- Venezuela Tries To Pay Russian Debt With Cryptocurrency
Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,
If crisis-hit Venezuela was hoping to pay off its US$3.15-billion debt to Russia with its new cryptocurrency, those hopes have been shattered as the Russian Finance Ministry announces that it won’t be accepting digital coin.
Venezuela will not be paying any part of its debt to Russia with its cryptocurrency, the head of the Russian Finance Ministry’s state debt department, Konstantin Vyshkovsky, has said.
In November last year, Russia threw a life-line to Venezuela after the two countries signed a deal to restructure US$3.15 billion worth of Venezuelan debt owed to Moscow. Under the terms of the deal, Venezuela will be repaying the debt over the next ten years, of which the first six years include “minimal payments”.
The following month, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that his country would be issuing an oil-backed cryptocurrency, which it did, in February this year.
Maduro’s propaganda machine is touting the digital coin as a ‘ground-breaking’ first-ever national crypto currency, the El Petro–backed by 5 billion barrels of oil reserves in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt.
But most observers see this crypto issuance as a desperate attempt to skirt U.S. financial sanctions.
Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump banned U.S. purchases, transactions, and dealings of any digital coin or token issued for or by the government of Venezuela.
Last week, Time magazine reported that Russia secretly helped Venezuela in creating the Petro, with the purpose of undermining the power of U.S. sanctions, the magazine reported, citing sources familiar with the effort.
Russia slammed the Time report as “fake news”, with Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Artyom Kozhin, saying that Russia and Venezuela had never worked together on the development of the Venezuelan cryptocurrency.
Russia and China are the last holdouts that still finance Venezuela, which is digging deeper into the downward spiral of economic crisis, hyperinflation, and crumbling oil production. However, China is reportedly thinking of cutting off Venezuela from new loans. This would leave Russia as the only financial supporter of the Maduro regime, and if all it’s got is a crypto coin that no one really believes in to pay off debt, loans are likely to be plentiful.
- Strange Things Happen to European Countries Resisting George Soros" Assault
Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Strange things happen in East and Central Europe that get little mention from media outlets. Two heads of state, the PMs of Slovenia and Slovakia, resigned almost simultaneously.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was a victim of the scandal over the murder of Jan Kuciak, a journalist who was investigating government corruption. The PM had to step down amid mass street protests.
Mr. Fico was known for his support of a stronger Visegrad Group. He opposed Brussels on many issues. It’s worth noting that he called for lifting sanctions and improving relations with Moscow. The PM was adamant that Russia was a reliable energy partner. Is it a coincidence that he was forced to resign amid the anti-Russia campaign triggered by the Skripal case and other obviously concocted stories used as false pretexts for incessant attacks on Moscow? Wasn’t he a threat to the so-called unity of the EU against Russia? He definitely was.
The PM did not hide the fact that his decision was made under great pressure. The ouster was engineered by outside forces, including philanthropist billionaire George Soros. For instance, Slovak President Andrej Kiska had a private meeting with the billionaire in September, 2017. It was a one-on-one conversation. No Slovak diplomat was present there.
According to Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák, “George Soros is a man who has had a major influence on the development in Eastern and Central Europe and beyond. That is a fact that cannot be questioned.” PM Viktor Orbán had this say about the event: “George Soros and his network are making use of every possible opportunity to overthrow governments that are resisting immigration.”
Slovenian PM Miro Cerar was attacked by Soros for his opposition to the EU policy on immigration. George Soros did not hide the fact that he was an ardent opponent of Miro Cerar’s stance. “It is an obligation for Europe to receive migrants,” the US financier lectured Europeans. Now the PM has to go, after the results of a referendum on a key economic project were annulled by the top court and the media attacks on his stance regarding asylum seekers intensified. With Cerar no longer at the helm, the opposition movement to Brussels’s dictatorship has been weakened.
Who’s next?
Probably Hungary, which has become a target for Soros’s attacks. The American billionaire has invested more than $400 million into his native country since 1989. He has also announced his intention to influence the Hungarian election campaign and has employed 2,000 people for that purpose. The government wants its “Stop Soros” bills to become laws. No doubt Hungary will come under attack for opposing the financier’s network.
Brussels will raise a hue and cry, criticizing the “undemocratic regime” ruling the country. The next parliamentary elections in Hungary will be held on April 8, 2018. It’ll be a tough fight to preserve independence while fending off attempts to impose US pressure through Soros-backed NGOs and educational institutions.
Soros’s activities are also being resisted in the Czech Republic. Czech President Milos Zeman has accused the groups affiliated with Soros of meddling in his nation’s internal affairs. The financier is urging the EU to lean on Poland and compel it to “preserve the rule of law.”
Macedonia, is also resisting the billionaire-inspired subversive activities that have an eye toward regime change. The “Soros network” has great influence on the European Parliament and other institutions. The scandalous list of Soros’s allies includes 226 MEPs out of 751. Every third member — just think about that! If that isn’t corruption then what is? The lawmakers being swayed from abroad dance to Soros’s tune. They do what they are told, which includes whipping up anti-Russia hysteria.
Moscow has its own history of dealing with the Soros network. In 2015, George Soros’s Open Society Institute was kicked out of that country as an “undesirable organization” that was established to boost US influence.
It would be really naïve to think that Soros acts on his own. It’s an open secret that the US government flagrantly meddles in other countries’ internal affairs using the billionaire as a vehicle. Europe is an American competitor that needs to be weakened. USAID and the Soros network often team up in pursuit of common objectives. In March 2017, six US senators signed a letter asking the State Department to look into government funding of Soros-backed organizations. But those efforts went nowhere, Foggy Bottom is always on Soros’s side, whatever it is.
Many European countries are engaged in a fierce battle to protect their independence. The financier’s “empire” is chomping at the bit to conquer Europe by means of bribes and subversive NGOs. These countries and Russia are resisting the same threat. Perhaps that’s why the sanctions against Russia are so unpopular among many East European politicians.
- The Real Reason Why Stock Markets Will Continue To Crumble This Year
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Public sentiment on the economy is generally influenced by to two false indicators – the national unemployment rate and stock markets. This is not to say the average person tracks either of these numbers very vigorously; they don’t. What they do is hear these numbers on the morning news, the radio news on their way to work (if they are employed) or they hear them on the evening news just before bed. If the jobless rate is low and the Dow is high, then all is right with the world, at least financially.
