Woman Disgusted When She Uses Tracker to See Where Her Plastic Recycling Really Ends Up
https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-disgusted-she-uses-tracker-212048434.html
Woman Disgusted When She Uses Tracker to See Where Her Plastic Recycling Really Ends Up
By Noor Al-Sibai
August 30, 2024
Handy Device
An environmentalist put a GPS tracker in with her recycling to see where it ended up — and the results were not confidence-inspiring.
As Inside Climate News reports in an investigative collaboration with CBS, Houston activist and avid recycler Brandy Deason tossed an Apple Tag in with her bagged plastic waste to take to one of the city’s new recycling drop-off sites to see what really happens to recyclables.
Deason dropped her secretly-tagged plastic bag off with the Houston Recycling Collaboration, a public-private partnership that launched with the help of Exxon nearly two years ago to address the city’s low recycling rates. Though the program was partially billed as being capable of melting any plastic down for reuse chemically, ICN and CBS found with the help of Deason that no such process has occurred in the 20 months since the project first began.
In fact, the sorting plant that’s supposed to enact the so-called “advanced recycling” process still hasn’t opened — and won’t do so until the middle of next year.
“We want to know what was happening with this stuff,” Deason, a member of the Houston Air Alliance, told the website. “Is it really going to go to get recycled?”
Plastic Scenery
As the activist, her organization, and the news outlets soon found, the tagged bags instead ended up at Wright Waste Management, a remote facility 20 miles outside of the city’s downtown. Though its reporters were not allowed a look inside, drone footage from above the plant shows that it’s home to a giant open-air pile of trash.
Despite not having opened the promised sorting facility, the Houston Recycling Collaboration also expanded its drop-off locations from one to eight, which seems per this new investigation to be steering exponentially more plastics to the glorified landfill at the Wright plant.
Beyond the disingenuousness of expanding a recycling program that isn’t recycling as advertised, experts who spoke to ICN note said that storing plastic waste in the Texas head can pose a fire hazard.
In fact, as a documents request filed by the news outlets revealed, the facility failed fire marshal inspections three times between July 2023 and April 2024. In those inspections, fire officials found that the plant was missing permits related to the storage of hazardous and combustible materials.
As part of her activism, Deason limits her own plastic use — and she was appalled to learn where her unavoidable plastic waste ended up.
“Should that catch fire, the emissions coming off of that could be really poisonous to the people that live around here,” she told ICN, “not to mention a dangerous, large fire like that could spread into a neighborhood.”
Stacy Clarke – the Toronto Police Service’s first Black female superintendent – admitted she helped six Black cops cheat to get a promotion in “a desperate effort to level the playing field.”
As a person who is in favor of making sure that every police officer is qualified to do their job, I think this police officer should have been fired, not just demoted.
Instead of helping black police officers to cheat on their exams, she should have helped them to study so they could pass their exams fair and square.
She is a racist because she thinks black people are too dumb to pass a written test.
‘No room in policing for noble cause corruption’: Trailblazing Toronto cop who cheated to get Black officers promoted stripped of rank
Stacy Clarke – the Toronto Police Service’s first Black female superintendent – admitted she helped six Black cops cheat to get a promotion in “a desperate effort to level the playing field.”
By Wendy Gillis
August 28, 2024
By leaking confidential exam questions to six Black officers, Supt. Stacy Clarke “played the lead role in perverting their moral compasses,” a police tribunal heard — becoming the “maestro” of a sophisticated promotional cheating scheme that rocked the Toronto Police force and has now halted the senior officer’s meteoric rise.
Clarke’s orchestrated plan to help racialized cops get ahead amounted to “extremely serious” misconduct, tribunal adjudicator Robin McElary-Downer said in a much-anticipated penalty decision released Wednesday — a betrayal of her badge so great that Clarke, the force’s first Black female superintendent, needed to be stripped of her history-making rank.
“There is no room in policing for noble cause corruption,” McElary-Downer told a full public gallery inside Toronto police headquarters, referencing an unethical act aimed at achieving a greater good.
“Honesty and integrity are non-negotiable character traits of a police officer. Superintendent Clarke’s actions demonstrated both were absent,” she said, knocking Clarke down to inspector for two years and ruling she must reapply to regain her hard-fought higher rank.
Clarke pleaded guilty last year to seven counts of professional misconduct under Ontario’s police legislation after admitting she’d taken photographs of confidential interview questions then texted them to six Black candidates who were taking part in the highly competitive sergeant’s promotional process in 2021. Her high-profile sentencing hearing has shone a glaring spotlight on racial diversity within Canada’s largest police service, prompting debate about whether the ends could have justified the means inside a force still fighting anti-Black racism outside and in.
At a closely-watched sentencing hearing this May, Clarke claimed she’d helped the cops cheat in a last-ditch effort to counteract a still-present racial bias that keeps Black cops back, discrimination she knew all too well as a barrier-breaking police leader. Her unvarnished account of discrimination on the force won her hero status among many supporters, who brought her flowers and hugs during the hearing.
“I felt at the time that (the six officers) did not have a fair chance in this process and my own history and experience of racial inequity compounded this feeling,” Clarke wrote in an internal police report, calling the cheating “a desperate effort to level the playing field.”
On the stand in her own defence, Clarke suggested it was an open secret that senior officers had long helped their preferred candidates get promoted, though she acknowledged that was no excuse.
Groans of disappointment and anger could be heard in the auditorium Wednesday as McElary-Downer read out her decision — particularly the ruling that she must reapply to be superintendent, which supporters say means Clarke will never regain her trailblazing title.
“You can talk about fairness of systems. You can talk about the rules. No substantive change has ever been accomplished by following the rules that the system made,” said Audrey Campbell, former president of the Jamaican Canadian Association (JCA) and Clarke supporter.
“One man’s criminal is another man’s freedom fighter,” she said.
Speaking briefly to reporters inside police headquarters, Clarke — who had listened emotionless throughout the hearing — said she was taking time with her family to consider next steps. She has 30 days to contest the decision to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, which adjudicates appeals of police tribunal decisions.
“Just very disappointed and very sad about it,” Clarke said, on her way out. “There’s a lot of people who have shared these types of experiences. But I’m looking forward to moving forward. There’s a lot of work still to be done.”
In her 71-page ruling, McElary-Downer said that on first glance the case was “complex and challenging,” particularly as it concerned the “thorny issue” of anti-Black racism and the “purportedly unfair promotional process for Black officers.”
But she stressed it wasn’t her job to make recommendations about anti-Black racism or the promotional process.
“Rather, I am here because a very senior ranking officer of the Toronto Police Service, admittedly lead six very junior ranking officers into a scheme of cheating,” McElary-Downer said.
Clarke’s behaviour may have been well-intentioned but it was a “grave act of betrayal” of the six officers she helped cheat, McElary-Downer said. All six faced career consequences after the scheme came to light: five cops received unit-level discipline and were docked thousands in lost salary, while a sixth was demoted for professional misconduct.
