#best way to investment Money in Russia

[emileparfaitsimb]

Mining investment in Qatar

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[strangebiology]

How Funding Affected my Journalism Jobs

The different places I’ve worked as a journalist, and in related fields, have all had different funding. Here are my experiences at different places–and it seems to me that grant-funded stuff is the best. 

Internship at Nat Geo

Grants sponsored both of the other interns, but not me. Nat Geo makes a lot of its money through things like books at TV.

Mine was low-paid, but probably normal for an internship in 2016? LOVED the experience. Freelance at Nat Geo afterward was MUCH better paid. $14/hour part-time. IDK how much the grant-funded interns made. 2016.

Fellowship at PBS Newshour

A grant from the National Science Foundation funded me, but PBS is state-sponsored media. Interestingly, that’s a huge red flag in China and Russia, but I found the US-funded Public Broadcasting Service very fair to its subjects. Good experience, but even worse pay, at $13/hour full-time. 2016-2017

Job at Newsweek 

Their funding is from clicks. This place was crazy bad and paid garbage. Everyone hated it and almost everyone quit, unless they were being fired for making a living wage. Some people even got fired for accurately reporting on the company itself on assignment from their editors–there was no obscuring it, that was cited as their reason for termitation. Newsweek is Hellfire and damnation. I suspect the nonsense demand for 5 stories/day/person and silly demand that we make them go viral stemmed from the following: the fact that the company primarily made its money from clicks and higher-ups didn’t appear to care about the long-term reputation of the company or its reporters, and perhaps an ego-fueled refusal to try to understand what actually got clicks. $39k/year. 2017-2018

Freelance at VOX 

Funded by clicks/ads and grants at the time, but halfway through they started a contribution campaign. The difference I noticed between VOX and Newsweek was that VOX practices were smarter and they actually paid attention to analytics and sane business practices. Also, it's much easier to qualify for and get grants if you're actually doing good journalism, so I don't believe that Newsweek's policy of "lots of garbage" was actually business-savvy in any way.

Vox was a good experience, even though I wasn’t working as a journalist, but doing SEO/social media for journalists. $35/hour, then $50/hour part-time. Then I was laid off due to the pandemic. 2019-2020

Freelance at Alzheimer's Association 

Remote, not really journalism, but I liked it anyway. Nonprofit, so, funded by donations and grants. $65/hour part-time. 2021

Job at Bay Nature

My job was entirely funded by a grant. Odd situation–I got the grant and I could bring it to any legit journalism employer. Bay Nature was supposed to contribute 40% of my salary but flexibility happened and they just paid health insurance and such. They got basically no money at all from clicks, like, pennies a year. Not much from subscriptions. They have fundraisers, and at the time, there were 3 writers/editors and 2 fundraisers on staff. Later they hired another writer whose entire salary was paid by a philanthropist, and then I’m told they got another salary funded by a UC Berkeley journalism grant program. So, like half of their editorial staff was grant-funded.

Great experience, but low pay for the Bay Area. $50k/year, all from Poynter-Koch, 2021-2022.

Freelance at Politifact

A nonprofit and they probably get lots of grants. My particular position was also funded by a grant entirely. Loved it. $250/article fact check. 2022. 

Book

REALLY love it. $50k is from MIT Press, which is a not-for-profit, and it gets some grants and endowments. Then I got $56k from a grant from the Sloan Foundation on top. 

Future? 

I also got $500 (plus gas and hotels) to attend a day of learning with a program called Investing in Wyoming’s Creative Economy, and that means I’m one of 100 people eligible to apply for 10 $25k grants for future projects. The idea is to support creatives to stay in Wyoming and have sustainable businesses here. Maybe do some art that will bring in tourists. 

_____________________

Note that a grant sort of does, and sort of doesn’t, mean free money. It means money to support a project that usually has to have a mission and a public good, like educating the public. You don’t pay these back, and the org giving the grants doesn’t require a percentage of the profits or anything. But, for instance, the $50k grant from Poynter-Koch was more like a gift to Bay Nature, so they could pay me, and I worked for a year to actually have the funds. 

However, I’m not yet convinced that there is any objectively good funding model to ensure the most fair and accurate journalism. In theory, the capitalistic ones would be the best, but the public desire to read inflammatory stories about how their political enemies are evil, or a different generation is full of idiots, adversely affected the accuracy of headlines at Newsweek IMO.

You might think that the worst funding source would be Poynter-Koch, which is a program run by Poynter and funded by the Charles Koch Institute. But neither Poynter nor Koch even asked me to tell them what I was writing, let alone try to stop me from writing it. (Poynter hosted mentor-led auxiliary groups to talk about our careers/lives and such, so the topics of our articles came up sometimes if we chose to share that.) 

Anyway, I’m thinking of writing an article on how funding models affect journalism, for better and worse. There are some high-profile examples of grant funding causing harm. But for now, the above is my experience–pretty much all good, except not enough funding sometimes. 

[mariacallous]

You cannot understand the failure of Conservative rule unless you accept that we are living with the failure of honestly held Conservative beliefs. The UK is in crisis, not because Tories are criminals or charlatans or fools, although they can be all of these things, but because they tried to govern according to their sincerely held beliefs and sent us into a deep crisis.

I accept that this is a hard concession for the government’s opponents to make. They like to think of Conservatives as crooks. And they are right in part. The Tory administration from 2010 to the present, which offers peerages for £3 million to passing bidders, has been the most corrupt government of the modern era.

Why, then, pay these crooks the courtesy of taking them seriously?

Meanwhile, those of us brought up in the British class system have a second reason for refusing to offer Conservatives the smallest mercy.

David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, and, for a while, their Liberal sidekick Nick Clegg, fit our resentful image of dilettantish public-school boys: foppish wreckers, who do not care about the damage they inflict as long as they can stay at the top of the heap.

I have lost count of the number of times anti-Tory columnists have reached for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lines from the Great Gatsby to describe our rulers.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

There is a terrific piece in the current edition of the New Yorker  on fin de regime UK by Sam Knight. Without endorsing the notion that we have been ruined by dilettantes, his interviewees provide plenty of evidence to support it. 

“It’s all about constantly drawing dividing lines,” a former Conservative party strategist told him. “That’s all you need. It’s not about big ideological debates or policies or anything.” 

“He is not a Brexiteer,” George Osborne said of Boris Johnson. “I really would go to my grave saying, deep down, Boris Johnson did not want to leave the E.U”.

Knight himself, while never losing sight of the suffering austerity brought, says that the best way to think about the ruling politics of the past 14 years is to see it as a “psychodrama enacted, for the most part, by a small group of middle-aged men who went to élite private schools, studied at the University of Oxford, and have been climbing and chucking one another off the ladder of British public life” ever since.

Clearly, there is truth in this. But we will not save the country merely by replacing upper-class chancers with middle-class moralists.

However satisfying a rhetorical tactic, dismissing you opponents as liars and crooks misses that they can be far more dangerous when they are wholly in earnest. As the Conservatives were when they were at their most destructive.

The damage austerity caused to schools, local authorities, the criminal justice system and national defence (a subject, incidentally, we should worry more about given Russia’s aggression) flowed from the authentic Conservative belief that lower rates of taxation produced economic growth.

There is a strong link between Liz Truss and George Osborne.  

The 2010 Cameron government cold-bloodedly refused to take advantage of a once-in-300-years opportunity to borrow to invest in infrastructure at next-to-zero interest rates.

Instead, it paid off the debt accrued in the finance crisis by cutting public expenditure rather than raising taxes. 

Do not underestimate the extremism that followed.

The Office for Budget Responsibility said of the period up to 2018

“In the 12 years from the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2007-08 the UK public finances will have suffered their largest peacetime shock in living memory, followed – on current policy – by one of the biggest deficit reduction programmes seen in any advanced economy since World War II.”

From Osborne to Truss, Conservatives genuinely believed that low taxes would produce economic growth, and they have never had a programme to turn to when their strategy failed.

As we can now see.

Knight cites some horrendous figures.

Between 2010 and 2018, funding for police forces in England fell by up to a quarter. Officers stopped investigating burglaries. Only four per cent now end in prosecution. In 2021, the median time between a rape offense and the completion of a trial reached more than two and a half years. In 2023, hundreds of school buildings had to be closed for emergency repairs, because the country’s school-construction budget had been cut by forty-six per cent between 2009 and 2022.

I could go on.  But the point worth noticing is that at all times between 2010 and 2016 Osborne’s austerity programme had the full support of the Tory press, Tory donors and Tory MPs, and many of them went on to support Liz Truss in 2022.

There is an effort underway to rewrite the Conservatives' time in power. The period from 2010 to 2016 is presented as an era of moderate conservatism ruined by the aberrations of Johnson and Truss. In truth, the continuity is more striking than the change.

The result of 14-years of Conservative rule is the wrecking of the public sector combined with the highest taxes the UK has experienced since 1945.

 As policy wonks now joke in their rip-roaring way, the British used to want American levels of taxes and European levels of public service.  Now they have American levels of public service with European levels of tax.

The fiscal room for manoeuvre of the next Labour government has already been curtailed. It will not have pots of money to bail out local authorities, universities and the court system, to pick just three of the many deserving cases.

It will have to encourage growth

Economically, the quickest way to do it is to rejoin the EU.  But politically it is a nightmare, I agree with George Osborne that Boris Johnson didn’t believe in Brexit. I wrote in 2016 that going with the Brexit campaign was the smart move for a charlatan on the make.

But fascinating though the speculations about the court politics of the 2010s are, they have no relevance to the urgent need to halt the UK’s decline by rejoining the EU.

We can’t because of the tyranny of the anti-European minority, which unlike Boris Johnson, has an authentic belief in Brexit.

Indeed, so great is the minority’s power, British politics does not even talk about Brexit. It is as if, as George Osborne says, we are in the old Soviet Union and essential questions cannot be debated for fear of offending the ruling ideology.

Most people now regard Brexit as a mistake.  But then there are the Brexit diehards, who so resemble 20th century communists when they insist that Brexit has not failed, but simply has not been properly tried yet.  Beyond them, are those who think that Brexit went fine, or who don’t want to reopen the question, or don’t care about our economic fortunes.

Under our electoral system, a dedicated minority can have real power. The majority of Labour voters support rejoining the EU, but they will vote Labour whatever European policy the party puts forward. A minority of pro-Brexit voters may even now turn away from Labour if it supports Europe, however, and lose them seats in the north of England. (Or at least that is what the party believes.)

 Labour politicians feel they must wait until an overwhelming majority of the population realise that Brexit was a monumental blunder.

If only the Tories had just been a bunch of crooks. They would have stolen some money but that would have been the end of it.

As it is, it will take us years to recover from their sincerely held beliefs. Assuming, that is, we recover at all.

