Nov 06

Today’s News 6th November 2018

  • China Set To Unveil New Aircraft, Drones, Missiles, & Lasers At Zhuhai Airshow 

    China’s largest air show will be held in the coastal city of Zhuhai from Tuesday to Sunday, is a traditional event for Beijing to demonstrate its expanding aviation sector in front of aerospace executives, world leaders and defense buyers from over 40 countries.

    According to the Asia Times, four J-20 stealth fighters from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force buzzed Zhuhai last week ahead of the event.

    Warplanes and civil aircraft from Chinese to foreign manufacturers have already descended on the city.

    The six-day event is located at Zhuhai Jinwan Airport will feature J-20 aerobatic performances, even though the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority had yet to confirm the PLA’s fifth-generation fighter is on the list of scheduled events, the Global Times reported. 

    The South China Morning Post also quoted one military source as saying this would be the public’s first glimpse of the J-20.

    The PLA’s heavy transport plane Y-20, the H-6K bomber, the KJ-500 early warning aircraft, the GJ-2 unmanned aerial vehicle, and the J-10B fighter will be other aircraft featured at the airshow.

    Chinese state-run media has also revealed that a tiltrotor drone, developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. and named the CH-10, will have its maiden flight at the airshow.

    Here are other drones that are currently being featured at the airshow-

    According to Army Recognition, the CM-401 anti-ship missile will be another weapon system featured at the airshow. 

    The CM-401 missile is a new type of supersonic anti-ship missile, using near space trajectory, and capable of all-course high supersonic maneuverable flight. It seems as the missile system is geared towards protecting China’s militarized islands in the South China Sea. 

    Also, the Defense blog reported that an unknown Chinese defense company will unveil a new LW-30 laser weapon system prototype.

    The LW-30 is a short-range laser weapon designed to counter unmanned aerial vehicles, light aircraft, and commercial drone threats.

    Other exhibits at the airshow include space stations modules, rocket engines, and unmanned land-based robots with mounted machine guns.

    Seems as though the airshow has given us a glimpse of the war machines that China plans to use against the US if the trade war spirals out of control into a hot war. 

  • Are You Prepared For Lockdown? How To Stay Safe When All Hell Breaks Loose In America

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Tensions are incredibly high in the United States right now. I realized that over the past three years, I’ve written that they’re “at an all-time high” far too many times. So, I’ll just say, they’re high enough that all hell could break loose at any moment given the right (wrong) application of fuel to the flame. The number one thing you can do for this situation to keep your family safe is to be prepared for lockdown.

    Pretending that it isn’t happening or hoping to hug it out is not a rational response to the chaos that is coming.  I know that some cling to their misguided views on the way the world works with the ferocity of a mother bear protecting cubs, but for the rest of us, there’s this thing called reality. When we accept it, we can prepare for it.

    People near the border are quite reasonably concerned that if thousands of immigrants push through our border illegally, they and their families could be at risk. People in other parts of the country are concerned about the aftermath of whatever happens when these people arrive at the border. Regardless of what occurs, somebody is going to be unhappy. Add in the fiercely-fought midterm elections and the threat of civil unrest is high.

    Are you prepared for lockdown?

    Which leads me to a very important subject. As the situation in the United States devolves, how prepared are you really? If you had to go into lockdown mode and keep your family safely at home, how long would you last with the supplies you have on hand? If the answer is “a few days” or “a couple of weeks” you need to work on that. Immediately.

    By planning ahead, we can avoid the fear, panic, and confusion that leads people to rush to the store and clear the shelves like a horde of hungry locusts.  We can stay away from the angry masses, the rioters who will use any excuse to steal, and the hungry people who are determined to feed their kids no matter who stands in their way.

    Whether the next few weeks lead to pandemonium due to violent protests provoking some type of martial law, a prepared mindset, a defense plan, and a well-stocked home can help to keep you and your family out of harm’s way.

    Keep in mind that the decision may not be entirely in your hands. In a martial law situation, it’s not unusual for the authorities to force people to stay in their homes. Remember in Boston when law enforcement was searching for the young man who, with his brother, was accused of setting off the bomb at the marathon?  Residents were not allowed to leave their homes due to a “shelter in place directive.”  The directive was presented as voluntary, but if you didn’t wish to have SWAT teams pointing guns in your face during this period of de facto martial law, staying home was the only option. Some people ran out of supplies the same day. Don’t be one of those people.

    This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the potential need to lock down. It’s a viable response to a variety of crises. For example, had the Ebola cases on US shores turned into a pandemic, a lockdown period would have been the very best way to keep your family safe.

    With situations of civil unrest, it isn’t as clear-cut.  It depends on where you live. In a small town, far away from riots and protests, your lockdown area could be much greater than your own home. It could encompass your immediate community, too, and life might go on as it always has for you, aside from the need to stay just a little closer to home than before.

    However, if you live in a city or suburb, it may become essential to make a decision quickly. Do you lock your doors and stay home? Or do you get out of Dodge?  It is a question only you can answer. One thing that is very important is this: if you need to go, do NOT miss your window of opportunity to do so safely. If the entire city feels the same way, you’ll most likely be stuck in traffic and trapped in your car. Protesters have shut down the highways more than once in recent years, and you’ll be far safer behind the brick and mortar of your home than you will be in your car.

    By the way, there’s always someone who chimes in with a snide remark about how cowardly it is to lockdown with your family in order to stay safe. If you want to go get involved in a battle to make a political point, that’s certainly your prerogative. However, my priority is the safety of my family, and as such, I hope to avoid engaging altogether.

    First, get home.

    If you happen to be away from home when violence erupts, your first task is safely navigating your way home. In a perfect world, we’d all be home, watching the chaos erupt on TV from the safety of our living rooms.  However, reality says that some of us will be at work, at school, or in the car when unrest occurs.  You need to develop a “get-home” plan for all of the members of your family, based on the most likely places that they will be.