“As a mentor, as a senior ranking officer, it was her duty, her moral and ethical obligation to lead by example and demonstrate honesty and integrity above reproach. Rather, she led by modelling corrupt behaviour and unfortunately, they followed,” the hearing officer said.
She noted, however, that Clarke’s swift recognition of her wrongdoing was laudable — she demonstrated accountability by pleading guilty and apologizing.
“I have no doubt she is deeply remorseful. While Superintendent Clarke’s actions failed to model the core values of the TPS, she has modelled courage, accountability, and responsibility, in her actions post misconduct,” McElary-Downer said.
Another mitigating factor was Clarke’s otherwise “distinguished and exemplary career in law enforcement,” she said.
But her misconduct — which caused a rupture of public trust in policing — illustrated an abuse of her position and her power, McElary-Downer said, making her “an unsuitable candidate to be automatically reinstated to the rank of superintendent.”
“Clarke will need to reapply down the road, and when she does, I am truly hopeful she will demonstrate her readiness to serve at the rank of superintendent,” the hearing officer wrote.
That decision sided with police prosecutor Scott Hutchison, who argued Clarke’s actions might well have warranted dismissal. Joseph Markson, Clarke’s lawyer, said forcing her to reapply to her rank would be “tantamount to a permanent demotion.”
Both lawyers declined to comment following Wednesday’s penalty decision.
Herman Stewart, another Clarke supporter and former JCA president, said forcing Clarke to reapply banishes her from ever being promoted again.
“She will never get it if she were to reapply,” Stewart said. “She’s doomed.”
In a statement Wednesday, Toronto police said the force acknowledged Clarke’s case “brought forward a number of issues that the service is addressing,” noting it has implemented reforms aimed at diversifying the ranks.
“We are committed, in partnership with the Toronto Police Service Board, to meaningful change and continuous improvement to create a respectful, safe, and inclusive workplace,” Chief Myron Demkiw said in a statement.
Alongside the groundswell of support, Clarke’s case prompted division among Black Torontonians and the policing community.
“We need more police accountability, and the individuals who implicate themselves in police harm and misconduct, whether they are Black or not, have to always be held to account,” Toronto activist and author Desmond Cole told the Star in May.
The Toronto Police Association has been vocal in its concerns that Clarke, as a senior officer, could be treated with kid gloves compared to lower-ranking cops. In a statement Wednesday, union president Jon Reid said TPA members “have long expressed concerns about the need for more accountability among senior officers.”
“Their actual and observed experiences indicate that expectations and rules for senior officers are not consistently enforced,” Reid said.
“As we move forward, we must continue to engage in transparent dialogue and take steps to ensure that accountability and fairness are not concepts but practiced realities within the service.”
Neither the Biden administration, nor the city government of Aurora, Colorado, has done anything to stop this armed gang of illegal aliens from terrorizing residents of this apartment building.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1829153230670180515
https://www.yahoo.com/news/video-shows-armed-gang-troubled-070023974.html
Video shows armed gang at troubled Colorado apartment building believed to have been taken over by migrants
By Jasmine Baehr
August 29, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2F4cArA3uc
Potential gang activity was caught on surveillance camera in a Colorado apartment building after what one former resident calls “no accountability” kept law enforcement from assisting.
The video shows many men armed with handguns, and one with a scoped rifle, bursting through the door of the apartment complex for unknown reasons.
The group appears to be Tren de Aragua, or TdA, a transnational gang based out of Venezuela. The gang, with reportedly 5,000 members, has a motto of “real until death,” or “real hasta la muerte.”
TdA is now linked with over 100 crimes across the nation, according to reporting from the New York Post.
Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital that “without a doubt that there is sex trafficking now going on” in relationship to TdA’s activities in the city.
“This is organized. They patrol the property with guns visibly, like they’re not trying to hide them. There’s no repercussion. These are ghosts,” said one resident who spoke with Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity.
The gang has also been seen dealing drugs in the same apartment building, according to this resident.
The resident, who moved out of the overtaken apartment building on Wednesday afternoon with the assistance of City Council Member Danielle Jurinsky and congressional candidate John Fabbricatore, said to Fox News Digital that “I literally had to borrow from everybody I know to get into a new place. And it’s every bit of money I had.”
She also credits Fox News with her move out of the troubled complex, saying “Through the help of Fox News actually, they connected us with the councilwoman who, Danielle Jurinsky, pulled together all the resources to get us some help and get us out of there.”
Aurora Police released a statement via X, saying “we believe reports of TdA influence in Aurora are isolated.”
Nearby Denver Police told FOX 31 on Wednesday that they were “not aware” of any apartment takeovers by gangs in the area.
“There’s no safety net for you because the police are not coming. They say, ‘stay inside and lock your doors.’ I have to work! I was paying rent, these people haven’t been paying rent at all. I’ve been paying rent every month for years,” the resident told Fox News Digital.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Aurora City Council Member Danielle Jurinsky said, “In the entire Denver metro area, it has been like pulling teeth to get anyone, the media, other elected officials, to get anyone to acknowledge the presence of this trend and to acknowledge that there is even a problem.”
“I hope [the police] do something because they could have helped me get out. Literally. Their answer for me was, ‘you ever think about moving?’ That’s what they told me when I was like, and I started crying,” recalled the resident.
“There’s no help coming for any of us. The police have checked out. They’re not on our side.”
Gab founder Andrew Torba: “One of the more ridiculous foreign data requests that Gab received (and turned down) from Germany was when they wanted us to dox a user for calling a female politician fat.”
https://x.com/BasedTorba/status/1827481697354707071/
https://twitter.com/BasedTorba/status/1827481697354707071/
In the long run, the only way to enforce price controls on food is to adopt communism. This explains the step by step process of how that happens.
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1824840348008391127
By Robert M Sterling
August 17, 2024
People need to stop overreacting about Kamala’s plan to reduce food inflation, as if it would lead to communism, mass starvation, and the end of America.
I worked in M&A in the food industry. Here’s a step-by-step summary of what would actually happen:
1. The government announces that grocery retailers aren’t allowed to raise prices.
2. Grocery stores, which operate on 1-2% net margins, can’t survive if their suppliers raise prices. So the government announces that food producers (Kraft Heinz, ConAgra, Tyson, Hormel, et. al.) also aren’t allowed to raise prices.
3. Not all grocery stores are created equal. Stores in lower-income areas make less money than those in higher-income areas, as the former disproportionately sell lower-margin prepackaged foods (“center of the store”) instead of higher-margin fresh products like meat (“perimeter of the store”). Because stores in lower-income areas aren’t able to cover overhead (remember, even if their wholesale costs are fixed, their labor, utilities, insurance, and other operating expenses aren’t fixed… yet), grocery chains start to shut them down. Food deserts in rural areas and in low-income urban areas alike become worse.