[llittletingoddess]

WHERE THE WILD ROSES GROW 🥀

«When the night comes, the stars begin to shine and the greatest crimes begin to come into life»

part 1 of multiply

°•○ warnings: age gap, slow burn, original character, cursing, smoking, drinking, mentions of death, mentions of murder, mentions of abduction, manipulation, abuse, national hate, politics mention, discrimination

°•○ Note from Author: Here it is, my first-ever work that was written on English! I'm so excited to finally share it with you all. This was a spontaneous idea but it came out so good so far! I'm really can't wait to show you what I'm cooking for the final, and truthfully - you've already seen a spoiler, but shh! Hope you will enjoy this very first piece I did, and I promise - I won't forget about updating it! Have fun and leave your comment if you'll like the text! I love you all <3

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

1. From The Start

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles.. the city of stars, dreams, fame and lights. The image of the perfect american life as they could tell. Money rivers, cameras, the most popular people are living here, basking in the Californian sun and sipping their thousands dollars-worthy drinks. The perfect picture of a Hollywood life perfectly hid its other side, that Los Angeles tried to hide so desperately. 

Los Angeles.. the city of crime, blood, money and murders. When the night comes, the stars begin to shine and the greatest crimes begin to come into life. No one knows who it is, no one knows how deep and long this network is and especially - how to stop it.

And while famous people represent the golden side of the city, its darker side getting their weapons ready to kill them all.

How could you possibly have any agreements with Russia being American in such dark and dangerous times? No one knows. Not the President, not the Government, and not even the Pentagon. But when you have money and the possibility to break the system - surprisingly everything’s possible. Especially when you have friends in the FBI that could easily cover you, one of the best PR managers in the world and the perfect reputation, at least you think so. And even the danger of World War can’t stop money going into your pocket when you are one of the richest people in the world. Actually, it has many advantages.

  Living on the golden side of this life was a pleasure. He worked hard for years to get what he was now. Interviews, luxury meetings with the first class people of the world, a place in the Forbes’ lists of the richest, the most influential people of the planet, the prettiest girls to spend nights with, rivers of alcohol, a few yachts and a successful business - his life was perfect. The name of James Hetfield was known and he was so proud of who he has become. 

It all started from a small project that should’ve failed on the day of its release. A small network of musical markets that were developed into the biggest music store in the world. James was passionate about music. He loved to play guitar and in his younger days he wanted to have a band to play. But with lots of circumstances this idea was scrapped but not forgotten. Instead, he decided to invest in music. It all started with a small instrument market that had a low percentage of sales. It was meant to die from the start, but everything changed when his markets began to make custom instruments. 

And now, decades later, he was the owner of the biggest music market in the world which continued to develop. The network of markets, online-shops, custom salons, music labels - it all came from one passionate idea. Was James proud? Oh hell yeah he was.

James was a good-looking man, though he didn’t think about himself in such a way. Though he was one of the richest people on Earth, he was pretty down to it, and for that he was loved even more and had his perfect reputation he was proud of. No one knew about his connection with the FBI, which he hid so carefully. Though he was in his late fifties, his age wasn’t a problem for him. He was married to one of the most popular models of America, but it was obvious that this marriage had nothing with things they called “love” and “happiness”. 

Truthfully, he never was really happy. His parents never supported his passion for music, they never supported him at all. When he said that he’ll start his own music market his father yelled at him for being stupid and investing money in “crap”. If only he could see who his son has become.. Sadly, James’ parents died in a car crash, and that made his persona even more hard-working and cold-hearted.

His latest concept, the music app that gained one billion customers in half a year, was that one project James wanted to move to Russia, avoiding all the sanctions. It was planned to be big! Whilst James’ rivals kept losing their customers, his brand will keep growing. All he left to do was to have a private meeting with Russian investors and sign the deal. Just a touch of the pen and he will create history - getting american dollars from silly Russian people. 

The only problem his brand could possibly meet was its own Russian market. Their culture provided the support of motherhood products, and having a new rival on the monopoly would be an experience. He should know what to expect from this opportunity, so now he spends all his days in his office, reading information about the Russian market, its opportunities and advantages. But even though he acted legally, the promo campaign of his app was started way earlier to prepare people for the upcoming sensation. And how he was satisfied when he fooled Russian investors and got the client base from Russia! But now, to avoid all the problems, he needed to make it official. All he saw now is the biggest deal in the history of his brand with perfect terms and conditions and big investments for its development in Russia. Pure perfection.

But James didn’t know that perfection is a lie.

• • •

Moscow, Russia

While everyone thought that Russia is a cold and unfriendly place, Moscow proved that it could greet everyone with some style and grace. Old Soviet buildings mixed with modern skyscrapers, lots of cultural and historical monuments that were slowly fading in the time and nature gave the megapolis some charm that make Russia so popular for foreign tourists. Everyone was curious to see the Kremlin’s House, The Red Square and Lenin's grave. Russia had a lot of story behind it and it definitely had a lot to show to the one who was interested in it.

But she wasn’t.

Modern Russia was different from its big ancestor. Now it looked like an infamous nineties era, with its bands and leaders of all classes, but there was one big difference - now these leaders were one of the world’s biggest mafias, setting their own rules and killing everyone who was against their politics. Russia was a big totalitarian country which despised any western innovations. But more than that, they despised America as their main rival. And their newest position against America worked so damn good for them as a plan to get rid of the western stuff they hated. They thought it influenced their children, doing an american propaganda for the zombified Putin’s nation. And sanctions were the perfect plan for the russification of the youth and the younger generation.

Things got different though when they got a private partnership suggestion from Blackened Ltd, a private American musical brand which was focused on music. A nice business partnership to avoid politics and sanctions, to bring good money to the States and give Russian customers some quality service avoiding sanctions. It was a good idea, right? But the Russian mafia didn’t think so. After a big council meeting with russian musical directors from Yandex and VK it was obvious that the american suggestion was declined. But it turned out that the American businessman wasn’t that easy when Russian services began to lose their audience during the VPN usage for the Blackened App. After some investigation they found out that Blackened Ltd. created a promo campaign that was focused on the russian audience, and it was the point when the unofficial world monopoly war began.

She sat in the crowded carriage, listening to the useless Russian small talks and smirked at how easy life was for them no matter that the country was one leg in a world war. Someone was worried about a gift for his girlfriend, another one shared their opinions about other nations, races and even sexuality of people. Why do they care so much? She didn’t understand why Russians were so cold and mad. She lived there for five years and she felt like she was the slave of the regime. No right to love who you wanna love, you can’t say anything provocative cause you’d be in a prison immediately, and the police officers everywhere she went just made her feel herself tensed. Even if she worked for the first heads of Russia now, it didn’t make her feel less protected when she was just a simple citizen. Even though, she was an American, and this whole nation hated America. They thought that the american nation should die and it didn’t make the situation better.

She was known as “The Wild Rose” for her abilities to plan her murders and her clean work. Every loud political murder was caused by her and she was still untouchable. Police couldn’t find her and when she was almost caught her boss covered her with a big bag of money. They called her one of the best when it came to observation and spying, they called her one of the best when it comes to the murder. And even though she had some serious rivals to contest with, they always rooted for her. 

Leah Bennett was a quiet girl from the Florida coast. She was the only child in her family, and somehow, her parents weren’t too joyful with her presence in their family. Her dad was an alcoholic, her mother was an animal. She always said that Leah is not enough, whatever she did - if she did not get the highest grade in the school, if she didn’t take out the trash immediately after her mother told her, if she didn’t help, doing her own business and so much other stuff. Her father yelled and beat her, telling that she would never become a big person and would never do anything good for her family. But she did. 

Killing her parents was the first time Leah tried blood in her life. Even though it was spontaneous, she felt a relief when she cut her father’s head in pieces with an axe. Police began an operation to neutralise her, to make her suffer for what she did, and that’s when her journey began. She needed to run away. Leah was hidden within homeless people, fighting for a plate of soup and killing some more people to stay alive. This time she did way better, without witnesses and blood stains on her clothes. When her parents’ story calmed down she came back home, living without electricity to not cause neighbours to call the police again. 

She was an average girl - blue eyes, dark curly hair, the type of girl high school boys would like but they never did. Leah was a quiet girl that preferred to stay alone than enjoy big companies of people, reading detectives and showing surprisingly good results in Sports and Maths. If only she knew how these skills will help her in her future..

When she was 18 she was kidnapped by a russian agent and deported to Russia to be trained by the best killers in Russia. At first, Leah did small kills for small money that didn’t make any sense, but the better she became the more she wanted. And that’s how her international fame as “The Wild Rose” began. Leah didn’t know why Russians picked her as their great weapon against the world's biggest money networks, but as long as she was paid and she was safe - she didn’t care. 

She missed America though… It was a good moment of nostalgia for her when she had some missions there - from small kill to big, she felt way better being on her own field instead of grey Russia’s panel houses. Her biggest wish was to stay in America and continue her work there, in her Motherland, but Russians always watched her - being an American for them was almost the same thing as being a black man for a white racists. Though they raised her and made her a professional, they didn’t trust Leah - neither did she. 

Leah finally left the carriage with a heavy sigh of relief, slowly walking to the place of her destination. She looked at the people and she understood why everyone called Russians the grumpiest nation in the world. Everyone was just so sad, so grumpy and unfriendly that sometimes it made Leah pissed. She had no mood to live and breathe, she felt like a bird in a cage in Russia, and her masters enjoyed it. She put on her earpods and turned on some metal to try and increase her mood. This was the only way for her to set herself on the right wave before her tasks.. This morning she received a message about her newest victim and it was time to find out some more details. Leah begged for it to be some annoying American when she could kill and finally escape her cage. She didn’t know what she would do there - get herself a house? Adopt a cat? Get a lover? It was boring.. 

Leah knew that she would have some time to think about it on her way to the mission. She put on a smile to annoy some strangers and walked to the headquarters of her bosses. Today she had a big hope for the better…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Uber's still not profitable

Uber just released its Q2 numbers for 2022 and trumpeted that it had finally achieved cash-flow positivity — and it only took 13 years and $32 billion in losses! So has Uber finally turned a corner? Will the company finally attain profitability and repay those billions?

Nope.

The best analyst of Uber’s financial disclosures — as always — is Hubert Horan, a transport analyst who has made a second career out of debullshitifying Uber’s balance-sheet deceptions, proving that the company is a bezzle (“the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it”).

https://horanaviation.com/publications-uber

Every bezzle ends. Uber’s days are, therefore, numbered. But Uber is a bezzle, and so long as new suckers can be found to buy up the company’s stock, its existing investors can cash out and run for the hills in advance of the collapse. Uber management devotes substantial energy to polishing turds, bringing a deceptive gleam to each quarter’s results to lure in new money.

Last quarter, Uber trumpeted its first profitable quarter.

They lied.