When it comes to the economy, most people are lost.
The average American, in particular, is not as oblivious to the world of political and social discourse as they are on economics. Whether on the left or the right of the political spectrum, most citizens know that lines are being drawn and ideological battles are accelerating into realms of the extreme. Conservatives and the liberty activists that stand at the front line of the culture war understand quite well the threat of globalism and the “philosopher king” elitism of international financiers. They know that these criminals must eventually be dealt with if freedom and stability are to return to the world.
There is a rather common disinformation tactic used to manipulate people within conservative circles that has made a resurgence lately in the wake of the Trump election win. It is the idea that Americans within the “working class” aren’t interested in “high-minded” debates over philosophical conflicts, such as the conflicts between individualism versus collectivism and globalism. There is also the notion that “real” Americans could not care less about the elitist culprits behind the political theater of the false left/right paradigm.
This attitude is presented as a superior one. That is to say, disinformation agents play to people’s egos, suggesting that the working class should be focused on putting food on the table and money in their wallets and that the rest of this “intellectual nonsense” should be ignored as frivolous.
I have seen this working-class cultism before. When I lived in Pittsburgh for a time, there were many people who adopted the image of the steel mining working man, even though steel mining was almost non-existent in the region. People were extremely proud of the idea that they came from a tradition of industrial production, and technical and intellectual pursuits were predominantly ignored in the hopes of perpetuating the mining town mystic. The problem was, all of these folks were wage slaves now in the midst of Pittsburgh’s garbage economy. There were too many people scrambling for too few low wage jobs and production was a thing of the distant past.
And they were supposed to be proud of this?
The working class hero meme is nonsense. It is not a real thing; not anymore. It is something that appeals to many of us conservatives in particular, and it is a subject that politicians use to lure us with a pied piper song of reconstruction and reformation promises that they never intend to keep.
And, the idea that working Americans struggling to survive “do not care” about the bigger picture is a lie, perpetuated by disinformation peddlers trying to appeal to any misplaced sense of superiority. They want us all not only to remain ignorant, but to be prideful of that ignorance. They want us to look down our noses at anyone offering in-depth insight into why the world is becoming a harder place to live. In fact, they want us to revel in the struggle; to revel in self-flagellation and sing songs of how good we are at suffering and barely scraping by.
I mention this within an economic article because I do not see this disinformation tactic being successful, at least not yet. What I do see are millions upon millions of Americans who want answers, and many of them are well aware that the root of the problems they face today comes from globalism and globalists. All that is left is for them to understand the causes of the economic disasters they will soon face, so that they can prepare more effectively to counter them and change their own fates for the better.
The working man is smart enough to care about the bigger picture. So, with that in mind…
If you have not been tracking economic activity for the past several years then the frenetic movements of markets recently might have you a bit confused. I’ll summarize the “great stock market recovery” that many people have grown accustomed to in a single quote from former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:
“What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009.
It’s sort of what I call the ‘reverse Whimpy factor’ — give me two hamburgers today for one tomorrow.”
Fisher went on to hint at his very reserved view of the impending danger:
“I was warning my colleagues, Don’t go wobbly if we have a 10 to 20 percent correction at some point… Everybody you talk to… has been warning that these markets are heavily priced.” [In reference to interest rate hikes]
I want to break down the situation in the clearest terms possible so that there are no misconceptions here. The bottom line is this — the Federal Reserve through monetary stimulus packages and near zero interest rates engineered an artificial economic recovery from thin air. But, just as they print money from thin air, everything the central banks create has fleeting value and will eventually crumble.
The Fed not only pumped trillions of fiat dollars into banks and corporations, they also purchased over $4 trillion (officially) in various assets. These purchases coincided with interest rates so low that loans through the Fed were essentially free for corporate borrowers. But what did corporations do with these loans?
Well, they poured that cash into their OWN stocks, of course. They did this through something called “stock buybacks” which is basically a legal form of stock market manipulation. Companies purchase their own stocks and reduce the number of stocks circulating on the market, thereby elevating the value of the remaining stocks and pushing the Dow to new highs every year… until this year, that is.
The Fed’s control of stock market prices is made perfectly clear in this chart, which shows the S&P 500 rising in exact tandem with the Fed’s balance sheet purchases:
As I continually warned before the Fed pushed forward with balance sheet reductions, if stocks rallied in close relation to the rising balance sheet, then it only follows that stocks will crash as the balance sheet falls. It appears as though this is exactly what is now happening.
You see, there is a problem with this model of economic alchemy. It only lasts so long as the central banks perpetually increase the ability of nations and corporations to take on debt. Ultimately, even central banks do not have the power to facilitate debt forever. They have limitations. That said, they never intended to continue with this farce anyway.
Giving the Federal Reserve the power to dictate the terms of the economic ‘recovery’ also gave them the power to dictate the terms of an economic collapse. And now with Donald Trump in office, an economic collapse can be achieved without the central bankers even getting any blame.
Donald Trump’s trade war activities set in motion by numerous tariffs have now provided a convenient cover for the banking elites. I do not believe it is a coincidence that Trump announces new trade measures (or fires an economic adviser) every time the Federal Reserve raises interest rates and cuts its balance sheet.
I also do not believe it is a coincidence that the Dow suffers a 1,200 to 1,500 point loss every time the Fed dumps more assets from its balance sheet. Recognize that the mainstream media barely mentions the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes and balance sheet cuts as being the cause of the renewed instability in stock markets. They blame Trump’s trade war rhetoric as the cause.
Again, I want to make this clear — Trump’s tariffs have little or nothing to do with the falling stock market. What Trump’s tariff theater does do is act as a smokescreen to hide the Fed’s culpability in the crash to come.
I warned of this distraction dynamic in January of this year in my article ‘Party While You Can – Central Bank Ready To Pop The ‘Everything’ Bubble‘.
It is not just the Fed that is pulling the plug on stock market support. Central banks around the globe are tightening policy, raising interest rates and halting purchases of new assets. It is important to remember that the fiscal bull run that the central banks conjured up since the crash of 2008 cannot continue unless the central banks continue to expand debt through purchases and easy credit. They are now doing the reverse.
And if you think the central bankers are somehow ignorant of what they are triggering here, then I suggest you read the new Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s thoughts in 2012 on the matter. He states unequivocally what will happen if the fed raises interest rates and dumps the balance sheet.