4. Meanwhile, margins for food producers are also quickly eroding. Their primary costs (ingredients, energy, and labor) aren’t fixed, and their shrinking gross profits leave less cash flow available to cover overhead, maintain facilities, and reinvest in additional production capacity.
5. Grocery chains, which have finite shelf space, start to repurpose their stores (those they didn’t have to shut down, I should say) to sell more non-price-controlled items—everything from nutrition supplements to kitchenware to apparel—and less price-controlled food products. Your local Kroger or Safeway starts to look and feel more like a Walmart.
6. Food producers stop making products with lower margins. Grocery chain start competing with each other to secure inventory. Since they can’t compete by offering stronger prices (remember, producers aren’t allowed to raise prices here, and, even if they could, grocery chains no longer have the gross profit to bear price increases), they compete on things like payment terms.
7. Small grocery chains start to shut down entirely, or get sold to larger chains like Kroger. In addition to not being able to cover fixed costs, a major reason for this is because they can no longer reliably secure delivery of products, due to producers prioritizing sales to larger customers, which are able to leverage their stronger balance sheets to offer superior payment terms.
8. Smaller food producers—which typically sell via distributors, rather than directly to grocery chains—start to go out of business. Because these producers have an additional step their value chains, and because they have lower volumes over which to spread their fixed costs, their cost structure is inherently disadvantaged compared to major food producers. When grocery stores aren’t able to raise prices, cutting product costs becomes all the more important, and deprioritizing purchases from smaller producers is an easy way to do so.
9. As supply chains break down, lines start to form outside grocery stores every morning. Cities assign police officers to patrol store parking lots, and food producers draft contingency plans to assign armed escorts to delivery trucks.
10. The federal government announces a program to issue block grants for states to purchase and operate shuttered grocery stores. The USDA also seizes closed-down production facilities.
11. The government announces that prices for all key food costs—corn, wheat, cattle, energy, etc.—are also now fixed, to stop “profiteers” from gouging the now-government-operated food industry.
12. Shockingly, the government struggles to operate one of the most complex industries on the planet. The entire food supply chain starts imploding.
13. Communism, mass starvation, and the end of America quickly ensue.
Hey wait a second
Why is the DNC engaging in racial segregation?
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1828847858252165292
https://demconvention.com/schedule/
CNN understands that prices are based on supply and demand: “An influx of new residents drove up housing costs in the Tampa Bay region, leaving it with one of the highest annual inflation rates in the country last year. Now, the Tampa metro has one of the lowest rates, mostly thanks to beefed-up housing supply.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/housing-affordability-america-finally-improving-133523145.html
Housing affordability in America is finally improving. Not so much in these cities
By Bryan Mena, CNN
August 27, 2024
With the Federal Reserve all but confirmed to cut interest rates next month, there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel for Americans grappling with the most unaffordable housing market in decades. But the old saying that “real estate is local” still rings painfully true.
In June, home-price growth accelerated the most in New York, San Diego and Las Vegas, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index released Tuesday. For several months, San Diego led with the fastest increase in home prices, eventually getting toppled by New York in May — a corner of the country already notorious for its high cost of living.
And it’s not just home buyers feeling the sting: A recent report from Moody’s Analytics showed that the situation is dire for renters, too. New York City, Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Florida, Los Angeles and Northern New Jersey were the five most rent-burdened places in America during the second quarter, the report found, based on rent prices and family incomes (or the rent-to-income ratio.) Renters in those cities allocate more than 30% of their income toward rent, Moody’s said.
That’s in contrast to regions seeing declining shelter costs, such as Tampa, Florida; Denver and Minneapolis, according to Consumer Price Index data. A pickup in home construction has been key for those metropolitan areas because it can ease upward pressure on prices. An influx of new residents drove up housing costs in the Tampa Bay region, leaving it with one of the highest annual inflation rates in the country last year. Now, the Tampa metro has one of the lowest rates, mostly thanks to beefed-up housing supply.
Nationwide, the housing market has finally shown signs of improvement. Year-over-year home-price growth has slowed over the past several months, as measured by the national Case-Shiller index, rising 5.4% in June from a year earlier, down from 5.9% in May, though the index itself reached a fresh record high that month. The average 30-year mortgage rate is currently at its lowest level since May 2023, housing inventory has expanded every month this year so far, and household incomes have continued to grow at a brisk pace, which is factored in to housing affordability,
Good luck living comfortably in New York
Affordability is being stymied for different reasons across different places, but the one region currently taking the crown as America’s most unaffordable housing market seems to be New York.
The Big Apple is the most rent burdened place in the US by far, according to the Moody’s report, where renters dedicated about 58% of their income toward rent during the second quarter. Nationally, that figure stood at about 27% in the April-through-June period. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro had one of the nation’s highest annual inflation rates in July, with the month-over-month increase “primarily driven by higher prices for shelter,” the Labor Department’s Regional Commissioner William J. Sibley said in a release.
“It’s heartbreaking when I look at the data for New York,” said Lu Chen, senior economist at Moody’s who was the lead author of the group’s report. “There is just no way that many families, depending on the household structure, can afford to live in any unit without sharing.”
The median rent in Manhattan, home to Times Square and New York’s iconic skyscrapers, was $4,300 in July, according to a report from brokerage firm Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants. In Brooklyn, the median rent in July was $3,600; and in northwest Queens, it was $3,450 that month, the report said. The median national rent for all bedrooms and property types is $2,106, according to Zillow.
Home-price growth in New York was the nation’s fastest, rising 9% in June from a year earlier, according to Case-Shiller data.
Miami’s unaffordability problem persists
Regions that have seen strong population growth in recent years, particularly many cities in the Sun Belt, have seen housing costs climb. From Miami to Atlanta and Phoenix, an influx of new residents in many American cities — either because folks were seeking warmer weather or a lower cost of living — has driven up demand, including for housing. Initially, that resulted in some growing pains: The shelter indexes for the Miami, Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa metros areas each reached a record high in 2022, CPI data shows.
But nearly all of those metros have now reversed course: Inflation in Atlanta, Tampa and Phoenix has plummeted over the past year, thanks to slowing housing costs. The one exception is Miami, standing in contrast to its counterpart across the state.
“Tampa is a fast-growing area and there’s significant building going on because we have a lot of available land in surrounding areas like Hillsborough County and Pasco County,” Brian Adcock, chair of the Tampa Bay Chamber, told CNN previously. “There are a lot more neighborhoods now and that’s the key difference with Miami.”
Miami was the second-most rent-burdened place in America, Moody’s reported, with renters dishing out about 37% of their income for rent. The CPI shelter index for the metropolitan area registered at a 5.8% annual rate in June, according to the latest data, compared to the 5.1% rate seen nationally in July.