In February, Horan did an especially fantastic job dissecting Uber’s lies revealing the accounting tricks behind Uber’s Q1 profitability. The main trick was this: Uber had been forced to sell off unprofitable overseas divisions in China, Russia and Southeast Asia. The company had spent billions trying to enter these markets…and failed.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/11/bezzlers-gonna-bezzle/#gryft

The buyers for these divisions paid back a fraction of Uber’s squanderings. Worse, the buyers — Uber copycats that were also losing money — didn’t pay Uber in cash. Rather, they paid in their illiquid, doomed stock, which they had assigned sky-high valuations to, borrowing a leaf from Uber’s own ledger-books.

So Uber sold off unprofitable divisions, writing off billions. It swapped these divisions for junk shares in doomed companies whose own accounts were works of absolute fiction. It claimed those junk shares were worth vast fortunes, called them an “investment,” and declared that it had turned a profit. That was the secret to Uber’s Q1/22 profits.

Even if you accept Uber’s bizarre valuations of these companies, this maneuver should not send you out to buy Uber stock. After all, if the only way Uber can turn a profit is to sell off overseas divisions and exit major markets, the company won’t be “profitable” for very long. Claiming to have turned a profit by selling off a third of the company is like claiming to have saved yourself from starvation by eating both your legs. What are you going to eat tomorrow?

Which takes us neatly to Q2–2022 (and H1–2022), where, once again, Uber is claiming to have attained profitability. How have they managed this incredible trick? Is the company finally going to deliver on its $32b promise of losing money on every ride but making it up in volume?

Nope.

Horan’s latest analysis lays bare the latest bag of accounting tricks deployed by the company, summed up in a single line: “Uber has completely abandoned its original, failed corporate strategy, and has reverted to a lousier version of what traditional taxis had been doing for years.”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/08/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-thirty-one-ubers-legitimate-cumulative-losses-top-32-billion-pl-improvements-driven-by-much-higher-fares-and-multi-billion-dollar-transfers-from.html

Anyone who’s taken an Uber since the lockdowns lifted knows that the company’s prices have skyrocketed. What you may not know (unless you drive for Uber) is that the company has also slashed driver pay over that same period — over the past year, Uber’s share of each fare climbed from 18% to 28%, a 66% increase in the shareholders’ claim over the fruits of Uber drivers’ labor.

This is a big deal! In Q2 alone, Uber transferred $2.8b from its drivers to its shareholders. If the company can keep that up, it will make its shareholders $11b richer (and its drivers $11b poorer) in 2022.

But how long can the company sustain this practice? After all, Uber drivers are living through the Great Resignation, the tightest labor market in a generation, with businesses of all kinds desperate to lure them out of their cars. Hell, Uber drivers can just switch to driving taxis and get a raise (many Uber drivers are cab drivers who switched when Uber’s $32b investor cash firehose funded predatory low prices and driver subsidies).

Just as Uber must use unsustainable tricks to keep investors from bailing on an unprofitable enterprise, the company needs tricks to keep drivers behind the wheel even as it steals their wages. The latest trick? Letting drivers see riders’ locations and drop-offs before they accept a job.

Now, this is absolutely a good thing for drivers. The idea that Uber drivers are “independent contractors” was always a tissue-thin fiction, but never so much as when the company dictated that these “independent contractors” wouldn’t be allowed to know what jobs they were saying yes to, and how much those jobs would pay, before agreeing to them.

But for Uber to live up to its own mythology, it had to lie to its drivers, because at its core, the Uber myth was that it would replace yellow cabs with cars that would make runs to unprofitable exurbs that no driver would freely choose to service (while charging rates so low that drivers couldn’t survive on their pay).

Uber drivers were never going to freely choose to make runs to outlying areas and then “deadhead” back to the center of town, earning nothing as they made their way back to the place where their next fare was waiting. The only way to get drivers to make these runs was through coercion: first, hide where the next job was until the driver accepted it; next, penalize drivers who cancelled unprofitable jobs after accepting them.

When Uber announced that it would finally let its “independent” drivers know what jobs they were saying yes to in advance of acceptance, it trumpeted this as a benefit to riders, because it would lead to “fewer cancelled rides.” What it failed to mention was that this was because it would lead to fewer accepted rides. That is, rather than having to wait longer because drivers tapped “accept,” realized they’d lose money on your business, and tapped “cancel,” you would now wait longer because drivers just didn’t accept your run.

Thus, Horan’s conclusion that “Today, Uber is offering much worse service at much higher prices than the traditional taxi industry that it had ‘disrupted.’ Traditional taxis were unpopular because the only way they could keep fare revenues and costs aligned was to limit service to the densest, highest demand neighborhoods (maximizing revenue utilization and avoiding empty backhauls) and rationing service during big demand peaks…Today, Uber offers the same poor service as traditional taxis, but must charge enormously higher fares because of its much higher cost structure.”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/08/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-thirty-one-ubers-legitimate-cumulative-losses-top-32-billion-pl-improvements-driven-by-much-higher-fares-and-multi-billion-dollar-transfers-from.html

Uber’s balance-sheet shell games demand that we credulously accept its claim to gains while ignoring the costs of those gains. In service to this, the company produces exceptionally opaque accounts that do not break out specific revenue sources and costs, using coarse topline measures to make it hard to fact-check its claims.

Nevertheless, Horan sleuths out some important figures. In 2019, Uber was running a negative 40% net margin (losing $0.40 for every dollar it brought in). It was spending $5.16 on the average trip, and averaging $1.89 in revenue on each trip.

In the past year, Uber has increased its year-over-year revenue by 105%, and its operating expenses went up by 72%. Today, the company earns $4.39 per trip and spends $4.69 per trip, narrowing its Q2–2022 operating margin to -8.8% and its net margin to -11.4%.

Hypothetically, if the company continues to raise prices and cut worker pay, it can continue to narrow the gap until it breaks even. But can Uber actually do that?

Nope.

Take Uber’s wage-bill. The company bet big on formalizing its program of worker misclassification, teaming up with Lyft and other gig-work companies to spend $225m to pass California’s Proposition 22, which would allow the company to abuse its drivers with impunity. But sloppy drafting errors led to the California Supreme Court striking down Prop 22 in its entirety. A similar attempt to pass a worker misclassification ballot initiative in Massachusetts also failed, not even making it to the ballot thanks to a misleading summary in the voter guide. The Massachusetts debacle cost its backers $100m.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/15/simple-as-abc/#a-big-ask

The failure to formalize worker misclassification, combined with a historically unprecedented tight labor market, combined with rising federal and public support for unions, is extremely bad news for businesses whose path to profitability depended on workers so desperate that they would put in 16 hours days and still need food stamps. No wonder there’s a coordinated effort among the capital classes to engineer a global recession:

https://twitter.com/StephanieKelton/status/1555306569943891968

When it comes to customers, remember that riders have alternatives to Uber. Take Lyft, the uber-alike backed by billionaire Trump donor Peter Thiel (inexplicably, Lyft has cultivated a reputation as “the good Uber”). While Lyft follows Uber’s lead in failing to break out gross customer payments, its revenue relative to volumes only grew by 12% in Q2, while Uber’s grew by 66%. This means that Lyft is doing less gouging (of riders or drivers, or both) than Uber.

Lyft, like Uber, is a bezzle, and like Uber, Lyft is desperate for misleading accounting figures that it can trumpet to investors to goose its share price so the original scammers and their early marks can exit, clutching bags of cash. A campaign by Lyft that aimed at Uber’s spiraling prices could easily tempt Uber riders into becoming Lyft drivers (likewise, a campaign aimed at drivers promising a greater share of revenues could prompt an exodus of Uber drivers).

As tech stocks (and other speculative asset classes, like crypto) crater, gamblers are desperate for a new sure thing, and both Uber and Lyft have benefitted from that. The companies’ misleading Q2 figures prompted a rise in their stock prices.

That rise can be entirely attributed to three magic words: “Adjusted EBITDA Profitability.” Or, more specifically, one word: Adjusted.

One year while I was teaching the Viable Paradise workshop, one of the other instructors handed out a piece of absolutely invaluable writing advice. James D Macdonald gave a lecture to the students on how to write about guns. Macdonald is a veteran with extensive firearms experience, and he explained how even minor technical errors in a writer’s depiction of a gun would prompt floods of derision from his fellow Gun People.

But, Jim explained, there is an easy fix for this. Just add the word “modified” to any gun you write into a scene. If your protagonist takes aim with a modified Glock 19 and then accomplishes something technically impossible with a stock Glock 19, the gun-obsessives in your readership will tie themselves in imaginative knots to figure out what fiendishly clever modification you had in mind, and credit you for your deep knowledge of firearms.

“Adjusted EPITDA” is the “modified Glock 19” of balance sheets. Its subtext is, “Well, lesser companies may use generally accepted accounting practice to report their finances, but here at Uber, we know so much more than them that we have created our own, superior form of accountancy. If you doubt its superiority, merely consider that with plain old EBIDTA, our company is hemorrhaging billions, but once we adjust that EBIDTA, we are raking in fortunes! Who can deny our brilliance‽‽”

Just as Douglas Adams’ hitchhikers carried a towel for its “immense psychological value,” Uber and Lyft derive great PR value from their “adjustments” to their balance sheets. Non-hitchhikers assum that any hitchhiker with a towel “will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc.”

More importantly, that non-hitchhiker “will then happily lend the hitch iker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have ‘lost.’” Likewise, the self-styled “brilliant investors” who are mid-bezzle and still think they have the money the confidence trickster has made off with will look at that word “adjusted” and assume the managers at Uber are on a glide path to world dominance.

Uber’s bag of tricks is nearing its bottom. Its fantasy of magic, self-driving robo-taxis is over (the company spent $2.5b to make a car that had a fatal crash every 0.25 miles, and then had to pay another company $400m to take the division off its hands):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/08/required-reading/#goober

Same for the fantasy that it can attain profitability by throwing billions at failed overseas expansions and then make up for it by “selling” those companies to other failing businesses who claim their useless stock is worth a fortune.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-nine-despite-massive-price-increases-uber-losses-top-31-billion.html

Also the fantasy that all Uber needed was to jettison the rapey frat-bro who founded the company and replace him with a cultured fellow who thinks rape is bad, actually:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/style/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi.html

But every bezzle ends. The Saudi royals — who provided much of the billions used to prop up the Uber bezzle in its first decades — cashed out with the company’s IPO. The company may lure in some new suckers and delay the exodus of current bag-holders with its current fantasy of infinite price-hikes and wage theft, but that’s a fantasy, too.

Riders who face spiraling prices will drive their own cars, or take a bus, or take a cab, or take a Lyft. Drivers who face spiraling wage-cuts will drive a cab, or take a job elsewhere, or switch to Lyft. Uber is a bezzle, and every bezzle ends.

