moving from the King James to the King Donald edition. ht @GreenSkyOverMe https://mastodon.social/@indivisibleteam/112167844083854571
From #AstraTaylor #LeahHuntHendrix https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/opinion/democracy-solidarity-trump.html
Text: Without robust and effective organizations and institutions to cultivate and maintain solidarity, it weakens and democracy falters. We become more atomized and isolated, suspicious and susceptible to misinformation, more disengaged and cynical, and easily pitted against one another. Democracy’s opponents know this. That’s why they invest huge amounts of energy and resources to sabotage transformative, democratic solidarity and to nurture exclusionary and reactionary forms of group identity. Enraged at a decade of social movements and the long-overdue revival of organized labor, right-wing strategists and their corporate backers have redoubled their efforts to divide and conquer the American public, inflaming group resentments in order to restore traditional social hierarchies and ensure that plutocrats maintain their hold on wealth and power. In white papers, stump speeches and podcasts, conservative ideologues have laid out their vision for capturing the state and using it as a tool to remake our country in their image.
We can't have more immigrants. They're taking all of our kids' jobs!
Text: Florida relaxed its child labor laws on Friday, as Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to work longer hours. While these teens will still be subject to a default maximum workweek of 30 hours during the school year, the new bill allows this limit to be waived with the consent of “parents, guardians or school superintendents.” The bill also allows these teens to work more than eight hours on a Sunday or holiday, even if they have school the next day. ‘While violations of child labor laws have skyrocketed nationwide since 2019, states are not stepping up their enforcement to tackle the problem—across the country, they are loosening their child labor protections instead.
Interchange (credit-card-swipe) "fees will go down from 2% to 1.96%. Booyah! In Europe swipe fees are capped at 0.3% and credit card companies have remained thriving and profitable. Draw your own conclusions." #KevinDrum https://jabberwocking.com/credit-card-companies-agree-to-lower-swipe-fees-by-0-04/
It'd be cool if there were a federated stack-exchange like infrastructure (very friendly to search and indexing).
“Approximately 2/3 of the initiating parties in cases going to arbitration are private equity-backed… These…have a strong incentive to add revenue to pay down debt quickly and…resources to pay administrative fees and argue their case. While some PE-backed firms credit the NSA with pushing them into bankruptcy, the data indicates that some large PE-backed provider groups are taking advantage of the arbitration system to extract high payments from insurers.” #LawsonMansell https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-no-surprises-act-is-protecting-patients-but-not-containing-health-care-costs/
Maybe instead of an acrimonious should-we or shouldn't-we debate over federating with threads, instances should discuss and come to some consensus on terms threads would have to meet as a precondition to federation. Call it a union. I'd say migratability from threads to other instances would be one crucial prerequisite.
(I have no idea whether threads currently supports this.)
i only just developed my affinity for affinity products, thought i might finally escape the adobe tax at its next renewal. now are they going to be enshittified?
If Donald Trump is reelected, instead of polls tracking his approval rating, news orgs will just follow ticker symbol $DJT on the stock market.
@muratk5n unless/until you tax them away.
Baltimore, my native city, just can’t seem to catch a break. No pun intended. It’s been a rough couple of decades. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk/index.html
This post is clickbait.
[new draft post] Why does wage compression underwhelm? https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/03/25/why-does-wage-compression-underwhelm/index.html
"many feudal lords were not lazy, either: competing for power and dominance is hard work – yet, it is still different from the competition based on profit and market dynamics which constitutes the backbone of capitalism." #MiriamRonzoni https://crookedtimber.org/2024/03/25/capitalism-is-dead-long-live-capital/
ignorance is innocence.
i feel like there’s a tacit deal being negotiated between Hamas and the fascist whack right that has usurped control over Israel as a political entity.
Hamas gains for its cause the moral deference that comes with genocide victimhood and pariah status for its adversary state. Israel’s whack far right gets reduction through famine of a population it would prefer to eliminate by emigration, but that it does prefer to eliminate one way or another from within or anywhere near the borders it claims.
"In 1903, 49 Jews were murdered in Kishinev. An…international outcry ensued…govts of France, the U.K. and even Germany directed vigorous protests at Russia… the international press dealt with the pogrom extensively. By 1919, much larger pogroms took place: Some 50,000 Jews were murdered in Ukraine. Thousands were tortured and raped. But this time the matter didn't draw special attention…The difference? [After] millions…are killed…human life no longer counts." #OfriIlani https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-21/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/the-mass-killing-in-gaza-will-poison-israeli-souls-forever/0000018e-611f-dcb2-afee-631fd6600000
from #MarkZandi
this is the worst way to gauge a strong economy. when “homes are up”, people who don’t own a home are poorer, will shell out more to buy or rent shelter.
when “stocks are up” — trade at higher valuations — the public will be squezed for profits to ratify nosebleed share prices.
these prices are “wealth” to individual assetholders, but they are often the opposite of wealth in a substantive sense of wellness to society as a whole.
Your rewards are expiring.