    • Devise an efficient route for picking up the kids from school, camp, or daycare.  Be sure that anyone who might be picking up the children already has permission to do so.

    • Keep a get-home bag in the trunk of your car in case you have to set out on foot.

    • Stash some supplies in the bottom of your child’s backpack – water, a snack, any tools that might be useful, and a map.  Be sure your children understand the importance of OPSEC.

    • Avoid major thoroughfares.  If you need to go through the city, avoid the areas that are most likely to be the subject of unrest. Listen to the local news and traffic reports to help avoid the worst areas.  Take the safest route, not the shortest route.

    • Find multiple routes home – map out alternative backroad ways to get home as well as directions if you must go home on foot.

    • Find hiding places along the way.  If you work or go to school a substantial distance from your home, figure out some places to lay low now, before a crisis situation.  Sometimes staying out of sight is the best way to stay safe.

    • Avoid groups of people.  It seems that the mob mentality strikes when large groups of people get together.  Often folks who would never ordinarily riot in the streets get swept up by the mass of people who are doing so.

    • Keep in mind that in many civil disorder situations the authorities are to be avoided every bit as diligently as the angry mobs of looters. Who can forget the scenes of innocent people being pepper sprayed by uniformed thugs in body armor just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

    • Know when to abandon the plan to get home. Sometimes, you just can’t get there. Going through a war zone is not worth it. Find a different place to shelter. Pay attention to your instincts.

    Prepping for lockdown

    Once everyone is safely home, you need to commit to your decision to lockdown. This could last a day, a week, or longer. There’s really no way to predict it. It’s most likely that you will have electrical power throughout this crisis, but you should be prepared just in case the grid goes down due to damage during riots or attempts by the authorities to gain control of the situation.

    You should be set up with the following (at the minimum – hopefully you have these supplies and more):

    • Water

    • Necessary prescription medications

    • A well-stocked pantry – you need at least a one-month supply of food for the entire family, including pets

    • An off grid cooking method like an outdoor burner, a barbecue, a fire pit, or a woodstove)

    • Or food that requires no cooking

    • A tactical quality first aid kit

    • Lighting in the event of a power outage

    • Sanitation supplies (in the event that the municipal water system is unusable, this would include cleaning supplies and toilet supplies)

    • A way to stay warm in harsh winter weather

    • Over-the-counter medications and/or herbal remedies to treat illnesses at home

    • A diverse survival guide, a very thorough preparedness book, and a first aid manual (hard copies in case the internet and power grid are down)

    • Alternative communications devices (such as a hand-crank radio) so that you can get updates about the outside world

    • Off-grid entertainment:  arts and craft supplies, puzzles, games, books, crossword or word search puzzles, needlework, journals (here are some more ideas to keep the kids entertained.)

    If you are completely unprepared for this type of thing, order some buckets of emergency food. Keep them in the back of your closet – they last for up to 25 years. This is absolutely the fastest way to create an emergency supply.

    Try to stay under the radar.

    Your best defense is avoiding the fight altogether. You want to stay under the radar and not draw attention to yourself.  The extent to which you strive to do this should be based on the severity of the unrest in your area. Some of the following recommendations are not necessary for an everyday grid-down scenario, but could save your life in a more extreme civil unrest scenario.

    • Keep all the doors and windows locked.  Secure sliding doors with a metal bar.  Consider installing decorative gridwork over a door with a large window so that it becomes difficult for someone to smash the glass and reach in to unlock the door.

    • Put dark plastic over the windows. (Heavy duty garbage bags work well.)  If it’s safe to do so, go outside and check to see if any light escapes from the windows. If your home is the only one on the block that is well-lit, it is a beacon to others.

    • Keep pets indoors. Sometimes criminals use an animal in distress to get a homeowner to open the door for them. Sometimes people are just mean and hurt animals for “fun”.  Either way, it’s safer for your furry friends to be inside with you.

    • Don’t answer the door.  Many home invasions start with an innocent-seeming knock at the door to gain access to your house.

    • Keep cooking smells to a minimum.  The goal here is not to draw attention. The meat on your grill will draw people like moths to a flame.

    • Keep the family together.  It’s really best to hang out in one room. Make it a movie night, go into a darkened room at the back of the house, and stay together. This way, if someone does try to breach your door, you know where everyone is who is supposed to be there. As well, you don’t risk one of the kids unknowingly causing a vulnerability with a brightly lit room or an open window.

    • Remember that first responders may be tied up.  If the disorder is widespread, don’t depend on a call to 911 to save you. You must be prepared to save yourself.  Also keep in mind, as mentioned earlier in the article – the cops are not always your friends in these situations.

    For more discussion or to get questions answered about securing your home, pop on over and join the discussions at our forum.

    Be prepared to defend your family.

    If, despite your best efforts, your property draws the attention of people with ill intent, you must be ready to defend your family. Sometimes despite our best intentions, the fight comes to us.  (Have you seen the movie The Purge?)

    Many preppers stockpile weapons and ammunition for just such an event.  I know that I certainly do. Firearms are an equalizer. A small woman can defend herself from multiple large intruders with a firearmif she’s had some training and knows how to use it properly. But put a kitchen knife in her hand against those same intruders, and her odds decrease exponentially. I know this is true about the firearm, because I have been in this situation personally, and the gun in my hand was enough of a deterrent to make 3 men leave.

    When the door of your home is breached, you can be pretty sure the people coming in are not there to make friendly conversation or borrow a cup of sugar.  Make a plan to greet them with a deterring amount of force.