Powell made these comments in 2012, yet in 2018 he is implementing the exact measures he warned about. The Fed is perfectly aware that it engineered a recovery and now it is perfectly aware that it is engineering a calamity, and Powell is as big a part of the banking cabal as Yellen or Bernanke ever were.
A pattern appears to have developed in the past few months in terms of the ongoing decline in stocks. Every time the Fed cuts the balance sheet or raises interest rates stocks plunge by around 1,200-1,500 points within a few days. Then, there is a smaller rebound about a week later, which then fizzles out going into the next month as stocks return to a slower grinding downward trajectory. Then the cycle starts all over again.
New monthly highs are being replaced with new monthly lows as stocks are being steam valved down with each fresh balance sheet cut.
While stocks in the grand scheme of things are generally irrelevant, they still represent a psychological marker for the public. As go stocks, so goes the economic sentiment of the masses. It is an unfortunate thing, but also a true thing.
I expect that as the balance sheet cuts increase in size, it will become more difficult for stock markets to produce meaningful rebounds. Which means the bankers will need even greater distractions from the Trump administration and other political assets to hide the true source of the economic breakdown. A trade war alone will probably not be enough. Some regional wars are likely in the making. As these events unfold, it is vital that as many people as possible are made aware of the real reason and the real criminals behind them. A time of reckoning is required, and a reckoning requires accountability.
The banking elites hope to cause so much confusion and catastrophe that the masses will forget who was truly behind it all. We might not be able to stop the greater crash from taking place, but we can prepare accordingly, and we can educate others so that we can stop the culprits from fading back into the fog.
- Wall Street Bonus Back To Record Highs, Dramatically Outpace Household Income
Bonuses on Wall Street are up sharply!
Profits in the securities industry rose in 2017 for the second consecutive year, with Statista’s Dyfed Loesche pointing out that the average bonus paid to industry employees in New York City jumped 17 percent to reach $184,220, according to the comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
He comes to the conclusion that tighter regulation of the financial markets since the crisis hasn’t stood in the way of trading, as New York Stock Exchange member firms’ profits totaled $24.5 billion in 2017, the highest level since 2010.
Compared to the average U.S. household income this is quite some money, keeping in mind these are payments on top of the regular pay.
You will find more infographics at Statista
In 2016, the average Wall Street bonus stood at close to $158,000 dollars and thus three times as high as the median household income of a little more than $59,000. (The U.S. Census Bureau has not yet released official household figures for 2017). The average number of people living in an American household stands at 2.5.
- 3 Recent Events That Could Send The US Hurtling Toward World War III
Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,
Recently, the news has been all abuzz with teen activists who want to take away our guns but refuse to use clear backpacks, the Facebook privacy scandal, and how someone bit Beyonce in the face. But there are three recent events that aren’t getting much press which tell us it is entirely possible that we could be headed toward World War III at worst and toward an economic collapse at best.
During the election, it really seemed as though Hillary Clinton as president would be a much more likely path to World War III. She even gloated of the actions she planned to take that would have led directly and immediately to war. Donald Trump as president seemed less likely to get us into a war with Russia, but it appears the tides may have turned back in that direction.
#1) The Trade Tariffs
We’re already at financial war with China due to punitive trade tariffs that our governments are instituting on one another. President Trump wants to rebalance global trade in America’s favor, and China isn’t going to go down without a fight. Here’s more information on the list of tariffs the US wants to charge for Chinese merchandise and the retaliatory list from China.
The last time we were involved in a major trade war, the Great Depression happened, according to an economics expert for CNN.
America’s last trade war exacerbated the Great Depression in the 1930s, when unemployment rose to 25%. Claiming it was protecting American jobs, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Act in 1930. The original bill was meant to protect farmers. But to build political support, many lawmakers asked for tariffs — or taxes — on all sorts of goods in exchange for their vote.
Several nations, such as Canada, slapped steep tariffs — or taxes — on US goods shipped and sold abroad. For example, US exports of eggs to Canada fell to 7,900 in 1932 from 919,000 in 1929, according to Doug Irwin, a Dartmouth professor and former trade adviser to President Reagan.
The result: US imports fell 40% in the two years after Smoot-Hawley. Banks shuttered. Unemployment shot up. Surely, there were a litany of factors at play. But economists widely agree Smoot-Hawley made the Great Depression much worse than otherwise. (source)
And what happened at the end of the Great Depression? World War II happened, and this ended the unemployment and resulted in a spending frenzy that pumped up the economy. There’s always an increase in the GDP during wartime due to defense spending. But that is one hell of a bad way to fix the economy, don’t you think?
#2) The PetroYuan
As of Monday, March 27th, the US has lost petrodollar status. The petrodollar now has competition in the form of the petroyuan. What this means is that previously, the only way anyone in the world could buy oil was to use US dollars to do so. This kept the value of our currency high. But now, Russia and China are buying oil using the yuan. Others may soon follow because the United States has ticked off a majority of the planet in the past century.
What does this mean for Americans? Inflation. Major inflation. If our dollar is worth less on the global scale, it means that anything we import is going to cost more. If you want the super-detailed economic explanation, this article and video will provide the in-depth info you want on the history and potential collapse of the petrodollar.
Many articles have been written about the possibility that the United States will go to war to protect the petrodollar status. This one is a good read. For a quick explanation, watch this video.
#3) Kicking Out the Russian Diplomats
We also kicked 60 Russian Diplomats out of the United States because Russia was accused of poisoning their own spy on British soil.
Trump took the action after the US joined the United Kingdom in accusing Russia of attempting earlier this month to murder a former Russian double agent and his daughter using a nerve agent in the town of Salisbury, England. The action comes just 11 days after the Trump administration leveled the first sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
“The United States takes this action in conjunction with our NATO allies and partners around the world in response to Russia’s use of a military-grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom, the latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. (source)
Russia, the world’s favorite scapegoat recently, denies responsibility for the poisoning.
“It’s complete drivel, rubbish, nonsense that somebody in Russia would allow themselves to do such a thing ahead of elections and the World Cup,” Putin told supporters after winning a fourth term as president.
“We have destroyed all chemical weapons,” he added, rejecting Britain’s claim that only Moscow could be behind the nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. (source)
As for the dozens of Russian diplomats expelled from countries around the world, Russia has promised a response.
