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China's labor market in 2026 presents Beijing with a problem it cannot solve through messaging, and the leadership's reliance on statistical concealment rather than structural reform suggests it already knows that. The headline numbers are bad enough on their own terms. Urban youth unemployment for those 16 to 24,... excluding students, climbed to 16.9 percent in March, a four-month high that reversed six months of declines the state had pointed to as evidence of stabilization. The 25-to-29 cohort hit 7.7 percent, its highest reading since March 2025. Overall urban unemployment reached 5.4 percent, a 13-month peak. A record 12.7 million university graduates, roughly half a million more than the prior year, are entering this market, into an economy whose nominal growth has been depressed by a year of falling prices and whose private sector hiring appetite has shrunk in lockstep. The official figures, in any case, understate the condition of the labor market by design. China classifies anyone working one hour per week as employed; the United States uses fifteen hours, France twenty. Peking University economist Zhang Dandan calculated in 2023 that the true youth unemployment rate, once discouraged workers who had exited the labor force were counted, was as high as 46.5 percent, more than double the official figure at the time. Nothing in the structural picture since has plausibly improved that ratio. The drivers are not cyclical. Fixed asset investment grew only 1.7 percent in the first quarter, down from 4.2 percent a year earlier. The property sector, which at its peak accounted for roughly thirty percent of economic activity, remains in a multi-year contraction that has stranded construction workers and the supply chains built around them, and with them the cohort of migrant laborers in their forties and fifties who carry no pension, no portable benefits, and no obvious second act. The major platform companies, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD, have spent years trimming headcount in the aftermath of the 2020 to 2022 regulatory campaign that left private capital feeling politically exposed. Deflation, now entrenched, completes the feedback loop: weaker pricing power compresses margins, hiring slows, household precautionary saving rises, demand softens further. Each link reinforces the next, and none is the kind of problem stimulus alone can resolve. The state's response has been instructive. When the youth unemployment rate hit a record 21.3 percent in June 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics suspended publication of the series entirely. When the figures returned months later, the methodology had been quietly revised, students excluded and age brackets adjusted, in ways that produced a lower headline and broke comparability with what came before. The pattern is consistent across other indicators: where the data embarrasses the leadership, the data is changed, delayed, or removed. This is not a communications strategy in any conventional sense. It is the substitute for one. Three things follow. First, the tang ping (躺平) or "lying flat" disposition that Beijing has spent years denouncing is a rational response to a labor market in which effort and credentials no longer reliably convert into stable employment or affordable housing, and the leadership's framing of it as a cultural failure rather than a market failure tells against any near-term policy correction. Second, the credibility cost of statistical opacity compounds. Foreign investors, domestic households, and even mid-level cadres are now operating without reliable employment data in the world's second-largest economy, which raises the risk of misallocated capital and miscalibrated policy at every level of decision-making. Third, the political economy is shifting in a direction the Party has not yet acknowledged. The cohort entering the workforce in 2026 has no memory of double-digit growth and no expectation of upward mobility. Whatever social contract underwrote the reform era is being renegotiated, quietly, by people who have stopped registering as unemployed because they have stopped expecting the system to find them work. Aric Chen | Insightsshow more

Aric Chen

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51,262 次观看 • 1 个月前 •via X (Twitter)

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"We are likely to be in a situation where over the next twelve months, we see more supply come into the US stock market than has been the case in living memory" "We could be talking about five or six percent of aggregate US market cap coming in as supply." "If you look at the impact on the stock market, it's not when an IPO occurs, it's kind of in the twelve months afterwards" "The rule of thumb, if you looked at history, is that a one percent increase in supply is associated with a seven and a half percent worse return over the over the subsequent year." GMO Head of Asset Allocation Ben Inker on SpaceX and the other big IPOs likely coming this year.

Excess Returns

32,586 次观看 • 1 个月前

🚨 China's unemployment crisis in 2026 — by the numbers, and by the faces behind them. The CCP calls it "seasonal fluctuation." The people living it call it despair. 📊 THE OFFICIAL NUMBERS — AND WHY THEY'RE WORSE THAN THEY LOOK In March 2026, China's official youth unemployment rate (ages 16–24, excluding students) rose to 16.9% — a 4-month high, reversing six consecutive months of decline. That's nearly 1 in 6 young people with no job. But here's the catch: China counts anyone who works even ONE hour per week as "employed." The US threshold is 15 hours. France is 20 hours. By any international standard, the real number is far higher. In fact, Peking University economist Zhang Dandan calculated that China's true youth unemployment rate in early 2023 was up to 46.5% — more than double the official figure. There is no reason to believe conditions have improved since. And it's not just the young: — Ages 25–29: 7.7% unemployed (highest since March 2025) — Ages 30–59: 4.3% unemployed (rising) — Overall urban unemployment: 5.4% — a 13-month high as of March 2026 This year, 12.7 million university graduates will enter the job market — 480,000 more than last year. A record high. Into an economy that is shrinking, not growing. 👤 THE FACES BEHIND THE NUMBERS These are not statistics. These are people. A young man sits on a curb in Sichuan, crying. "I genuinely have no money left. Not a single yuan." He has been looking for work for months. He is not in any government database as "unemployed" — because he gave up registering. A migrant worker in his 40s, who spent 20 years building China's cities, returns to his village. The construction site closed. The factory moved. The restaurant shut down. He has no pension. No safety net. Nothing. A fresh graduate, armed with a degree that cost her family years of savings, applies to hundreds of positions. She receives form rejections — or silence. She moves back home. Her parents tell her to "keep trying." She stops telling them how many rejections she has collected. A street vendor in Guangzhou sets up his stall at 6am. By noon, he has sold almost nothing. Foot traffic has collapsed. Everyone around him is cutting spending. He is, technically, "self-employed" — and therefore invisible in the unemployment statistics. 🏭 WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? The CCP's answer: seasonal factors. Global headwinds. Trade friction. The reality: 1. Fixed asset investment — the engine of China's growth for decades — grew only 1.7% in Q1 2026, down from 4.2% in Q1 2025. Investment is collapsing. 2. The property sector, which once drove nearly 30% of economic activity, remains in freefall. Construction has stopped on millions of homes. The workers who built them have nowhere to go. 3. China's major tech companies — Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD·com — have been cutting headcount for years, under government pressure that made private enterprise feel like a liability, not an asset. 4. Foreign companies are leaving or reducing exposure. The market that once promised unlimited growth now promises unpredictability. 5. Deflation has taken hold. When prices fall, businesses earn less. When businesses earn less, they hire less — or fire more. When people fear job loss, they spend less. The cycle feeds itself. The result: a generation of educated, capable, ambitious young Chinese people — doing nothing. Not because they won't work. Because there is no work. 🔇 WHAT THE CCP DOES INSTEAD OF SOLVING IT When youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June 2023, the government didn't fix it. They stopped publishing the data. For months, the numbers disappeared from official releases entirely. When they returned, the methodology had been changed — students were excluded, age brackets were redefined — making direct comparisons harder and the figures look cleaner. In May 2026, authorities began officially renaming homeless people "dispersed persons" (流散人员). Not to help them. To make them statistically disappear. This is the CCP's answer to suffering: rename it. Redefine it. Delete it from the dataset. 📉 THE COST OF "LYING FLAT" A generation of Chinese youth have embraced 躺平 (tǎng píng) — "lying flat." Not as laziness. As rational surrender. Why work 996 hours (9am to 9pm, 6 days a week) for a company that will downsize you anyway? Why compete for jobs that don't exist? Why take on a mortgage for an apartment in a building that may never be completed? The state tells them to be patriotic, to sacrifice, to trust the Party's vision. They've watched that vision fail them. So they lie flat. And the CCP — which created the conditions for this — blames them for lacking ambition. ——— The people in these videos are not failures. They are not lazy. They are not "seasonal fluctuations." They are the cost of a political system that prioritizes control over people, data management over truth, and the Party's image over the lives of 1.4 billion human beings. Share this. The numbers will be deleted again. The faces should not be forgotten. Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics (April 2026) · CNA (April 21, 2026) · World Journal (April 2026) · Peking University / Zhang Dandan (2023 analysis) · Epoch Times (April 21, 2026)· Original post by Aric Chen, views are my own. #ChinaUnemployment #YouthUnemployment #ChinaEconomy #躺平 #LyingFlat #CCP #HumanRightsChina #China2026 #China #RealChina

