Wednesday, October 19
Electric Vehicles are Still Too Expensive
Robyn Everist bought her second-hand electric car when the prices got "a bit more reasonable".(ABC News: Maren Preuss)
When Robyn Everist saw the petrol prices skyrocketing she knew it was time to put a long-laid plan to purchase an electrical vehicle into action.
A few months later, she and her husband couldn't be happier.
"We've been waiting for the prices to get a bit more reasonable," Ms Everist said, with her selection of a second-hand Nissan Leaf setting her back about $30,000 when all the costs are tallied up.
"We had an initial look and said 'yes we'll do that', but didn't seriously go car hunting until the petrol price went up.
"We drive to town every day for work and there was no way I was going to pay petrol money if I could just as easily get an electric car that's more efficient."
Ms Everist and her husband live at Clifton Beach, about 30 minutes from Hobart's CBD in Tasmania, but work in the city — making for a round trip of around 70 kilometres every day. READ MORE...
Tuesday, October 18
Inflation Wipes Out Retirement Savings
Inflation has taken an average of 25 percent - at least $2.1trillion - off the 401Ks of American workers, despite President Joe Biden's insistence Sunday that the 'economy is strong as hell.'
The analysis was done by conservative economists Stephen Moore and EJ Antoni, who said that the balance of Americans' 401ks will 'ruin your whole day, week and month.'
Moore and Antoni note that inflation has been going at 8 percent for the past seven months, despite the White House claiming things were temporary. READ MORE...
Companies Charging Employees for Training if they Quit
Training employees is an expensive proposition. A 2016 Training Benchmarking Study found that for large companies (10,000+ employees), annual training budgets are about $13 million.
Mid-sized employers (1,000+) budget about $3 million and small companies spend about $290,000. And that doesn’t factor in the hidden costs of training: time taken away from job duties, equipment and more.
For many companies looking to develop staff and upskill in response to talent gaps, the investment in learning can be significant.
For many companies looking to develop staff and upskill in response to talent gaps, the investment in learning can be significant.
When a company invests in employee training, what happens if they quit before the employer sees any benefit from the training? Are companies allowed to recover the investment they made? READ MORE...
Kanye West Wants to Buy Parler
Kanye West has entered into a deal to buy Parler, a social media site that bills itself as a "free speech platform," the company said Monday.
Parlement Technologies announced the news via a press release, saying that the deal would help create "an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome."
Quoted in the press release, West said: "In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves."
Parlement Technologies CEO, George Farmer, said the company would be "honored to help him achieve his goals." READ MORE...
Monday, October 17
Just like LYING, Everyone CHEATS
However, most cheats are not as stupid as these two fishermen, whose fish should not have weighed more than 3/4 pounds but instead weighed over 8 pounds.
I knew a business student who was in competition with other teams and took some papers that were left on the desk during lunch. This student read those papers, put them back and then won the game because his team now knew the strategy of their closest competition.
This same student wrote an article for the school newspaper justifying cheating in the business world if it gave a country a strategic advantage over another country.
Interestingly, this is exactly what China has been doing to the USA for the last 40 or so years ever since the death of Mao Zedong when they started stealing intellectural property from American businesses. I wonder if they read this student's article?
This business student CHEATED and China has CHEATED...
Wealthy individuals and families CHEAT the legal system in the USA because they can and because their wealth can destroy you if you try and challenge them.
Husbands cheat on wives and wives cheat on husbands and more often than not both attend Church on Sundays... except when on vacation.
The average American tries to cheat the IRS out of taxes the s/he might owe the government... and not just by sheltering the money in the Grand Caymans but by not reporting the money.
And, the biggest cheaters of all are all the interstate drivers that that say HELL NO to following the speed limits. Who do they think they are cheating... the cops?
Lying and Cheating is what AMERICANS Do these days and they do it very well.
Home Depot Attacks Biden Economics
Home Depot co-founder and billionaire businessman Bernie Marcus isn't sure he would be able to create the home improvement chain today if he tried given onerous regulations on small businesses and a challenging economic backdrop.
"I don't think so," Marcus — a well-known proponent of free market capitalism and small businesses — said on a new edition of Yahoo Finance Presents. "I think if we had the regulations that we have today, Home Depot would be a chain of 12 stores. I just don't think we could have grown."
Marcus also had some choice words for politicians, the Biden administration, and notably the occupier of the Oval Office.
"Most of the people in Washington never ran a business," added Marcus, who is also the new author of Kick Up Some Dust: Lessons on Thinking Big, Giving Back, and Doing It Yourself. "You have a president that never worked a day in his life — never worked a day in his life. What the hell does he know about economics? But he sure spouts about it a lot." READ MORE...
Treasury Investigates DeSantis
The Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General is investigating whether Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis improperly used coronavirus relief funds to transport migrants to Massachusetts following a request from members of the latter state’s congressional delegation.