RIA Novosti reports an unnamed foreign ministry official protested the decision by EU, NATO nations to expel envoys, and confirmed that Russia will respond to each country expelling diplomats, warning that the “expulsions won’t go unanswered.”
“Unfriendly” action won’t be left unanswered.
U.K.’s allies are “blindly following” principle of Euro-Atlantic unity at the expense of common sense.
Additionally, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said that, with regard to the US response, “US only understand force.“
“I mentioned in my statement in the State Department that I consider these actions counterproductive,” Antonov said.
“I said that the United States took a very bad step by cutting what very little still remains in terms of Russian-American relations.” (source)
Whether Russia was responsible for the poisoning of their former agent or not, this incident and the response could lead to…you guessed it…war.
President Trump Seems to be Building a War Cabinet
If Russia and China decide to team up, it’s a safe bet they won’t just be making passive aggressive comments about the US. We can look for a brutal and decisive attack. Whether the United States strikes first or gets hit first would be the only thing in question.
Whatever the case, it looks like the White House is expecting war.
There was more upheaval in Washington DC last week when President Trump replaced his National Security Advisor. Many people were shocked when Trump booted H.R. McMaster and replaced him with an avid Warhawk, John Bolton.
“I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/19.”
“The two have been discussing this for some time. The timeline was expedited as they both felt it was important to have the new team in place, instead of constant speculation,” a White House official said. “This was not related to any one moment or incident, rather it was the result of ongoing conversations between the two.” (source)
John Bolton ranks up there on my List of Really Bad Choices along with Jeff Sessions and Mike Pompeo. Bolton served as a U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush. He has openly been a supporter of aggressive military actions for decades. With former head of the CIA Mike Pompeo, these two are bound to lead us into a bloody and brutal war with…well, just about everyone.
It is no coincidence that next in line for Donald Trump’s secretary of state position is Pompeo himself. Together, Bolton and Pompeo will be able to advise Trump on anti-North Korean and anti-Iranian platforms so hawkish there is no telling what’s to come (though we have a fairly decent idea).
As some of you may know, John Bolton’s hawkishness has already led to some of the most despicable foreign policy agendas of our generation. (source)
Just to give you an idea of Bolton’s thought processes, check out his 2015 op-ed for the New York Times, titled, “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran” which was followed by a recent op-ed for the Wall Street Journal called, “The Legal Case For Striking North Korea First.” Learn more about the world according to John Bolton in this article, littered with horrifying quotes right from the horse’s mouth.
So, while it seemed as though we were moving forward when Kim Jong Un agreed to talks with President Trump about giving up his nukes, we’ve just moved 10 steps back with this new “war cabinet.” And that’s exactly what Pat Buchanan, advisor to three presidents and syndicated columnist has called it.
President Donald Trump seems to be creating a war cabinet.
Trump himself has pledged to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal — “the worst deal ever” — and reimpose sanctions in May.
His new national security adviser John Bolton, who wrote an op-ed titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran,” has called for preemptive strikes and “regime change.”
Secretary of State-designate Mike Pompeo calls Iran “a thuggish police state,” a “despotic theocracy,” and “the vanguard of a pernicious empire that is expanding its power and influence across the Middle East.”
Trump’s favorite Arab ruler, 32-year-old Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, calls Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei “the Hitler of the Middle East.”
Bibi Netanyahu is monomaniacal on Iran, calling the nuclear deal a threat to Israel’s survival and Iran “the greatest threat to our world.”
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley echoes them all. (source)
Do you want a war? Because this is how you get a war.
Are you nervous yet?
Are we on the cusp of World War III? This has been a question I’ve asked numerous times recently for numerous reasons, but it sure seems like all the game pieces are being moved into place on the chessboard.
- We have a cabinet staffed with warmongers.
- We have a trade war with China.
- We ticked off Russia more than once.
- We’ve lost petrodollar status.
In the past, America has “resolved” its economic problems by going to war. Will this time be any different?
- Susan Rice, Former Obama National Security Advisor Joins Netflix Board Of Directors
Former National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice has been appointed to Netflix’s board of directors – a move which comes as her former boss, President Obama, is reportedly in “advanced negotiations” with the network to create a series of streaming shows.
As a reminder, Rice both knowingly lied about the cause Benghazi on national television and “unmasked” senior Trump officials as part of a larger government surveillance program during the 2016 election.
Netflix made the announcement on Wednesday, with co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings praising Rice’s intelligence work for the Obama administration.
“We are delighted to welcome Ambassador Rice to the Netflix board,” said Hastings. “For decades, she has tackled difficult, complex global issues with intelligence, integrity and insight and we look forward to benefiting from her experience and wisdom.”
Rice responded; “I am thrilled to be joining the board of directors of Netflix, a cutting-edge company whose leadership, high-quality productions, and unique culture I deeply admire.”
Many are wondering just what Rice and Obama are up to…
Rice’s former boss may be joining her at Netflix, as the New York Times first reported earlier this month the 56-year-old was in talks for a deal that would pay him and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, for Netflix-only “exclusive content” that would be available to subscribers of the digital streaming service.
Netflix has about 118 million subscribers globally. It was not immediately clear how many shows or episodes would be ordered or how much the Obamas would be paid.
The streaming service recently tried a talk show featuring anti-Trump comedian Chelsea Handler called “Chelsea” that lasted two seasons before getting canceled. –Fox News
The announcement resulted in a backlash among conservatives.
Judicial Watch founder Tom Fitton said on Twitter Wednesday “.@Netflix doubles down in support of Obama corruption — compromised Susan Rice, who lied repeatedly on both Benghazi and the unmasking issue joins its Board of Directors.”