    • Don’t rely on 911. If the disorder is widespread, don’t depend on a call to 911 to save you. You must be prepared to save yourself.  First responders may be tied up, and in some cases, the cops are not always your friends.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, some officers joined in the crime sprees, and others stomped all over the 2nd Amendment and confiscated people’s legal firearms at a time when they needed them the most.

    • Be armed and keep your firearm on your person.  When the door of your home is breached, you can be pretty sure the people coming in are not there to make friendly conversation over a nice cup of tea.  Make a plan to greet them with a deterring amount of force. Be sure to keep your firearm on your person during this type of situation, because there won’t be time to go get it from your gunsafe. Don’t even go to the kitchen to get a snack without it. Home invasions go down in seconds, and you have to be constantly ready.

    • Know how to use your firearm. Whatever your choice of weapon, practice, practice, practice. A weapon you don’t know how to use is more dangerous than having no weapon at all. Here’s some advice from someone who knows a lot more about weapons than I do.

    • Make sure your children are familiar with the rules of gun safety. Of course, it should go without saying that you will have pre-emptively taught your children the rules of gun safety so that no horrifying accidents occur. In fact, it’s my fervent hope that any child old enough to do so has been taught to safely and effectively use a firearm themselves. Knowledge is safety.

    • Be ready for the potential of fire.  Fire is a cowardly attack that doesn’t require any interaction on the part of the arsonist. It flushes out the family inside, leaving you vulnerable to physical assaults. Have fire extinguishers mounted throughout your home. You can buy them in 6 packs from Amazon. Be sure to test them frequently and maintain them properly. (Allstate has a page about fire extinguisher maintenance.) Have fire escape ladders that can be attached to a windowsill in all upper story rooms.  Drill with them so that your kids know how to use them if necessary.

    • Have a safe room established for children or other vulnerable family members. If the worst happens and your home is breached, you need to have a room into which family members can escape. This room needs to have a heavy exterior door instead of a regular hollow core interior door. There should be communications devices in the room so that the person can call for help, as well as a reliable weapon to be used in the unlikely event that the safe room is breached. The family members should be instructed not to come out of that room FOR ANY REASON until you give them the all clear or help has arrived. You can learn more about building a safe room HERE.  Focus the tips for creating a safe room in an apartment to put it together more quickly.

    Even if your plan is to bug in, you must be ready to change that plan in the blink of an eye. Plan an escape route.  If the odds are against you, if your house catches on fire, if thugs are kicking in your front door… devise a way to get your family to safety.  Your property is not worth your life. Be wise enough to accept that the situation has changed and move rapidly to Plan B.

    Stay home.

    If trouble comes to your neighborhood and you decide to stick around, stay home.

    It’s the number one way to keep yourself safer from during a civil unrest situation. If you find yourself in an area under siege, the odds will be further on your side for every interaction in which you avoid taking part. Every single time you leave the house, you increase your chances of an unpleasant encounter.  Nothing will be accomplished by going out during a chaotic situation.

  • In The "Greatest eCONomy Ever" – Renters Are Struggle More Than Homeowners 

    Here are a few quotes from President Trump’s constant cheerleading of the American economy in the last several months leading up to next week’s midterms.

    “In many ways, this is the greatest economy in the HISTORY of America”

    — President Trump tweeted, June 04

    “We have the strongest economy in the history of our nation.”

    — Trump told reporters, June 15

    “We have the greatest economy in the history of our country.”

    — Trump said in an interview with Fox News, July 16

    “We’re having the best economy we’ve ever had in the history of our country.”

    — Trump, said in a speech in Illinois, July 26

    “This is the greatest economy that we’ve had in our history, the best.”

    — Trump said at rally in Charleston, W.Va., Aug. 21

    “You know, we have the best economy we’ve ever had, in the history of our country.”

    — Trump said in an interview on “Fox and Friends,” Aug. 23

    “It’s said now that our economy is the strongest it’s ever been in the history of our country, and you just have to take a look at the numbers.”

    — Trump said on a White House video log, Aug. 24

    “We have the best economy the country’s ever had and it’s getting better.”

    — Trump told the Daily Caller, Sept. 03

    Democrats are anticipating a blue wave during the November midterm elections, but according to President Trump, the “strong” US economy could propel Republicans to victory next week.

    “History says that whoever’s president always seems to lose the midterm,” Trump said on an Oct. 16 interview with FOX Business’ Trish Regan.

    “No one had the economy that we do. We have the greatest economy that we’ve ever had.”

    President Trump’s cheerleading sounds great and certainly helps animal spirits, but a new study warns that more than 25% of American renters are not confident they could cover a $400 emergency. About 18% of homeowners report record low emergency savings. And if you thought that was bad, more than 30% of renters feel insecure about eating, as do 19% of homeowners, the Urban Institute study, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, reported.

    The main takeaway from the report: renters are struggling more than homeowners in the “greatest economy ever.”

    “Rental costs are rising much faster than renters’ salaries. Between 1960 and 2016, the median income for a renter grew by just 5%. During the same period, the median rent ballooned by more than 60%, according to The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. (Both figures account for inflation.)

    To be sure, buying a house has also become harder for many Americans — to do so now costs four times the median household income. The homeownership rate fell to 63% in 2016 – the lowest rate in half a century,” said CNBC.

    Corianne Scally, a senior research analyst at the Urban Institute and a co-author of the study, told CNBC that “renters seem to be worse off.” Scally said the report was derived from its 2017 well-being and basic needs survey, which received about 7,500 responses from people aged 18 to 64.

    2017 living arrangements for Americans 

    About half of renters in the survey reported financial hardships since President Trump took office, compared with 33% of homeowners. More than 25% of renters in the survey were not confident they could cover a $400 emergency. Around 18% of homeowners reported low emergency savings. Almost 20% of renters saw large and unexpected declines in pay in the past year, compared with 14% of homeowners.