🚨 China's unemployment crisis in 2026 — by the numbers, and by the faces behind them. The CCP calls it "seasonal fluctuation." The people living it call it despair. 📊 THE OFFICIAL NUMBERS — AND WHY THEY'RE WORSE THAN THEY LOOK In March 2026, China's official youth unemployment rate (ages 16–24, excluding students) rose to 16.9% — a 4-month high, reversing six consecutive months of decline. That's nearly 1 in 6 young people with no job. But here's the catch: China counts anyone who works even ONE hour per week as "employed." The US threshold is 15 hours. France is 20 hours. By any international standard, the real number is far higher. In fact, Peking University economist Zhang Dandan calculated that China's true youth unemployment rate in early 2023 was up to 46.5% — more than double the official figure. There is no reason to believe conditions have improved since. And it's not just the young: — Ages 25–29: 7.7% unemployed (highest since March 2025) — Ages 30–59: 4.3% unemployed (rising) — Overall urban unemployment: 5.4% — a 13-month high as of March 2026 This year, 12.7 million university graduates will enter the job market — 480,000 more than last year. A record high. Into an economy that is shrinking, not growing. 👤 THE FACES BEHIND THE NUMBERS These are not statistics. These are people. A young man sits on a curb in Sichuan, crying. "I genuinely have no money left. Not a single yuan." He has been looking for work for months. He is not in any government database as "unemployed" — because he gave up registering. A migrant worker in his 40s, who spent 20 years building China's cities, returns to his village. The construction site closed. The factory moved. The restaurant shut down. He has no pension. No safety net. Nothing. A fresh graduate, armed with a degree that cost her family years of savings, applies to hundreds of positions. She receives form rejections — or silence. She moves back home. Her parents tell her to "keep trying." She stops telling them how many rejections she has collected. A street vendor in Guangzhou sets up his stall at 6am. By noon, he has sold almost nothing. Foot traffic has collapsed. Everyone around him is cutting spending. He is, technically, "self-employed" — and therefore invisible in the unemployment statistics. 🏭 WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? The CCP's answer: seasonal factors. Global headwinds. Trade friction. The reality: 1. Fixed asset investment — the engine of China's growth for decades — grew only 1.7% in Q1 2026, down from 4.2% in Q1 2025. Investment is collapsing. 2. The property sector, which once drove nearly 30% of economic activity, remains in freefall. Construction has stopped on millions of homes. The workers who built them have nowhere to go. 3. China's major tech companies — Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD·com — have been cutting headcount for years, under government pressure that made private enterprise feel like a liability, not an asset. 4. Foreign companies are leaving or reducing exposure. The market that once promised unlimited growth now promises unpredictability. 5. Deflation has taken hold. When prices fall, businesses earn less. When businesses earn less, they hire less — or fire more. When people fear job loss, they spend less. The cycle feeds itself. The result: a generation of educated, capable, ambitious young Chinese people — doing nothing. Not because they won't work. Because there is no work. 🔇 WHAT THE CCP DOES INSTEAD OF SOLVING IT When youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June 2023, the government didn't fix it. They stopped publishing the data. For months, the numbers disappeared from official releases entirely. When they returned, the methodology had been changed — students were excluded, age brackets were redefined — making direct comparisons harder and the figures look cleaner. In May 2026, authorities began officially renaming homeless people "dispersed persons" (流散人员). Not to help them. To make them statistically disappear. This is the CCP's answer to suffering: rename it. Redefine it. Delete it from the dataset. 📉 THE COST OF "LYING FLAT" A generation of Chinese youth have embraced 躺平 (tǎng píng) — "lying flat." Not as laziness. As rational surrender. Why work 996 hours (9am to 9pm, 6 days a week) for a company that will downsize you anyway? Why compete for jobs that don't exist? Why take on a mortgage for an apartment in a building that may never be completed? The state tells them to be patriotic, to sacrifice, to trust the Party's vision. They've watched that vision fail them. So they lie flat. And the CCP — which created the conditions for this — blames them for lacking ambition. ——— The people in these videos are not failures. They are not lazy. They are not "seasonal fluctuations." They are the cost of a political system that prioritizes control over people, data management over truth, and the Party's image over the lives of 1.4 billion human beings. Share this. The numbers will be deleted again. The faces should not be forgotten. Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics (April 2026) · CNA (April 21, 2026) · World Journal (April 2026) · Peking University / Zhang Dandan (2023 analysis) · Epoch Times (April 21, 2026)· Original post by Aric Chen, views are my own. #ChinaUnemployment #YouthUnemployment #ChinaEconomy #躺平 #LyingFlat #CCP #HumanRightsChina #China2026 #China #RealChina

Aric Chen

53,709 次观看 • 3 个月前

😿I didn't make this up. In June 2023, CCP authorities released data showing a record-high youth unemployment rate of 21.3%. They then suspended publication of the figure until they changed the calculation method. However, Peking University Associate Professor Zhang Dandan estimated that if the roughly 16 million young people who "lie flat," live with their parents, and are out of work were counted as unemployed, China's actual youth unemployment rate in March 2023 would reach 46.5% — far above the official 19.7%. If it was already 46.5% in 2023, what is the real figure now?

😿I didn't make this up. In June 2023, CCP authorities released data showing a record-high youth unemployment rate of 21.3%. They then suspended publication of the figure until they changed the calculation method. However, Peking University Associate Professor Zhang Dandan estimated that if the roughly 16 million young people who "lie flat," live with their parents, and are out of work were counted as unemployed, China's actual youth unemployment rate in March 2023 would reach 46.5% — far above the official 19.7%. If it was already 46.5% in 2023, what is the real figure now?

Inconvenient Truths by Jennifer Zeng

651,924 次观看 • 8 个月前

Between 2012 and 2024, Somali piracy was effectively neutralized, with no major attacks reported for years. But that has changed. In 2025, the waters off the Horn of Africa are once again becoming a hotspot. In 2025, Somali pirates are re-emerging, taking advantage of the chaos created by the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the drawdown of international naval patrols. Between January and June 2025, there were at least 7 reported attacks on commercial vessels, including the hijacking of the MV Abdulla in March, whose 23 crew members were held for ransom. By mid-2025, the number of incidents had surpassed the total recorded in all of 2024, which had seen a near-complete lull. A hijacking of a fishing vessel in April 2025 further demonstrated the pirates' ability to adapt and operate. The hijackings of 2025 have driven up the cost of the "war risk" insurance premiums for vessels transiting the region, with the average premium rising to 1.2% of the vessel's hull value in April 2025. This is significantly higher than the 0.5% to 0.7% rate seen just six months earlier. The cost of ransoms has also risen, with the MV Abdulla reportedly being held for a ransom of $5 million. These numbers reflect the pirates' ability to command a premium. Somali piracy has never been a random phenomenon. It has been fueled by the collapse of the Somali state, the absence of effective governance, and the immense wealth flowing through the Gulf of Aden. The 2025 resurgence is a direct consequence of the geopolitical instability caused by the Red Sea crisis, which has allowed the pirates to exploit the chaos and the reduced naval presence. Beyond the financial cost, there is a human cost. The hijackings of 2025 have led to the detention of at least 23 crew members, and the potential for violence remains high. The Somali pirates are not just robbers; they are a symptom of a failed state and a testament to the desperation of a population that has been abandoned by its leaders. Somali piracy is not a myth. It is a real and dangerous phenomenon. But it is also a symptom of a deeper problem, a failed state, a collapsed economy, and a population that has been left with few options. The pirates are not just criminals they are the product of a society that has been destroyed by its leaders. And until Somalia is rebuilt, the piracy will continue. South Africa is not the enemy. Somalia's leaders are. And it is time the world held them accountable for the chaos they have created.

Between 2012 and 2024, Somali piracy was effectively neutralized, with no major attacks reported for years. But that has changed. In 2025, the waters off the Horn of Africa are once again becoming a hotspot. In 2025, Somali pirates are re-emerging, taking advantage of the chaos created by the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the drawdown of international naval patrols. Between January and June 2025, there were at least 7 reported attacks on commercial vessels, including the hijacking of the MV Abdulla in March, whose 23 crew members were held for ransom. By mid-2025, the number of incidents had surpassed the total recorded in all of 2024, which had seen a near-complete lull. A hijacking of a fishing vessel in April 2025 further demonstrated the pirates' ability to adapt and operate. The hijackings of 2025 have driven up the cost of the "war risk" insurance premiums for vessels transiting the region, with the average premium rising to 1.2% of the vessel's hull value in April 2025. This is significantly higher than the 0.5% to 0.7% rate seen just six months earlier. The cost of ransoms has also risen, with the MV Abdulla reportedly being held for a ransom of $5 million. These numbers reflect the pirates' ability to command a premium. Somali piracy has never been a random phenomenon. It has been fueled by the collapse of the Somali state, the absence of effective governance, and the immense wealth flowing through the Gulf of Aden. The 2025 resurgence is a direct consequence of the geopolitical instability caused by the Red Sea crisis, which has allowed the pirates to exploit the chaos and the reduced naval presence. Beyond the financial cost, there is a human cost. The hijackings of 2025 have led to the detention of at least 23 crew members, and the potential for violence remains high. The Somali pirates are not just robbers; they are a symptom of a failed state and a testament to the desperation of a population that has been abandoned by its leaders. Somali piracy is not a myth. It is a real and dangerous phenomenon. But it is also a symptom of a deeper problem, a failed state, a collapsed economy, and a population that has been left with few options. The pirates are not just criminals they are the product of a society that has been destroyed by its leaders. And until Somalia is rebuilt, the piracy will continue. South Africa is not the enemy. Somalia's leaders are. And it is time the world held them accountable for the chaos they have created.

Musa Ronalds

212,531 次观看 • 1 个月前

Nine percent of Americans have confidence in Congress. Sixty-seven percent have confidence in small business. That gap is the whole story, and it has nothing to do with left and right. Look at who Americans still trust. Small business at 67. The military at 61. The police at 45. Every one of them builds something or protects someone. A small business makes a product and dies if nobody wants it. A soldier defends a country. A cop shows up when you call. They get judged on whether the job actually got done. Now look at the bottom. Congress at 9. Television news at 14. Newspapers at 17. One defrauds you. The other lies to you about it. Neither builds anything. Neither protects anyone. And neither one is ever punished for being wrong. That is not an opinion. Here is what Congress presides over. The GAO estimates the federal government loses between 233 and 521 billion dollars every single year to fraud. Not waste. Fraud. Improper payments have hit roughly 3 trillion dollars since 2003. Last year alone was 186 billion. Congress has not balanced a budget since 2001. Nine percent is not cynicism. It is an accurate grade. Gallup started asking this question in 1973, during Watergate, with a president on his way to resigning. Congress scored 42 percent that year. In 2014 it hit 7, the lowest reading Gallup has ever recorded for any American institution. Watergate was a scandal. This is a business model. The press sits right next to them for the same reason. Thirty-four percent of Americans say they have no trust in the news media at all. Twenty-eight percent say they have a great deal or a fair amount. Americans have not lost faith in their country. They still trust the man who fixes the engine. The sergeant. The woman who owns the shop. They stopped trusting the people who take from them and lie about where it went. That is not cynicism. That is a country that can still tell the difference.