A person with $315,000 in debt says it’s “not fair” that she has to pay it back. Despite having a business degree, she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of compound interest, or why her balance keeps growing.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1828083309446144067
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gen-xer-6-figure-salary-091202958.html
A Gen Xer with a 6-figure salary and over $315,000 in debt can’t afford a home: ‘This country has failed us’
By Ayelet Sheffey
August 25, 2024
Shirin Tajani, 46, is struggling to manage her student loans and credit card debt.
Despite earning six figures as a nurse, she’s unable to afford homeownership.
She’s hopeful the SAVE student-loan repayment plan will go through to give her lower payments.
Shirin Tajani, 46, went back to school in 2011 to get her nursing degree, and she’s been practicing in the field ever since.
But despite having multiple degrees, achieving homeownership is out of reach due to the over $315,000 in debt she carries from her student loans and credit card.
Tajani moved from Pakistan to the US when she was 10 years old, and her parents wanted her to have the opportunity to benefit from the higher education system in the US. She received a bachelor’s degree in business in 2002 and worked in a corporate job, but after being laid off in 2009, she decided she wanted to become a nurse.
That’s where most of her student loans came from, and while she’s now earning a six-figure salary, according to documents reviewed by BI, it’s not enough to pay off the balance alongside other expenses like rent. She’s even picked up a second job outside her full-time nursing career to help make ends meet, meaning that she now works six days a week.
“I was in a situation that I had to pivot and change my career so that I can stay grounded,” Tajani told BI. “I just feel like this country has failed us, having to come here, not even being born here, going to school, and then you get tied down to these loans.”
Tajani’s student loans are currently on forbearance due to legal challenges confronting President Joe Biden’s new SAVE income-driven repayment plan. Through that plan, Tajani said she got around $250 monthly payments — significantly lower than the nearly $600 she was paying prior.
For now, she’s waiting to see a final court decision on the SAVE plan. She’s among millions of Americans struggling with consumer debt. The New York Federal Reserve recently found that Americans now owe a record $1.14 trillion on their credit cards, with balances rising 5.8% from a year ago. Credit card interest rates are also at record highs, making it even harder for consumers to pay off their debt.
When it comes to student loans, Gen Xers and boomers have the highest median balance, per a recent report from the New School’s Schwartz Center, preventing many of them from achieving financial goals later in life.
With rising home prices and high interest rates in recent years, coupled with an increase in consumer debt, Tajani said she feels defeated that she cannot progress financially — especially after putting herself on the front lines as a nurse during the pandemic.
“I’m trying to get on a budget, trying to cut back on expenses, and it’s been hard. It’s been really hard,” she said. “We basically retooled ourselves, but then we get punished at the end.”
‘It’s sad to see a lot of us suffer’
With high interest rates to combat inflation during the pandemic, it’s no surprise Americans are struggling with consumer debt while juggling other basic expenses. Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Federal Reserve, told BI that the level of delinquencies on consumer products, like credit cards, is “blowing through normal a little bit.”
“The level of delinquencies is a bit uncomfortably high, and that’s a warning sign,” he said, referring to potential signals of an economic downturn.
Tajani is doing all she can to get out of her debt, but she also has some private student loans along with her federal loans, which makes it difficult to stay on top of all of her balances. That’s why the SAVE plan is so important to her — it would give her manageable payments to help her focus on affording her other expenses.
“I have to have my second job to pay my loans because without that, I wouldn’t be able to make payments,” Tajani said. “So I just feel like seeing all these lawsuits blocking these programs for us is just not fair. And it’s sad just to see a lot of us suffer believing that our country would help us out, and they’re not doing anything for that.”
While the SAVE plan is blocked, the Education Department is working to implement other relief efforts, like its broader version for student-loan forgiveness using the Higher Education Act of 1965. The department plans to begin providing that relief to borrowers in October, but legal threats to that plan are already looming, meaning borrowers will likely face delays getting the relief, if at all.
For now, Tajani remains hopeful relief will go through in some way while recognizing the uncertainty lawsuits and the election could bring.
“Right now, we just wait and see what happens. I’m hopeful they’ll do something because I’m sure the government doesn’t want people to default, and that could affect a lot of people’s livelihoods,” she said. “So I’m hopeful something will come about, but I just don’t know when that’s going to happen.”
Kamala Harris’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains sounds very similar to France’s wealth tax. People who don’t understand human nature, economics, and math should not be allowed to create tax policy.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1827141184252199309
Old Money, New Money Flee France and Its Wealth Tax
By Molly Moore
July 16, 2006
Eric Pinchet, author of a French tax guide, estimates the wealth tax earns the government about $2.6 billion a year but has cost the country more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998.
I think this parent is raising their child to be a criminal.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1827100347216662824
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/passenger-sends-social-media-sos-005855547.html
“I am currently on a flight from Hawaii to Las Vegas and a child behind me keeps kicking my seat,” Redditor Silverlace22 alerted the room.
“His oblivious father is sitting next to him and does nothing. I don’t want to cause a scene but 4 hours into this and I am ready to go full tilt Karen. I have said ‘ouch’ a few times, but to no avail.
Ohio identifies 597 noncitizens who voted or registered in recent elections
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-identifies-597-noncitizens-voted-193232028.html
Ohio identifies 597 noncitizens who voted or registered in recent elections
By JULIE CARR SMYTH
August 21, 2024
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s elections chief on Wednesday referred for possible prosecution 597 apparent noncitizens who either registered to vote or cast a ballot in a recent election — a higher number than he normally finds but still a tiny fraction of the state’s electorate.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that of those cases, 138 were found to have cast ballots and 459 registered but did not vote. They were identified as part of a routine review and referred to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
The total compares to 148 noncitizen cases referred in 2022, 117 in 2021 and 354 in 2019. More than 8 million people are registered to vote in Ohio.
Only a handful of noncitizen-related cases are ever prosecuted. However, this year’s referrals come as preventing noncitizen voting has become a centerpiece of Republicans’ 2024 campaign messaging.
Earlier this year, LaRose launched an audit of the state’s voter registration database that resulted in the removal of 154,995 registrations that he said had been confirmed to be abandoned and inactive for at least four consecutive years.
Civil rights organizations decried the effort as voter suppression. LaRose said the effort is ongoing and additional registrations could yet be cancelled before November’s presidential election.
LaRose has said his citizenship verification efforts this year are the most comprehensive the office has ever undertaken. The analysis includes cross-checks against records provided by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security’s federal database of noncitizens, the Social Security Administration, federal jury pool data and other resources.
For all practical purposes, Minneapolis has decriminalized shootings and car thefts for people who are 13 or younger
My prediction: Los Angeles will give parole to Nathaniel Radimak, he’ll end up assaulting an innocent person, and the people who gave him parole will have zero concern for this new victim.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1826358720957481219
https://yahoo.com/news/tesla-driver-smashed-cars-pipe-174051007.html
Tesla driver who smashed cars with a pipe in incidents of road rage could be paroled early
By Andrew J. Campa
August 21, 2024
The Tesla driver who became notorious for violent, pipe-wielding incidents of road rage through video captured by a victim may be back on highways sooner than expected.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón described Nathaniel Radimak’s “reign of terror” when he was charged in January 2023.