    Reported problems paying family medical bills 

    More than 12% of renters said they could barely pay rent, compared with 9% of homeowners who warned their mortgage payments were getting too expensive. 15% of renters said they were on the brink of not being able to afford utilities during the last 12 months, while 11% of homeowners said the same.

    Households unable to consistenly access or afford food

    Scally made it clear to CNBC that renters are much worse off than ever before, but it is also clear that some homeowners are feeling the pain as well.

    “It seems that some of them are having to make trade-offs in just meeting their basic needs,” she said.

    Maybe the “greatest economy ever,” is not so great?

    If so, then why is the Trump administration creating smoke and mirrors about the economy?

    The simple answer: it is all about winning the midterms by any means necessary. As for after the midterms, then into 2019, a global slowdown lingers, that is the reason why the stock market had one of its worst months since the 2008 crash. Trouble is ahead.

  • Iran Is Preparing For A Long Siege As The Global Squeeze Begins

    Authored by Elijah Magnier, Middle East based chief international war correspondent for Al Rai Media

    On Monday the harshest and highest level economic and energy sanctions that can be imposed on any country have been imposed unilaterally on Iran. The US establishment will try its best to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees and Tehran will do its best to cross the US minefield. Whatever the outcome, Iran will never submit to Washington’s twelve conditions.

    Iran is not a fledgling country ready to collapse at the imposition of the first tight sanctions, nor will Iran allow its oil exports to be frozen without reacting. In fact, US and UN sanctions against Iran date to the beginning of the Islamic Revolution and the fall of the Shah in 1979.

    No doubt the Iranian economy will be affected. Nevertheless, Iranian unity today has reached new heights. President Trump has managed to bring reformists and radicals together under the same umbrella!

    Iranian General Qassem Soleimani has said to President Hassan Rouhani: “You walk and we stand ahead of you. Don’t respond to Trump’s provocations because he is insolent and not at your level. I shall face him myself”. Rouhani believes “US policy and its new conspiracy will fail”. All responsible figures in the Iranian regime are now united under the leadership of Imam Ali Khamenei against the US policy whose aim is to curb the regime.

    Under the previous worldwide sanctions regime, Iran began developing missile technology and precision weapons. Iran has never yielded in support of its allies because these alliances are an integral part of its ideology.

    Today, Tehran is not standing alone against the US and is waiting to see what course global sanctions will take before reacting. Officials in Tehran, convinced that Trump will win a second term, are preparing for a long siege.

    Sayyed Ali Khamenei said his country will never strike any deal with the US and won’t be a party to any future agreement because the US is fundamentally untrustworthy. Iran relies on the unity of its own citizens and on the support of its partners in the Middle East, Europe (a crucial strategic ally), and Asia.

    Europe, notably, is trying to disengage itself from the US sanctions, but so far with little success. Its leaders are begging in vain for an exemption for trade in food and medicine to reduce the population’s suffering.

    Trump is determined – even if these measures are harmful to the European economy – to prevent any transactions between Iran and Europe. This is one of the main reasons why the European continent is looking at implementing a long-term strategy specifically to disengage itself from the Swift messaging service used by banks and financial institutions for all trade transactions worldwide.

    The UK, Germany and France have stood firm against the US establishment’s decisions and sanctions for the first time since World War II. Trump shows no concern for principles, laws or international agreements (like the Nuclear Deal) and is instead engaged in a naked quest for profits. The US is trying to maintain its global hegemonic power and its long-standing efforts for world domination, at the expense of its European partners and its Middle Eastern allies who are constantly bled by the US’s extortion racket.

    Several European companies have an interest in ignoring Trump’s warnings: they could decide to trade with Iran solely on the basis of local currency exchange, provided there are no US-based assets involved.

    One of the main problems that remains is Iraq. The US aims to create internal struggle within Baghdad’s political circles, notably between pro-Iran and pro-USA factions. Nevertheless, Mesopotamia will never close its doors on Iran’s trade and will maintain the flow of goods between the two countries, regardless of consequences.

    If Trump decides to deal more harshly with Iraq, he will push the country further into the arms of Iran. Trump has already shown signs of weakness: he granted a temporary sanctions waiver to eight countries, including Russia, China, Turkey, Japan, India and South Korea.

    And Russia, China and Turkey have announced that they will not abide by any sanctions, with or without US blessing. This means that Iran will not be completely surrounded; these countries will trade extensively with the Islamic Republic. Iranian exports of 2.5 million barrels per day will be reduced but will never be shut down completely. Thus US plans–to hit Iran’s economy, change the regime, stop innovative military production and curtail Iranian support to its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan—are not feasible.

    For a case in point: the “Islamic State” (ISIS) terrorist group managed to sell its oil for several years. Stolen oil from Iraq and Syria reached the Mediterranean and was even exported outside the Middle East. By the same token, a long-established country like Iran will not find it very difficult to export its oil.

    Trump’s sanctions have terrorized his allies more than his enemies. These allies are seriously looking today for other alternatives. What was inconceivable has become a reality; US actions respect no limits or boundaries. The new sanctions will help Iran to become even more independent and self-sufficient in many fields.

    Furthermore, the number of countries concerned by and determined to escape US hegemony is increasing. The US is showing a few diplomatic skills: in reality, it has become a giant, indeed, very strong, entity with a lot of muscle but few brains.

    At the same time, there are strong indications that the US is extremely concerned about its worldwide position. Europe is not hiding signs of rebellion against the US; China and Russia are emerging as potential world leaders, while Turkey may reassert a leadership role in the divided Arab world. These countries will certainly remain outside the US orbit, and many other countries, realizing that their interests are no longer served by an alliance with the United States, will slowly but surely join them.