.@Netflix doubles down in support of Obama corruption — compromised Susan Rice, who lied repeatedly on both Benghazi and the unmasking issue joins its Board of Directors. https://t.co/o727LHKGmT
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) March 28, 2018
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Susan Rice appointed to Netflix Board of Directors. Rice is also co-chair w/Ben Rhodes & many people who worked for the Obama Admin, of National Security Action which is dedicated to target President Trump while claiming to advance Global leadership. https://t.co/sv3lW8BoQo pic.twitter.com/ou0UsvOp6W
— ᏢᏒᎥsᏟᎥᏞᏞᎪ’s ᏉᎥᎬᎳ (@passionchica) March 28, 2018
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A spy joins the Netflix board. Susan Rice is tyranny–rewarded. pic.twitter.com/kjnk0OQVl1
— thebradfordfile (@thebradfordfile) March 28, 2018
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Comey leaked and got a book deal and CNN town hall
Clapper and Brennan leaked and got MSM contracts
Rice unmaked Flynn and got on the board of Netflix
Really makes you think
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 28, 2018
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Meanwhile, Obama’s former head of the Small Business Association, Maria Contreras-Sweet, closed on a deal in early March with a group of investors to acquire the Weinstein Company assets.
It’s as if the previous administration and their tentacles are very interested in the media – aside from Hillary Clinton, who’s just trying to get by without slip-sliding down an unassuming flight of stairs.
- The Mind-Benders: How To Harvest Facebook Data, Brainwash Voters, And Swing Elections
Authored by Roberto Gonzalez via Counterpunch.org,
In the days and weeks following the 2016 presidential elections, reports surfaced about how a small British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, might have played a pivotal role in Donald Trump’s surprise victory. The company claimed to have formulated algorithms to influence American voters using individually targeted political advertisements. It reportedly generated personality profiles of millions of individual citizens by collecting up to 5000 data points on each person. Then Cambridge Analytica used these “psychographic” tools to send voters carefully crafted online messages about candidates or hot-button political issues.
Although political consultants have long used “microtargeting” techniques for zeroing in on particular ethnic, religious, age, or income groups, Cambridge Analytica’s approach is unusual: The company relies upon individuals’ personal data that is harvested from social media apps like Facebook. In the US, such activities are entirely legal. Some described Cambridge Analytica’s tools as “mind-reading software” and a “weaponized AI [artificial intelligence] propaganda machine.” However, corporate media outlets such as CNN and the Wall Street Journal often portrayed the company in glowing terms.
Cambridge Analytica is once again in the headlines–but under somewhat different circumstances. Late last week, whistleblower Christopher Wylie went public, explaining how he played an instrumental role in collecting millions of Facebook profiles for Cambridge Analytica. This revelation is significant because until investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr published her exposé in The Guardian, Cambridge Analytica’s then-CEO Alexander Nix had adamantly denied using Facebook data. And although Facebook officials knew that Cambridge Analytica had previously gathered data on millions of users, they did not prohibit the company from advertising until last Friday, as the scandal erupted. To make matters worse, the UK’s Channel 4 released undercover footage early this week in which Cambridge Analytica executives boast about using dirty tricks–bribes, entrapment, and “beautiful girls” to mention a few.
The case of Cambridge Analytica brings into focus a brave new world of electoral politics in an algorithmic age–an era in which social media companies like Facebook and Twitter make money by selling ads, but also by selling users’ data outright to third parties. Relatively few countries have laws that prevent such practices–and it turns out that the US does not have a comprehensive federal statute protecting individuals’ data privacy.
This story is significant not only because it demonstrates what can happen when an unorthodox company takes advantage of a lax regulatory environment, but also because it reveals how Internet companies like Facebook have played fast and loose with the personal data of literally billions of users.
From Public Relations to Psychological Warfare
In order to make sense of Cambridge Analytica it is helpful to understand its parent company, SCL Group, which was originally created as the PR firm Strategic Communications Laboratory. It was founded in the early 1990s by Nigel Oakes, a flamboyant UK businessman. By the late 1990s, the company was engaged almost exclusively in political projects. For example, SCL was hired to help burnish the image of Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid–but Oakes and SCL employees had to shut down their operations center when SCL’s cover was blown by the Wall Street Journal .
In July 2005, SCL underwent a dramatic transformation. It very publicly rebranded itself as a psychological warfare company by taking part in the UK’s largest military trade show. SCL’s exhibit included a mock operations center featuring dramatic crisis scenarios–a smallpox outbreak in London, a bloody insurgency in a fictitious South Asian country–which were then resolved with the help of the company’s psyops techniques. Oakes told a reporter: “We used to be in the business of mindbending for political purposes, but now we are in the business of saving lives.” The company’s efforts paid off. Over the next ten years, SCL won contracts with the US Defense Department’s Combatant Commands, NATO, and Sandia National Labs.
Over the past few years SCL–now known as SCL Group–has transformed itself yet again. It no longer defines itself as a psyops specialist, nor as a political consultancy–now, it calls itself a data analytics company specializing in “behavioral change” programs.
Along the way it created Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary firm which differs from SCL Group in that it focuses primarily on political campaigns. Its largest investors include billionaire Robert Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who is best known for his advocacy of far-right political causes and his financial support of Breitbart News. Steve Bannon briefly sat on Cambridge Analytica’s board of directors.
Cambridge Analytica first received significant media attention in November 2015, shortly after the firm was hired by Republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz’s campaign. Although Cruz ultimately failed, Cambridge Analytica’s CEO, Alexander Nix, claimed that Cruz’s popularity grew largely due to the company’s skillful use of aggregated voter data and personality profiling methods. In August 2016, the Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica as part of a desperate effort to challenge Hillary Clinton’s formidable campaign machine. Just a few months later, reports revealed that Cambridge Analytica had also played a role in the UK’s successful pro-Brexit “Leave.EU” campaign.
Hacking the Citizenry
Cambridge Analytica relies upon “psychographic” techniques that measure the Big Five personality traits borrowed from social psychology: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
In the US, Cambridge Analytica developed psychological profiles of millions of Americans by hiring a company called Global Science Research (GSR) to plant free personality quizzes. Users were lured by the prospect of obtaining free personality scores, while Cambridge Analytica collected data–and access to users’ Facebook profiles. Last week, The Guardian reported that Cambridge Analytica collected data from more than 300,000 Facebook users in this way. By agreeing to the terms and conditions of the app, those users also agreed to grant GSR (and by extension, Cambridge Analytica) access to the profiles of their Facebook “friends”–totalling approximately 50 million people.
Psychographics uses algorithms to scour voters’ Facebook “likes,” retweets and other social media data which are aggregated with commercially available information: land registries, automotive data, shopping preferences, club memberships, magazine subscriptions, and religious affiliation. When combined with public records, electoral rolls, and additional information purchased from data brokers such as Acxiom and Experian, Cambridge Analytica has raw material for shaping personality profiles. Digital footprints can be transformed into real people. This is the essence of psychographics: Using software algorithms to scour individual voters’ Facebook “likes,” retweets and other bits of data gleaned from social media and then combine them with commercially available personal information. Data mining is relatively easy in the US, since it has relatively weak privacy laws compared to South Korea, Singapore, and many EU countries.
