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Friday 29th of March 2024

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Caste and class The soil grows castes; the machine makes classes. Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy  © 2021 Kwiple.com
China A research backwater when its economy took off in the 1980s, China has since spent heavily on r&d to obvious effect. A study published by Elsevier, a scientific publisher, and Nikkei, a news business, in 2019 found that China published more high-impact research papers than America did in 23 out of 30 “hot” research fields. The Economist, January 16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Deaths of despair These trends among less educated Americans — declines in wages, the quality and number of jobs, marriage, and community life — are central in instilling despair, spurring suicide and other self-inflicted harms, such as alcohol and drug abuse. The real roots of the epidemic lie in the long-term malaise that began around 1970, when economic growth in the United States slowed, inequality began to rise, younger workers realized that they would never do as well as their parents had done, and those without high-level skills fell further behind. Anne Case and Angus Deaton © 2021 Kwiple.com
Deaths of despair The U.S. suicide rate has risen by a third since 1999; there are now more suicides than deaths on the roads each year, and there are two and a half times as many suicides as murders. In 2017 alone, there were 158,000 deaths of despair [deaths from suicide, drug overdoses and alchoholic liver disease], the equivalent of three fully loaded Boeing 737 MAX jets falling from the sky every day for a year. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Debt After 1980, debt took off. In 2001, Americans owed as much as their entire  after-tax income. The borrowing still didn't stop, especially after the Federal Reserve Board lowered  interest rates and made borrowing easier. By 2017, the typical American household owed 138 percent of it after-tax income. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Economic growth When the US has a party, the rest of the world gets an invitation. A European strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management quoted in Financial Times, March 22, 2021, on the likely effect of Biden's $1.9tn stimulus on increasing imports of consumer goods to the U.S. from countries like China © 2021 Kwiple.com
Experience counts The more I practice at golf, the luckier I get. Saying originated by Gary Player © 2021 Kwiple.com
Globalization The biggest economic winners of the last 40 years were highly skilled natives living in superstar cities. They risk becoming the biggest losers of the next era. To quote the scary new mantra: if you can do your job from anywhere, someone anywhere can do your job. Lesser-skilled workers in western countries have been through this already, when jobs in factories, call centres and back office were offshored. Parisian graphic designers and New York bankers may be about to find out what that feels like. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Globalization We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries. We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible. Unnamed Apple executive quoted in New York Times, January 21, 2012  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Between 1997 and 2007, for example, income after taxes and benefits grew by 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent of U.S. households, by 65 percent for those between the 80th and 99th percentiles, and by 275 percent for the top one percent. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Even before the crash of 2008, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics at the University of Michigan found that over any given two-year stretch in the two preceding decades, about half of all families experienced some decline in income. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Innovation  David Edgerton of King's College London,  Britain's foremost historian of technology, argues that “Only in techno-nationalist fantasies…does national invention drive national economic growth. In the real world, global innovation leads to national growth, and national innovation leads to global growth.” At most times and places, most of the technology which creates growth is imported from elsewhere, not made at home. The Economist, January 16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Money in politics The disappearance of labor's countervailing power can readily be seen in the 2015-16 election cycle, when corporations and Wall Street contributed $34 to candidates from both parties for every $1 donated by unions and all public interest organizations combined. [34:1] Business outspent labor $3.4 billion to $213 million. [16:1] All of the nation's unions together spend about $48 million annually on lobbying in Washington. Corporate America spends $3 billion. [62:1] Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Money in politics Pfizer, whose donations to the GOP in 2016 totaled $16 million, would reap $39 billion [in savings from the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2017]. [2,437:1] GE contributed $20 million and will get back $16 billion in tax savings. [800:1] Chevron donated $13 million and received $9 billion. [692:1] Not even a sizzling economy can deliver anything close to the returns on political investments. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Oligarchy The core contradiction is that Americans cannot thrive within a system run largely by big American corporations, which are not organized to promote the well-being of Americans. Oligarchy is good only for oligarchs. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Post-2020 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,085,414 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,336,180 people 1 state (California) 2020 population: 39,368,075 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,684,037 people 19,684,037 / 1,336,180 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's 1 state (Wyoming) 2020 population = 582,328, therefore: 1 Senator per 291,164 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 68 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Power  The difficulty is not that corporate power is beyond the control of the American government. It is that corporate power controls the American government. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Power Unlike income or wealth, power is a zero-sum game. The more of it there is at the top, the less there is anywhere else. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot By the standards of most US presidents, Biden's ego is modest. That is an admittedly low bar. But at 78, it is hard to claim you personify the wave of the future. The best kind of politics is to govern, rather than fret about your brand. This sets Biden apart from Obama as well as Trump. Not everything needs to be about him. Joe Biden portrayed by Edward Luce Financial Times, March 18, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union  The bigget political divide in America today  is not between Republicans and Democrats. It's between democracy and oligarchy. Hearing and using the same old labels prevents most people from noticing they're being shafted. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union In the system we now have, power and wealth are inseparable. Great wealth flows from great power; great power depends on great wealth. Wealth and power have become one and the same. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Surveillance  … surveillance must always go both ways. If surveillance goes only from top to bottom, this is the high road to dictatorship. So whenever you increase surveillance of individuals, you should simultaneously increase surveillance of the government and big corporations too. If it is not too complicated to start monitoring what you do — it is not too complicated to start monitoring what the government does. Yuval Harari, Financial Times, February 26, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say As we are dealing with changes in our economy, tax cuts are always a good idea. Nikki Haley © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say DC would be the only state — the only state — without an airport, without a car dealership, without a capital city and without a landfill. Jody Hice, Republican Congressman from Georgia, who previously announced he'll be running next year to replace Brad Raffensperger as Georgia's Secretary of State because Raffensperger refused to commit election fraud by announcing Trump won Georgia, here expressing the Republicans' argument against granting statehood to Washington, DC © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say He [Chuck Schumer] was wondering why on Sundays Georgia would not participate in an electoral process of gathering signa- tures, registrations and things on Sunday. Georgia's a southern state just like Mississippi. I cannot speak for Georgia but I can speak for Mississippi on why we would never do that on a Sunday. And God's word in Exodus 20:18 it says, “Remember the sabbath and keep it holy.” So that is my response to senator Schumer. Cindy Hyde-Smith, during a debate about Georgia's proposal to outlaw voting on Sunday, when many Blacks go from church to the polls.  [The verse referred to is Exodus 20:8, not 20:18. The Hebrew sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday.] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law, so I wasn't concerned. Had the tables been turned, and president Trump won the election, and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned. Ron Johnson, on the mob of white Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com