Now, the 37-year-old could be freed after serving less than a year of his five-year sentence, according to files from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. His earliest eligible parole date is listed as August 2024, though the department noted the date was “subject to change.”
Radimak is being held at the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown, about 50 miles southeast of Stockton. The minimum- to medium-custody facility also serves as a training center for incarcerated people who aid in firefighting efforts.
He’s been there since Oct. 3, 2023.
Radimak was initially charged with four counts of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, four counts of criminal threats and one felony count of vandalism, along with two misdemeanor counts of vandalism and one misdemeanor count of elder abuse.
He pleaded no contest and was eventually sentenced to five years for stalking and two years for criminal threats (served concurrently) in state prison in August 2023.
He’s credited with 424 days served awaiting sentencing — 212 days for time served and 212 days for good behavior, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records.
In June 2022, Radimak threatened a 74-year-old woman outside a doctor’s office in Glendale, and then in November he threatened a woman at a storage facility in Atwater Village, Los Angeles County prosecutors said. That same day, he got out of his Tesla, threatened a woman on a freeway and broke one of her headlights.
On Jan. 11, 2023, prosecutors said, he struck another vehicle with a pipe on the 2 Freeway near York Boulevard, an incident caught on dash-cam video. He was also accused of following a car from a Pasadena mall later that day, nearly hitting it with his vehicle, then striking it with a metal pole.
Columbia University just told its students that it’s OK for them to break windows, illegally enter a building, block the exits, and imprison employees inside the building.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1825942177962406270
Columbia has ‘waved the white flag’ by failing to expel even one student who occupied campus building: House report
By Carl Campanile
August 19, 2024
Columbia University has not only caved and failed to expel any of the students busted in the occupation of a building during a pro-terror riot, most of them are still “in good standing’’ there, a House report says.
“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” fumed Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, in a scathing statement accompanying a panel analysis Monday.
“More than three months after the criminal takeover of Hamilton Hall, the vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing,” said the head of the House committee, which is investigating campus antisemitism.
“By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions,” Foxx said.
She blasted the Manhattan Ivy League school for failing to adequately punish students nabbed during the rule-breaking and lawless behavior that ran amok during recent anti-Israel campus demonstrations.
Foxx issued the startling finding about the university’s “failure” based on disciplinary records obtained from Columbia that found most students have escaped serious punishment such as expulsion and remain in good standing.
Her committee’s analysis found:
Of the 22 students arrested for occupying and vandalizing Columbia’s historic Hamilton Hall on April 30, 18 are in good standing, while three others are on interim suspensions and one on probation.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office ended up dismissing nearly all of the cases against the total 46 people arrested in the riot, citing lack of evidence while noting many of the suspects wore masks to hide their identities.
Twenty-seven Columbia students arrested by the NYPD on May 1 at various off campus locations outside of Hamilton Hall had their cases dismissed by DA Alvin Bragg because of “insufficient evidence” despite their arrests.
On April 29, 35 Columbia students were placed on interim suspensions for failing to leave a protest encampment on the south lawn of the Morningside Heights campus. But Columbia concluded it couldn’t substantiate their participation and lifted the suspensions and dismissed the charges for 29 of the students. Thirty-one of the 35 students are currently in good standing. Two others are on interim suspensions from previous incidents, one who was previously on probation is now suspended, and one is on probation.
Of the 32 students involved in the alumni reunion weekend encampment on the weekend of May 31, all remain in good standing. Three of the students are on probation from a prior incident but remained in good standing.
The records reviewed by Foxx’s panel show that many of the suspected rabble-rousing students hired lawyers and engaged in “alternative resolution” to lessen or avoid severe punishment by their school.
“Breaking into campus buildings or creating antisemitic hostile environments like the encampment should never be given a single degree of latitude—the university’s willingness to do just that is reprehensible,” Foxx added in her statement.
A Columbia spokeswoman said in a statement to The Post that the embattled school “is committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination and taking sustained, concrete action toward a campus where everyone in our community feels valued and is able to thrive.
“Following the disruptions of the last academic year, Columbia immediately began disciplinary processes, including with immediate suspensions. The disciplinary process is ongoing for many students involved in these disruptions, including some of those who were arrested, and we have been working to expedite the process for this large volume of violations,” the rep said.
But Matthew Schweber, a member of Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association, slammed his alma mater, saying it is going soft on the disrupters.
“It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham,” said Schweber, lifting a line from the Woody Allen film “Bananas.”
Criticism of the school’s slap-on-the-wrist discipline at least to date is just the latest hit on Columbia.
There is now anecdotal evidence that Jewish students are not applying or enrolling to attend the Ivy League after its anti-Israel protests and Jew-bashing.
For example, for the first time in decades, none of the graduates from the elite Jewish Ramaz high school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side has enrolled at Columbia College, the university’s premier liberal undergraduate program.
Embattled Columbia President Minouche Shafik also resigned last week and is heading back to England after leading the elite institution for the past year during its constant and sometimes destructive anti-Israel protests. Dr. Katrina Armstrong, the CEO of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, has been named interim president.
Shafik’s resignation comes just one week after three university deans also resigned from Columbia following the exposure of their “very troubling” text chain that disparaged Israeli and Jewish students’ fears of rising antisemitism on campus.
The protests and anti-Israel vitriol was fueled by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, in which the terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people in the Jewish state and triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.
Wall St. Journal: “Their Student Debt Disappeared, but Their Financial Problems Didn’t… In a July study, Yannelis and others found that borrowers experiencing student-loan forgiveness largely replaced it with other forms of debt.”
Their Student Debt Disappeared, but Their Financial Problems Didn’t
By Terell Wright and Melissa Korn
August 17, 2024
The Wall St. Journal
Getting tens of thousands of dollars in student debt canceled isn’t guaranteeing an immediately better financial life for Americans.
So far, about 943,000 people have had their loans eliminated through the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, with balances averaging $72,000 when they are cleared. Nearly two million more had their student debt erased through programs for disabled borrowers or under income-driven repayment plans.
An additional 1.3 million borrowers with $20 billion in loans have been approved for discharge through a program aimed at students who were misled by their colleges about things like job prospects. Many more are set for relief soon or waiting in limbo as further plans face challenges in the courts.
The plan has been welcomed by advocacy groups and Democrats but has received pushback from Republican lawmakers and some economists, who have criticized the cost of debt cancellation and warn that it could force future spending cuts or tax increases.
In interviews, the borrowers who have had their loans wiped away say the act has given them more freedom or helped them sleep easier at night. But it hasn’t been a panacea for all of their financial stress.
Borrowers who were late on payments or even defaulted on their student debt are often still digging out of other financial problems, including with their credit scores or other forms of debt. And since many weren’t making regular student-loan payments, they don’t find themselves with a new stream of cash just because the monthly bill stopped coming.