Image: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LA_BREA_TAR_PITS,_LOS_ANGELES.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A mammoth drowning in tar, from the La Brea Tar Pits. Next to the sinking mammoth is a sinking Uber logo. In the opposite corner is a sinking business-man whose head has been replaced by a bag of money. Running diagonally across the whole image is a jagged, declining red line as from a stock-chart.]

[fionarara]

HIPSTER KENMA PART 2 WHEN PLEASEEEEE IM OBSESSED

nonni all caps ?? for hipster kenma ?? i thought this idea was an incredibly niche thing in my odd brain which would legit get like zero interaction, i straight up wrote it mostly for myself, so this is a v pleasant surprise (Ｔ▽Ｔ) also, this got longer than expected, but since you requested it with such enthusiasm, i wanted to add in a little extra detail as a treat for you ♡

+ hipster ! kenma . pt. 2 .

(+ part 1 ⇢)

+ hipster ! kenma who feeds his hairless sphynx cat gluten-free food, because he wouldn’t feed his cat a certain diet that he isn’t also on himself

+ hipster ! kenma who thinks much of the fashion industry’s antics are ridiculous for being so overpriced (and that some of their practices can be harmful to the environment), but will drop $375 bucks at a carefully curated, high-end, second-hand designer fashion shop in the arts district on a fresh pair of black jeans, ones that already come pre-ripped and are conveniently labeled as having a 'distressed' look. so edgy. clearly, who needs logical pricing when you can pay a premium to look like you've been through a barbed wire fence? + hipster ! kenma dislikes coffee, because not only is it so acidic on the PH scale, the entire culture surrounding the popular brew (–and yes, he really did call coffee, “the popular brew” when explaining this to you) is so aggressive in prevalent society, as it seemingly promotes an inherent overly capitalist mindset that is so patriarchal. instead, he opts for ~matcha with lion’s mane extract~ for better concentration and whenever he needs a pick-me-up. besides, he prefers things being more chill and calm anyway, and coffee makes him feel too jittery and whacked out + hipster ! kenma doesn’t actually have the best grasp on crypto or stock trading, but from believing and claiming he did, got yaku involved in also investing in that one reddit gamestop stock with him. unfortunately, due to a bad call of not pulling the shares out in time, they lost a considerable amount of money. L. but as short-tempered as yaku used to be, he’s mellowed-out in his older years and only blames himself in the end for even listening to hipster kenma in the first place. anyway it’s cool–when yaku came to visit town from russia, he got taken out by hipster kenma for an evening of partying, all drinks and party drugs on him, as a sort of apology for the risky financial loss—the night ended with the both of them on the floor crying together from reminiscing about past memories and ‘the good ole days’, sheesh + hipster ! kenma who sometimes seems like he hates you, but gets a bit of a kick out of you bringing it up, because whenever you do, he gets to playfully remind you he’s just in resting mode or deep in thought by making the same joke every time, “that’s just my cunty cat face” + hipster ! kenma who is prone to getting some pretty gnarly anxiety at times, so he takes these 15mg edible marijuana gummies to chill himself out. his favorite flavor of THC gummy bear from the packet you gifted him, and which he now regularly takes, is salted caramel and dark chocolate + hipster ! kenma will drag you to see an arthouse docufilm about the music history of video games with modular synthesizers, etc. at this little blackbox theater, complaining that those big blockbuster movie chains are ripping you off by charging way too much for mainstream crap, but then he proceeds to overpay for an overpriced, organic, effervescent, raw kombucha drink once you arrive at the little indie theater (he definitely thinks buying soda at the movie theater is beneath him, “the way i see it, if you want a soda at least make it, like, an actual appropriate setting, go to a carnival and have it with a corn dog.”)

+ hipster ! kenma loves street food. will take you to the local art walk/night market festivals once a month, fascinated by tasting all the different street food vendors and scoping out the community art scene, he’ll even end up treating you with a tasty treat every time from one of the booths. although he doesn’t particularly love overly sweet things, he will especially eat any sweetly-glazed savory snack that comes on a stick. one thing about him that you’ve come to appreciate though is that he doesn’t just gobble down his food, no, hipster kenma actually enjoys taking the time to savor what he consumes while giving insightful commentary on the food’s flavoring, etc. + hipster ! kenma who DIYs…many things, because he figures, let’s be honest, other people can’t be relied upon to make things correctly, not by his standards. especially when it comes to his computer, which of course he built himself: it has a fully transparent case so you can see right through to the whole display of all dazzling gear and deco inside of it, and in his words it had to be, “a state of the art custom loop with full liquid cooling”. you admit the inner flashing lights are pretty and the computer is definitely so decked out, that it's for sure one of the coolest things you’ve ever seen.

+ hipster ! kenma kinda has this weird thing that if he didn’t think of a cool idea for his twitch stream first after seeing it from another popular streamer, then he acts like it’s kinda inherently stupid, mentions how blasé it is to you and his friends, even if deep down he does find the idea interesting or appealing and probably, most definitely, would’ve adopted it himself 

+ hipster ! kenma who can oftentimes hold the belief that adopting a cynical and pessimistic outlook on life makes one more intelligent and analytical, even more sophisticated or enhances his overall cleverness of mind, sad + hipster ! kenma is hot. okay. in such an understated way, which all the more makes him hotter, though he’s not fully aware of his own appeal, or perhaps only mildly—actually attracts a fair amount of bitches when he goes out to the dive bars or local music shows, ones who aren’t intimidated by his sort of mysterious appearance or superior demeanor which is bound to come off a little pretentious, but in truth, he’s actually a bit insecure and shy about being approached so often and therefore tends to stay pretty silent when that happens, unsure of how to fully deal/cope with someone who is being so direct about their interest in him. ultimately prefers the slow get-to-know-you burn when it comes to any romance: a friends first, lovers later kind of thing + hipster ! kenma is incredibly observant, especially in social situations and mostly prefers to just take everything in, only speaking when he has something truly poignant to say … or when an opportunity strikes to completely, calmly, eviscerate someone’s inane or ignorant opinion, delivering a point so smooth, he’ll crush their shitty take all in a such a demure, cool, collected and resolute manner to the point where the dumbass person in question doesn’t even know they’ve been schooled and insulted by him until the roar of jeers and laughter from the surrounding crowd are heckling the unbeknownst fool, sick burn hipster kenma + hipster ! kenma only dares to wear brighter colors when at the beach and the item of clothing is a hoodie (proclaims it’s a light and breathable one though sooo he’s not sure what everyone is making such a fuss over when you, hinata, kuroo and the rest of your beach crew kick up some sand towards him while chiming in unison to urge him to, “take it off! we’re by the ocean, bruh!”) – the brightest colors of those hoodies ever worn at the beach are either a pale mustard, burnt amber, or white with possible cool textile designs. not only that, but he’ll stick to the shade beneath the large beach parasol playing on his nintendo switch, because listen, he isn’t about to get skin cancer on account of the toxic chemicals they put in sunscreen these days just so he can catch some rays (which of course, the sun could also give one cancer) + hipster ! kenma has these annoyingly long pretty dark lashes which are framed so nicely by his non-prescription clear frame glasses, and every so often you will playfully grumble to him about how unfair that is, since he’s a boy and doesn’t even care that he’s got them, then proceed to joke by asking him to give you some of those lashes since he doesn’t in fact need all of them for looks. he’ll respond by lightly chuckling and referencing that one Clockwork Orange film scene where the main character’s eyes are forced to remain horrifically clamped open, slyly suggesting, “if you can manage to get me in a position like that, then and only then, can you have them” but don’t bother, he continues, because you’ll never get past him~~ + hipster ! kenma who, no matter what he seems like on the surface, you know in the end that he’s undeniably ride or die for his friends, 10/10 will always always have their back, willingly giving them a hand without making a big deal of it + hipster ! kenma shelled out quite a hefty price on his ‘Beats by Dre’ headphones, even though as a self-proclaimed audiophile he knows they’re nowhere near being the best on the market, only bought them for the clout, and walks around town wearing them or for his twitch streams + hipster ! kenma secretly cries to bon iver, sufjan stevens, james blake, ryuichi sakamoto, erykah badu, nick cave and portishead when he’s alone + hipster ! kenma watches a looot of documentaries 

+ hipster ! kenma owns this cat shirt ↴ doesn’t wear it out in public though, only to bed, and has had it so long it’s already starting to fray at the sleeves and shoulder's seams:

+link2masterlist.

[banditsonwheels]

Hey, I read the rest of the article first before reblogging from OP and it's bad. Furthermore Daniel would've been on the podium even if the accident between Max and Lewis didn't happened.

There are multiple ways of praising his and the team's performance but saying that today's race was more deserved than Monza after talking on multiple interviews about how deserved it was and how anybody who questioned their win is wrong it's simply distasteful.

You can read it however you want but this isn't the first time that Lando has took a dig at Daniel and everyone chug it as "British humour"

Hoi, it's quite ridiculous how bad Lando is at disguising how he feels/thinks ("He got driver of the day? What the hell?" with the driver in question right next to him ☠ or "Who are you??" to a reporter being a dick to another reporter). While he's proven his immaturity and cockiness plenty of times (driving off the track in the rain in Russia must still haunt him lol), Lando doesn't come across to me as malicious. Even when he said he had "no sympathy" for Daniel being forced out of Mclaren (that shit got my blood boiling big time at first), he was referring to a rule he and plenty of drivers apply to everyone including himself (you fail to perform/ live up to expectation, you're out), not a personal dig directed at Daniel.

To me, both can be true: Lando being super proud of the Monza P1 and P2 and saying Dan and him deserved it, as well as recognising that with the current car and fewer mistakes on his part due to being a more experienced driver, his P2 today came about less due to chance (rival crash etc.) and more to having reliable equipment. I found the article and:

Again, this can be read differently according to personal interpretation. To me, he's pointing out how satisfied he is about the effort that's been put into the car (pace) and how today's result was meaningful for the whole team as a sign of their progress. He doesn't mention Daniels efforts in Monza being less meaningful and, maybe more crucially, he doesn't say anything about the Monza podium being less rewarding or even deserving on a personal level. Both Dan and Lando drove their asses off to keep the rest of the pack behind them. And Lando isn't saying anything that suggest to me that Daniel is undeserving of praise.

Lastly, my best guess is that if Daniel (god fucking forbid) had driven the second Mclaren car today and had been asked if the Monza or Suzuka podiums were more deserved, he would have recognised that while Monza was personally gratifying, excruciating and well deserved given the circumstances, chance did play a role in him being on the top step. Making a P2 and P3 without any uncontrollable incidents in Mclarens favour (at least at the top of the grid) a more deserving experience from the perspective of the team as a whole (read: no credit to the team for Monza, that was all Daniel and his f.e.a. attitude). It's not about how Monza doesn't feel as fucking awesome as it felt before, it's about how the team can look at the data now and be like: We're seriously making progress after investing so much time and money into this bloody shitbox (I have to be very careful cause I'm using up all the empathy I have for this team in a year on a single post).