The news comes weeks after the DeSantis administration sent two planes of about 50 Venezuelan nationals from Texas to the wealthy enclave of Martha’s Vineyard with a stop in Florida along the way, drawing outrage for what some – including President Joe Biden – have called a political stunt.
Biden dismissed the ploy at the time and said Republicans are “playing politics with human beings, using them as props.” READ MORE...
Biden Says Economy is Strong
A day after President Joe Biden drew criticism from conservatives on social media for giving unsolicited dating advice to a young teen girl in California, the president is again in hot water for claiming the "economy is strong as hell."
The comment came during a conversation with a reporter at a Baskin Robbins in Portland, Oregon, who asked the president if he had any worry about the strength of the U.S. dollar amid rising inflation.
With a chocolate chip ice cream cone in his hand, Biden answered: "I’m not concerned about the strength of the dollar. I’m concerned about the rest of the world. Our economy is strong as hell." READ MORE...
Sunday, October 16
China's Xi Jinping
12 October 2022
Xi Jinping Forever?
By Gwynne Dyer
In the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress, which begins in Beijing on Sunday, President Xi Jinping is expected to be confirmed as president-for-life. If that actually happens, China’s ascent to genuine superpower status will be at least delayed. At worst (from the Chinese perspective), it may not happen at all.
The CCP has now been in power for about as long as the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had been when it finally lost power in 1991. Most of the CCP’s members are keenly aware of that fact, and just staying in power is the Party’s primary goal.
Superpower status, the public’s welfare, any and all other goals are secondary to the Party’s survival. This priority can be defended if you are truly convinced that Marxism-Leninism holds the only key to a happy and prosperous future, but it serves quite well as a rationalisation for holding on to power forever even if you don’t really believe it.
Most of the CCP’s senior cadres realise that the Party is still in power now only because it broke decisively with Mao Zedong’s methods in the mid-1980s, about a decade after his death. They continue to give Mao lip service because he was the iconic leader of the Revolution, but they don’t really believe in his methods.
Mao’s strategy of permanent revolution was why China’s economy stagnated for almost four decades while its East Asian neighbours, Japan and South Korea, enjoyed forty years of high-speed growth and emerged as rich countries. Only when Deng Xiaoping sidelined ideology and put growth first did China get its own 40 years of high-speed growth.
That period of rapid industrialisation has now come to its natural end. The real Chinese growth rate now and for the foreseeable future will be in the annual 1%-3% range that is typical in developed economies.
Or rather, it will continue on that trajectory so long as China continues in the path Deng chose: a capitalist economy dominated by people with moderate socialist views about the distribution of wealth. However, that’s a tricky path to walk.
To stop the Communist true believers from dragging China back into revolutionary fanaticism, Deng and his successors promoted the principle of ‘collective leadership’. No single Party member could accumulate too much power, the most senior leaders would be limited to two five-year terms, and Mao-style ‘personality cults’ were banned.
By Gwynne Dyer
In the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress, which begins in Beijing on Sunday, President Xi Jinping is expected to be confirmed as president-for-life. If that actually happens, China’s ascent to genuine superpower status will be at least delayed. At worst (from the Chinese perspective), it may not happen at all.
The CCP has now been in power for about as long as the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had been when it finally lost power in 1991. Most of the CCP’s members are keenly aware of that fact, and just staying in power is the Party’s primary goal.
Superpower status, the public’s welfare, any and all other goals are secondary to the Party’s survival. This priority can be defended if you are truly convinced that Marxism-Leninism holds the only key to a happy and prosperous future, but it serves quite well as a rationalisation for holding on to power forever even if you don’t really believe it.
Most of the CCP’s senior cadres realise that the Party is still in power now only because it broke decisively with Mao Zedong’s methods in the mid-1980s, about a decade after his death. They continue to give Mao lip service because he was the iconic leader of the Revolution, but they don’t really believe in his methods.
Mao’s strategy of permanent revolution was why China’s economy stagnated for almost four decades while its East Asian neighbours, Japan and South Korea, enjoyed forty years of high-speed growth and emerged as rich countries. Only when Deng Xiaoping sidelined ideology and put growth first did China get its own 40 years of high-speed growth.
That period of rapid industrialisation has now come to its natural end. The real Chinese growth rate now and for the foreseeable future will be in the annual 1%-3% range that is typical in developed economies.
Or rather, it will continue on that trajectory so long as China continues in the path Deng chose: a capitalist economy dominated by people with moderate socialist views about the distribution of wealth. However, that’s a tricky path to walk.
To stop the Communist true believers from dragging China back into revolutionary fanaticism, Deng and his successors promoted the principle of ‘collective leadership’. No single Party member could accumulate too much power, the most senior leaders would be limited to two five-year terms, and Mao-style ‘personality cults’ were banned.