Nine percent of Americans have confidence in Congress. Sixty-seven percent have confidence in small business. That gap is the whole story, and it has nothing to do with left and right. Look at who Americans still trust. Small business at 67. The military at 61. The police at 45. Every one of them builds something or protects someone. A small business makes a product and dies if nobody wants it. A soldier defends a country. A cop shows up when you call. They get judged on whether the job actually got done. Now look at the bottom. Congress at 9. Television news at 14. Newspapers at 17. One defrauds you. The other lies to you about it. Neither builds anything. Neither protects anyone. And neither one is ever punished for being wrong. That is not an opinion. Here is what Congress presides over. The GAO estimates the federal government loses between 233 and 521 billion dollars every single year to fraud. Not waste. Fraud. Improper payments have hit roughly 3 trillion dollars since 2003. Last year alone was 186 billion. Congress has not balanced a budget since 2001. Nine percent is not cynicism. It is an accurate grade. Gallup started asking this question in 1973, during Watergate, with a president on his way to resigning. Congress scored 42 percent that year. In 2014 it hit 7, the lowest reading Gallup has ever recorded for any American institution. Watergate was a scandal. This is a business model. The press sits right next to them for the same reason. Thirty-four percent of Americans say they have no trust in the news media at all. Twenty-eight percent say they have a great deal or a fair amount. Americans have not lost faith in their country. They still trust the man who fixes the engine. The sergeant. The woman who owns the shop. They stopped trusting the people who take from them and lie about where it went. That is not cynicism. That is a country that can still tell the difference.

Sovey

68,127 次观看 • 18 天前

Batteries can now meet 75 percent of average grid demand and 44 percent of peak demand for 4 hours every day in the world's 4th-largest economy at a cost less than 1 percent the price of electricity California’s main grid now has over 17 GW of batteries, along with over 23 GW of solar and 12 GW of wind. Average demand is less than 23 GW. The growth of solar, wind, and batteries has helped eliminate 62 percent of all fossil gas use on the grid in 2026 versus 2023. Strikingly, those batteries can now meet three-quarters of average demand and 44 percent of peak demand for four hours every day. What is more, wind-water-solar renewables have met more than 100 percent of grid demand for 100 of the last 101 days and for 87 percent of all days in 2026, for an average of 5.4 hours per day. Given the low cost of batteries, solar, and wind relative to the price of electricity, it is abundantly clear that no major barrier remains to eliminating fossil gas for electricity entirely in California, but also ultimately throughout the world. Nameplate capacities of batteries and renewables in California Renewable trend in California Video

Batteries can now meet 75 percent of average grid demand and 44 percent of peak demand for 4 hours every day in the world's 4th-largest economy at a cost less than 1 percent the price of electricity California’s main grid now has over 17 GW of batteries, along with over 23 GW of solar and 12 GW of wind. Average demand is less than 23 GW. The growth of solar, wind, and batteries has helped eliminate 62 percent of all fossil gas use on the grid in 2026 versus 2023. Strikingly, those batteries can now meet three-quarters of average demand and 44 percent of peak demand for four hours every day. What is more, wind-water-solar renewables have met more than 100 percent of grid demand for 100 of the last 101 days and for 87 percent of all days in 2026, for an average of 5.4 hours per day. Given the low cost of batteries, solar, and wind relative to the price of electricity, it is abundantly clear that no major barrier remains to eliminating fossil gas for electricity entirely in California, but also ultimately throughout the world. Nameplate capacities of batteries and renewables in California Renewable trend in California Video

Mark Z. Jacobson

17,347 次观看 • 29 天前

Ghana’s economy has truly found its rhythm again. Real GDP surged by 6.3 percent in the first half of 2025, up from 5.1 percent last year, powered by a revitalised agriculture sector, a booming services industry, easing inflation, and renewed business confidence across the country. Even more encouraging is the 7.8 percent growth in non-oil GDP, a clear sign that Ghana’s momentum is now being fuelled by the strength and creativity of our own domestic production. The services sector is roaring back to life, jumping 8.8 percent, with ICT skyrocketing by 17.2 percent, finance and insurance rising 9.5 percent, and education expanding 14.9 percent. Agriculture, our anchor of stability, accelerated to 6.0 percent growth, doubling last year’s pace, while cocoa made a remarkable comeback from a 21.4 percent slump to 2.8 percent growth! On the demand side, households are spending again, with consumption up 8.2 percent—proof of rising confidence. Government spending has cooled to 3.7 percent, signalling firm fiscal discipline, while exports jumped 11.5 percent on the back of gold, cocoa, and non-traditional exports. This is the kind of growth that creates jobs, lifts incomes, restores hope, and builds lasting prosperity for all.

Ghana’s economy has truly found its rhythm again. Real GDP surged by 6.3 percent in the first half of 2025, up from 5.1 percent last year, powered by a revitalised agriculture sector, a booming services industry, easing inflation, and renewed business confidence across the country. Even more encouraging is the 7.8 percent growth in non-oil GDP, a clear sign that Ghana’s momentum is now being fuelled by the strength and creativity of our own domestic production. The services sector is roaring back to life, jumping 8.8 percent, with ICT skyrocketing by 17.2 percent, finance and insurance rising 9.5 percent, and education expanding 14.9 percent. Agriculture, our anchor of stability, accelerated to 6.0 percent growth, doubling last year’s pace, while cocoa made a remarkable comeback from a 21.4 percent slump to 2.8 percent growth! On the demand side, households are spending again, with consumption up 8.2 percent—proof of rising confidence. Government spending has cooled to 3.7 percent, signalling firm fiscal discipline, while exports jumped 11.5 percent on the back of gold, cocoa, and non-traditional exports. This is the kind of growth that creates jobs, lifts incomes, restores hope, and builds lasting prosperity for all.

Cassiel Ato Forson (PhD)

21,727 次观看 • 8 个月前

Warren Buffett sat on CNBC on March 31 and did what he always does before markets break. He said nothing about a crash. He let the numbers speak. $373.3 billion in cash, the largest reserve any corporation has ever held. Thirteen consecutive quarters of net stock selling, the longest streak in Berkshire Hathaway’s history. $187 billion in net sales. And the Buffett Indicator, total US market capitalisation divided by GDP, at roughly 220 percent, exceeding the dot-com peak and any prior reading in the history of the ratio he popularised. In July 1999 at Sun Valley, Buffett told a conference of the world’s wealthiest investors that when the Indicator approaches 200 percent, “you are playing with fire.” The NASDAQ fell 78 percent over the following two years. He did not predict the crash. He described the temperature. The building burned anyway. The Indicator now exceeds 220 percent. And the fire this time is fed by one molecule: methane. The gas that generates 40 percent of US electricity, heats 47 percent of American homes, and feeds half the world through Haber-Bosch. The Hormuz crisis spiked TTF gas 75 percent and Brent crude to $107. Every S&P 500 company whose earnings depend on energy or supply chains is absorbing a war premium the Indicator has not yet priced. The 220 reading was calculated on pre-war earnings. Post-war earnings will be lower. The denominator shrinks. The ratio climbs. Buffett does not predict crashes. He has said it for six decades. “Short-term forecasts are poison.” But he positions for them with discipline no other investor has matched. He bought during the 2008 panic with “Buy American. I Am.” He warned about derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, six years before they detonated the global financial system. And on March 31, he flagged Iran’s nuclear programme as a risk to markets, the first time the Oracle of Omaha has connected a Middle Eastern war to his valuation framework in a public interview. The fire extinguisher is $373.3 billion in Treasury bills and cash equivalents. And the building is an S&P 500 where NVIDIA constitutes roughly seven percent of the index, where Oracle’s credit default swaps just exceeded 198 basis points surpassing the 2008 financial crisis peak, where OpenAI closed $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation on the same day the IRGC declared 18 American companies legitimate military targets. The AI trade that lifted the market to 220 percent on the Indicator runs on methane from a chokepoint that is 90 to 97 percent closed, helium from a Qatar facility that will take five years to rebuild, and rare earth minerals processed by the country hosting the peace negotiations. Buffett sees what the market always prices last: the gap between the story and the molecule. The story says AI will change everything. The molecule says the gas that trains the model costs 75 percent more than it did five weeks ago. The story trades at 220 percent of GDP. The molecule trades at $107 per barrel. One of them is wrong. Buffett has $373.3 billion that says he knows which one. The Oracle of Omaha and the Oracle of Hormuz have reached the same conclusion through different instruments. The fire is real. The exits are known. And the man with the extinguisher is not buying.

Warren Buffett sat on CNBC on March 31 and did what he always does before markets break. He said nothing about a crash. He let the numbers speak. $373.3 billion in cash, the largest reserve any corporation has ever held. Thirteen consecutive quarters of net stock selling, the longest streak in Berkshire Hathaway’s history. $187 billion in net sales. And the Buffett Indicator, total US market capitalisation divided by GDP, at roughly 220 percent, exceeding the dot-com peak and any prior reading in the history of the ratio he popularised. In July 1999 at Sun Valley, Buffett told a conference of the world’s wealthiest investors that when the Indicator approaches 200 percent, “you are playing with fire.” The NASDAQ fell 78 percent over the following two years. He did not predict the crash. He described the temperature. The building burned anyway. The Indicator now exceeds 220 percent. And the fire this time is fed by one molecule: methane. The gas that generates 40 percent of US electricity, heats 47 percent of American homes, and feeds half the world through Haber-Bosch. The Hormuz crisis spiked TTF gas 75 percent and Brent crude to $107. Every S&P 500 company whose earnings depend on energy or supply chains is absorbing a war premium the Indicator has not yet priced. The 220 reading was calculated on pre-war earnings. Post-war earnings will be lower. The denominator shrinks. The ratio climbs. Buffett does not predict crashes. He has said it for six decades. “Short-term forecasts are poison.” But he positions for them with discipline no other investor has matched. He bought during the 2008 panic with “Buy American. I Am.” He warned about derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, six years before they detonated the global financial system. And on March 31, he flagged Iran’s nuclear programme as a risk to markets, the first time the Oracle of Omaha has connected a Middle Eastern war to his valuation framework in a public interview. The fire extinguisher is $373.3 billion in Treasury bills and cash equivalents. And the building is an S&P 500 where NVIDIA constitutes roughly seven percent of the index, where Oracle’s credit default swaps just exceeded 198 basis points surpassing the 2008 financial crisis peak, where OpenAI closed $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation on the same day the IRGC declared 18 American companies legitimate military targets. The AI trade that lifted the market to 220 percent on the Indicator runs on methane from a chokepoint that is 90 to 97 percent closed, helium from a Qatar facility that will take five years to rebuild, and rare earth minerals processed by the country hosting the peace negotiations. Buffett sees what the market always prices last: the gap between the story and the molecule. The story says AI will change everything. The molecule says the gas that trains the model costs 75 percent more than it did five weeks ago. The story trades at 220 percent of GDP. The molecule trades at $107 per barrel. One of them is wrong. Buffett has $373.3 billion that says he knows which one. The Oracle of Omaha and the Oracle of Hormuz have reached the same conclusion through different instruments. The fire is real. The exits are known. And the man with the extinguisher is not buying.

Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡

450,481 次观看 • 4 个月前

The current Second Sphinx Hypothesis Location is a mirror placement to the First Sphinx...🧐🤔 The scan data has been processed through multiple AI systems including Google Gemini and Grok, which returned an 83 to 94 percent probability that the shape is a Sphinx-type monument and a 98 percent probability that the location is archaeologically significant. Proportional diagnostics found the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio in the facial geometry, matching the original Sphinx's canonical measurements. A 54 percent probability of a male face was returned alongside a 29 percent probability of female. The nemes headdress is visible in the scan data, and unlike the original Sphinx, which lost its serpent ornament at some point in history, the snake appears to still be attached on the second Sphinx. The proportional mismatch between head and body, one of the most discussed anomalies of the original Sphinx and a central argument in the theory that its head was recarved from something older, appears to be present in the second Sphinx as well, which either means the small-head design was intentional or that both monuments were reworked at the same time from the same original form. The Dream Stela, an inscription placed between the original Sphinx's paws during the New Kingdom, has always depicted two sphinxes facing away from each other, and archaeologists have long dismissed this as artistic rather than literal. The fact that the second Sphinx faces the opposite direction to the original gives that imagery a new weight. Excavation permission has been submitted to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. The location is accessible, covered only by a sand mound deposited during 1920s excavations of nearby mastabas, and no significant dig infrastructure would be required. Everything now depends on whether the Egyptian government says yes.

The current Second Sphinx Hypothesis Location is a mirror placement to the First Sphinx...🧐🤔 The scan data has been processed through multiple AI systems including Google Gemini and Grok, which returned an 83 to 94 percent probability that the shape is a Sphinx-type monument and a 98 percent probability that the location is archaeologically significant. Proportional diagnostics found the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio in the facial geometry, matching the original Sphinx's canonical measurements. A 54 percent probability of a male face was returned alongside a 29 percent probability of female. The nemes headdress is visible in the scan data, and unlike the original Sphinx, which lost its serpent ornament at some point in history, the snake appears to still be attached on the second Sphinx. The proportional mismatch between head and body, one of the most discussed anomalies of the original Sphinx and a central argument in the theory that its head was recarved from something older, appears to be present in the second Sphinx as well, which either means the small-head design was intentional or that both monuments were reworked at the same time from the same original form. The Dream Stela, an inscription placed between the original Sphinx's paws during the New Kingdom, has always depicted two sphinxes facing away from each other, and archaeologists have long dismissed this as artistic rather than literal. The fact that the second Sphinx faces the opposite direction to the original gives that imagery a new weight. Excavation permission has been submitted to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. The location is accessible, covered only by a sand mound deposited during 1920s excavations of nearby mastabas, and no significant dig infrastructure would be required. Everything now depends on whether the Egyptian government says yes.

UFO mania

12,764 次观看 • 1 个月前

Tension and uncertainty among Russians are growing. In the spring of 2026, Russian polling agencies recorded a noticeable decline in several key indicators: approval of Putin's performance, trust in him, and the overall emotional mood. The most intriguing point was the closure of Russian Public Opinion Research Center’s (VCIOM) open trust rating: when respondents are asked to name politicians they trust without being prompted with names. In March 2026, this indicator for Putin fell to 29.5% - the lowest level since the start of the full-scale war. After that, VCIOM did not publish the figures for April and May. The gap between the open trust rating (29.5%) and the closed trust rating (72-73%) is roughly 1:2.5. It reflects the distance between Putin's actual political weight and the ritual of loyalty to the "tsar." The reason is simple: Russians do not want a loser president. Putin's ratings were sustained not simply by war, but by the prospect of a victorious war. He traded Russia's development and prosperity for greatness, but now Russians see neither greatness nor prosperity. Let’s take a closer look at what is happening within Russian society. First, most Russians continue to support the war. This is illustrated by Levada Center's May data. Support for the actions of the Russian army, which had been declining since the end of last year, suddenly rebounded by six points in May, reaching 74%. At the same time, the share of those favoring peace negotiations, which had remained at around two-thirds since December, has been slowly shrinking for three consecutive months - down seven points, to six out of ten. Meanwhile, the camp supporting the continuation of military operations has grown to 30%. The main motive among supporters of peace has not changed: "too many casualties and heavy losses." What happened? Television stopped talking about peace negotiations. As long as negotiations seemed realistic, peace appeared to be a way out. Once they collapsed, part of Russian society obediently switched back to supporting the war. This is conformism. Russians do not want peace or war - they want to be on the side of the winner. The demand for negotiations was, in fact, a demand for a victorious peace. Since no victorious peace was granted, they have taken back the war. However, there is a dangerous trap here for the Kremlin: Russians agree to war, but not to a war without victory. They agree to anything except a compromise that would be perceived as defeat. This is dangerous for the Kremlin because it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire system of power - and Putin above all - if Russian society is no longer given proof of greatness and victory. Putin is doomed to constant escalation. The situation is further complicated by public fatigue and rising anxiety among Russians. The state of the Russian economy is deteriorating, while the defense sector is no longer able to offset the decline in the civilian economy. This is especially noticeable in the regions. By the end of 2025, the deficit of consolidated regional budgets had reached a record 1.48 trillion rubles ($20.56 billion) - 3.6 times more than a year earlier. Seventy-four regions, including Moscow and the oil and gas districts, ended up in deficit. The first months of 2026 did not reverse the trend: industry is stagnating, construction is shrinking, corporate profits are falling, and debt burdens are increasing. The accompanying symptoms include a sharp rise in wage arrears, large-scale revisions of regional budgets for 2026 involving spending cuts, primarily social, as well as a hidden employment crisis - where there is no work, but employees are not laid off; instead, they are shifted to reduced working weeks and unpaid leave. Official unemployment statistics barely reflect this. Yet since December 2025, part-time employment has been rising at large and medium-sized enterprises: 4.6 million out of 33 million workers. The map of Russian society’s concerns, which the Levada Center publishes annually, looks telling in May 2026. At the top - for twenty years in a row - is rising prices: 55%. The "special military operation" and related issues worry 35%. And then comes the most interesting part - the destruction of a comfortable life and the feeling of war at home have become additional drivers of tension: fear of explosions and terrorist attacks has jumped by 8 points since November - to 27%. One in five (22%) cites internet restrictions and the blocking of social media as among the most pressing issues - on the list of problems, the digital blockade now ranks alongside poverty and lack of access to healthcare (both at 19%). The state has managed to turn a disabled messenger app into a social problem on the level of poverty. That takes some doing. Many Western observers have been inspired by rumors of elite dissatisfaction in Russia. Indeed, Moscow's economic circles have seen unusually open criticism of the government from parts of the financial elite. However, I suggest we avoid wishful thinking: no direct scenario of a political crisis emerges from this data. The most realistic scenario is the continuation of the war, coupled with a search for political doping: events that can be sold to society as victories, as proof that Russia is moving in the right direction. The problem is that the bar has risen - what would have been considered a triumph a year ago would now look like capitulation. Therefore, stronger doses of doping will be required: escalation in Ukraine aimed at maximizing destruction, a military adventure somewhere in Europe, new strikes, nuclear signaling, or provocations against the West. The ground has already been prepared: 54% of Russians believe that the war in Ukraine could escalate into an armed conflict with NATO - half the population is living in anticipation of a major war. The Kremlin’s logic is as old as time: unite through fear. Putin may also be saved by an "unexpected event" - a black swan, as has already happened when the U.S. started a war with Iran. Here, it’s not even necessary to do anything: it’s enough to interpret it skillfully. A U.S. defeat or stalemate in the war with Iran could be presented as a victory of Russia and its allies over America - because in the minds of Russians, the war with Ukraine has long been just a fragment of a larger Russian war with the West. Within this worldview, any failure by Washington automatically counts as a point for Moscow, regardless of whether it had a hand in it. There is also a third scenario - not for Putin, but against him. This is not a scenario of popular uprising, but one of self-preservation by the Russian elites. But such an option is possible only under a sharp convergence of several factors: military defeat, economic collapse, the loss of the ability to allocate resources, and the emergence of a figure or group capable of guaranteeing the elite’s security after the transition. So far, there are few such signs.