That's how I chose to look at it. I might be completely wrong. It does give me peace though to think that the little men on my screen are not all blatant cunts who'd throw each other under the bus first chance they get. Except of course for Alonso 🤝🏻

[batboyblog]

As Iraqi "protesters" have recently burnt rainbow flags, its time we call for a boycott of Iraq, Iraqi products and the upcoming Muharrram commerations.

well 1. Muharram is new years in the Islamic calendar, so covers way more than just Iraq, it covers everyone who's a Muslim, was raised Muslim and any number of middle eastern groups who aren't Muslim but use its calendar (the Druze come to mind)

2. I don't really know how many Iraqi products make it onto the US market, national boycotts of that kind are rarely effective. Though in general people should make a shift away from oil and gas because its killing the planet and a lot of the countries that have lots of oil and gas, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iraq are at best unstable at worse run by evil governments that hate gay people (and women, and minorities... and are just evil)

3. I do think the US (and other western countries) should do more to predicate aid and engagement on human rights. For example when Uganda past its "kill the gays" bill that should have been it for US-Uganda relations. Likewise I wish the US government might put together a nice civilian investment package for Ukraine as a sweetener for them to pass civil unions, there's a bill in the Ukrainian Parliament that would given rights to gay couples but its stalled out and I think the US or EU (or both) should be trying to push that along

4. finally I think the best thing any one can do is give Rainbow Railroad some money they help LGBT people leave countries like Iraq for safer places where they can be themselves

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 20, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

OCT 21, 2023

Last night, President Joe Biden spoke to the nation from the Oval Office to shore up U.S. support for Ukraine and Israel. “[H]istory has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction.  They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world keep rising,” he said. 

“[I]f we walk away and let Putin erase Ukraine’s independence, would-be aggressors around the world would be emboldened to try the same,” he said. “The risk of conflict and chaos could spread in other parts of the world—in the Indo-Pacific… [and] especially in the Middle East.” 

Biden noted that Russian president Vladimir Putin has suggested he might like to take part of Poland, while one of his top advisors has called three other NATO allies, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Russia’s “Baltic provinces.” Russian aggression there would draw the U.S. into war. 

Iran is supporting Russia in Ukraine, he noted, and “it’s supporting Hamas and other terrorist groups” in the Middle East. 

“The United States and our partners across the region are working to build a better future for the Middle East, one where the Middle East is more stable, better connected to its neighbors, and—through innovative projects like the India–Middle East–Europe rail corridor that I announced this year at the summit of the world’s biggest economies—more predictable markets, more employment, less rage, less grievances, less war when connected. It…would benefit the people of the Middle East, and it would benefit us.”

Biden explained that he was sending to Congress “an urgent budget request to fund America’s national security needs, to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine. It’s a smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations, help us keep American troops out of harm’s way, help us build a world that is safer, more peaceful, and more prosperous for our children and grandchildren,” he said. 

That money, he said, would harden the Iron Dome that protects Israel’s skies after the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas that took more than 1,300 lives. But he also said that the U.S. “remains committed to the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and to self-determination. The actions of Hamas terrorists don’t take that right away” 

He explained that he had discussed with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the critical need for Israel to operate by the laws of war. That means protecting civilians in combat as best as they can. The people of Gaza urgently need food, water, and medicine.” Biden secured an agreement for such relief when he visited Israel on Wednesday, but so far the route from Egypt has not opened, at least in part because Israel and Egypt can’t agree on a way to inspect the trucks to make sure they are not carrying weapons. 

Ethan Bronner and Henry Meyer of Bloomberg reported yesterday that President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin have pressured Israel more deeply than any recent administration, demanding they adjust their planned ground assault on Gaza to minimize civilian casualties and think about what happens when the assault is over. U.S. officials are worried that Israel’s response to the October 7 attack could prompt Hezbollah to join the war, scuttling the administration’s attempt to stabilize the region and drawing the U.S. further into the conflict. 

But Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners who have backed further settlements in the West Bank are eager to exact revenge on the Palestinians there, killing at least seven in the last week. U.S. officials told Thomas Friedman of the New York Times that “the representatives of those settlers in the cabinet are withholding tax money owed the Palestinian Authority [that exercises authority over the West Bank], making it harder for it to keep the West Bank as under control as it has been since the start of the Hamas war.” Netanyahu, who has been charged with corruption and fraud, needs those partners in order to remain prime minister and thus stay out of jail.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening as Israel has launched extensive airstrikes, killing what U.N. observers estimate to be more than 2,800 Palestinians, including several relatives of former representative Justin Amash (Libertarian-Michigan) who had been sheltering in a church. It has also driven about a million people of the 2.3 million in Gaza from their homes. Hospitals are closed, and food and water are scarce. 

Foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen of Diplomatic gave Biden credit for his attempt to calm the region, support Israel, and protect Palestinian civilians but was, she said, “very worried” that the conflict would drag out and “inflame & destabilize [the] region & spark blowback & it will be very very ugly.” The U.S. had not been able to get “a single truck of aid into Gaza, much less set up a quasi-safe zone…five days after it thought it had a deal to do so.” It is not helping that X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, is amplifying disinformation about the crisis. 

The U.S. and governments in Europe have pressured Israel not to go into Gaza while diplomats in Qatar try to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas. Today, Hamas released two dual U.S. citizens who had been held hostage in Gaza. 

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) took a different tack, noting that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (believed to be the group responsible for the hospital explosion in Gaza) received more than $130 million in cryptocurrency in the past two years, and researchers believe this is just a fraction of the total. Cryptocurrency funds crime and terror, they wrote: more than $20 billion in illicit transactions last year “that we know of.”

Those exchanges are currently unregulated, and Warren and Marshall have introduced the bipartisan Digital Asset Anti–Money Laundering Act to bring digital assets under the same rules that regulate traditional payment systems.

Today the administration asked Congress for a little over $105 billion in funding for national security. The package would devote $61.4 billion to support Ukraine (some of it to replenish U.S. stockpiles after sending weapons to Ukraine); $14.3 billion to Israel for air and missile defense systems; $9.15 billion for humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Gaza, and other places; $7.4 billion for initiatives in the Indo-Pacific; and $14 billion for more agents at the southwestern border, new machines to detect fentanyl, and more courts to process asylum cases. 

But Congress is currently unable to act. Seventeen days after the extremists in the House Republican conference ousted then-speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the Republican civil war continues to paralyze the House. After key Trump ally Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) lost a second round of balloting on Wednesday, his allies apparently spent Thursday threatening the colleagues who didn’t vote for him. 

Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) explained: “So far I've had four death threats. I've been evicted from my office in Colorado…because the landlord is mad with my voting record on the Speaker issue. And everybody in the conference is getting this…. Family members have been approached and threatened, all kinds of things are going on….”

The threats simply hardened Jordan’s opposition. He lost a third ballot today, with 25 Republicans voting against him, and in a secret ballot the Republicans took privately over whether to keep him as their nominee for speaker, only 86 voted for Jordan, with 112 against. The House recessed for the weekend, despite the mounting crises that need to be addressed.

Having a key lieutenant in the House speaker’s chair, where he could, among other things, smear Biden by pushing to impeach him in the months before the election, would have been a huge boost for Trump. That Republicans refused to get behind Jordan even when he forced them into a public vote and then threatened them, much as Trump threatened them to line up behind him in the past, suggests they are starting to fear Trump less than they have for years.

Three plea deals in the past two days have intensified Trump’s legal troubles. Two of his own lawyers, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, have pleaded guilty to some of the charges brought by Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis in the racketeering case against Trump and 17 others.

Yesterday, Powell pleaded guilty to trying to tamper with voting machines. In exchange for a lenient sentence, she will have to testify against others. As she was the person Trump considered tapping as a special counsel to investigate alleged voter fraud, she was at a key meeting with Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, former national security advisor Michael Flynn, and former Overstock chief executive officer Patrick Byrne.

Powell’s unexpected jump to the prosecution side—she was lying about the election just this week—put pressure on others, and today Chesebro also flipped. He was allegedly the one who designed the false electors scheme, although he has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file false documents. In exchange for a lenient sentence, he has to turn over any evidence he has and testify truthfully against others in the case, including Trump. 

In Michigan, a Republican man charged with participating in the false-elector plot also entered into a cooperation agreement yesterday, meaning he will talk to investigators and, if necessary, testify. 

Finally, today, Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the fraud case against Trump and the Trump Organization, fined Trump $5,000 for violating the gag order he had imposed on October 3. Trump told Engoron that day he had taken down a social media post disparaging one of Engoron’s law clerks, but it remained up on his campaign website.

Engoron warned Trump that “future violations, whether intentional or unintentional, will subject the violator to far more severe sanctions, which may include, but are not limited to, steeper financial penalties, holding Donald Trump in contempt of court, and possibly imprisoning him pursuant to New York Judiciary Law.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[roobylavender]

feel so so so lame being this upset over what a football player i’ve only been following for half a year is doing but it’s actually so bleak to think about the things people will do for money. and like not to pull a low blow but it’s kind of funny to see where people will stick to principles and where they won’t like it’s impt to stick by your friends who are admittedly charged with some pretty serious crimes (and i refer more here to h*kimi than pr*mes) and to go so far as to follow one of those friends to russia and then make a post indicating any criticism was just noise and not real concern (my disgust at certain fans’ reactions to that whole situation aside it was ultimately not a good decision to go to a country actively waging war against and seeking to overtake its neighbor), but it’s not impt to turn down big money and prove you love your sport more than the paycheck it’s necessarily capable of giving you. like idk there really is no other good reason to accept the offer. one of his best friends has declined and is willing to continue taking a pay cut so he can continue to play at his old club. and doesn’t that say enough? idk. i’m a complete stranger to this guy but in a weird way i’m almost wondering if all of this is happening bc god knows this kind of celebrity investment is non-ideal and builds up false expectations of people who are content to live in ignorance and wealth forever. which is really harsh to say but ig i’m just frustrated. i very rarely attach myself to celebs and when i do it’s usually bc i think they have something profound or sincere to say. but that’s harder when the sincerity doesn’t match up with the greed. is it meaningful to say there is no worth to alms given publicly for the sake of show rather than privately when you’re publicly about to accept a ridiculously overpriced salary? can those two statements coexist? it’s something to think about

[emileparfaitsimb]

Understanding Cryptography: How to Get Started and What It Is

Understanding Cryptography: How to Get Started and What It Is

Cryptocurrency is frequently described as “digital money.” This description might also be true, however it fails to seize what makes cryptocurrency special and so attractive to many investors.