In a 2016 presentation, Nix described how such information might be used to influence voter opinions on gun ownership and gun rights. Individual people can be addressed differently according to their personality profiles: “For a highly neurotic and conscientious audinece, the threat of a burglary–and the insurance policy of a gun. . .Conversely, for a closed and agreeable audience: people who care about tradition, and habits, and family.”
Despite the ominous sounding nature of psychographics, it is not at all clear that Cambridge Analytica played a decisive role in the 2016 US presidential election. Some charge that the company and its former CEO Alexander Nix, exaggerated Cambridge Analytica’s effect on the election’s outcome. In February 2017, investigative journalist Kendall Taggart wrote an exposé claiming that more than a dozen former employees of Cambridge Analytica, Trump campaign staffers, and executives at Republican consulting firms denied that psychographics was used at all by the Trump campaign. Taggart concluded: “Rather than a sinister breakthrough in political technology, the Cambridge Analytica story appears to be part of the traditional contest among consultants on a winning political campaign to get their share of the credit–and win future clients.” Not a single critic was willing to be identified in the report, apparently fearing retaliation from Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, who is also an investor in the firm.
Not-So-Innocents Abroad
By no means has Cambridge Analytica limited its work to the US. In fact, it has conducted “influence operations” in several countries around the world.
For example, Cambridge Analytica played a major role in last year’s presidential elections in Kenya, which pitted incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta of the right-wing Jubilee Party against Raila Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement. The Jubilee Party hired Cambridge Analytica in May 2017. Although the company claims to have limited its activities to data collection, earlier this week Mark Turnbull, a managing director for Cambridge Analytica, told undercover reporters a different story. He admitted that the firm secretly managed Kenyatta’s entire campaign: “We have rebranded the party twice, written the manifesto, done research, analysis, messaging. I think we wrote all the speeches and we staged the whole thing–so just about every element of this candidate,” said Turnbull.
Given the most recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica’s planting of fake news stories, it seems likely that the company created persuasive personalized ads based on Kenyans’ social media data. Fake Whatsapp and Twitter posts exploded days before the Kenyan elections. It is worth remembering that SCL Group has employed disinformation campaigns for military clients for 25 years, and it seems that Cambridge Analytica has continued this pattern of deception.
The August elections were fraught with accusations of vote tampering, the inclusion of dead people as registered voters, and the murder of Chris Msando, the election commission’s technology manager, days before the election. When the dust settled, up to 67 people died in post-election violence–and Kenyatta ultimately emerged victorious. Weeks later, the Kenyan Supreme Court annulled the elections, but when new elections were scheduled for October, Odinga declared that he would boycott.
Given Kenya’s recent history of electoral fraud, it is unlikely that Cambridge had much impact on the results. Anthropologist Paul Goldsmith, who has lived in Kenya for 40 years, notes that elections still tend to follow the principle of “who counts the votes,” not “who influences the voters.”
But the significance of Cambridge Analytica’s efforts extends beyond their contribution to electoral outcomes. Kenya is no technological backwater. The world’s first mobile money service was launched there in 2007, allowing users to transfer cash and make payments by phone. Homegrown tech firms are creating a “Silicon Savannah” near Nairobi. Two-thirds of Kenya’s 48 million people have Internet access. Ten million use Whatsapp; six million use Facebook; two million use Twitter. As Kenyans spend more time in the virtual world, their personal data will become even more widely available since Kenya has no data protection laws.
Goldsmith summarizes the situation nicely:
Cambridge Analytica doesn’t need to deliver votes so much as to create the perception that they can produce results. . .Kenya provides an ideal entry point into [Africa]. . .Embedding themselves with ruling elites presents a pivot for exploiting emergent commercial opportunities. . .with an eye on the region’s resources and its growing numbers of persuadable youth.
Recent reports reveal that Cambridge Analytica has ongoing operations in Mexico and Brazil (which have general elections scheduled this July and October, respectively). India (which has general elections in about a year) has also been courted by the company, and it is easy to understand why: the country has 400 million smartphone users with more than 250 million on either Facebook or Whatsapp. India’s elections are also a potential gold mine. More than half a billion people vote in parliamentary elections, and the expenditures are astonishing: Political parties spent $5 billion in 2014, compared to $6.5 billion in last year’s US elections. India also has a massive mandatory ID program based on biometric and demographic data, the largest of its kind in the world.
Cambridge Analytica’s global strategy appears focused on expanding its market share in promising markets. Although many people might describe Kenya, Mexico, Brazil, and India as developing countries, each in fact has a rapidly growing high-tech infrastructure, relatively high levels of Internet penetration, and large numbers of social media users. They all have weak or nonexistent Internet privacy laws. Though nominally democratic, each country is politically volatile and has experienced episodic outbursts of extreme political, sectarian, or criminal violence. Finally, these countries have relatively young populations, reflecting perhaps a long-term strategy to normalize a form of political communication that will reap long-term benefits in politically sensitive regions.
The capacity for saturating global voters with charged political messages is growing across much of the world, since the cost of buying Facebook ads, Twitterbots and trolls, bots for Whatsapp and other apps is cheap – and since more people than ever are spending time on social media. Such systems can be managed efficiently by remote control. Unlike the CIA’s psyops efforts in the mid-20th century, which required extensive on-the-ground efforts–dropping leaflets from airplanes, bribing local journalists, broadcasting propaganda on megaphones mounted on cars–the new techniques can be deployed from a distance, with minimal cost. Cambridge Analytica relies upon small ground teams to do business with political parties, and partnerships with local business intelligence firms to scope out the competition or provide marketing advice, but most of the work is done from London and New York.
Weaponizing Big Data?
From its beginnings, Cambridge Analytica has declared itself to be a “data-driven” group of analytics experts practicing an improved form of political microtargeting, but there are indications that the firm has broader ambitions.