Tension and uncertainty among Russians are growing. In the spring of 2026, Russian polling agencies recorded a noticeable decline in several key indicators: approval of Putin's performance, trust in him, and the overall emotional mood. The most intriguing point was the closure of Russian Public Opinion Research Center’s (VCIOM) open trust rating: when respondents are asked to name politicians they trust without being prompted with names. In March 2026, this indicator for Putin fell to 29.5% - the lowest level since the start of the full-scale war. After that, VCIOM did not publish the figures for April and May. The gap between the open trust rating (29.5%) and the closed trust rating (72-73%) is roughly 1:2.5. It reflects the distance between Putin's actual political weight and the ritual of loyalty to the "tsar." The reason is simple: Russians do not want a loser president. Putin's ratings were sustained not simply by war, but by the prospect of a victorious war. He traded Russia's development and prosperity for greatness, but now Russians see neither greatness nor prosperity. Let’s take a closer look at what is happening within Russian society. First, most Russians continue to support the war. This is illustrated by Levada Center's May data. Support for the actions of the Russian army, which had been declining since the end of last year, suddenly rebounded by six points in May, reaching 74%. At the same time, the share of those favoring peace negotiations, which had remained at around two-thirds since December, has been slowly shrinking for three consecutive months - down seven points, to six out of ten. Meanwhile, the camp supporting the continuation of military operations has grown to 30%. The main motive among supporters of peace has not changed: "too many casualties and heavy losses." What happened? Television stopped talking about peace negotiations. As long as negotiations seemed realistic, peace appeared to be a way out. Once they collapsed, part of Russian society obediently switched back to supporting the war. This is conformism. Russians do not want peace or war - they want to be on the side of the winner. The demand for negotiations was, in fact, a demand for a victorious peace. Since no victorious peace was granted, they have taken back the war. However, there is a dangerous trap here for the Kremlin: Russians agree to war, but not to a war without victory. They agree to anything except a compromise that would be perceived as defeat. This is dangerous for the Kremlin because it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire system of power - and Putin above all - if Russian society is no longer given proof of greatness and victory. Putin is doomed to constant escalation. The situation is further complicated by public fatigue and rising anxiety among Russians. The state of the Russian economy is deteriorating, while the defense sector is no longer able to offset the decline in the civilian economy. This is especially noticeable in the regions. By the end of 2025, the deficit of consolidated regional budgets had reached a record 1.48 trillion rubles ($20.56 billion) - 3.6 times more than a year earlier. Seventy-four regions, including Moscow and the oil and gas districts, ended up in deficit. The first months of 2026 did not reverse the trend: industry is stagnating, construction is shrinking, corporate profits are falling, and debt burdens are increasing. The accompanying symptoms include a sharp rise in wage arrears, large-scale revisions of regional budgets for 2026 involving spending cuts, primarily social, as well as a hidden employment crisis - where there is no work, but employees are not laid off; instead, they are shifted to reduced working weeks and unpaid leave. Official unemployment statistics barely reflect this. Yet since December 2025, part-time employment has been rising at large and medium-sized enterprises: 4.6 million out of 33 million workers. The map of Russian society’s concerns, which the Levada Center publishes annually, looks telling in May 2026. At the top - for twenty years in a row - is rising prices: 55%. The "special military operation" and related issues worry 35%. And then comes the most interesting part - the destruction of a comfortable life and the feeling of war at home have become additional drivers of tension: fear of explosions and terrorist attacks has jumped by 8 points since November - to 27%. One in five (22%) cites internet restrictions and the blocking of social media as among the most pressing issues - on the list of problems, the digital blockade now ranks alongside poverty and lack of access to healthcare (both at 19%). The state has managed to turn a disabled messenger app into a social problem on the level of poverty. That takes some doing. Many Western observers have been inspired by rumors of elite dissatisfaction in Russia. Indeed, Moscow's economic circles have seen unusually open criticism of the government from parts of the financial elite. However, I suggest we avoid wishful thinking: no direct scenario of a political crisis emerges from this data. The most realistic scenario is the continuation of the war, coupled with a search for political doping: events that can be sold to society as victories, as proof that Russia is moving in the right direction. The problem is that the bar has risen - what would have been considered a triumph a year ago would now look like capitulation. Therefore, stronger doses of doping will be required: escalation in Ukraine aimed at maximizing destruction, a military adventure somewhere in Europe, new strikes, nuclear signaling, or provocations against the West. The ground has already been prepared: 54% of Russians believe that the war in Ukraine could escalate into an armed conflict with NATO - half the population is living in anticipation of a major war. The Kremlin’s logic is as old as time: unite through fear. Putin may also be saved by an "unexpected event" - a black swan, as has already happened when the U.S. started a war with Iran. Here, it’s not even necessary to do anything: it’s enough to interpret it skillfully. A U.S. defeat or stalemate in the war with Iran could be presented as a victory of Russia and its allies over America - because in the minds of Russians, the war with Ukraine has long been just a fragment of a larger Russian war with the West. Within this worldview, any failure by Washington automatically counts as a point for Moscow, regardless of whether it had a hand in it. There is also a third scenario - not for Putin, but against him. This is not a scenario of popular uprising, but one of self-preservation by the Russian elites. But such an option is possible only under a sharp convergence of several factors: military defeat, economic collapse, the loss of the ability to allocate resources, and the emergence of a figure or group capable of guaranteeing the elite’s security after the transition. So far, there are few such signs.

Anton Gerashchenko

36,205 次观看 • 1 个月前

SINGAPORE How a Swamp With No Resources Became One of the Richest Places on Earth 🇸🇬 In 1965, Singapore's own future prime minister called the idea of it becoming an independent country a "geographical absurdity." The starting conditions were brutal. No natural resources. No fresh water; it had to import that too. Seventy percent of people lived in slums, unemployment sat in the double digits, and Indonesia was actively bombing the island. 😳 Singapore's income per person was roughly the same as some of the poorest countries in Africa. They built a government agency whose entire job was hunting down foreign companies, offering them tax holidays, and building infrastructure before those companies even arrived. 🤔 Alongside that, the government poured resources into education and healthcare from the very start, roughly 40 percent of its early development budget. The logic was simple: with no natural resources to sell, its people had to become the resource. The results were extraordinary. From 1965 to 1973 alone, the economy grew nearly 13 percent a year. By 1990, income per person had already jumped more than twenty-five times over. Singapore didn't just recover, it leapfrogged almost the entire world. Today, income per person in Singapore is somewhere around 85,000 dollars, among the highest anywhere on Earth.😯

SINGAPORE How a Swamp With No Resources Became One of the Richest Places on Earth 🇸🇬 In 1965, Singapore's own future prime minister called the idea of it becoming an independent country a "geographical absurdity." The starting conditions were brutal. No natural resources. No fresh water; it had to import that too. Seventy percent of people lived in slums, unemployment sat in the double digits, and Indonesia was actively bombing the island. 😳 Singapore's income per person was roughly the same as some of the poorest countries in Africa. They built a government agency whose entire job was hunting down foreign companies, offering them tax holidays, and building infrastructure before those companies even arrived. 🤔 Alongside that, the government poured resources into education and healthcare from the very start, roughly 40 percent of its early development budget. The logic was simple: with no natural resources to sell, its people had to become the resource. The results were extraordinary. From 1965 to 1973 alone, the economy grew nearly 13 percent a year. By 1990, income per person had already jumped more than twenty-five times over. Singapore didn't just recover, it leapfrogged almost the entire world. Today, income per person in Singapore is somewhere around 85,000 dollars, among the highest anywhere on Earth.😯

Donald J Trump Posts TruthSocial

70,571 次观看 • 21 天前

In a video that has since gone viral, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Youth, Tino Machakaire, is seen seated in a luxury vehicle, smiling and waving as a crowd of young people surrounds him. The minister’s demeanor, one of a celebrity enjoying adulation, stands in stark and grotesque contrast to the reality of those mobbing his car: they are the faces of Zimbabwe’s staggering 98% youth unemployment rate. Rather than a moment of pride, the footage serves as a damning expose. It highlights a profound disconnect, showing a government official seemingly reveling in the attention of the very demographic his office has catastrophically failed, instead of displaying the shame and urgency the crisis demands. This incident is more than a mere public relations blunder; it is a metaphor for the failure of the ZANU-PF government. The scene encapsulates a leadership that is insulated, complacent, and utterly out of touch with the daily despair of a generation. While ministers cruise in comfort, millions of educated, energetic young Zimbabweans are left with no future, no hope, and no productive outlet for their ambitions. Such a profound abdication of duty, where the plight of youth is treated as a photo opportunity rather than a national emergency, underscores why many citizens are concluding that the current system is beyond repair. The growing sentiment on the street, echoed in the reaction to this video, is that tinkering at the edges is futile—what Zimbabwe needs is a fundamental revolution in its governance and priorities to avert a complete social collapse.

In a video that has since gone viral, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Youth, Tino Machakaire, is seen seated in a luxury vehicle, smiling and waving as a crowd of young people surrounds him. The minister’s demeanor, one of a celebrity enjoying adulation, stands in stark and grotesque contrast to the reality of those mobbing his car: they are the faces of Zimbabwe’s staggering 98% youth unemployment rate. Rather than a moment of pride, the footage serves as a damning expose. It highlights a profound disconnect, showing a government official seemingly reveling in the attention of the very demographic his office has catastrophically failed, instead of displaying the shame and urgency the crisis demands. This incident is more than a mere public relations blunder; it is a metaphor for the failure of the ZANU-PF government. The scene encapsulates a leadership that is insulated, complacent, and utterly out of touch with the daily despair of a generation. While ministers cruise in comfort, millions of educated, energetic young Zimbabweans are left with no future, no hope, and no productive outlet for their ambitions. Such a profound abdication of duty, where the plight of youth is treated as a photo opportunity rather than a national emergency, underscores why many citizens are concluding that the current system is beyond repair. The growing sentiment on the street, echoed in the reaction to this video, is that tinkering at the edges is futile—what Zimbabwe needs is a fundamental revolution in its governance and priorities to avert a complete social collapse.