“For the typical borrower, the forgiveness is nice but not life-changing,” said Constantine Yannelis, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago who studies household finance.
Annetta Walker borrowed $36,000 in the early 1990s to help her get a graphic-design degree at the now-defunct International Academy of Design and Technology in Chicago. That amount more than doubled as she struggled to pay and interest accrued.
In February 2023, she received a letter stating she was approved for her loans to be discharged. The balance, $82,000, was wiped clear this May.
Walker hoped the forgiveness would help her qualify for a mortgage and allow her to take out a parent PLUS loan for her son, who began college last year on a partial football scholarship. She was denied the parent loan, and her son borrowed more himself.
She recently lost her job as a legal assistant and said she feels even further from her goals now.
“I hope one day I’ll be able to buy a home and stop living this transient lifestyle,” Walker said. “And I’m hopeful for some sort of generational wealth for my kids.”
Savings rate
Economists say it is hard to draw broad conclusions just yet, since borrowers have a range of spending habits and earnings. In addition, the bulk of those who have had their loans forgiven are still new to life without having to make the payments.
In a July study, Yannelis and others found that borrowers experiencing student-loan forgiveness largely replaced it with other forms of debt.
Auto-loan borrowing rose by $230, and credit-card borrowing by $220, on average. Home-loan debt also increased, which could boost wealth in the long term.
The researchers found that borrowers whose debt was forgiven experienced almost no change in their credit scores, likely because they were taking on new loans that countered the benefit of the old ones disappearing. Many also already had a bump when the federal government paused certain student-loan payments during the pandemic, potentially limiting the impact now that their balances are erased.
Kimberly Acquaviva, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Nursing, took out around $90,000 in loans to earn her bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s.
Acquaviva earned a nice living—about $150,000 at the time her debt was wiped—and made $862 in monthly student-loan payments. Through much of her career, she and her wife shared one car, limited their vacation travel and lived in a more affordable, less convenient neighborhood.
Acquaviva learned her loans would be forgiven shortly before her wife died of cancer, and said it eased some of her panic around raising their son in a one-income household.
“It took some of the sandbags off of my back. But it was not, ‘Oh yay, now we can do a fun thing.’ It was, ‘OK, now I’m not in as bad a situation as I could have been,” Acquaviva said.
Acquaviva, now 52 years old, remarried two years ago. She and her husband give priority to paying down their house and saving for retirement when they have some extra cash. They are also helping her stepdaughter pay off some student loans and hope to help her son, who is finishing up a master’s this winter.
“What has changed isn’t so much our quality of life but our sense that we have some choice of how to use that $900 a month,” she said.
For profit
The Biden administration has been particularly aggressive in trying to get loans forgiven for students who went to certain for-profit schools, saying the borrowers were duped by predatory institutions that lied about the value of their programs.
In May, the administration said it would relieve nearly 317,000 former Art Institute students of $6.1 billion in debt, saying the for-profit school misrepresented employment prospects and career support for students.
Jett Duran studied game design at the Art Institute in Phoenix beginning in 2014 but dropped out a few months shy of graduation when his father fell ill. Duran initially made $8 an hour at JCPenney before landing a job as an office manager, then in sales and a corporate role. To keep his costs low, he lived with his in-laws for a while.
“I make my payments, regardless if I have to sell a foot,” Duran said of his mentality during much of his 20s.
Duran and his wife bought a place of their own in the summer of 2020, when student-loan payments were paused for the pandemic.
Duran, 28, now works as a 3-D artist for Trackman, which designs golf simulators, earning $22 an hour with some benefits. Instead of directing $300 each month to his student loans, he puts those funds toward gas money and diapers for his 10-month-old daughter. He is planning a vacation next year to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
“I’m happy I get to be in this financial position where I can actually make memories with my family,” Duran said.
The US Spends a Lot on Education – but We Don’t Know Enough About How It’s Spent
The US Spends a Lot on Education – but We Don’t Know Enough About How It’s Spent
By Mark Schneider
August 15, 2024
Except for tiny Luxembourg, the United States spends more money on education than every other OECD country and exceeds the OECD average by over 50 percent. This is not just true of absolute levels of expenditures: As a share of GDP, combining federal, state and local expenditures, the US also spends more on education than its peers. In 2021, the US spent about 5.6 percent of GDP on education, compared to the OECD average of 5 percent, 4.5 percent in Germany, 3.5 percent in Japan, and 5.2 percent in France. Over the past two decades, this continual increase in spending outpaced the growth in the student population, such that per-pupil expenditures on education grew from $16,600 in 2003 to close to $20,000 in 2022 (in constant 2022 dollars). But even as more money gets poured into our education system, student performance has not improved.
Student scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) peaked years ago and have declined over the last decade. Our students have also not improved on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests 15-year-old students across the globe. In 2000, the first year of PISA, US students scored 504 in reading and 482 in math (PISA was designed to make the average score 500 points, with a 100-point standard deviation). In 2022, the most recent PISA test administration, the US scored 504 in reading—the same as 2000. And math? Just 465.
Even though the nation already spends more than its peers on education—and has not seen commensurately high performance on student achievement—in the last few years, the amount of money flowing into schools grew dramatically. Most notably, over three years during COVID, the federal government funded the newly created Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund to the tune of $190 billion. This was the largest-ever flood of federal money into public education.
In the few years since ESSER was passed, the data show that, in general, school districts spent money on the same items they did before the pandemic influx. But we are mostly flying blind, without enough information about where the money went and whether it bought any improvements.
In 2015, the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) mandated better information and increased transparency about school expenditures. Despite this long-standing legal mandate, the federal government—specifically, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)—has failed in its responsibility to gather and publicize the data needed to track school expenditures in a timely manner. In October 2023, NCES issued a report (not raw data, mind you, just a report) on revenues and expenditures for Fiscal Year 2021. The full data have been promised for some time but not released—and as of today, the most up-to-date school finance data are from 2017.
This hole has been largely filled by Marguerite Roza of Georgetown’s Edunomics Laboratory. But despite Roza’s excellent work, more detailed analysis needs to be done to unpack national trends and extract lessons that can help us understand how to reverse the stagnation evident nationally—and to make the large and ever-growing national investment in education more effective and efficient.
The combination of increasing expenditures, a continued lack of transparency, and a lack of timeliness on the part of the federal education statistical agency seems to meet Einstein’s definition that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Democrats allowed a known serial killer who murdered 23 people to enter the U.S.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1824495114372387197
Reputed Peruvian gang leader arrested in NY as suspect wanted for 23 killings in his home country
By Associated Press
August 15, 2024
A reputed Peruvian gang leader suspected in nearly two dozen killings in his home country was arrested Wednesday in New York by U.S. immigration authorities.
Gianfranco Torres-Navarro, the leader of “Los Killers” who is wanted for 23 killings in his home country, was arrested in Endicott, New York, about 145 miles (233 kilometers) northwest of New York City, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday.