In March 2017, reports emerged that top executives from SCL Group met with Pentagon officials, including Hriar Cabayan, head of a branch which conducts DoD research and cultural analysis. A decade ago, Cabayan played an instrumental role in launching the precursor to the Human Terrain System, a US Army counterinsurgency effort which embedded anthropologists and other social scientists with US combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A few months later, in August 2017, the Associated Press reported that retired US Army General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as National Security Director in the Trump administration, had signed a work agreement with Cambridge Analytica in late 2016, though it is unclear whether he actually did any work for the firm. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian operatives in late 2017, when he was working with Trump’s transition team. Given his spot in the media limelight, it is easy to forget that he once headed US intelligence operations in Afghanistan, advocating for a big data approach to counterinsurgency that would, among other things, include data collected by Human Terrain Teams.
The connections between Cambridge Analytica/SCL Group and the Pentagon’s champions of data-driven counterinsurgency and cyberwarfare may be entirely coincidental, but they do raise several questions: As Cambridge Analytica embarks on its global ventures, is it undertaking projects that are in fact more sinister than its benign-sounding mission of “behavioral change”? And are the company’s recent projects in Kenya, India, Mexico, and Brazil simply examples of global market expansion, or are these countries serving as laboratories to test new methods of propaganda dissemination and political polarization for eventual deployment here at home?
Here the lines between military and civilian applications become blurred, not only because ARPANET–the Internet’s immediate precursor–was developed by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, but also because the technology can be used for surveillance on a scale that authoritarian regimes of the 20th century could only have dreamed about. As Yasha Levine convincingly argues in his book Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet, the Internet was originally conceived as a counterinsurgency surveillance program.
Neutralizing Facebook’s Surveillance Machine
It appears that many people are finally taking note of the digital elephant in the room: Facebook’s role in enabling Cambridge Analytica and other propagandists, publicists, and mind-benders to carry out their work–legally and discreetly. As recently noted by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai in the online journal Motherboard, Cambridge Analytica’s data harvesting practices weren’t security breaches, they were “par for the course. . .It was a feature, not a bug. Facebook still collects—and then sells—massive amounts of data on its users.” In other words, every Facebook post or tweet, every g-mail message sent or received, renders citizens vulnerable to forms of digital data collection that can be bought and sold to the highest bidder. The information can be used for all kinds of purposes in an unregulated market: monitoring users’ emotional states, manipulating their attitiudes, or disseminating tailor-made propaganda designed to polarize people.
It is telling that Facebook stubbornly refuses to call Cambridge Analytica’s actions a “data breach.” As Zeynep Tufekci, author of the book Twitter And Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest puts it, the company’s defensive posture reveals much about the social costs of social media. She recently wrote:
“If your business is building a massive surveillance machinery, the data will eventually be used and misused. Hacked, breached, leaked, pilfered, conned, targeted, engaged, profiled, sold. There is no informed consent because it’s not possible to reasonably inform or consent.”
Cambridge Analytica is significant to the extent that it illuminates new technological controlling processes under construction. In a supercharged media environment in which Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) have become the primary means by which literally billions of people consume news, mass producing propaganda has never been easier. With so many people posting so much information about the intimate details of their lives on the Web, coordinated attempts at mass persuasion will almost certainly become more widespread in the future.
In the meantime, there are concrete measures that we can take to rein in Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, and other technology giants. Some of the most lucid suggestions have been articulated by Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist and early Facebook investor. He recommends a multi-pronged approach: demanding that the social media companies’ CEOs testify before congressional and parliamentary committees in open sessions; imposing strict regulations on how Internet platforms are used and commercialized; requiring social media companies to report who is sponsoring political and issues-based advertisements; mandating transparency about algorithms (“users deserve to know why they see what they see in their news feeds and search results,” says McNamee); requiring social media apps to offer an “opt out” to users; banning digital “bots” that impersonate humans; and creating rules that allow consumers (not corporations) to own their own data.
In a world of diminishing privacy, our vulnerabilities are easily magnified. Experimental psychologists specializing in what they euphemistically call “behavior design” have largely ignored ethics and morality in order to help Silicon Valley companies create digital devices, apps, and other technologies that are literally irresistible to their users. As the fallout from Cambridge Analytica’s activities descends upon the American political landscape, we should take advantage of the opportunity to impose meaningful controls on Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other firms that have run roughshod over democratic norms–and notions of individual privacy–in the relentless pursuit of profit.
- China Cracks Down On Jaywalkers With AI, Facial Recognition, & Automated Fines
As we pointed out earlier this week, China’s lack of data protection laws and its determination to overtake the US as the world-leader in AI technology poses a serious threat to US technological hegemony. As Russian President Vladimir Putin once said, whoever dominates the AI race could one day rule the world.
Well, another advantage that China has in its AI push is its reputation for strict surveillance and law enforcement – which provides for plenty of use-cases where China can test its nascent technology. Case in point: Police in Shenzen are using AI and facial recognition software to install “smart” traffic cameras that can identify and fine Chinese citizens who jaywalk – a crime that is the subject of strict enforcement in China, per the South China Morning Post.
Intellifusion, a Shenzhen-based AI firm that provides the technology is now in talks with local mobile phone carriers and social media platforms such as WeChat and Sina Weibo to develop a system where offenders will receive personal text messages shortly after a violation has occurred, according to Wang Jun, the company’s director of marketing solutions.
“Jaywalking has always been an issue in China and can hardly be resolved just by imposing fines or taking photos of the offenders. But a combination of technology and psychology … can greatly reduce instances of jaywalking and will prevent repeat offences,” Wang said.
Shenzhen traffic police began displaying photos of jaywalkers on large LED screens at major intersections starting in April 2017. Meanwhile, police stationed at the Zhengzhou East high-speed rail station in Henan province have been equipped with smart glasses with facial recognition software that can identify wanted criminals.
For the current system installed in Shenzhen, Intellifusion installed cameras with 7 million pixels of resolution to capture photos of pedestrians crossing the road against traffic lights. Facial recognition technology identifies the individual from a database and displays a photo of the jaywalking offence, the family name of the offender and part of their government identification number on large LED screens above the pavement.
Nearly 14,000 jaywalkers have been cited since Of course, Shenzen isn’t even the most advanced Chinese city in terms of its use of AI for law-enforcement purposes. In Beijing, police are using the world’s first surround-body camera with built in facial recognition technology to hold scofflaws accountable.
In what appears to be an effort to shame lawbreakers, police launched a webpage in March displaying photos, names and partial ID numbers of jaywalkers.