Simba_oneblow

17,588 次观看 • 6 个月前

I fully agree with former President Thabo Mbeki that the problem of high levels of unemployment cannot be solely attributed to undocumented (illegal) immigrants; fortunately, there is no one who has made such a claim. That is not even a claim made by the leaders of the protest actions, if we closely and carefully listen to them. What they are claiming is that uncontrolled and illegal migration makes it difficult for South African job seekers. This claim is factually correct. I respectfully disagree with the former President that illegal migration has nothing to do with unemployment. It is a fact that undocumented immgrants are a source of cheap and unprotected labour, what is called unregulated employment. It is also a fact, that this source of employment directly results in labour market distortions and displacement of South African job seekers. It is also a fact that the most affected job seekers by the labour market displacement are the low-skilled and unskilled workers. Unemployed population in South Africa consists of a mix of skills; which can be broken down into three main categories. The first is HIGHLY SKILLED & GRADUATES UNEMPLOYMENT, this is unemployed graduates who struggle to find entry-level positions that require prior experience. The second is SEMI-SKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, these are job seekers that have completed secondary education (matric) or specialised vocational training, but their qualifications often do not align with the specific technical trades or digital roles that employers are actively seeking. The third is LOW-SKILLED AND UNSKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, which constitues a large portion of the unemployed workforce and has low levels of formal education, and are at a severe disadvantage in a modernising economy that increasingly requires advanced or technical capabilities. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that the low-skilled and un-skilled category of the unemployed is severely displaced by a labour market that is open to undocumented immigrants. I have elaborated on this matter in an article that I published on my social media platforms. To access that article, log in👇🏿

I fully agree with former President Thabo Mbeki that the problem of high levels of unemployment cannot be solely attributed to undocumented (illegal) immigrants; fortunately, there is no one who has made such a claim. That is not even a claim made by the leaders of the protest actions, if we closely and carefully listen to them. What they are claiming is that uncontrolled and illegal migration makes it difficult for South African job seekers. This claim is factually correct. I respectfully disagree with the former President that illegal migration has nothing to do with unemployment. It is a fact that undocumented immgrants are a source of cheap and unprotected labour, what is called unregulated employment. It is also a fact, that this source of employment directly results in labour market distortions and displacement of South African job seekers. It is also a fact that the most affected job seekers by the labour market displacement are the low-skilled and unskilled workers. Unemployed population in South Africa consists of a mix of skills; which can be broken down into three main categories. The first is HIGHLY SKILLED & GRADUATES UNEMPLOYMENT, this is unemployed graduates who struggle to find entry-level positions that require prior experience. The second is SEMI-SKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, these are job seekers that have completed secondary education (matric) or specialised vocational training, but their qualifications often do not align with the specific technical trades or digital roles that employers are actively seeking. The third is LOW-SKILLED AND UNSKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, which constitues a large portion of the unemployed workforce and has low levels of formal education, and are at a severe disadvantage in a modernising economy that increasingly requires advanced or technical capabilities. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that the low-skilled and un-skilled category of the unemployed is severely displaced by a labour market that is open to undocumented immigrants. I have elaborated on this matter in an article that I published on my social media platforms. To access that article, log in👇🏿

Dr. Zamani Saul

68,140 次观看 • 2 个月前

Without a decent Government or a viable opposition in sight, this is what ordinary Zimbabwean women have been reduced to, declaring that they are happy to be wives of a ruling party ZANUPF politician in exchange for a kilogram of sugar. After the most shambolic and corrupt years of Zimbabwean post-colonial rule as witnessed in the last six years, the living conditions of ordinary Zimbabweans are dire. Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation in the world, and its local currency has lost 95% of its value in the last twelve months, unemployment is at 95% and the government is broke after the most frenzied looting of public funds in the last six years. As they walk barefooted and resigned to their fate of abject poverty, women carry the brunt of this economic collapse in Zimbabwe as they seek to feed their families. Humiliation is the order of the day as ruling party politicians give them crumbs in exchange for votes, at times they fight to receiving that pocket of sugar. The ultimate humiliation for an able bodied person whose ordinary opportunities have been stolen by corrupt rule in a country with zero social security!

Without a decent Government or a viable opposition in sight, this is what ordinary Zimbabwean women have been reduced to, declaring that they are happy to be wives of a ruling party ZANUPF politician in exchange for a kilogram of sugar. After the most shambolic and corrupt years of Zimbabwean post-colonial rule as witnessed in the last six years, the living conditions of ordinary Zimbabweans are dire. Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation in the world, and its local currency has lost 95% of its value in the last twelve months, unemployment is at 95% and the government is broke after the most frenzied looting of public funds in the last six years. As they walk barefooted and resigned to their fate of abject poverty, women carry the brunt of this economic collapse in Zimbabwe as they seek to feed their families. Humiliation is the order of the day as ruling party politicians give them crumbs in exchange for votes, at times they fight to receiving that pocket of sugar. The ultimate humiliation for an able bodied person whose ordinary opportunities have been stolen by corrupt rule in a country with zero social security!

Hopewell Chin’ono

46,493 次观看 • 2 年前

Ambassador Chas Freeman: Israel Is Worse Than Nazis It’s very clear what Israel wants. It’s made no secret that it wants to depopulate Gaza by whatever means it can, by starving people into leaving, expelling them, or killing them all. And there’s no question that it meets the definition of genocide. They have the intent to destroy an entire people. They have the ability and they are, in fact, carrying out an operation intended to do so. I think it’s also quite clear why Hamas did what it did. This was in the nature of a jailbreak from the world’s largest concentration camp. And having been treated like animals they behaved like animals. What they did was horrifying, it was inexcusable, but it was understandable. The Israeli reaction has been vastly disproportionate and that is Israel’s custom. It tries to react disproportionately in order to intimidate and deter anyone from attacking it. That is not new but what is new are the genocidal statements and proposed emptying of Gaza. 60% of the buildings in Northern Gaza have been destroyed and we know that over 12,000 Palestinians have been murdered by one means or another. Israel has destroyed most of the hospitals in Gaza. It now seems to be working on the schools. So it is totally ruthless and the whole thing is particularly macabre because it is such a vivid reminder of the Warsaw Ghetto, a very parallel situation in which driven beyond any ability to tolerate what was being done to them, the Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto rose against Nazi Germany and the Nazis exterminated them all and leveled the ghetto. One would think that the survivors of that Holocaust and the larger Holocaust in Europe would not wish to repeat a holocaust against another people but evidently, that is expecting too much of human nature. It now appears that much of the killing at the music festival was actually done by Israeli forces who fired indiscriminately at both the Hamas warriors and the milling crowds at the festival. Similarly, some of the major damage in the kibbutzim and the murders of the settlers there were done not by Hamas but by Israeli forces firing tank bullets into houses and hellfire missiles into cars and so forth. So this was a dreadful beginning to what has turned out to be an absolutely nauseating months and a half of slaughter, not finished. The United States has the ability to stop this by halting armed supplies to Israel but does not do that, opposes a ceasefire in support of Mr. Netanyahu’s revenge against the Palestinians, and Mr. Netanyahu, I would remind you, is on record many years ago as expressing hope for a war in which Israel could expel all the Arabs in its midst and seems to be taking advantage of this to do that hoping, I suppose, that his reputation which has been greatly damaged by charges of corruption and by his suspension of judicial independence in Israel, can somehow be redeemed by this act of revenge. Where we are is a very bad place. What Israel is reporting is extraordinarily crude propaganda, some of it obviously, utterly false, and they’ve been caught. Even some of the mainstream media are beginning to report that the Israeli Defense Forces are lying about a huge number of things. Younger people, generally in the West, certainly in my own country the United States, are far more inclined to be sympathetic to the Palestinians than they ever were before. It’s not that they dislike Israelis but now confronted with with graphic images of horror, the murder of 12,000 [Palestinians], they’re not dispassionate. Not only are they demonstrating in all of the world’s capitals for a ceasefire which their governments declined to support for the most part, but social media is now overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian as opposed to pro-Israeli. But I think the Palestinians, generally, have been motivated to remind the world that they exist. That their problems can’t be set aside. The Israeli government, with the connivance of the Biden Administration, and before that the Trump Administration, was making an effort to set the Palestinian issue aside in order to produce Arab-Israeli normalization. And the Palestinians set out with this raid into Israel to demonstrate that that is impossible, that the only way that you can have peace in Palestine is with a two-state solution. And oddly enough, although Hamas, of course, started as a movement funded in part by the Israelis — Mr. Netanyahu has openly admitted that he corroborated with Qatar to fund Hamas in Gaza in order to divide the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — I think Hamas seized the moment to provoke Israel into doing exactly what Israel has predictively done in order to make it clear to the world that you have to have a two-state solution which had become a talking point. There was no reality to it at all. There had been no peace process for twenty-some years. Now there must be. People have recognized that the one-state solution — which many favored, meaning a purely democratic one-man-one-vote arrangement in Palestine in which inevitably the Jewish population given its higher level of culture, civilization, and finance, would have called most of the shots — is off the table. After all the hatred that has been demonstrated on both sides, coexistence in one state is obviously impossible in Palestine. Two states, however, would give the Palestinians a stake in peace. They have no stake in peace at the moment. They’re like a rabbit being swallowed by some kind of boa constrictor. As time goes on they go farther and farther down the throat of the snake and they’re crying out, and they were doing so at a pitch that, apparently, no one internationally could hear. And now their cause has been dramatized. We can’t have a resolution of what is going on now that takes the form of another expulsion of Palestinians, more tolerance of massacres, the condoning of genocide... and I think those in the West, including President Biden, who has been prepared to give Israel a pass on these issues, are beginning to pay heavily in terms of their political prestige in their domestic politics. Settler colonialism invariably leads to some attempt at genocide. That was the case in the United States, Canada, and Australia. It wasn’t the case in New Zealand because the Māori were too tough. It wasn’t the case in South Africa because the Zulus, and other South African blacks, were too tough. It wasn’t the case in Kenya because, eventually, black Kenyans rose up in the Mau Mau movement, which was itself a horror, but it did result in a separation from the colonial rule of the British. The same thing could happen. Now the difficulty of all this is obvious in terms of the fact that you’ve got an Israeli cabinet that is the most determined, genocidal cabinet the world has ever seen, and I don’t excuse the Nazi cabinets from that comparison. The overt statements of genocidal intent are unmistakable. There’s no effort, as the Germans did make, to conceal what is in store for the Palestinians. There’s no fake camp for Jews like the one the Nazis set up to bring the Swiss Red Cross in to show how wonderful they were treating the people they had taken away from their homes. No effort whatsoever of that sort, just bombing and strafing and murder on the ground. Israel appears to be paying quite a heavy price for that in terms of combat losses, but, of course, is not reporting accurately what is happening.

