In an era of apparently undeniable Russian state sponsored interference in American and UK Elections social media companies like Facebook, Twitter & Google have been called to account for their part in the ‘attacks’. This begs the question, how much responsibility do internet and social media companies really have for Read more…
Over the years many knowledgeable people have downplayed the contributions that Solar and Wind can play in the future. On the other side we keep hearing about massive increases in Solar and Wind electricity production due to costs dropping precipitously. So we wanted to know how often the so called Read more…
There has been much talk lately about the United States removing military personnel from Germany, Japan and South Korea in an effort to save money. In 2016, future President Trump said “They do not pay us. But they should be paying us, because we are providing tremendous service and we’re losing Read more…
Kim Jong-Un announced at a news conference that North Korea would be sending a man to the sun within ten years! A reporter said – “But the sun is too hot. How can your man land on the sun?” There was a stunned silence. Nobody knew how to react. Kim Read more…
There is recent evidence that robots will not take all the manual labour jobs and that in fact, if you live in first world countries you will likely gain jobs from factories coming back to the US, Canada, EU, UK, Australia… We have been on the road to mass robotic Read more…
We ask this question sincerely and without malice: What’s Wrong With Immediate Deportations Of Illegal Immigrants? We are proposing a streamlining of the process that removes the judicial review process to a a much more efficient non-judicial initial review of illegal migrants taking place at a much lower level (somewhere Read more…
In our article BoycottUSA and BoycottTrump Does Not Mean Not Buying American, we explain that China is applying there retaliatory tariffs to Donald Trump supporters and no the US as a whole. That brings up the question of why China would target Boeing.
Boeing is based in Chicago and Chicago did not support Trump in the 2016 and they certainly don’t support him now:
Boeing’s primary assembly plant, which is the largest building on earth, is in Everett Washington and Washington State did not support Trump in 2016. In fact Hillary Clinton won all 12 Washington State electoral votes.
While it is common sense and standard operating procedure for companies to quietly support their political leaders Boeing seems particularly aggressive in this area. When it looked like Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 Presidential Election, Boeing was there to help
Boeing, like many companies, woke up on November 9 to an unexpected political landscape. The company had been preparing for a Clinton presidency. Timothy Keating, its long-time senior VP of government operations, served under President Bill Clinton. There was even internal discussion at Boeing that Keating might join a new Clinton administration. Source: money.cnn.com/2017/02/17/news/companies/boeing-trump-dennis-muilenburg/index.html
Now the Donald J Trump has won the White House, Boeing has not unexpectedly flip flopped but they have taken it further than most, making some believe that they have a genuine support for Trump. From Presidential visits to photo opportunities to political conversation, Boeing is now tied to President Trump.
There is a growing global ‘movement’ for “Trump Free” products, which to most people means a boycott of American made products. If you are one of those people you should be thinking about two things: Boycotts Backfire Boycotts usually INCREASE the sale of a particular product because boycotts: are like Read more…
After the G7 (or G6 + Trump) meeting in Quebec on June 9th 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the latest target of the Trump White House’s venom: “There’s a special place in Hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump Read more…
In yet another unintended consequence of US President Donald Trump’s (and his minions) lack of control, his nasty comments towards Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the G7 summit in Quebec resulted in a major political boost for both Trudeau and Canada. “There’s a special place in Hell for any Read more…
After World War 2 the US (and West in general) supported its former enemies. Rebuilding cities, legal systems, and economies on a massive scale. Germany and Japan were the primary beneficiaries of that financial aid and guidance and today those two countries are large stable entities that improve the West’s standard of living by providing both solid trading partners and political allies.
Some argue that those countries now take “our” jobs when in fact the evidence is clear that those countries have expanded the global economy for all. It is true that the US, Canada and the UK have a smaller slice of the global economic pie in 2018 compared to1950, but the pie is many times larger, so the net benefit to those countries is irrefutable.
The rebuilding (not reconstruction) plan was named after then US Secretary of State George Marshall. Today the Marshall Plan is touted as the cure all for every failing state, from Afghanistan to Mozambique but, as this New Yorker article explains, for a Marshal Plan had a lot more to do with reassurance and a lot less to do with money than most people think.
It is well established that even well intentioned government intervention in industry very often ends up causing more problems than it solves. Today one of the issues facing the United States is a loss of jobs in the steel industry and so President Trump claimed this is a National Security Issue and so used his unilateral power to impose a 25% tariff on imports of steel into the United States.
On its face, this seems like a good idea. Simplistically, if decrease the ability of other countries to export their steel to the US will result in the creation of more US steel jobs. However, the world is not a simple place and what actually happened was:
The five points above are well documented oft discussed in the media. The video below however, points out two fascinating unintended consequences that we had not thought of:
In the last decade the Dutch have reduced prison inmate populations by 50% and those sentences average to about 90 days in jail. Many people expected this drastic reduction of inmates to lead to a notable increase in crime because:
Contrary to this expectation the fact is that Dutch system has also reduced crime by nearly 40%.
As you can see in the image to the right, the Dutch now use their old prisons as temporary housing for some refugees.
How can that be? In simple terms, it turns out that after thousands of years of trying different forms of incarceration and punishment that Europeans have figured out:
A man died and went to Heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.
He asked, ‘What are all those clocks?’
St. Peter answered, ‘Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone who has ever been on earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie, the hands on your clock move.’
‘Oh’, said the man. ‘Whose clock is that?’
‘That’s Mother Teresa’s’, replied St. Peter. ‘The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.