  • Millennial Men Failing To Find Jobs Amid Hottest Market In Decades

    Millennial men – those aged between 25 and 34, are seriously lagging when it comes to participating in the hottest jobs market in decades – with unemployment the lowest its been since 1969, according to Bloomberg. 

    25-year-old unemployed millennial, Nathan Butcher

    Ten years after the Great Recession, 25- to 34-year-old men are lagging in the workforce more than any other age and gender demographic. About 500,000 more would be punching the clock today had their employment rate returned to pre-downturn levels. Many, like Butcher, say they’re in training. Others report disability. All are missing out on a hot labor market and crucial years on the job, ones traditionally filled with the promotions and raises that build the foundation for a career.

    …

    Men — long America’s economically privileged gender — have been dogged in recent decades by high incarceration and swollen disability rates. They hemorrhaged high-paying jobs after technology and globalization hit manufacturing and mining. –Bloomberg

    Perhaps they’re just waiting for all those jobs they were promised to make the first move? 

    “At some point, you can have a bit of an effect of a lost generation,” says University of Zurich economist, David Dorn. “If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover at that point.“

    As former Trump strategist Steve Bannon said in September (and more recently in a debate with David Frum): 

    “Millennials, please understand one thing. You’re better fed, better educated, in better shape, you’re more culturally aware than 19th-century Russian serfs, but you are nothing but serfs.”

    “You don’t own anything and you’re not going to own anything,” he continued. “You are just going to be on the continual wheel of the gig economy, two paychecks away from financial ruin.”

    Many millennials left high school a decade ago to a world of outsourced manufacturing and middle-skill job opportunities – and then the great recession hit. When unemployment spiked during the 2007 – 2009 downturn, 25-34-year-old men fell behind their older counterparts. 

    Though employment rates have been climbing back from the abyss, young men never caught up again. Millennial males remain less likely to hold down a job than the generation before them, even as women their age work at higher rates. –Bloomberg

     

    And as David Dorn, the Zurich Economist touched on, this failure to launch marks a loss of human talent that can carry long-lasting penalties as young men struggle to play catch-up. Economists have even blamed the slide in marriages and out-of-wedlock births on a decline in employed, marriageable men. 

    25-year-old Nathan Butcher, pictured above, was sick and tired of earning minimum wage at a pizzaria – quitting his job in June. “He wants new employment but won’t take a gig he’ll hate,” reports Bloomberg. “So for now, the Pittsburgh native and father to young children is living with his mother and training to become an emergency medical technician, hoping to get on the ladder toward a better life.”

    Butcher has a high school diploma and a resume stacked with low-wage jobs from places like Walmart and Target. We can’t imagine why he’s unable to find a higher paying job, however perhaps the phrase “the bigger the gauges the lower the wages” applies. 

    “I’m very quick to get frustrated when people refuse to pay me what I’m worth,” Butcher told Bloomberg. Meanwhile, his mother worked to support her three kids, “whether she liked her job or not.” 

    “That was the template for that generation: you were either working and unhappy, or you were a mooch,” he said. “People feel that they have choice nowadays, and they do.” 

    In other words, millennials feel entitled to a better job. 

    There is no one explanation for what’s sidelining men — data suggest overlapping trends — but Butcher sits at a revealing vantage point. His demographic has seen the single biggest jump in non-participation among prime-age men over the past two decades: About 14 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds with just a high-school degree weren’t in the labor force in 2016, up from 6.4 percent in 1996, according to Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City analysis by economist Didem Tuzemen. –Bloomberg

     

     

    So – are young millennial men choosing to remain on the sidelines until the perfect job presents itself on a silver platter?

    Bloomberg even speculates that better video games might make leisure time more attractive, while opioid use is possibly affecting others. Another thought is that “Young adults increasingly live with their parents, and cohabitation might be providing a “different form of insurance,” said Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago.”

    Meanwhile, millennial men are reporting higher rates of school and training as a reason for their non-employment, according to a Labor Department survey, while a large percentage say that disability and illness are keeping them on the couch.

    If this problem doesn’t correct itself, there are going to be a lot of homeless people in the coming decades who have blown through any inheritance their boomer parents left them, should they be fortunate enough to receive one.

  • Pentagon Socialism: Militarizing The Economy In The Name Of Defense

    Authored by William Hartung via TomDispatch.com,

    Given his erratic behavior, from daily Twitter eruptions to upping his tally of lies by the hour, it’s hard to think of Donald Trump as a man with a plan. But in at least one area — reshaping the economy to serve the needs of the military-industrial complex — he’s (gasp!) a socialist in the making.

    His plan is now visibly taking shape — one we can see and assess thanks to a Pentagon-led study with a distinctly tongue-twisting title: “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States.” The analysis is the brainchild of Trump’s adviser for trade and manufacturing policy, Peter Navarro, who happens to also be the key architect of the president’s trade wars.

    Navarro, however, can hardly take sole credit for the administration’s latest economic plan, since the lead agency for developing it was also the most interested of all in the project, the Pentagon itself, in particular its Office of Defense Industrial Policy.  In addition, those producing the report did so in coordination with an alphabet soup of other agencies from the Department of Commerce to the Director of National Intelligence.  And even that’s not all.  It’s also the product of an “interagency task force” made up of 16 working groups and 300 “subject matter” experts, supplemented by over a dozen industry “listening sessions” with outfits like the National Defense Industrial Association, an advocacy organization that represents 1,600 companies in the defense sector.

    Before jumping into its substance and implications for the American economy and national defense, let me pause a moment to mention two other small matters.

    First, were you aware that the Pentagon even had an Office of Defense Industrial Policy? It sounds suspiciously like the kind of government organization that engages in economic planning, a practice anathema not just to Republicans but to many Democrats as well.  The only reason it’s not a national scandal — complete with Fox News banner headlines about the end of the American way of life as we know it and the coming of creeping socialism — is because it’s part of the one institution that has always been exempt from the dictates of the “free market”: the Department of Defense.