He is being held at a federal detention facility near Buffalo pending an immigration hearing, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
Torres-Navarro, 38, entered the U.S. illegally at the Texas-Mexico border on May 16.
He was arrested the same day and given a notice to appear for immigration proceedings, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
The agency, known as ICE, said it moved to arrest Torres-Navarro after receiving information on July 8 that he was wanted in Peru.
“Gianfranco Torres-Navarro poses a significant threat to our communities, and we won’t allow New York to be a safe haven for dangerous noncitizens,” said Thomas Brophy, the director of enforcement removal operations for ICE’s Buffalo field office.
Immigration agents also arrested Torres-Navarro’s girlfriend, Mishelle Sol Ivanna Ortíz Ubillús, described by Peruvian authorities as his right hand. She is being held at a processing center in Pennsylvania, according to ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System.
Peru’s justice system confirmed to The Associated Press that it ordered the location and international capture of Torres-Navarro and his partner Ortiz-Ubilluz on July 3.
According to Peruvian authorities, Torres-Navarro is the leader of a criminal organization known as “Los Killers de Ventanilla y Callao” that has used violence to thwart rivals seeking to cut into its core business of extorting construction companies.
Torres-Navarro allegedly fled Peru after the killing of retired police officer Cesar Quegua Herrera at a restaurant in San Miguel in March, Peruvian media reported.
Six reputed members of “Los Killers,” formed in 2022 in an area along the Pacific coast where Peru’s main port is located, were arrested in a series of raids in June and accused of homicide, contract killing, and extortion, the National Police of Peru said.
Torres-Navarro was previously a member of the Los Malditos de Angamos criminal organization, Peru’s Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
He is also known as “Gianfranco 23,” a reference to the number of people he is alleged to have killed.
His girlfriend, Ortiz Ubillús, has a prominent role in “Los Killers,” Peruvian authorities said.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office described her as Torres Navarro’s romantic partner, lieutenant and cashier.
She also has a sizable following on the social media platform TikTok where she showed off their lavish lifestyle, including designer clothes, resort vacations and shooting targets at a gun range.
When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/15/kamala-harris-price-gouging-groceries/
When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?
It’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is.
By Catherine Rampell
August 15, 2024
“Price gouging” is the focus of Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic agenda, her presidential campaign says. She’ll crack down on “excessive prices” and “excessive corporate profits,” particularly for groceries.
So what level counts as “excessive,” you might ask? TBD, but Harris will ban it.
That’s the thing about price gouging: As has been said of hardcore pornography, you know it when you see it.
It’s not hard to figure out where this proposal came from. Voters want to blame someone for high grocery bills, and the presidential candidates have apparently decided the choices are either the Biden administration or corporate greed. Harris has chosen the latter.
In a news release Wednesday, her campaign said the first 100 days of her presidency would include the “first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries — setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.”
What are these “clear rules of the road” or the thresholds that determine when a price or profit level becomes “excessive”? The memo doesn’t say, and the campaign did not answer questions I sent seeking clarification.
The most likely template for Harris’s proposal is a recent bill from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). (Harris co-sponsored similar legislation with Warren in 2020, when Harris was a senator.) Warren’s bill would ban any “grossly excessive price” during any “atypical disruption” of a market. Alas, no definition was provided for these terms, either; rather, the bill would empower the Federal Trade Commission to enforce bans using any metric it deems appropriate.
It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.
At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat. (There’s a reason narrower “price gouging” laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices.
That’s because, among other things, the legislation would ban companies from offering lower prices to a big customer such as Costco than to Joe’s Corner Store, which means quantity discounts are in trouble. Worse, it would require public companies to publish detailed internal data about costs, margins, contracts and their future pricing strategies. Posting cost and pricing plans publicly is a fantastic way for companies to collude to keep prices higher — all facilitated by the government.
Normally, the government doesn’t like collusion. In fact, the Harris campaign’s statement about her anti-“price gouging” agenda highlights a case she won as California attorney general against companies colluding to fix prices for LCD flat screens. Presidential administrations of both parties have similarly pursued cases against cartels and other anti-competitive conduct.
That’s because price-fixing is already illegal. And it should be! It’s important to distinguish between real cartel behavior (whether among TV-makers or meatpackers) vs. temporary spikes in prices and profits due to high demand or supply-chain disruptions. Harris’s economic advisers are either too confused or lazy to tell the difference. They don’t seem to know the history of these kinds of policies and apparently haven’t thought very hard about what would make markets more competitive or improve the lives of voters.
They don’t even seem terribly familiar with what’s happening to grocery prices, where the battle against inflation has, believe it not, pretty much already been won.
On Wednesday, a government report showed that grocery prices in July were up a measly 1 percent from last year, as the White House itself touted. Indeed, annual grocery price inflation has hovered around that level for the past eight months, way down from the double-digit inflation in mid-2022.
Additionally, profit margins for supermarkets are notoriously thin. Despite Harris’s (and Warren’s) accusations about “excessive corporate profits,” those margins remained relatively meager even when prices surged. The grocery industry’s net profit margins peaked at 3 percent in 2020, falling to 1.6 percent last year. If that sounds high, note that the average net profit margin (what’s left over after expenses) for all public companies nationwide is 8 percent.
So what actually happened with grocery inflation, if not “price gouging” (however defined)? Superstrong consumer demand plus major supply disruptions (the coronavirus pandemic, bird flu, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, etc.) pushed prices and profits up. Once those shocks abated and consumers started spending down their pandemic savings, price growth cooled.
These are the kinds of facts the Harris campaign should be explaining to consumers, not exploiting for demagogic gain because push-polling suggests people are mad about “greed.”
But more to the point: If your opponent claims you’re a “communist,” maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls. We already have plenty of economic gibberish coming from the Republican presidential ticket. Do we really need more from the other side, too?
Kamala Harris to propose ban on ‘price gouging’ for food, groceries
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/08/15/kamala-harris-economic-policy-2024/
Kamala Harris to propose ban on ‘price gouging’ for food, groceries
The vice president on Friday will make her most substantive economic policy announcement since launching her campaign.
By Jeff Stein
August 15, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will unveil a proposed ban on “price gouging” in the grocery and food industries, embracing a strikingly populist proposal in her most significant economic policy announcement since becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee.
In a statement released late Wednesday night, the Harris campaign said that if elected, she would push for the “first-ever federal ban” on food price hikes, with sweeping new powers for federal authorities. Harris on Friday will also announce plans to lower prescription drug and housing costs, the campaign said.
Harris’s plans amount to a sharp escalation in the economic populism even of President Joe Biden, who had already pulled the party to the left on economic policy compared with his Democratic predecessors. While offering some overtures to the business elite, Harris is attempting to respond to intense voter frustration over rising prices — particularly grocery prices — with a far-reaching proposal.
Harris’s plan will include “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries — setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries,” the campaign said in a statement.
