Author: Administrator

‘End of the world’: This futurist has some grim news for the middle class

Via Marketwatch

‘This figure is the end of the world for the average people. It reflects a rather depressing picture: The state and the economy are advancing by storm — but the workers are almost not benefitting from this progress and are left behind. It is almost a catastrophe.’

That’s Dr. Roey Tzezana, a “future studies” researcher at Tel Aviv University and a research fellow at Brown University, referring to the growing gap between labor productivity and wages, as seen in this chart:

In other words, as automation continues to render jobs obsolete, the divide between the rich and everybody else will only continue to grow, and the middle class as we know it will cease to exist. Such a scenario will create a society of extreme pockets of wealth and those who can barely get by.

And that’s a problem for everybody, he said.

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One big reason Americans are broke and overweight

Via Marketwatch

Dining out is weighing on our budgets.

The No. 1 thing Americans bust their budget on is dining out, according to research released by financial company Principal. Nearly one in three Americans (29%, up from 26% last year) said that this was this year’s top budget buster for them, followed closely by food/groceries (27%). And research released Monday by financial company Fidelity found that the No. 1 small financial mistake Americans admit to is dining out too much, with 36% saying they’d done that in the past year.

Government data shows that Americans spent nearly $3,500 a year on dining out in 2018 — a 2.8% increase just from the year prior. And restaurant sales are projected to hit a record high this year of $863 billion, according to the National Restaurant Association. What’s more, as MarketWatch reported in July of this year, “the cost of going out to eat or getting takeout food is rising a lot faster than the cost of buying groceries.”

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The difference between a snafu, a shitshow, and a clusterfuck

Via Quartz

Let’s say the situation at work is not good. The project (or product, or re-org, or whatever) has launched, and the best you can say is that things aren’t going as planned. At all. It’s a disaster, though the best word for it is the one you drop over drinks with your team and when venting at home: it’s a clusterfuck.

Clusterfucks hold a special place in public life, one distinct from the complications, crises, and catastrophes that mar our personal and professional existences. The F-Word, former Oxford English Dictionary editor Jesse Sheidlower’s comprehensive history of the term, defines a clusterfuck as “a bungled or confused undertaking or situation.” Stanford business professor Bob Sutton goes further, describing clusterfucks as “those debacles and disasters caused by a deadly brew of illusion, impatience, and incompetence that afflicts too many decision-makers, especially those in powerful, confident, and prestigious groups.”

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“The Fight Started When He Hit Me Back”

Guest Post by Jeff Thomas via International Man

US war

There’s an old joke about an adult asking two boys how a fight started between them and one boy responded as stated above.

When two children are involved, we might choose to lecture them both and possibly punish the one who instigated the fight. But when nations are guilty of the same behaviour, we tend to simply accept the rather absurd explanation as being reasonable.

Back in the 1950s, the US sought to establish a presence in Vietnam. First, “military advisors” were sent in, then armaments. But soon, US troops were added. When the US public objected to their country instigating a war halfway around the world, where it had no business being, President Johnson made the announcement that the destroyer USS Maddox had just been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin.

As it turned out, the Maddox had sailed into the North Vietnamese harbour uninvited and began firing on North Vietnamese ships. The ships returned fire. Although only one bullet actually hit the Maddox, several North Vietnamese ships were damaged and Vietnamese sailors were killed.

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Is it Jaw-Jaw or War With Iran?

Guest Post by Pat Buchanan

Is it Jaw-Jaw or War With Iran?

Strategically, economically and politically, the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to be in almost desperate straits.

“Jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” is attributed, wrongly, say some historians, to Winston Churchill. Still, the words lately came to mind.

While last week ended with a hopeful U.S.-Iranian prisoner exchange that was hailed by President Donald Trump — “Thank you to Iran for a very fair negotiation. See, we can make a deal together” — a few days earlier, the week produced more ominous news.

In a startling front-page story Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is to send 14,000 troops to the Middle East, in addition to the 14,000 we have sent since May.

The reason for the reinforcements, said the Journal, is Iran.

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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – General William T. Sherman completes March to the Sea – 1864

Via History.com

On December 10, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman completes his March to the Sea when he arrives in front of Savannah, Georgia.

Since mid-November of that year, Sherman’s army had been sweeping from Atlanta across the state to the south and east towards Savannah, one of the last Confederate seaports still unoccupied by Union forces. Along the way, Sherman destroyed farms and railroads, burned storehouses, and fed his army off the land. In his own words, Sherman intended to “make Georgia howl,” a plan that was approved by President Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of the Union armies.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“`But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

`Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. `Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’

It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

`At this time of the rolling year,’ the spectre said `I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!’

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

`Hear me!’ cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly gone.'”

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“We’re Living On Borrowed Time…”

Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

The laws of physics are governed by cause and effect. But there can exist a time lag between the two.

For instance:

Note how the speed of both the bullet and the retracting latex far exceed that of the shockwave or gravity on the water contained inside each balloon.

There’s an observable time lag during which the globe of previously-contained water momentarily hangs there in space.

Then, a beat later, it’s obliterated.

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IG Report Confirms Brennan Lied Through His Teeth About Steele Dossier

Via ZeroHedge

While the hotly anticipated IG ‘FISA’ report was perhaps the world’s loudest wrist-slap – resulting in just one criminal referral despite a mountain of evidence that the FBI’s top brass made serious errors while investigating the Trump campaign, The Federalist‘s Madeline Osburn points out that former CIA director John Brennan was just caught in a lie when he said they did not rely on the infamous Steele dossier for the Obama administration’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).

The ICA report – thrown together over the course of a month, was used to inform President Barack Obama and then-President-elect Donald Trump in January, 2017 of Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 US election.

And according to Monday’s FISA report, there was significant discussion on whether to include the Steele dossier in the main body of the ICA report – with former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe saying that “he felt strongly that the Steele election reporting belonged in the body of the ICA, because he feared that placing it in an appendix was ‘tacking it on’ in a way that would ‘minimiz[e]’ the information and prevent it from being properly considered.”

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The 8th Largest Snow Storm to Hit North America

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

Seven counties in New York State have been buried in snow as their regions are declared snow emergencies. Albany even had to tow some 240 cars since declaring the emergency. This has been the biggest snow storm on record this early in the season, and it turned out to be the eight largest snow storm on record. St. Paul voted to increase snow emergency towing fees to $300. Meanwhile, in Duluth, they have voted to revamp broken snow emergency system designating specific roads to be used in a snow emergency.

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Biden Attempts To Win Over Youth With Appearance On ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’

Via The Babylon Bee

MANHATTAN—In a move tailor-made for his target demographic, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced Monday he will appear on an upcoming episode of television’s The Ed Sullivan Show.

“I think booking a gig on the ‘ol tube will boost my poll numbers with the youngsters,” Biden told sources. “This Ed fella seems to know what the kids are into. He just had that band with those 4 mop-headed dudes from England- what was their name again?”

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“Undeniable Evidence”: Explosive Classified Docs Reveal Afghan War Mass Deception

Via ZeroHedge

In what’s already being hailed as a defining and explosive “Pentagon papers” moment, a cache of previously classified documents obtained by The Washington Post show top Pentagon leaders continuously lied to the public about the “progress” of the now eighteen-year long Afghan war.

The some 2,000 pages of notes from interviews of senior officials who have shaped US strategy in Afghanistan confirm that “senior US officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false… hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable,” according to the bombshell Post report.

Pentagon file image: Getty.

The internal interviews and statements were unearthed via Freedom of Information Act request and span the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. The trove further confirms that US leaders knew vast amounts of money was being wasted in a futile attempt to “Westernize the nation”.

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