    Second, how about those 300 subject matter experts? Since when does Donald Trump consult subject matter experts?  Certainly not on climate change, the most urgent issue facing humanity and one where expert opinionis remarkably unified. The Pentagon and its contractors should, however, be thought of as the ultimate special interest group and with that status comes special treatment. And if that means consulting 300 such experts to make sure their “needs” are met, so be it.

    A Slogan for the Ages?

    Now for the big stuff. 

    According to Peter Navarro’s summary of the new industrial base report, which appeared as an op-ed in the New York Times, the key to the Trump plan is the president’s belief that “economic security equals national security.” When it comes to weapons manufacturing, the administration’s approach involves building a Fortress America economy that will depend as little as possible on foreign suppliers. Consider it just the latest variation on Trump’s “America First” economic strategy, grounded in its unapologetic embrace of nationalism. As a slogan, “economic security equals national security” doesn’t have quite the populist ring of “Make America Great Again,” but it’s part of the same worldview.

    In a flight of grandiosity (and flattery) that must have made his boss swell with pride, Navarro suggested in his op-ed that the slogan might go down in the annals of history alongside other famed pearls of presidential wisdom.  As he put it:

    “McKinley’s… ‘Patriotism, protection and prosperity’… catalyzed strong economic growth. Roosevelt’s ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’ helped transform the Navy into a military force capable of projecting power around the world. And Reagan’s ‘Peace through strength’ inspired an unprecedented rebuilding of the military that brought the Soviet Union to its knees… History will judge whether Donald Trump’s ‘economic security is national security’ joins the ranks of great presidential maxims.”

    The essence of the Pentagon’s scheme for making America safe for a never-ending policy of war preparations (and war) is to organize as much of the economy as possible around the needs of military production. This would involve eliminating what Navarro describes as the “300 vulnerabilities” of the defense economy — from reliance on single suppliers for key components in weapons systems and the like, to dependence on foreign inputs like rare earth minerals from China, to a shortage of younger workers with the skills and motivation needed to keep America’s massive weapons manufacturing machine up and running. China figures prominently in the report’s narrative, with its trade and investment policies repeatedly described as “economic aggression.”

    And needless to say, this being the Pentagon, one of the biggest desires expressed in the report is a need for — yes, you guessed it! — more money. Never mind that the United States already spends more on its military than the next seven nations in the world combined (five of whom are U.S. allies).  Never mind that the increasein Pentagon spending over the past two years is largerthan the entire military budget of Russia.  Never mind that, despite pulling tens of thousands of troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, this country’s spending on the Pentagon and related programs (like nuclear warhead work at the Department of Energy) will hit $716 billionin fiscal year 2019, one of the highest levels ever. Face it, say the Pentagon and its allies on Capitol Hill, the U.S. won’t be able to build a reliable, all-weapons-all-the-time economic-industrial base without spending yet more taxpayer dollars.  Think of this as a “Pentagon First” strategy.

    As it happens, the Pentagon chose the wrong 300 experts.  The new plan, reflecting their collective wisdom, is an economic and security disaster in the making.

    Consider it beyond ironic that some of the same experts and organizationsnow suggesting that we bet America’s future on pumping up the most inefficient sector of our economy — no, no, I didn’t mean the coal industry, I meant the military-industrial complex — are conservative experts who criticized the Soviet Union for the very same thing.  They still claim that it imploded largely because Washington cleverly lured its leaders into devoting ever more of their resources to the military sector.  That, they insist, reinforced a rigidity in the Soviet system which made it virtually impossible for them to adapt to a rapidly changing global economic landscape.

    Our military buildup, they still fervently believe, bankrupted the Soviet Union. Other analysts, like the historian Lawrence Wittner, have questionedsuch a view. But for the sake of consistency, shouldn’t conservatives who claimed that excessive military spending did in the Soviets be worried that President Trump’s policy of massive tax cuts for the rich, increased Pentagon spending, and trade wars with adversaries and allies alike might do something similar to the United States?

    What Would a Real Industrial Policy Look Like?

    Industrial policy should not be a dirty word.  The problem is: the Pentagon shouldn’t be in charge of it.  The goal of an effective industrial policy should be to create well-paying jobs, especially in sectors that meet pressing national needs like rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure and developing alternative energy technologies that can help address the urgent dangers posed by climate change.

    The biggest economic challenge facing the United States today is how to organize an economic transition that would replace jobs and income generated by dysfunctional activities like overspending on the Pentagon and subsidizing polluting industries.  The argument that the Pentagon is crucial to jobs production in America has been instrumental in blocking constructive changes that would benefit both the environment and true American security.  Members of Congress are, for example, afraid to jettison questionable weapons programs like the F-35 combat aircraft — an immensely costly, underperforming fighter plane that may never be ready for combat — for fear of reducing jobs in their states or districts.  (The same is true of the coal and petroleum industries, which endlessly play up the supposed job-creating benefits of their activities.)

    Where could alternatives to Pentagon job-creation programs come from?  The short answer is: invest in virtually anything but buying more weapons and waging more wars and Americans will be better off.  For instance, Pentagon spending creates startlingly fewer jobs per dollar than putting the same taxpayer dollars into infrastructure repair and rebuilding, alternative energy creation, education, or health care.  A study conducted by University of Massachusetts economist Heidi Garrett-Peltier for the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that, had the government invested in civilian activities the $230 billion per year wasted on America’s post-9/11 wars, that sum would have created 1.3 million additional jobs.  A more equitable tax policy that required wealthy individuals and corporations to pay their fair share could similarly fund a $2 trillion infrastructure program that would support 2.5 million new jobs in its first year, according to a proposal put forward by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

    As for the president’s much touted, dramatically overblown claims about the jobs to be had from arms exports, the global arms market represents only a tiny fraction of the growing market for renewable energy technologies. If the goal is to produce jobs via exports, developing technologies to tap the huge future market in renewables, which one study suggests could hit $2.1 trillionby 2025, would leave weapons systems in the dust. After all, that’s about 20 times the current size of the total global arms trade, which clocks in at about $100 billion annually. But an analysis by Miriam Pemberton and her colleagues at the Institute for Policy Studies indicates that the United States spends 28 times as much on its military as it does on genuinely job-creating programs designed to address the threat of climate change.