The exact details of the campaign’s plan were not immediately clear, but Harris said she would aim to enact the ban within her first 100 days, in part by directing the Federal Trade Commission to impose “harsh penalties” on firms that break new limits on “price gouging.” The statement did not define price gouging or “excessive” profits.
Republican and many Democratic economists see mandatory price controls as a counterproductive form of government intervention that discourages firms from producing enough supply to meet demand.
“This represents a return to the lazy, failed economic policies of the 1970s, when price controls proved to be a disaster for the economy,” said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “It shows Harris is pandering for easy answers on the economy, even more aggressively than Biden had. Biden had talked about price gouging but was not this aggressive, seeking reforms to actually ban it.”
Harris’s policy announcement comes as Democratic policymakers have been looking for clues into her plans for the economy. Biden staffed his White House and key regulatory agencies with appointments significantly to the left of President Barack Obama’s team; and on a range of policies — antitrust, trade, labor rights, industrial policy — he shattered the party consensus that had prevailed since the Clinton administration, pushing for more government intervention in nearly every facet of the nation’s economy.
Much of Harris’s approach so far suggests continuity with Biden’s policymaking, including her selection as a running mate of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has enacted a state child tax credit and universal free school lunch, among other liberal policies.
Beyond her interest in advancing the “care agenda,” such as child care and paid family leave, Harris has also been a stalwart ally of labor unions, making one of her first campaign stops with the United Auto Workers. Within the administration, Harris was a strong advocate of reducing medical and student debt and played a role in the administration’s work to crack down on “junk fees.”
Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves is viewed as a potential top economic adviser to Harris if she is elected, as are Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, longtime advisers Rohini Kosoglu and Mike Pyle, and top Treasury official Brian Nelson, who recently joined her campaign team, according to five current and former administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private relationships.
Other advisers include Brian Deese, who served as Biden’s top economic adviser, and Gene Sperling, who previously served in the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations and recently joined the campaign’s policy team. Grace Landrieu is the campaign’s policy director.
On many key policy questions, however, tensions are lingering within the Democratic Party over what Harris’s views are and how she might break with Biden.
The biggest potential change may be in how she approaches business. Harris met with JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon in March, for instance, and has had a long-standing relationship with financier Blair Effron and Lazard President Raymond J. McGuire, an early supporter, said two other people familiar with the matter, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. The Business Roundtable, a group of the nation’s leading executives, has also invited Harris to speak and is in touch with her team. (A BRT spokeswoman pointed out that was in practice with the organization’s policy and that it is also talking with Trump’s team. Trump spoke to the group earlier this year.)
“Her team is smart to acknowledge there’s a buildup of pressure in parts of the business community and it’s worth talking to them,” said Zach Butterworth, who led private sector engagement for the White House and is now at Lafayette Advisors, a strategic advisory firm. “She knows they’re an important voice.”
But liberals have grown concerned that these olive branches could be used to poke holes in their plans.
On antitrust policy, the Harris campaign has faced calls to make clear that she stands behind Lina Khan, the crusading former law professor whom Biden tapped to lead the Federal Trade Commission, after a top donor said he hopes Harris replaces Khan. Some advisers say it makes little sense for Harris to preemptively vow to stand by Khan — especially on a matter that they believe is of little interest to voters in the Rust Belt. But her long-standing ties to tech executives in California — often the targets of Khan and Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission — have deepened suspicions among some critics of Silicon Valley that she could reverse Biden’s tough approach to the industry, including on cryptocurrencies and AI regulation.
For now, considerations on policy will probably be driven almost entirely by ensuring Democrats win the presidential election. The Trump campaign is repeatedly attacking Biden and Harris’s work on policy, with Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday saying in a statement: “Under Kamala Harris, everything costs 20 percent more than it did under President Trump. … America cannot afford another four years of Kamala’s failed economic policies.
Harris last weekend endorsed Trump’s proposal to eliminate taxes on tips, despite the consensus among Democratic policy experts that such a measure is badly designed and unfair. Some advisers have also suggested to the campaign that Harris embrace a tax cut for small businesses to distance herself from the party’s liberal base, or signal a warmer view of the crypto industry than other Democrats.
But her plan to combat prices in food and groceries has suggested that Harris may even move left of Biden on some economic policies. Grocery prices have remained roughly flat over the past year, rising only 1 percent, but have jumped 26 percent since 2019, according to Elizabeth Pancotti, director of special initiatives at the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
“It’s hard to get down an aisle in the grocery store without finding an example of price gouging or price fixing, and it’s costing us dearly,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning think tank. “It’s wonderful to see the vice president unleash a suite of policy proposals to crack down on these cheaters and protect Americans’ pocketbooks.”
The fact that this took a court of law to get involved is ridiculous. The school should have expelled any student who tried to prevent any student from going to the class that they paid for.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ucla-cant-allow-protesters-block-014458314.html
UCLA can’t allow protesters to block Jewish students from campus, judge rules
August 13, 2024
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the University of California, Los Angeles, cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing classes and other parts of campus.
The preliminary injunction marks the first time a U.S. judge has ruled against a university over the demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses earlier this year.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed in June by three Jewish students at UCLA. The students alleged that they experienced discrimination on campus during the protest because of their faith and that UCLA failed to ensure access to campus for all Jewish students.
“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.” Scarsi wrote.
UCLA argued that it has no legal responsibility over the issue because protesters, not the university, blocked Jewish students’ access to the school. The university also worked with law enforcement to thwart attempts to set up new protest camps.
Scarsi ruled that the university is prohibited from providing classes and access to buildings on campus if Jewish students are blocked from it.
Yitzchok Frankel, a UCLA law student who filed the lawsuit, celebrated the order.
“No student should ever have to fear being blocked from their campus because they are Jewish,” Frankel said in a statement. “I am grateful that the court has ordered UCLA to put a stop to this shameful anti-Jewish conduct.”
UCLA spokesperson Mary Osako said the ruling “would improperly hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground and to meet the needs of the Bruin community.”
The university is also considering all available options moving forward, she said.
“UCLA is committed to fostering a campus culture where everyone feels welcome and free from intimidation, discrimination, and harassment,” Osako said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The ruling came after Scarsi ordered UCLA last month to create a plan to protect Jewish students. The University of California, one of the nation’s largest public university systems, is also working on systemwide campus guidelines on protests.
The demonstrations at UCLA became part of a movement at campuses across the country against the Israel-Hamas war. At UCLA, law enforcement ordered in May that over a thousand protesters break up their encampment as tensions rose on campus. Counter-demonstrators had attacked the encampment overnight and at least 15 protesters suffered injuries. In June, dozens of protesters on campus were arrested after they tried to set up a new encampment.
Ashli Babbitt and TaKiya Young would both be alive if they had followed Chris Rock’s advice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ashli_Babbitt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ta%27Kiya_Young
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1823830486541603289
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 