I guess first I advise you to read this timely reminder (I swear I was going to write that but was less timely). I am now going to discuss what I think should be done for the people who live in the Gaza strip. I know it won’t happen First I confess that roughly 20 years ago (the day Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister) I decided that the Israeli/Palestinian case was hopeless and tried to tune out — people are suffering — but many people...
Read More »How is Labor in Europe? Check out Switzerland
Not so long ago, I was working in Riethem-Weilhem Germany for the Germans, of course. A smaller ($1 billion) automotive company. My US position was in Cazenovia, NY where the Rockefellers used to hang out in their mansion on the south end of Lake Cazenovia. It is now called the Brewster Inn. While in Germany, they gave me a car and I would go touring all over southern Germany and into Switzerland. They would send me to the Czech Republic to visit...
Read More »‘Tax the Ultra-Rich and Do It Now’
Two articles here, each on the same topic about extreme wealth going untaxed or taxed less than those in lower income brackets. The first story is about a letter sent to World Economic attendees sent by a bunch of millionaires. The second story is about historian and correspondent Rutger Bregman having a moment at Devos in 2019. Rutger claims he delivered a blast about taxes. If you listen to the clip, it sounds like he had a conversation with them....
Read More »May 12, 2023 and No Surge at the Border
That took away a few days of headlines and news rhetoric. I guess the Immigration Sky did not fall on us, yes? Of course, this is about the United States lifting the Covid emergency order bringing an end to the Title 42 emergency health authority prohibiting the immigration of the undesirable people Republicans believe should be denied entry. No chaos at the Mexican border. Immigrants are still at the border hoping to get into the US. The next...
Read More »He just doesn’t like people
Hey look, this is an interesting C&P from Hullabaloo. Why is it that those who attack others who appear to be different actually do similar things or are similar? You typically find this out years later. I don’t know . . . “He just doesn’t like people,” Digby’s Hullabaloo, (digbysblog.net) He’s Nixon in high heels . . . He’s very weird: Suzy Barker, a native Iowan dressed in an orange-and-blue University of Florida hoodie, waited...
Read More »“Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted . . .
This NYT story just dredges up the stories we would read and hear in the fifties and sixties. Popular song when I was hanging around the coffee houses then. No Starbucks then or laptops. If the song was of your ilk. Arriving in record numbers, the children escaping other countries are ending up in jobs violating child labor laws. Their presence can be found in the factories making the products your own and safe children might be eating or wearing....
Read More »Ukraine outreach
From My Lovely And Talented Wife®My Ukranian friend just sent me a photo of a supermarket that was leveled to the ground during the Russian invasion and massacre in Bucha in March, 2022. She looks out on this from her nearby 14th floor window, and she is heartened by the fact that the area is now being cleared for rebuilding. Such efforts are everywhere, she tells me. People are hard at work to bring the city back to what it was.I just met my lively...
Read More »Declining population and diminished national power is bad news?
My Thoughts I am not sure what Prof. Dean means by elites. Was looking for an explanation. It may have zoomed by me if it is not obviously called out. In the beginning of his commentary, we read of declining population in China. The makeup of the population is older. Been there numerous times going from plant to plant and working with my counterparts there. Marvelous country to explore with the assistance of my associates there. Making the leap...
Read More »Arizona’s Worst and Best of Times
“Arizona: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times“, Substack, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar I ran across this substack a few weeks ago. The majestic and excellent basketball player I had watched play a wicked game of ball, can also write good articles. Since I now live in Arizona where the politics differ from my own, I thought this one article on two topics was especially interesting. The new Governor is dismantling the sea-container wall...
Read More »Two basic problems of a declining population in a Country
From the NYT opinion pages comes Paul Krugman’s description of the two basic problems of a declining population in a country, Dr. Krugman ues China as an example. China’s population declined last year, for the first time since the mass deaths associated with Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the 1960s. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that China has announced that its population declined. Many observers are skeptical about...
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