    Such actions would be a good start — but just a start — when it comes to reducing the dependency of the United States economy on guns and pollution.  Of course, the Trump administration doesn’t have the faintest interest in any of this.  (It would apparently rather cede the lucrative future market in renewable energy to China, with barely a fight.) 

    Still, the question remains: What would such a shift in priorities mean for the defense industrial base?  If you accept the premise that the U.S. government needs to run a permanent war economy (and also fight never-ending warsacross a significant swath of the planet), some of the Pentagon’s recommendations might almost make sense.  But a foreign policy that put more emphasis on diplomacy — one that also thought it important to address non-military dangers like climate change — wouldn’t require such a large military production network in the first place. Under this scenario, the alarmist argument that the U.S. won’t be able to defend itself without stepping up the militarization of our already exceedingly militarized economy suddenly becomes unpersuasive.

    But let’s give the weapons sector some credit.  Its CEOs are working assiduously to build up local economies — overseas.  Saudi Arabia’s long-term economic plan, for instance, calls for 50% of the value of its weapons purchases to be spent building up its own military industry.  U.S. weapons giants like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have been quick to pledge allegiance to that plan, setting up subsidiaries there and agreeing to have systems like helicopters assembled in Saudi Arabia, not the United States. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin is helping the United Arab Emirates develop the capability to produce robot-controlled machine tools that are in great demand in the defense and aerospace industries.  And the F-35 program is creating production jobs in more than a dozen countries, including assembly plants in Italy and Japan. 

    Raytheon CEO Thomas Kennedy summed up this approach when he discussed his company’s growing partnership with Saudi Arabia: “By working together, we can help build world-class defense and cyber capabilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” And keep in mind that these are the jobs from so many of those Saudi weapons sales that President Trump keeps bragging about.  Of course, while this may be bad news for American jobs, it works just fine as a strategy for keeping the profits of U.S. arms makers stratospheric.

    Making the transition from Peter Navarro’s “economic security equals national security” to an economy far less dependent on over-the-top military spending would mean a major shift in budget priorities in Washington, a prospect that is, at the moment, hard to imagine.  But if the Pentagon can plan ahead, why shouldn’t the rest of us?

  • Amazon Said To Pick Long Island City As Second Headquarters

    Just when one thought life could not get any more bizarre, here comes the world’s richest man to have a joke at everyone’s expense.

    One day after the WaPo reported that Northern Virginia’s Crystal City was in advanced talks with Amazon for the online retail giant’s second headquarters – at the same time as the Wall Street Journal said not only Crystal City but also Dallas and New York City were in late-stage discussions with the company – and just hours after the WSJ also reported that Amazon plans to split its second headquarters evenly between two cities instead of picking one winner, the NYT reported late on Monday that Amazon is nearing a deal to move to the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens.

    And confirming the WaPo’s previous report (because if anyone should know the answer it the newspaper that is owned by Jeff Bezos), the NYT also said that Amazon is close to a deal to move to the Crystal City area of Arlington, Va..

    Why these two east coast venues? Because, according to the gray lady, Amazon already has more employees in those two areas than anywhere else outside of Seattle, its home base, and the Bay Area.

    Naturally, since Amazon would never have picked either location without some incentives, the NY Times reports that ahead of the decision to pick LIC – which is a short subway ride from Midtown Manhattan – Amazon executives met two weeks ago with NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the governor’s Manhattan office, with the state offering “potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies.”

    “I am doing everything I can,” Governor Cuomo told reporters when asked Monday about the state’s efforts to lure the company. “We have a great incentive package,” he said.

    Unlike the prince of Zamunda who ended up in Queens in search for a bride, Bezos is already happily married and what has been the reported driving force behind the search – and the decision – was the need to hire tens of thousands of high-tech workers, leading many to expect it to land in a major East Coast metropolitan area. Many experts have pointed to Crystal City as a front-runner, because of its strong public transit, educated work force and proximity to Washington.

    For those very reasons, almost nobody picked Long Island City, which has been said to have “affordable housing, robust infrastructure, terrific airports, short commutes, business friendly local government” one with an overdose of sarcasm.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    If Bezos does pick Long Island City, the transition could be seamless: Amazon already employs 1,800 people in advertising, fashion and publishing in New York, and roughly 2,500 corporate and technical employees work in Northern Virginia and Washington.

    Now the question is whether Queens residents will be excited to learn that a new tenant is coming, one which will dramatically transform the city landscape and infrastructure on day one

    “HQ2 would be “full equal to our current campus in Seattle,” the company said. If Amazon goes ahead with two new sites, it is unclear whether the company would refer to both of the locations as headquarters or if they would amount to large satellite offices.

    Meanwhile, those wondering why Bezos decided not on one but two HQ2s, the answer is simple: money.

    Picking multiple sites would allow it to tap into two pools of talented labor and perhaps avoid being blamed for all of the housing and traffic woes of dominating a single area. It could also give the company greater leverage in negotiating tax incentives, experts said.

    And now comes the bad side: as Amazon’s search dragged on, residents in many of 20 finalist cities worried about the impact such a massive project could have on housing and traffic, as well as what potential tax incentives could cost the community.