What is cryptocurrency? At its core, cryptocurrency is a machine of value. When buyers purchase a cryptocurrency, they are making a bet that the cost of that asset will expand in the future, simply as inventory market buyers purchase securities when they agree with the agency will develop and share fees will increase. Stock valuations boil down to discounted estimations of a company’s future cash flows. There is no similar valuation metric for cryptocurrencies due to the fact there is no underlying company; the price of a cryptocurrency is tied solely to investor appetite. Cryptocurrency valuations boil down to one of two factors: the probability of different traders shopping for the asset or the utility of the cryptocurrency’s blockchain.

How does cryptocurrency work? Cryptocurrency runs on blockchain technology, however what precisely is a blockchain? The time period has grow to be so commonplace, its that means and magnitude are regularly blurred. A blockchain is absolutely a digital ledger of transactions. This ledger (or database) is dispensed throughout a community of laptop systems. No single device controls the ledger. Instead, a decentralized community of computer systems maintains a blockchain going for walks and authenticates its transactions. Proponents of blockchain technological know-how say that it can enhance transparency, enlarge have faith and bolster protection of statistics being shared throughout a network. Detractors say that blockchain can be cumbersome, inefficient, expensive, and can use too a whole lot energy. Rational crypto traders purchase a digital asset if they accept as true with in the energy and utility of its underlying blockchain. All cryptocurrencies run on blockchain, which potential crypto traders are having a bet (whether they comprehend it or not) on the resiliency and beauty of that blockchain.

Cryptocurrency transactions are recorded in perpetuity on the underlying blockchain. Groups of transactions are brought to the ‘chain’ in the structure of ‘blocks,’ which validate the authenticity of the transactions and maintain the community up and running. All batches of transactions are recorded on the shared ledger, which is public. Anyone can go and seem to be at the transactions being made on the foremost blockchains, such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). But why do humans commit computing electricity to validating blockchain transactions? The reply is, they are remunerated with the underlying cryptocurrency. This incentive-driven machine is known as a proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism. The computer systems ‘working’ to ‘prove’ the authenticity of blockchain transactions are acknowledged as miners. In return for their energy, miners acquire freshly minted crypto assets. Investors in cryptocurrencies don’t keep their belongings in normal financial institution accounts. Instead, they have digital addresses. These addresses come with non-public and public keys -- lengthy strings of numbers and letters -- that allow cryptocurrency customers to ship and get hold of funds. Private keys enable cryptocurrency to be unlocked and sent. Public keys are publicly accessible and allow the holder to get hold of cryptocurrency from any sender. It is honest to say that Bitcoin has modified the paradigm -- there has been nothing pretty like it before, and it has unleashed an absolutely new technology, a new platform for investing, and a new way of questioning about money. Cryptocurrency started out as a grassroots motion with an anti-establishment ethos, however today, companies and economic institutions are embracing cryptocurrencies for their plausible to disrupt clunky legacy structures and diversify funding portfolios. As improvements proceed to reshape the cryptocurrency sector, which include interesting new initiatives like decentralized finance (“DeFi”), the that means of cryptocurrency will proceed to evolve.

Source:- https://emileparfaitsimb.blogspot.com/2023/02/understanding-cryptography-how-to-get.html

[anewbeginningagain]

Skate Canada's pushing of Piper and Paul was penny smart and dollar stupid. At least I think they woke up towards the end of the season and we'll see more investment in Marjo and Zak moving forward.

I think C/B will def retire, P2 could go either way (they will if they're smart, their criminal overscoring gave them the wrong impression and Canada needs a young team to be able to move up), FB/S will stay if they're able, and I'm pretty sure the Italians will continue. The only thing that could throw a wrench into things is if Russia is allowed back in - they'll be aggressive and they'll push for a podium finish to secure spots (otherwise why would they be making StepBuk contintue?). So the only medal I can see F/G potentially squeezing out is a bronze this upcoming season. If the situation continues like this, I can easily see P/C try to come back because these teams are truly holding the door open for them.

As for the Finnish team, we have to look at it from the perspective of how Finland has stepped in to host events and these medals have sort of been their repayment for it. The best thing about it is that Pirihara get to go to Europeans and Worlds next year. We also have to look at how the different feds are trying to court Italy because it's hosting the upcoming Olympics. The Finns are with an Italian coach, a lot of teams/skaters are training in Italy, so on and so forth. What's interesting is that it looks like the Russians are trying to adopt the Montreal model and moving all the teams to Zhulin to concentrate power (I'm 98% certain that's where Khuda/Bazin are going). There are too many unknowns atm to say anything for sure, but in terms of who will cement themselves within the next 2 years as the team to beat, my money is on LaLa - they have the talent and the tenure.

Yoooo I was right! Khuda/Bazin to Zhulin! Lmfaoooo if he can't get skaters from multiple other countries to come train there, his dream of being Russia's response to Marie-France is dead. I thought he was considering retirement after he got pummeled in the team event? I wish he'd just go tf away already.

As mentioned, I fully tend to believe all top 3 are sticking around. Though I will stan both Madi and Piper if they opened those 80s spotify playlists just to fuck with fs twitter, that will be hilarious tbh.

Not doubt Finland stepped up in a big way, and I also do think T/V are a good team, but their scores and especially the GOE does not match what is being shown of the ice and that's my main criticism. Like they have great lifts but was their combo lift the best of the season? Hell no, their twizzles are often horrible, some of their moves are basic, and the themes they use are repetitive. That should be reflected in the scores.

Also agree about the Russians, I legit fear their return, men is tolerable but the rest of the disciplines are legit suffering tremendously from their presence as much as it's unfortunate to admit as I don't like generalizing about skaters from the same federation this way. But no way in hell should they return, not while they are still state-funded and institutionally doped.

The russian federation is 100% trying to make Zhulin as a copy of I.AM, it's basically I.AM if they were racist, abusive, and sucked at choreography and packaging. They are now sending most teams to him and I won't be surprised if Krylova's team will be convinced to move to him as well. And once he will have top 5 Russian teams and Russian is allowed back in, they will push for teams from Italy, Georgia, Spain, and so on to go to him as well until he will become a dance hub like I.AM is and increase his political force. And this might be the worst development of them all (maybe tied with having Eteri and her minions ruin women skating again, and having Russian pairs doing shitty programs with sbs 3Lz and quad throws and winning stuff). Sigh this is depressing.

[mariacallous]

The United States is still pushing to seize outright all the frozen Russian Central Bank assets it can to help fund Ukraine, even as broader Ukraine funding remains blocked by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. But it is becoming clearer that in Europe, the only politically realistic approach to using Russian money to fund Ukraine is by tapping a much smaller windfall that amounts to about 1 percent of Moscow’s frozen funds.

The big question is whether that relatively small amount can be squeezed even harder to provide a more substantial and ongoing funding stream for Ukraine, which is now worried less about postwar reconstruction than the grim situation of its ammo-starved army on the battlefield.

“There is a massive financing crisis. Europe and the West are not really addressing it,” said Timothy Ash, a sovereign strategist at RBC Bluebay Asset Management and a fellow at Chatham House, a U.K. think tank. He figures Ukraine needs about 100 billion euros a year to fight off the Russian invasion, and another 50 billion euros a year for reconstruction.

On paper, a big chunk of that money is theoretically available. There don’t appear to be any insurmountable legal obstacles to seizing the entirety of the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets held by Europe, the United States, and a handful of other countries since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor two years ago. What’s lacking is political will. Legislation to authorize such a seizure has yet to pass the full U.S. Congress (though a version may get wrapped into the latest congressional effort to fund Ukraine), and Europe, fearing Russian retaliation, has balked at that more aggressive step.

What is gaining momentum in Brussels, however, is a less controversial option that would take the approximately $3 billion a year that accrues from frozen Russian assets and use that money for Ukraine. It’s a fraction of the more ambitious proposals, and faces many of the same legal questions, but seems to have more political backing from key countries such as Belgium (custodian of the lion’s share of frozen Russian assets).

Last month, the European Union formally ordered the accumulating profits from Russian assets to be hived off and kept separate from the underlying balance, with a view to supporting Ukraine at a later date. Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen went further, arguing that the windfall proceeds could be used not just to pay for Ukraine’s eventual reconstruction but also for its present-day arms requirements. On Monday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Belgium is ready to allocate some of the proceeds (held largely in Belgium’s Euroclear financial clearinghouse) to fund Ukraine’s defense needs.

“All the signals suggest the Europeans are prepared to make use of the Euroclear windfall,” said Brad Setser, an expert on capital flows and sovereign debt at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The only questions are how assets outside Euroclear are handled, and whether they are willing to get creative to maximize the income stream.”

Setser, like many other economists, advocates a more aggressive approach to managing the captive Russian Central Bank assets—the 3 billion euros or so a year that accrue currently are a floor, not a ceiling, he said.

“The 3 billion [euros] is the lowest possible number that you can imagine. It should be much bigger,” said Setser, who is also a former U.S. Treasury official. Given that the frozen Russian assets are likely to remain that way for some time, he argued for a more proactive approach—for instance, by investing the proceeds that are piling up in Europe in higher-yielding U.S. dollar deposits or in even higher-yielding sovereign debt from different countries.

It’s a view that is gaining adherents among finance professionals, who make both an economic and a moral case for a more aggressive use of Russian assets. Ash suggested investing those Russian proceeds in emerging market bonds that could fetch returns of up to 10 percent a year; another, more audacious idea is to use the money to purchase Ukrainian government bonds directly, thus using Russia’s frozen treasure to underwrite Ukraine’s survival. Still other suggestions include using the trickle of annual proceeds to service debt on future joint EU bond issues that could be used to finance Ukraine in one big lump sum.

For Ash, finding a way to make better use of the frozen Russian funds is a political imperative; European taxpayers have so far supported Ukraine to the tune of tens of billions of euros, while Russians have not, partly out of lingering concerns about violating the sanctity of the Russian state’s alleged property rights.

“Our taxpayer dollars are subordinate to the Russian taxpayers,” he said. “We are willing to pick up the check for Russia’s aggression, but not prepared to charge Russia for it?”

Since momentum began building last year for the seizure of Russia’s frozen assets, the situation has changed in two related ways.

First, as von der Leyen made clear last week, those funds aren’t just thought of as a down payment on Ukraine’s estimated $400 billion to $500 billion reconstruction tab. The lack of artillery shells, advanced jets, and long-range fire handicapped Ukraine’s long-planned offensive last year and enabled Russian forces to shrug off staggering losses and regain the battlefield initiative earlier this year.

“It seems a little early to be talking about full reconstruction,” Setser said. “Ukraine’s in a fight for survival.” He said that one advantage highlighted by von der Leyen’s proposal would be to provide a recurring, predictable stream of funding for Ukrainian armaments purchases, which could help kick-start so far laggard European production of much-needed munitions.

“What I think is clever about von der Leyen’s proposal is that, if you take my view and invest it in 10-year securities, this is actually a stable future income stream for Ukraine and Ukrainian weapons purchases,” he said. “So you could use it to buy arms this year, and next year, and thereby incentivize increased [arms] production.”