Police say these measures have reduced the number of repeat offenders. Informing violators via text message would help the city save on construction of large LED screens, which have been used elsewhere in China for shaming purposes.
However, there’s one notable caveat. Shenzhen has one of the most transient populations in China. As a result, many people do not have their information registered in the database of the traffic police, even though anyone staying in the city for more than 30 days is required to do so. That means authorities can only currently identify about 10% of the population.
Ultimately, these surveillance methods will be used to build out China’s system of “social credit” – the Communist Party’s plan to assign a “score” to every Chinese citizen – as authorities aim for “behavior modification on a massive scale.”
For the average Chinese citizen, this system closely resembles the nightmarish totalitarian dystopia described by George Orwell in his classic novel “1984”.
When a woman walked to work this month in the bustling Southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen, she, like many millions of other Chinese, jaywalked, cutting across a side street to avoid a detour of hundreds of yards to a crosswalk. What happened next, as documented by the woman, a writer calling herself Mao Yan, was an illustration of a brave new world being born in China.
Two traffic policemen approached the woman and told her that she had violated the traffic regulations of the People’s Republic of China. Eager to get to her job, Mao Yan apologized and pointed out that there was no fencing to block jaywalkers like her. She hoped to get off with a verbal warning. The officers, however, were intent on prosecution. They demanded her identity card, which is issued to all Chinese citizens. When Mao Yan said that she had not brought hers, they asked for her ID number. When she said she had not memorized it, one officer snapped her picture with a camera phone. Seconds later he read out her name, her ID card number and date of birth. Using facial recognition technology, he had identified Mao Yan.
Yan said she was taken aback by the experience. Later, WaPo noted that these surveillance technologies are being used in Western provinces to crack down on separatist movements.
“It’s intimidation to make everyone afraid,” she said in a social media post she published after her encounter.
The post was swiftly taken down by China’s censors.
- Race, Gender & Income: Who Works in the Jobs with the Most Contamination Exposure?
Submitted by Priceonomics
Which occupations expose workers to the most contaminants? How often are American workers exposed to these contaminants, who are these workers, and how much are they paid? We decided to attempt to answer these questions by exploring the data.
We analyzed this data along with Priceonomics customer, Ode, a company that creates environmentally-conscious cleaning products. Using resources from the Occupational Information Network and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we were able to investigate the relationship between different job categories, demographics, and levels of contamination.
We found that automotive service technicians have the most contaminant-heavy job in America: they are exposed to pollutants, dust, gases or odors on a daily basis. HVAC and refrigeration technicians, truck drivers and tractor operators experience similar levels of contamination. Workers who are exposed to contaminants more than once a week make nearly one-third less than those who are exposed less than once a month.
Of the occupations with the highest level of contaminant exposure—more than once a week—farmworkers make the least, and dental hygienists make the most. Men are disproportionately exposed to high levels of contamination, as are people identifying as Hispanic. Salaries for jobs with very frequent contaminant exposure run the gamut, with the most highly paid workers making more than three times as much as the lowest-paid.
***
The data provided by the Occupational Information Network (O*Net) uses a scale from 0 to 100: employees in occupations with level 0 are never exposed to contaminants, while those in occupations with level 100 are exposed every day. The following chart shows the twenty occupations that expose employees to the highest levels of contamination:
Original source: Ode. Chart created with Onomics.
Many of the most contaminant-heavy occupations involve cars or trucks, while others involve heavy machinery. It’s particularly interesting that dental hygienists (the tenth-most-exposed to contamination) also happen to be the highest paid of all occupations very frequently exposed to contaminants, as we’ll see further down.
How much are these workers paid? And are workers paid differently across different levels of contaminant exposure? The chart below shows average wages across occupations for four different frequencies of contaminant exposure:
Average salaries decrease substantially as contaminant exposure gets more frequent. The average wage for occupations that are only rarely exposed to contaminants exceeds the average wage for those that are very frequently exposed by about 25%. Each progressively higher contamination bucket works out to a drop of about $10,000 in annual wages.
Let’s look up close at the data– in particular, let’s look at the “Very Frequent” contamination bucket, in which workers are exposed to contaminants at least once a week. The chart below lists the ten best-paying occupations at the highest contamination level:
Dental hygienists, who are among the employees most often exposed to contaminants, are also among the most highly paid. Though automotive service technicians and dental hygienists are both exposed to contaminants more often than once a week, hygienists make almost twice as much annually. Now, let’s take a look at the lowest-paying jobs in the category of very frequent contaminant exposure:
The lowest-paid group of workers in the entire “Very Frequent” contaminant exposure category are Farmworkers and Laborers. These workers are very poorly paid indeed: Maintenance and Repair Workers, the tenth-lowest-paid workers in our dataset, make over 50% more than farmworkers!
We can dig into these result deeper by exploring the demographics of different occupations and levels of contamination. The chart below breaks down the occupations with very frequent contaminant exposure by demographic. It’s important to note that the categories are not totally exclusive: the “Hispanic” category can include individuals who identify as either white or black.
About one in every seven Hispanic workers is exposed to contaminants more than once a week; that’s nearly twice the proportion of workers who identify as Asian. Though this could be a function of the overlapping racial categories used in this dataset, it could also be evidence of larger societal dynamics at play. As we saw above, farmworkers hold the lowest-paid high-contamination job. Although only 18% of Americans are Hispanic, 80% of all farmworkers are.
Now that we’ve seen how contaminant exposure breaks down across racial categories, let’s take a look at the gender distribution. The chart below breaks down contaminant exposure by gender. Are either men or women more likely to be exposed to high levels of contaminants?
About one in every six men—and one in fourteen women—is employed in an occupation where they are exposed to contaminants more often than once a week. More than half of women are employed in occupations where they are rarely or occasionally exposed to contaminants, though roughly similar proportions of men and women occupy these professions.
According to public data, occupations with exposure to contaminants such as pollutants, gases, dust or odors achieve progressively lower average wages with more frequent exposure. Both the lowest- and highest-paid high-contamination jobs tend to involve manual labor or heavy machinery. We discovered that Hispanic workers are the group most frequently exposed to contaminants, and that men disproportionately occupy high-contaminant jobs. In general, it looks as though certain groups are frequently exposed to contaminants– and paid less for their trouble.
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