Ambassador Chas Freeman: Israel Is Worse Than Nazis It’s very clear what Israel wants. It’s made no secret that it wants to depopulate Gaza by whatever means it can, by starving people into leaving, expelling them, or killing them all. And there’s no question that it meets the definition of genocide. They have the intent to destroy an entire people. They have the ability and they are, in fact, carrying out an operation intended to do so. I think it’s also quite clear why Hamas did what it did. This was in the nature of a jailbreak from the world’s largest concentration camp. And having been treated like animals they behaved like animals. What they did was horrifying, it was inexcusable, but it was understandable. The Israeli reaction has been vastly disproportionate and that is Israel’s custom. It tries to react disproportionately in order to intimidate and deter anyone from attacking it. That is not new but what is new are the genocidal statements and proposed emptying of Gaza. 60% of the buildings in Northern Gaza have been destroyed and we know that over 12,000 Palestinians have been murdered by one means or another. Israel has destroyed most of the hospitals in Gaza. It now seems to be working on the schools. So it is totally ruthless and the whole thing is particularly macabre because it is such a vivid reminder of the Warsaw Ghetto, a very parallel situation in which driven beyond any ability to tolerate what was being done to them, the Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto rose against Nazi Germany and the Nazis exterminated them all and leveled the ghetto. One would think that the survivors of that Holocaust and the larger Holocaust in Europe would not wish to repeat a holocaust against another people but evidently, that is expecting too much of human nature. It now appears that much of the killing at the music festival was actually done by Israeli forces who fired indiscriminately at both the Hamas warriors and the milling crowds at the festival. Similarly, some of the major damage in the kibbutzim and the murders of the settlers there were done not by Hamas but by Israeli forces firing tank bullets into houses and hellfire missiles into cars and so forth. So this was a dreadful beginning to what has turned out to be an absolutely nauseating months and a half of slaughter, not finished. The United States has the ability to stop this by halting armed supplies to Israel but does not do that, opposes a ceasefire in support of Mr. Netanyahu’s revenge against the Palestinians, and Mr. Netanyahu, I would remind you, is on record many years ago as expressing hope for a war in which Israel could expel all the Arabs in its midst and seems to be taking advantage of this to do that hoping, I suppose, that his reputation which has been greatly damaged by charges of corruption and by his suspension of judicial independence in Israel, can somehow be redeemed by this act of revenge. Where we are is a very bad place. What Israel is reporting is extraordinarily crude propaganda, some of it obviously, utterly false, and they’ve been caught. Even some of the mainstream media are beginning to report that the Israeli Defense Forces are lying about a huge number of things. Younger people, generally in the West, certainly in my own country the United States, are far more inclined to be sympathetic to the Palestinians than they ever were before. It’s not that they dislike Israelis but now confronted with with graphic images of horror, the murder of 12,000 [Palestinians], they’re not dispassionate. Not only are they demonstrating in all of the world’s capitals for a ceasefire which their governments declined to support for the most part, but social media is now overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian as opposed to pro-Israeli. But I think the Palestinians, generally, have been motivated to remind the world that they exist. That their problems can’t be set aside. The Israeli government, with the connivance of the Biden Administration, and before that the Trump Administration, was making an effort to set the Palestinian issue aside in order to produce Arab-Israeli normalization. And the Palestinians set out with this raid into Israel to demonstrate that that is impossible, that the only way that you can have peace in Palestine is with a two-state solution. And oddly enough, although Hamas, of course, started as a movement funded in part by the Israelis — Mr. Netanyahu has openly admitted that he corroborated with Qatar to fund Hamas in Gaza in order to divide the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — I think Hamas seized the moment to provoke Israel into doing exactly what Israel has predictively done in order to make it clear to the world that you have to have a two-state solution which had become a talking point. There was no reality to it at all. There had been no peace process for twenty-some years. Now there must be. People have recognized that the one-state solution — which many favored, meaning a purely democratic one-man-one-vote arrangement in Palestine in which inevitably the Jewish population given its higher level of culture, civilization, and finance, would have called most of the shots — is off the table. After all the hatred that has been demonstrated on both sides, coexistence in one state is obviously impossible in Palestine. Two states, however, would give the Palestinians a stake in peace. They have no stake in peace at the moment. They’re like a rabbit being swallowed by some kind of boa constrictor. As time goes on they go farther and farther down the throat of the snake and they’re crying out, and they were doing so at a pitch that, apparently, no one internationally could hear. And now their cause has been dramatized. We can’t have a resolution of what is going on now that takes the form of another expulsion of Palestinians, more tolerance of massacres, the condoning of genocide... and I think those in the West, including President Biden, who has been prepared to give Israel a pass on these issues, are beginning to pay heavily in terms of their political prestige in their domestic politics. Settler colonialism invariably leads to some attempt at genocide. That was the case in the United States, Canada, and Australia. It wasn’t the case in New Zealand because the Māori were too tough. It wasn’t the case in South Africa because the Zulus, and other South African blacks, were too tough. It wasn’t the case in Kenya because, eventually, black Kenyans rose up in the Mau Mau movement, which was itself a horror, but it did result in a separation from the colonial rule of the British. The same thing could happen. Now the difficulty of all this is obvious in terms of the fact that you’ve got an Israeli cabinet that is the most determined, genocidal cabinet the world has ever seen, and I don’t excuse the Nazi cabinets from that comparison. The overt statements of genocidal intent are unmistakable. There’s no effort, as the Germans did make, to conceal what is in store for the Palestinians. There’s no fake camp for Jews like the one the Nazis set up to bring the Swiss Red Cross in to show how wonderful they were treating the people they had taken away from their homes. No effort whatsoever of that sort, just bombing and strafing and murder on the ground. Israel appears to be paying quite a heavy price for that in terms of combat losses, but, of course, is not reporting accurately what is happening.

🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉

22,337 次观看 • 2 年前

Friedberg: Two Reasons Why Drug Prices are So Expensive in America 📈 🫰 1) Government intervention in the market 🏢 "The way that we negotiate drug prices is pretty messed up." "As is the case with the cost of education and the cost of housing, the cost of drugs is largely inflated because of the federal government's role in being the primary buyer or capital provider to that market." "Through our purchases of prescription drugs, the federal government, as a buyer, doesn't have any incentive to keep prices low." " If every individual had to pay for their drugs, or private insurance was the only way to get your drugs, we would have a much more dynamic marketplace." 2) PBMs marking up prices 📈 "There's also this construct in the market, these PBMs or pharmacy benefit managers." "If they got cut out of the market, it would save a lot." "There's three major PBMs, CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and Optum RX. They make money in markups." "The FTC has been investigating them and have several open cases." "Between 2017 and 2022, the estimate is that these companies generated $7.3B in excess profit by marking up prices on specialty generic drugs." "So as an intermediary, they provide this role where they can coordinate between the health insurer, the pharmacy which dispenses the drugs, and the drug manufacturers." Chamath: " But they're allowed to be owned by the payer, which is crazy." Friedberg: " And now they're allowed to be owned by the payer." "And there's a lot of obfuscation of the true cost of the drugs. There's a lot of markups, a lot of spread taking." "And so if you took the PBMs out of the market, that would solve one of the problems." " But at the end of the day, anytime the federal government is involved as a payer in any market-based system, it creates a distortion and the market is no longer free or efficient." david friedberg

Friedberg: Two Reasons Why Drug Prices are So Expensive in America 📈 🫰 1) Government intervention in the market 🏢 "The way that we negotiate drug prices is pretty messed up." "As is the case with the cost of education and the cost of housing, the cost of drugs is largely inflated because of the federal government's role in being the primary buyer or capital provider to that market." "Through our purchases of prescription drugs, the federal government, as a buyer, doesn't have any incentive to keep prices low." " If every individual had to pay for their drugs, or private insurance was the only way to get your drugs, we would have a much more dynamic marketplace." 2) PBMs marking up prices 📈 "There's also this construct in the market, these PBMs or pharmacy benefit managers." "If they got cut out of the market, it would save a lot." "There's three major PBMs, CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and Optum RX. They make money in markups." "The FTC has been investigating them and have several open cases." "Between 2017 and 2022, the estimate is that these companies generated $7.3B in excess profit by marking up prices on specialty generic drugs." "So as an intermediary, they provide this role where they can coordinate between the health insurer, the pharmacy which dispenses the drugs, and the drug manufacturers." Chamath: " But they're allowed to be owned by the payer, which is crazy." Friedberg: " And now they're allowed to be owned by the payer." "And there's a lot of obfuscation of the true cost of the drugs. There's a lot of markups, a lot of spread taking." "And so if you took the PBMs out of the market, that would solve one of the problems." " But at the end of the day, anytime the federal government is involved as a payer in any market-based system, it creates a distortion and the market is no longer free or efficient." david friedberg

The All-In Podcast

45,353 次观看 • 1 年前

Josep Borrell accuses Israel of the largest ethnic cleansing operation since WWII for it's actions against the Palestinians "We all know what happens there and we all hear statements from Netanyahu's ministers that are clear statements of genocidal intent" "Rarely have I heard a responsible state official express so openly a plan that meets the legal definition of genocide" "You can die by being shot in the back of the head, you can die in a gas chamber, you can also die of starvation" "And in any case, it is about the will to exterminate a people" "We are facing the biggest operation of ethnic cleansing since the end of the Second World War" "To create a splendid holiday resort once the million tons of rubble have been removed from Gaza and the Palestinians have left or have died" "One horror does not justify another horror" "I have said it many times. The horror of ever does not justify the horror of Israel's response" "Europe has the capacity and the means to not only protest, but to influence behaviour, and it does not do so" "We supply half of the bombs that fall on Gaza" "And if we really believe that there are too many dead, the natural response would be to supply fewer weapons and to use the Lever of the Association Agreement to demand that international humanitarian law be respected and not just lament that it is not being done" "We all condemned this terrorist attack by Hamas and proclaimed Israel's right to defend itself" "But the right to defence, like all rights, has its limits" "It has the limits of international law and international humanitarian law" "And in its response, Israel has violated all these rules, systematically using the starvation of the civilian population as a weapon of war and by bombing more than 50,000 dead among the population of Gaza, among them mostly women and children" "An explosive power equivalent to three times the Hiroshima bomb has been dropped on Gaza" "And for months nothing has been entering Gaza" "Nothing" "No water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, no medical services" - "And the shocks we suffer have two names" "Their names are Putin and Trump" "Two characters who, each in their own way, represent the old imperialism of the 19th century, which we know well because we have been its protagonists" "As I said before, one is much more intelligent, cunning and crafty than the other, although the other does not know it" "And that has consequences for everyone" - "What is peace?" "First and foremost, it is the peaceful coexistence between different people the coexistence between humans who for a moment think that it is better to cooperate than to fight" "And that, for example, today in the Middle East, means the ability of Palestinians and Israelis to live each in dignity and freedom, each with their own state" "Peace is the ability to face together global challenges" - "Today, on the contrary, war has returned to our borders and Trump is back in the White House" "Our time is no longer defined by peace, democracy, open trade and liberalism but by conflict, populism, protectionism and war" - "And today, for Europeans, the big issue is no longer the war between us" "And we do not sufficiently appreciate this extraordinary result" "Against our background, to have achieved 70 or 80 years of peace was an historic result which alone would justify the European Union" "The European Union has been a peace project and must remain so" "And even if we now talk a lot about rearmament, must remain a peace project conceived not for the relationship between us, but for the relationship with the rest of the world" - "Europe is the place in the world where humanity has built the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion" "And today more than ever we can say that Europe is the land of the free" "When in the US people start to be afraid to speak out, Europe is more than ever the land of the free" - "It is the land of relative economic prosperity, but greater than elsewhere, which is accompanied by an effort of social cohesion so that no one is left to their own devices, so that the health of your neighbour is also a problem for you" "But not a theoretical problem, but a problem that is solved with fiscal transfers that make things that are not provided by the market, but that are human rights" "But rights are not free" "Rights are paid for, and they are paid for with taxes, paid for with collective effort" "This is what characterises Europe" "We pay more taxes than in other parts of the world" "This is the price of cohesion" "Cohesion is the price of security, and security is the way to guarantee freedom"

