veteran, tells Georgia senators she supports restoring voting rights of nonviolent felons once they’re released from prison. The discussions began on Friday, and lawmakers have yet to publicly define the threshold for what types of crimes committed by the state’s approximately 250,000 felons would qualify for the new law.
Georgia is one of 22 states that denies felons the ability to vote even after they’ve been released from prison, requiring them to also complete parole, probation and pay fines and fees.
State Sen. Randy Robertson, the chairman of a committee studying the issue, said it’s important for the Senate to evaluate whether felons should be able to vote. –AJC
“I would hope I’m not wasting my time today on something that’s fruitless,” said Robertson, a Republican from Cataula and a former sheriff’s deputy, after the committee’s meeting at Columbus State University. “Victims are going to have their voices heard, too. … Just starting the conversation is a big step forward.”
Advocating for felon voting rights are criminal justice groups and several senators, who agree that those convicted of drug possession should be able to vote once they’ve served their time in prison. Other nonviolent yet more serious offenses such as drug distribution, shoplifting and burglary are up for debate.
According to the report, some 80% of Georgia’s felons are already living in their communities while on probation or parole, according to Reform Georgia president Maxwell Ruppersburg.
“They paid their dues to society. Their sentence has been completed. If that’s true, why are we here having this discussion?” asked retired veteran Paulette Hunt, who spoke during Friday’s meeting. “Where is their justice? The punishment must fit the crime.”
All felons in Georgia are allowed to re-register to vote after they’ve finished all the conditions of their sentences, but that can take many years.
Probation sentences in Georgia last an average of 6.3 years, nearly double the national average, Ruppersburg said. –AJC
That said, perhaps sensing a Democrat scheme – Muscogee County Republican Committee chairman Alton Russell told senators that criminals lose their voting rights for a reason.
“If somebody commits a crime and they’re sentenced, they’ve earned the right not to vote,” said Russell.
Among the options Georgia lawmakers have are exempting drug possession felonies – which has been proposed under Senate Bill 11 introduced by Democratic state Senator Harold Jones. The measure is still pending in the Georgia Senate after it failed to receive a hearing this year.
Another option would be to pass a bill which would define the threshold for losing voting rights.
The Georgia Constitution says those who have been convicted of a “felony involving moral turpitude” can’t be registered to vote until their sentences are completed. But the state hasn’t defined which felonies involve “moral turpitude,” and election officials interpret the Constitution to mean that all felonies limit voting rights.
Another option for lawmakers would restore voting rights when felons are released from prison or jail but still owe fines or fees. –AJC
“I don’t see how you can say we’re going to take someone off the voting rolls when they’re productive citizens in every other sense of the word,” said Senator Jones.
The Senate committee will meet two more times this fall before a decision is made by December.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/23/2019 – 22:05 - Mainstream Media Claims Middle Class Isn't Shrinking (By Redefining What It Means To Be 'Poor')
Mainstream Media Claims Middle Class Isn’t Shrinking (By Redefining What It Means To Be ‘Poor’)
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
If you ask the mainstream media, they will tell you that about half the country is still middle class. In fact, a CNBC article that just came out says that “52% of American adults live in ‘middle class’ households”. Of course that is down from 61 percent in 1971, but considering everything we have been through in recent years, that still looks pretty good. But is it the truth? In the end, it all comes down to how you define “the middle class”. If I defined the middle class as anyone that makes from zero dollars to a trillion dollars a year, then 100 percent of Americans would be considered “middle class” by that definition. So we can’t just look at the final number they give us. Instead, we have to dig deeper and find out how they came up with the number in the first place.
The larger the household, the more income it takes to sustain a middle class lifestyle. And according to CNBC, the definition of a “middle class household” is extremely broad at every household size…
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Household of one: $26,093 to $78,281
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Household of two: $36,902 to $110,706
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Household of three: $45,195 to $135,586
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Household of four: $52,187 to $156,561
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Household of five: $58,347 to $175,041
If you are single person and you are making just $26,000 a year, there is no way that you should be considered part of “the middle class”.
First of all, there is no way that you would be able to buy a home in most major U.S. cities these days, and home ownership has always been considered to be one of the key hallmarks of the middle class.
Secondly, $26,000 a year breaks down to just a little over $2,000 a month before taxes. After paying for rent, health insurance and a little bit of food, there wouldn’t be any money left.
You can define that as a “middle class lifestyle” if you want, but I sure don’t.
Over the past decade, the cost of living has increased at a far faster pace than our paychecks have. As a result, many Americans that used to live middle class lifestyles are no longer able to do so.
Health insurance is just one example. Thanks to Obamacare, health insurance premiums have absolutely skyrocketed, and this is financially crippling families all over the nation. In addition to health insurance, here are just a few of the other expenses that average American families must pay on a regular basis…
-rent or mortgage payment
-the power bill
-the water bill
-food
-phone
-Internet
-vehicle payment(s)
-gasoline
-vehicle repairs
-car insurance
-dental bills
-home or rental insurance
-life insurance
-student loan debt payments
-credit card payments
-furniture, clothing and other necessities
If you are making just two or three thousand dollars a month before taxes, there is no way that you can cover all of that.
So I am sorry, but the way that CNBC is defining “the middle class” is just wrong.
Considering everything that I have just discussed, it should not be surprising to learn that a survey conducted earlier this year found that 78 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.
And if you are living paycheck to paycheck, there is a really good chance that you are not middle class.
Of course another major factor is geography. If you live in a very expensive coastal city like New York or San Francisco, it has been estimated that it now takes approximately $350,000 a year to be part of the middle class…
Here’s a sad reality: In order to raise a family in an expensive coastal city like San Francisco or New York, you’ve now got to make $350,000 or more a year.
You can certainly live on less, but it won’t be easy if your goal is to raise a family, save for your children’s education, save for your own home and save for retirement (so you can actually retire by a reasonable age).
When I was growing up, I thought that if someone was making $50,000 a year that person really had it made.
But these days $50,000 a year will barely get you above poverty level depending on the size of your household and where you live.
In a desperate attempt to maintain a middle class lifestyle when their incomes don’t really allow for it, many Americans are going into shocking amounts of debt. And these days even our young adults are piling on debt as if tomorrow will never come…
Millennials carry an average of $27,900 in debt, not including mortgages, according to new data released today by Northwestern Mutual. Gen Z, the oldest of whom are now 22 years old, have an average debt of $14,700.
Having sizable debt at a young age “is the new normal,” said Chantel Bonneau, wealth management advisor at Northwestern Mutual. “There are lots of people who exit school, and before they start their first job, have debt. That is a different situation from 30 years ago.”
But when you pile on too much debt, it can become financially suffocating very quickly, and many of our young people actually report becoming “physically ill” from worrying about it so much…
About 45% of millennials and 43% of Gen Z reported feeling guilty about their debt at least every month — more than other age groups. But debt is a major stressor across age groups. One-fifth of all respondents said their debt made them physically ill at least monthly, 45% said it made them anxious at least monthly, and 35% said they felt guilty once a month or more.
Overall, U.S. households are now over 13 trillion dollars in debt, and one of the primary reasons why we have accumulated so much debt is because most of us want to live lifestyles that we haven’t really earned.
We are also facing record levels of corporate debt, local government debt, state government debt and federal government debt. And when this debt bubble bursts, it will completely destroy our system.
We have entirely mortgaged our future for short-term gain, and we are so proud whenever the short-term economic numbers tick up a little bit.
But in the process we have completely destroyed the future for every generation of Americans that was supposed to come after us, and that is not something to smile about at all.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/23/2019 – 21:45 -
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