More broadly, Europe’s (and the United States’) struggle to outsource the fight in Ukraine at relatively small levels of expenditure means that, if Russia prevails over Ukraine, other European countries would feel threatened—with a much bigger bill to pay in the future than a few score billion euros of Russia’s money today. European countries have increased their defense spending to record levels but are still largely short of the informal threshold of 2 percent of GDP required of NATO members. If Ukraine loses, Ash suggested, Europe would have to ramp up to closer to 3 percent on defense spending—about 400 billion euros a year, every year.

“Is Ukraine’s security a national security priority? I would say absolutely it is. Then how are we going to fund it?” Ash asked. “In the end, you do whatever you have to do to do that, and the only credible source of funding for Ukraine is from Russian assets.”

[beardedmrbean]

BRUSSELS — European Union lawmakers voted Wednesday to include natural gas and nuclear in the bloc's list of sustainable activities, backing a proposal from the EU's executive arm that has been drawing fierce criticism from environment groups and will likely trigger legal challenges.

As the EU wants to set the best global standards in the fight against climate change, the decision could tarnish the bloc's image and question the region's commitment to reaching climate neutrality by 2050.

The European Commission earlier this year made the proposal as part of its plans for building a climate-friendly future, dividing member countries and drawing outcry from environmentalists over what they criticize as “greenwashing.”

EU legislators from the environment and economy committees objected last month to the plan, setting up Wednesday's decisive vote in Strasbourg, France. But MEPs rejected their resolution in a 328-278 vote, with 33 lawmakers abstaining. The result was announced to a salvo of applause.

An absolute majority of 353 was needed to veto the proposal. If the European Parliament and member countries don’t object to it by July 11, the so-called Taxonomy delegated act will enter into force and apply as of next year.

Greenpeace immediately said it will submit a formal request for internal review to the European Commission, and then take legal action at the European Court of Justice if the result isn't conclusive.

“It’s dirty politics and it’s an outrageous outcome to label gas and nuclear as green and keep more money flowing to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war chest, but now we will fight this in the courts," said Ariadna Rodrigo, Greenpeace's EU sustainable finance campaigner.

European Parliament rapporteur Bas Eickhout rued “a dark day for the climate and the energy transition."

The green labeling system from the European Commission defines what qualifies as an investment in sustainable energy. Under certain conditions, gas and nuclear energy will now be part of the mix, making it easier for private investors to inject money into both.

With the EU aiming to reach climate neutrality by 2050 and to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, the commission says the classification system is crucial to direct investments into sustainable energy. It estimates that about 350 billion euros of investment per year will be needed to meet the 2030 targets.

Introducing gas and nuclear into the equation has divided the 27 member countries amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, and even the parliament's political groups.

Luxembourg’s energy minister, Claude Turmes, said he deeply regretted the European Parliament’s failure to bloc the commission's plan, adding that his country — together with Austria — would move ahead with legal efforts to block the labeling of nuclear and gas as sustainable.

Steffen Hebestreit, a spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said that “the German government stands by its position and considers nuclear energy as unsustainable.”

“Nevertheless, the German government believes that the taxonomy is an important instrument for achieving climate protection targets, because it is clear that natural gas is an important bridging technology for us on the way to CO2 neutrality and the inclusion of the use of natural gas in the delegated act takes this into account,” Hebestreit added.

Protests that had started on Tuesday continued Wednesday outside the EU legislature as lawmakers debated the issue.

Environmentalists warned the vote could set a precedent for lawmakers elsewhere to label polluting forms of energy as sustainable.

“We have now officially validated greenwashing by law,” said Tsvetelina Kuzmanova of the campaign group E3G.

“The process and the decision have been entirely political, not scientific, to only benefit a small number of member states,” she said. “This would not stand a chance in court and will only create more uncertainty for financial markets and jeopardize (the) EU’s climate ambition.”

The youth activist group Fridays for Future said billions of euros could be pumped into gas infrastructure and nuclear power plants as a result of the decision, diverting much-needed funds from renewable alternatives.

One argument for rejecting the proposal is that it will boost Russian gas sales at a time when it is invading neighboring Ukraine, but the European Commission said it had received a letter from the Ukrainian government backing its stance.

European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness quoted from the letter from Ukraine's energy minister Tuesday: “I strongly believe that the inclusion of gas and nuclear in the taxonomy is an important element of the energy security in Europe, especially with a view to replacing Russian gas."

“I don’t think we should second-guess this letter,” McGuinness said.

Russia's war in Ukraine has prompted the 27-nation bloc to sever ties with some Russian fossil fuels. Member countries have agreed to ban 90% of Russian oil by year-end in addition to a ban on imports of Russian coal that will start in August.

But the EU hasn't included gas — a fuel used to power factories and generate electricity — in its own sanctions for fear of seriously harming the European economy. Before the war in Ukraine, it relied on Russia for 25% of its oil and 40% of its natural gas.

[nicklloydnow]

“Mr Macron identifies a triple shock of interconnected threats which create a particularly dangerous moment in the continent’s history. The first is geopolitical: Europe’s struggle to stand up to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, even as America’s future commitment to Europe has gone wobbly. Having once worried out loud about not “humiliating” Moscow, Mr Macron has turned into one of Europe’s most outspoken hawks. Listing the record of Russian belligerence, from its threat to use nuclear weapons to its relentless use of hybrid warfare and disinformation, regional troublemaking, and aggression in space and at sea, the president has no doubt about what is at stake. “If Russia wins in Ukraine there will be no security in Europe,” he says. “Who can pretend that Russia will stop there?” What security would there be, he asks, for neighbouring countries: Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and others?

(…)

Mr Macron also stands by his refusal to rule out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. His comments prompted disbelief and anger in Germany, and a blistering riposte from Olaf Scholz, the chancellor. Yet the French president argues that, faced with an expansionist Russia, Europe’s ability to deter further aggression rests on not defining red lines. He calls this “the basic condition” of its security and credibility. These were not empty words, he insists. “If the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request, which is not the case today,” he says, “we would legitimately have to ask ourselves this question.” France, he notes, sent its troops to help African countries in the Sahel when their leaders asked.

(…)

In his telling, America simply will not always have Europe’s back. The continent has no choice: “We have to get ready to protect ourselves.” He wants to make a start at a summit in July at Britain’s Blenheim Palace. This gathering of the European Political Community, a Macron brainchild, brings together eu and non-eu members. The president wants attendees to identify the security risks facing Europe, the military capabilities it needs, and how to make more kit on European soil. Mr Macron will put on the table a full discussion of how France’s nuclear deterrent (which, unlike Britain’s, is wholly home-built and not “assigned” to nato) could contribute further to European security. He wants to finalise this discussion “in the coming months”. Mr Macron also wants to reinforce bilateral defence co-operation with the hosts, post-Brexit Britain, building on the Lancaster House treaties.

(…)

The second risk to Europe comes from the twin economic shock of accelerating technology and China. Mr Macron, a former investment banker, worries that Europe is about to fall behind in crucial high-tech sectors, from clean tech to quantum computing, if it does not grasp the scale and urgency of what needs to be done now. Part of his solution would involve a large injection of public money, in good old dirigiste fashion. Part of it would also be about deregulation, to encourage risk and disruptive innovation.

(…)

Underpinning this analysis is the observation that nobody else plays by the rules any more. The old order has been broken. Nothing has yet replaced it. America, in Mr Macron’s account, thought it would discipline Chinese behaviour with international trade rules. Instead America has ended up massively subsidising its own industry, just like the Chinese. Europe, he insists, is not being protectionist but realist when it seeks to do the same. Moreover, if Europeans are to build the industrial scale needed to stay competitive, he warns, they have to accept that specialisation cannot mean a “fair” share of subsidies for all countries or industries.

The final threat to Europe is democratic: a resurgent nationalism, turbo-charged by disinformation and echo-chamber news. The best way to understand the risk today, Mr Macron suggests, is to re-read Marc Bloch, a French historian executed by the Gestapo. In “Strange Defeat”, Bloch argued that the elites facilitated the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940 through short-sightedness and complacency. “What kills me, in France as in Europe, is the spirit of defeat,” declares the president. “The spirit of defeat means two things: you get used to it and you stop fighting.” This is the danger: elites are starting to assume that opinion polls make an outcome inevitable, and then to resign themselves to it. “Politics isn’t about reading polls,” he says; “it’s a fight, it’s about ideas, it’s about convictions.”

“Russia said on Monday that it would hold military exercises with troops based near Ukraine to practice for the possible use of battlefield nuclear weapons, a provocative warning aimed at discouraging the West from deepening its support for Ukraine.

These weapons, often referred to as “tactical,” are designed for battlefield use and have smaller warheads than the “strategic” nuclear weapons meant to target cities. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that President Vladimir V. Putin had ordered an exercise for missile, aviation and naval personnel to “increase the readiness of nonstrategic nuclear forces to carry out combat missions.”

The announcement of the exercise was Russia’s most explicit warning in its more than two-year invasion of Ukraine that it could use tactical nuclear weapons there. The Kremlin said it came in response to comments by two European leaders that raised the prospect of more direct Western intervention in the war.

(…)

Western officials have long worried that Russia could deploy tactical nuclear weapons, especially if it faced serious setbacks on the battlefield. But Mr. Putin denied as recently as March that he had ever considered it, even as he regularly reminds the world of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal as a way of keeping in check the West’s military support for Ukraine.

On Monday, however, Russian officials claimed that warnings about the possibility of more direct Western involvement in the war had changed the situation. The Defense Ministry said the exercise would be held “to unconditionally ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state in response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials against the Russian Federation.”

Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said the Western “threats” in question included a recent interview with President Emmanuel Macron of France published by The Economist, in which the French leader repeated his refusal to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine.

Mr. Peskov also alluded to a comment made last week by David Cameron, Britain’s top diplomat, in which he said that Ukraine was free to use British weapons to strike inside Russia — a departure from Western governments’ typical policy of discouraging such strikes in order to avoid being drawn deeper into the war.

“This is a completely new round of escalation of tensions — it is unprecedented,” Mr. Peskov told reporters on Monday. “And, of course, it requires special attention and special measures.””

“The United States has made a number of strategic miscalculations since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, but the single greatest may be the message that the Biden administration just sent about nuclear weapons. The U.S. showed that it would protect a nuclear-armed friend, Israel, from an as-yet-nonnuclear enemy (Iran); at the same time, Washington has refused to consider using its forces to defend a nonnuclear friend (Ukraine) against a nuclear-armed Russia.

Other governments will deduce that states with nuclear weapons can barbarically attack America’s friends and bully U.S. leaders into abandoning them. The British government has underscored that sentiment by basically admitting that, precisely because of fears of escalation with Russia, Ukraine won’t get the same help that Israel did. Even if the U.S. and its allies were more coy about their calculations, their conduct will encourage a wave of nuclear proliferation in the coming years.