Josep Borrell accuses Israel of the largest ethnic cleansing operation since WWII for it's actions against the Palestinians "We all know what happens there and we all hear statements from Netanyahu's ministers that are clear statements of genocidal intent" "Rarely have I heard a responsible state official express so openly a plan that meets the legal definition of genocide" "You can die by being shot in the back of the head, you can die in a gas chamber, you can also die of starvation" "And in any case, it is about the will to exterminate a people" "We are facing the biggest operation of ethnic cleansing since the end of the Second World War" "To create a splendid holiday resort once the million tons of rubble have been removed from Gaza and the Palestinians have left or have died" "One horror does not justify another horror" "I have said it many times. The horror of ever does not justify the horror of Israel's response" "Europe has the capacity and the means to not only protest, but to influence behaviour, and it does not do so" "We supply half of the bombs that fall on Gaza" "And if we really believe that there are too many dead, the natural response would be to supply fewer weapons and to use the Lever of the Association Agreement to demand that international humanitarian law be respected and not just lament that it is not being done" "We all condemned this terrorist attack by Hamas and proclaimed Israel's right to defend itself" "But the right to defence, like all rights, has its limits" "It has the limits of international law and international humanitarian law" "And in its response, Israel has violated all these rules, systematically using the starvation of the civilian population as a weapon of war and by bombing more than 50,000 dead among the population of Gaza, among them mostly women and children" "An explosive power equivalent to three times the Hiroshima bomb has been dropped on Gaza" "And for months nothing has been entering Gaza" "Nothing" "No water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, no medical services" - "And the shocks we suffer have two names" "Their names are Putin and Trump" "Two characters who, each in their own way, represent the old imperialism of the 19th century, which we know well because we have been its protagonists" "As I said before, one is much more intelligent, cunning and crafty than the other, although the other does not know it" "And that has consequences for everyone" - "What is peace?" "First and foremost, it is the peaceful coexistence between different people the coexistence between humans who for a moment think that it is better to cooperate than to fight" "And that, for example, today in the Middle East, means the ability of Palestinians and Israelis to live each in dignity and freedom, each with their own state" "Peace is the ability to face together global challenges" - "Today, on the contrary, war has returned to our borders and Trump is back in the White House" "Our time is no longer defined by peace, democracy, open trade and liberalism but by conflict, populism, protectionism and war" - "And today, for Europeans, the big issue is no longer the war between us" "And we do not sufficiently appreciate this extraordinary result" "Against our background, to have achieved 70 or 80 years of peace was an historic result which alone would justify the European Union" "The European Union has been a peace project and must remain so" "And even if we now talk a lot about rearmament, must remain a peace project conceived not for the relationship between us, but for the relationship with the rest of the world" - "Europe is the place in the world where humanity has built the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion" "And today more than ever we can say that Europe is the land of the free" "When in the US people start to be afraid to speak out, Europe is more than ever the land of the free" - "It is the land of relative economic prosperity, but greater than elsewhere, which is accompanied by an effort of social cohesion so that no one is left to their own devices, so that the health of your neighbour is also a problem for you" "But not a theoretical problem, but a problem that is solved with fiscal transfers that make things that are not provided by the market, but that are human rights" "But rights are not free" "Rights are paid for, and they are paid for with taxes, paid for with collective effort" "This is what characterises Europe" "We pay more taxes than in other parts of the world" "This is the price of cohesion" "Cohesion is the price of security, and security is the way to guarantee freedom"

Farrukh

41,525 次观看 • 1 年前

We have two sets of documents: 'Ek Aur Baar Jumla Sarkar'—which basically looks at the promises made by the BJP in their 2024 manifesto plus other kinds of promises and statements they have been making in the last year. The other one, '11 Saal Jhoote Vikaas Ke Vaade', is a detailed exposé of the hollow promises and track record of the false statements that the BJP's just-released report card highlighted. In their 11-Saal document, one of the first themes that they highlight is taking care of the poor and the marginalized. They are very happy that 81 crore people are getting free food grains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). But the basic problem of hunger is a much larger crisis in India, and it puts us at 105th out of 127 countries in the World Hunger Index. Its implications: malnutrition is affecting our children in a horrible way, crippling their growth. - Stunting is at 35.5% - Wasting is at 19.3% - Underweight is at 32.1% That is, nearly a third of Indian children are suffering from malnutrition in this day and age when they talk about Viksit Bharat. Let's remind our PM that he has a duty to our children and their future. They claim that they have created 4 times the Eklavya residential schools since 2014. They have announced 700+ schools, out of which 300 are still non-functional. Is it rocket science to set up and run a school? In terms of defence, one of the claims is that over 5000 items have been added to the indigenisation list. Well, sadly, 40% of the items listed for indigenisation have not been indigenized as of now. India remains one of the top importers of defence rather than a producer and exporter. If you look at 'mission mode DRDO projects', 23 out of 55 have been delayed, and the share of R&D in our defence budget is only 5.45% Another claim that is constantly made is that we are the fastest-growing large economy. This is true, but what rate are we growing? Are we able to encash our demographic dividend? Any economist will tell you that if we grow below 8.5 per cent a year, we are sacrificing the future of crores and crores of our youngsters because we will not have enough growth, jobs and opportunities that are required to just fulfil the target—the great jumla—2 crores jobs per year. And our growth is 6.5% over the last year. This is the lowest rate after the COVID period. So, what is happening in this 11th year of your Sarkaar, PM Modi? What is happening is reflected in the response of the private sector. Is the Indian private sector investing in India? If you look at the investment figures, after you have given the bonanza tax cut, nothing has changed. They still don't have confidence in the management of your economy to invest. Fixed Capital Formation has come down to 32.4%, which is an 11-year low in FY2024. There is another legacy: the glaring inequality. The share of wealth in India's top 1% of people is 40%. And the bottom 50% have to make do with just over 3%. This is not the economy we want, and unless fixed, we are not going to unleash the raw economic power that India inherently has. : Chairman, AICC Research Dept Rajeev Gowda ji

We have two sets of documents: 'Ek Aur Baar Jumla Sarkar'—which basically looks at the promises made by the BJP in their 2024 manifesto plus other kinds of promises and statements they have been making in the last year. The other one, '11 Saal Jhoote Vikaas Ke Vaade', is a detailed exposé of the hollow promises and track record of the false statements that the BJP's just-released report card highlighted. In their 11-Saal document, one of the first themes that they highlight is taking care of the poor and the marginalized. They are very happy that 81 crore people are getting free food grains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). But the basic problem of hunger is a much larger crisis in India, and it puts us at 105th out of 127 countries in the World Hunger Index. Its implications: malnutrition is affecting our children in a horrible way, crippling their growth. - Stunting is at 35.5% - Wasting is at 19.3% - Underweight is at 32.1% That is, nearly a third of Indian children are suffering from malnutrition in this day and age when they talk about Viksit Bharat. Let's remind our PM that he has a duty to our children and their future. They claim that they have created 4 times the Eklavya residential schools since 2014. They have announced 700+ schools, out of which 300 are still non-functional. Is it rocket science to set up and run a school? In terms of defence, one of the claims is that over 5000 items have been added to the indigenisation list. Well, sadly, 40% of the items listed for indigenisation have not been indigenized as of now. India remains one of the top importers of defence rather than a producer and exporter. If you look at 'mission mode DRDO projects', 23 out of 55 have been delayed, and the share of R&D in our defence budget is only 5.45% Another claim that is constantly made is that we are the fastest-growing large economy. This is true, but what rate are we growing? Are we able to encash our demographic dividend? Any economist will tell you that if we grow below 8.5 per cent a year, we are sacrificing the future of crores and crores of our youngsters because we will not have enough growth, jobs and opportunities that are required to just fulfil the target—the great jumla—2 crores jobs per year. And our growth is 6.5% over the last year. This is the lowest rate after the COVID period. So, what is happening in this 11th year of your Sarkaar, PM Modi? What is happening is reflected in the response of the private sector. Is the Indian private sector investing in India? If you look at the investment figures, after you have given the bonanza tax cut, nothing has changed. They still don't have confidence in the management of your economy to invest. Fixed Capital Formation has come down to 32.4%, which is an 11-year low in FY2024. There is another legacy: the glaring inequality. The share of wealth in India's top 1% of people is 40%. And the bottom 50% have to make do with just over 3%. This is not the economy we want, and unless fixed, we are not going to unleash the raw economic power that India inherently has. : Chairman, AICC Research Dept Rajeev Gowda ji

Congress

58,765 次观看 • 1 年前