That system has grown and matured over thirty years, during which the main challenge has come from the right, from people in both industry and the Party with a keen interest in getting and staying rich: ‘corruption’, as it is generally called in China. But Xi Jinping poses a different kind of challenge to the status quo.
His rise through the ranks of the Party was accomplished mainly by exploiting family ties: his father had impeccable revolutionary credentials and was widely respected in the Party. But once Xi achieved high office ten years ago, he set about dismantling all the rules and customs that prevented a return to one-man rule.
Whether he genuinely believes in Marxism-Leninism is unknowable, but also irrelevant. He is dedicated to attaining absolute power, and he will invoke the old faith if it provides a useful justification for that pursuit. By now, he is pretty close to his goal.
Unfortunately for China, Xi is nearing absolute power at a time when a reversion to the old ways is the last thing it needs. The country faces a demographic crisis and an economic crisis at the same time, and re-centralising power in the hands of a single man is definitely not the best way to solve those problems.
The recurring Covid lock-downs that are paralysing Chinese cities, crippling the economy and stoking popular anger, are just one example of how his private obsessions are starting to threaten the Party’s grip on power. Xi’s answer, as always, is just more severe repression.
This month’s National Congress is the last hurdle on his route to absolute power, because the 2,226 delegates will be asked to cast aside the two-term limit. Technically, they would only be granting Xi a third term as president, but everybody thinks that it will mean he stays in office for life.
Or maybe just until he is overthrown, because he is almost uniquely unsuited to deal with problems like a shrinking work-force (due to the collapsing birth-rate), rising unemployment and a huge debt crisis.
There are plenty of people in the Party who understand that Xi’s reversion to the bad old ways might ultimately bring about the end of Communist rule in China, but they seem too few and too cowed to challenge him directly. China may be in for a wild ride – and the rest of us with it.
His rise through the ranks of the Party was accomplished mainly by exploiting family ties: his father had impeccable revolutionary credentials and was widely respected in the Party. But once Xi achieved high office ten years ago, he set about dismantling all the rules and customs that prevented a return to one-man rule.
Whether he genuinely believes in Marxism-Leninism is unknowable, but also irrelevant. He is dedicated to attaining absolute power, and he will invoke the old faith if it provides a useful justification for that pursuit. By now, he is pretty close to his goal.
Unfortunately for China, Xi is nearing absolute power at a time when a reversion to the old ways is the last thing it needs. The country faces a demographic crisis and an economic crisis at the same time, and re-centralising power in the hands of a single man is definitely not the best way to solve those problems.
The recurring Covid lock-downs that are paralysing Chinese cities, crippling the economy and stoking popular anger, are just one example of how his private obsessions are starting to threaten the Party’s grip on power. Xi’s answer, as always, is just more severe repression.
This month’s National Congress is the last hurdle on his route to absolute power, because the 2,226 delegates will be asked to cast aside the two-term limit. Technically, they would only be granting Xi a third term as president, but everybody thinks that it will mean he stays in office for life.
Or maybe just until he is overthrown, because he is almost uniquely unsuited to deal with problems like a shrinking work-force (due to the collapsing birth-rate), rising unemployment and a huge debt crisis.
There are plenty of people in the Party who understand that Xi’s reversion to the bad old ways might ultimately bring about the end of Communist rule in China, but they seem too few and too cowed to challenge him directly. China may be in for a wild ride – and the rest of us with it.
Brittney Griner's Fears
The WNBA star Brittney Griner was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to nine years in Russian prison after customs agents found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage in February.
Griner's team has appealed the decision, but if she's not included in a prisoner swap between the US and Russia, the WNBA All-Star will likely serve her sentence at a penal colony.
As her detention has dragged on, Griner has grown increasingly fearful of the "miserable or inhumane conditions" she could face if and when her appeal is denied, her lawyer told The New York Times.
Here's what we know about Russian penal colonies and what Griner's experience could look like.
Russian penal colonies are prison-labor camps that are essentially the remnants of the Soviet Union's infamous Gulag system. READ MORE...
Russian penal colonies are prison-labor camps that are essentially the remnants of the Soviet Union's infamous Gulag system. READ MORE...
China and Taiwan
China has held its biggest-ever show of military force in the air and seas around Taiwan, including the firing of ballistic missiles.
The military exercises followed a visit to the island by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be under Beijing's control.
President Xi Jinping has said "reunification" with Taiwan "must be fulfilled" - and has not ruled out the possible use of force to achieve this.
But Taiwan sees itself as distinct from the Chinese mainland, with its own constitution and democratically-elected leaders.
Where is Taiwan?
Taiwan is an island, roughly 100 miles from the coast of south east China. READ MORE...
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