    And New Yorkers, already tormented by some of the highest taxes in the nation, are about to find out, which is why Jeff Bezos may find the locals less than hospitable even before the foundations are laid.

  • Professor Asks Students To Compare Trump, Nazi Policies

    Authored by Celine Ryan via Campus Reform,

    A University of Arizona student has reported that she was asked to compare President Donald Trump’s policies to those of the Nazis in a course based on the history of the Holocaust.

    “Now that you have studied the Vichy Anti-Jewish Laws, the German Ordinances, and pre-Vichy laws imposed on the Jews (French, immigrant, and refugee) and the repercussions that they had for Jews in France, examine and analyze more current anti-immigrant laws in the United States,” the extra credit assignment reads.

    As examples of these “anti-immigrant laws,” the assignment referenced the DACA, Arizona SB 1070, and Executive Order 13769, which the professor described as a “Muslim ban requested by the Trump administration.”

    Students were asked to answer, “What populations are targeted by these laws? In what ways are they being used? Would the term ‘scapegoating’ be applicable here and therefore, what did (does) President Trump hope to achieve by invoking them?”

    “This was only an extra credit assignment, but regardless it still feels extremely one-sided and [like] full-on indoctrination,” L’wren Tikva, a student taking the class, told Campus Reform.  

    Tikva said she responded to the assignment by telling her professor that it was unproductive and “anti-Trump,” and that it would “cause more division.”

    “As a Jewish American who has ties to those who survived the Holocaust it’s pretty trivializing comparing Trump’s policies to the Holocaust,” Tikva wrote to her professor.

     “Almost all of these policies are in no way comparable and the President is in his legal authority to implement these policies.”

    Tikva went on to call the comparison “quite offensive,” “insensitive,” and an “insult to the victims of one of the worst mass murders in modern history.” Tikva said the course name in which the extra credit assignment appeared is titled “The Holocaust in France and Italy.” According to the University of Arizona’s website, Kara Tableman, whom Tikva named as the instructor of the online course, is “currently teaching” two courses by that same name.

    Tikva said the professor responded by stating that she was also the descendant of Holocaust survivors, adding that her “intent was not to compare Trump to Hitler.”

    “Perhaps I should have stated my discussion more clearly and precisely on the pre-Vichy laws that targeted immigrant populations in general in the late 1930’s in France and did have a great impact on the Jewish community in France before the Second World War even started,” she explained, insisting that she was “not [at] all comparing what eventually transpired in Vichy, France to what is happening now in the U.S.A.”

    “I am certainly not cheapening the Holocaust by looking at the laws emphasized in pre-war France and examining the focus and rhetoric of certain immigration laws in the recent past and current moment in the States,” she continued.

    The professor then went on to insist that current “anti-immigrant discourse” in the U.S. is “very heated and coded,” referencing the recent anti-Semitic shooting in Pittsburgh as well as the “pipe bombs” recently sent to “people who have spoken openly against our current President.”  

    “Thank ‘G-d’ that Trump is not Hitler and that we still have our constitution. But, having said that, Petain was not Hitler either and his followers (at first) were not Nazis, but they were members of a very conservative vision which wanted to return France to a time even before the French Revolution when Jews had not yet been emancipated and society had not yet been contaminated by foreign elements…’”

    The University of Arizona did not return a request for comment in time for publication. 

  • Navy's Priciest Aircraft Carrier Delivered Without Elevators To Lift Bombs

    The F-35 finally has some competition for costliest boondoggle in American military history.

    According to Bloomberg, the most expensive Navy warship to date, the $13 billion Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, was delivered last year without the elevators it needed to lift bombs from below deck for loading on to fighter jets. The “advanced weapons” elevators were supposed to have been installed by the ship’s delivery date of May 2017. However, technical problems have caused repeated delays to the installation. While answering questions from reporters, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer described the elevator system as “our Achilles heel.”

    Carrier

    One government analyst described the system as “just another example of the Navy pushing technology risk into design and construction, without fully demonstrating it.”

    The problems are raising the possibility that the Navy won’t have enough money left over to bundle a third and fourth carriers into the $58 billion contract to develop the Ford class of ships. The initiative is part of the Navy’s effort to expand its fleet to 355 from 284 by the mid-2030s. However, one Navy weapons buyer said “considerable progress” had been made on the Ford, including on the elevators, in a memo released back in July.

    Another spokesman said six of the eleven elevators are close enough to being finished that the shipbuilder can operate them.

    William Couch, a spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command, said the elevators are “in varying levels of construction and testing.”

    Six are far enough along to be operated by the shipbuilder, and testing has started on two of those, he said. All 11 “should have been completed and delivered with the ship delivery,” according to Couch.

    He said the contractor has corrected “all issues,” including the “four uncommanded movements over the last three years that were discovered during the building, operational grooming, or testing phases.”

    Meanwhile, a recent segment on PBS’s “Nova”, a science-focused show, heralded the electromagnetic elevators as the “elevators of tomorrow”, positing that, one day, our vertical travel might be facilitated by electromagnets instead of cables.

    A November 2010 program on PBS’s “Nova” science series extolled the “Elevator of Tomorrow” being developed by Federal Equipment Co., a Cincinnati-based subcontractor to Huntington Ingalls.

    “In the not-too-distant future the Advanced Weapons Elevator will be lifting bombs to the flight deck of a new aircraft carrier,” the narrator said. “If it survives the rigors of Navy life, someday we might all be passengers on elevators powered like this one.”

    Doug Ridenour, president of Federal Equipment Co., said the elevator’s key technologies “have been consistently demonstrated for years” in a test unit in the company’s plant and any programming or software-related issues have been fixed.

    But “shipboard integration involves many other technology insertions not controlled by” his company, he said.

    Right now, that’s looking like one big “if”.

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