(…)

Instead, the Biden administration is allowing Russia to use the threat of nuclear weapons as cover for its effort to conquer a sovereign neighbor by force. Ukraine is not just any nonnuclear state; it is a state that gave up its nuclear weapons because the U.S. and Russia firmly promised in 1994 to respect its territorial integrity.

In their passivity, the U.S. and its allies are acquiescing in the destruction of the post–World War II nuclear order—which in many ways was a great success. Since the Second World War, the two major nuclear powers never used their nuclear weapons to win wars—even when, as with the U.S. in Vietnam or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, they were losing in conventional warfare. And although a small number of other states, including China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, have built nuclear arsenals, many more governments with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons have so far declined to do so.

The global order is becoming less stable in other ways. The Biden administration’s weak response to Russia is bad enough; a second Trump administration could follow a still more destructive policy of telling even close, longtime allies that they can’t count on American support. When Donald Trump said publicly earlier this year that he would encourage Russians to do “whatever the hell they want” with European NATO member states that don’t spend enough on defense, he was signaling to leaders in Europe and around the world that the North Atlantic Alliance is in jeopardy.

Other countries will take note—and begin to arm themselves for a more dangerous world. South Korea, for one, is quietly discussing the prospect of developing nuclear weapons. It’s also talking about constructing a new generation of nuclear-powered submarines, even though it has an agreement with the U.S. not to do so. Many governments will make similar calculations.

We have reached a dangerous moment. In its desperate attempts to de-escalate tensions with Russia, the Biden administration is reinforcing the message around the world that nuclear weapons provide security and freedom of action. When countries are presented with a clear choice between being shielded from attack and being left to their fate, no one should be surprised at which option they’ll take.”

“Free nations prefer peace to war, but that preference is complicated by the continued existence of nations led by criminals, ideologues and irredentists. In a fallen world, war eventually comes, wanted or not.

And it’s coming. Iran and its proxies, having started one war in Israel, don’t appear reluctant to consider another with the U.S. A Russian victory in Ukraine, even a partial one, would make eventual confrontation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization almost inevitable. China menaces Taiwan. And the possibility that Kim Jong Un isn’t plotting an attack on South Korea—or on the U.S.—is a bet only a fool would take.

(…)

Last month I visited Mr. Helprin’s home here, some 10 miles north of Charlottesville. On the wall of his vast and spacious library I spy a framed August 1941 photograph of Winston Churchill on the deck of the H.M.S. Prince of Wales, the ship on which the prime minister met FDR to enlist the U.S. in the struggle against fascism. I came to Earlysville—I say this at the risk of melodrama—to ask Mr. Helprin the sort of question that Churchill had contemplated in the years before that photograph was taken: Are we ready to fight?

The answer today is plainly no. But neither were the British in 1935. What does America need to do to get ready?

(…)

As we sit down, Mr. Helprin doesn’t wait for me to ask a question. “It might not be a gracious thing to do, but let me begin with an ‘I told you so,’ ” he says. Briefly he catalogues several unheeded warnings he has published over the decades. One of those appeared in these pages under the headline “What to Do About Terrorism, Really,” on May 10, 1995.

The essay urged the Clinton administration to remember, the recent Oklahoma City bombing notwithstanding, that terrorism has always come mainly from abroad and would surely remain that way. Mr. Helprin envisaged a cataclysm brought about by “a few former Soviet tactical warheads in a business jet piloted by a young mullah with a grudge against Sears Roebuck.” He was slightly off—the cataclysm, when it came six years later, involved four passenger jets rather than a private plane and warheads, and the target was New York and Washington, not Chicago. But he saw something others didn’t.

Any discussion of U.S. leadership abroad has to start, as ours does, with America’s humiliating 2021 retreat from Afghanistan, a colossal exhibition of weakness and confusion and almost certainly a catalyst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Our faltering in Europe and the Middle East is the reason, Mr. Helprin says, we need to adopt a “bastion strategy.” Meaning what? “No, we’re not going to give up on a forward defense in Europe and Asia. But as an emergency measure, as a reserve, in case the forward defenses fail—and they are under tremendous pressure now both because of our isolationism and our disintegration and the world situation externally—if those should fail, we have a bastion.”

The bastion is the Western Hemisphere. “Of course I’m talking about the Monroe Doctrine. Essentially, Russia, China and other nations may not interfere in this half of the globe, but we may interfere in theirs.”

Yet Russia, China and Iran are making enormous inroads in South America, “and we can’t allow them to do that. If South America goes, we’re done for. People think we’re protected by the oceans, and we are to an extent. But even so, in the [American] Revolution, when the tiny wooden ships would take a month to cross the Atlantic, it was a closely run thing. The British were still able to transport huge armies and supplies to the United States with that kind of transport.”

Another strategic priority is the protection of Europe. “A lot of people think we should concentrate more heavily on China because China is more powerful than Russia and more of a developing threat. That’s true,” he says. “China is the bigger, more immediate threat. But Europe is more valuable.”

I think I agree, but I have to ask why Europe is more valuable. “Our economic relationships to the European nations, which are the greatest other than those with Canada and Mexico. Not just trade, but the interplay of science and culture. We are, in so many ways, joined to Europe as we are to nowhere else. Also physically, in terms of a position in Earth’s geography: If the North Atlantic is controlled by hostile powers, if it falls under Russian dominance, then we’re pretty much”—again—“done for.”

(…)

Perhaps the core of the problem is American policymakers’ fear of risk and attendant accountability. If a U.S. administration tried to mount the sort of defense posture Mr. Helprin counsels, something might go wrong, someone would have to pay a political price, and no one at the moment seems inclined to pay any sort of price for anything. As soon as I use the phrase “fear of risk” he points out that “in 1940 Churchill sent all the tanks in Britain to North Africa to fight the Germans. That denuded Britain of tanks, and at the time it was still possible that Sea Lion”—Hitler’s plan to invade the U.K.—“could have happened. The British would have had no tanks to use in defense. It was a risk. Churchill took it. War is about risk.”

Our technological superiority, Mr. Helprin thinks, has fooled us into believing that war is about neat, danger-free solutions. “We have been acclimated to situations in which we control everything,” he says. “We completely control the air. We completely control logistics. We have bases to which we can retreat, and on those bases we have McDonald’s.” Mr. Helprin stops himself: “This isn’t to say that individual units and soldiers haven’t fought like hell and suffered. But in terms of the larger picture of war, we haven’t fought for survival in a long time.”

(…)

But back to the 2020s. Why is the number of men willing to fight and die for the United States decreasing? Mr. Helprin mentions an education system that trains young people to distrust their country and a military bureaucracy enthralled by woke ideology.

So what can we do about that in the short term? Without pausing Mr. Helprin says: “We can depoliticize the military completely.”

That won’t be easy, I say. “It might not be so hard,” he replies. “You don’t have to do anything. You just have to stop doing stupid things. The military is a million education programs meant to indoctrinate and train. Exclude, from all that indoctrination and training, anything having to do with ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ ”—he signals quotation marks—“anything having to do with racism, anything about how bad America is, the ‘gender’ crap, all that. Just stop doing it.”

He has a point. An executive order from the commander in chief would likely accomplish for the U.S. military what Gov. Ron DeSantis did by signing legislation banning DEI in Florida public universities. If the military were to scrap every last shred of DEI training tomorrow, nobody but activist busybodies would regret it, and the benefits would reverberate for a decade.

What about the long term? Very little about today’s cultural landscape suggests that America’s political class and citizenry understand the threats or are prepared to counter them with force. What’s going to get us ready? “A strong leader on a white horse isn’t going to do it,” Mr. Helprin says. “The only way that can happen, I think, unfortunately, is distress and defeat. A depression, a big loss in a war, invasion, Gotterdammerung.””

[msclaritea]

WHY RUSSIA'S HIGH TECH IS CALIFORNIA DREAMING

"This article from Moscow Times (April 2011) is so prescient. The focus is Tim Draper. I haven’t seen something spell out so clearly how techno-libertarians operate above nation states. Sounds like a good idea… until it’s not." Keri Kukral

"I recently attended the annual Global Technology Symposium. Although held in Menlo Park, California, the worldwide hub of venture capital companies, and organized by Silicon Valley insiders, it had a strong Russian component. Russian Venture Company, the government-run fund, was a key backer, while Rusnano and the Skolkovo project were sponsors. Russians were prominent among attendees, and a Russia Day opened the event.

In a small way, it was a rerun of last year’s visit by a California high-tech delegation to Moscow. Even though neither then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger nor President Dmitry Medvedev was present this time, there were numerous Russian government employees and prominent U.S. venture capitalists, including legendary Silicon Valley investors Bill Draper and Pitch Johnson.

Russian officials talked about the important role government can play in shaping the entrepreneurial culture in Russia, but they admitted that private money was needed to make innovation a success. They emphasized the importance of early stage investment in technology startups by experienced private investors, mentoring entrepreneurs and giving them professional advice. The sooner the government gets out of the venture capital business — and private capital gets in — the better it would be for the Russian high-tech industry. Rusnano and Skolkovo even announced that they had opened an office on in Menlo Park to attract U.S. venture capital.

They said all the right things and sounded quite proud of themselves for learning their lines. But all they talked about was promoting Russian innovations and high tech. U.S. investors, meanwhile, never once said the word “American.” They talked about the private sector and Silicon Valley, not strictly U.S. entrepreneurs, industry or innovation. They praised Russia’s scientific establishment and education system, but they mentioned India, China and Israel in the same breath. A technology company used as a case study at the symposium was started by scientists in Cambridge, England. It now has a factory in Germany and plans to build another one in Russia, using Rusnano investment.

The high-tech industry began in California, but it has transcended U.S. borders. It relies on ideas, entrepreneurial skills, managerial talent and capital without regard for its origins. Research and manufacturing follow the logic of business decisions, not national interests. The best thing Russia can do to promote innovation is to abandon its misplaced national ambitions and integrate into the world economy promptly and seamlessly. It needs to improve its legal protections for investors and entrepreneurs and restrain its bureaucrats and siloviki raiders. Recent initiatives by Medvedev to separate state-owned companies from the government by barring top-level bureaucrats from serving on their boards of directors is a step in the right direction, but many more will need to follow.

As for entrepreneurs, there are plenty of them in Russia, and they need no government involvement. Once there is a healthy business climate, private money from around the world will rush in to back their projects. Until that happens, however, they will want to leave Russia and join many of their countrymen already living and working in California. For them, the most inspiring words at the symposium were probably uttered by Tim Draper, founder of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson and a third-generation high-tech investor. He started his remarks by rattling off a list of a half-dozen successful high-tech firms in the United States and asking what they had in common.

“They all had founders born outside the United States,” he said."

Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.