“When supply chain issues caused a baby formula shortage last year, Congress (eventually) cut tariffs to help get more formula onto American store shelves.
It worked! Imports of baby formula soared during the second half of 2022 after tariffs and other regulations were lifted. Stores reported lower out-of-stock rates and news stories about panicked parents being unable to feed their infants abated. In short, the government removed economic barriers and the market solved the problem.
Then, the government put those barriers back in place. On January 1, the tariffs on baby formula returned. Now, so has the crisis.
“It’s getting harder and harder” to find baby formula, pharmacy owner Anil Datwani told Fox News this week. “[Mothers] go from one store to the next store to the next store” looking for baby formula.
Meanwhile, some consumers are complaining on social media that prices for baby formula have suddenly spiked and availability is once again a problem. A Forbes investigation into a recent increase in the price of Enfamil baby formula noted that the increases “follow the expiration of the U.S. government’s suspension of infant formula tariffs in January, which opened the door for formula (both foreign and U.S.-produced) to become more expensive.” (Another contributing factor: Reckitt Benckiser, the British-based company that owns the Enfamil brand, issued a recall in February affecting about 145,000 cans of formula.)
Because that’s what tariffs do, of course. They are import taxes that protect domestic industries at the expense of domestic consumers, who are subjected to limited supply and higher prices as a trade-off for industrial protectionism.”
“Data show that crashing a sacrificial spacecraft into an asteroid would be powerful enough to avoid almost all rocks hitting Earth, averting catastrophe.
Only asteroids wider than a kilometre would need a nuclear detonation to shift them off course, scientists now believe.
A rock this big is expected to hit our planet once every 700,000 years and would create a crater as big as Manchester. An impact of this size would cause global devastation and the possible collapse of civilisation, experts say.
Astronomers believe around 900 “near Earth objects” – defined as within 120 million miles of our sun – are more than one kilometre wide, and they have identified 95 per cent of them.
Nuclear warheads have long been, and continue to be, part of planetary defence plans, but only as a last resort.
A White House document recently said that the US would continue to study when a nuclear explosive device would be needed to prevent an asteroid apocalypse.”
“a fire broke out at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican city just across the border from El Paso, Texas. By the time the smoke cleared, nearly 40 migrants were dead.”
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“The Biden administration announced new measures to toughen the border in January, including significant restrictions on the asylum process. It also launched an app, CBP One, which is now the only legal way for migrants to request humanitarian protection at the U.S.-Mexico border. “Daily appointments run out within minutes on the app, which has been prone to crashing and is unavailable in most languages,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Migrants have waited at the border for months due to the glitchy app and the continued renewal of the Title 42 order, a pandemic-era policy that allows U.S. border officials to immediately expel migrants who enter the country.
Waiting south of the border has long been dangerous. Under “Remain in Mexico,” a Trump and Biden administration policy that forces migrants to stay in Mexico as they await their American immigration court dates, asylum seekers have faced rampant violence. Human Rights First has recorded over 1,500 cases of kidnappings, murders, rapes, and other violent attacks against those relegated to Mexico.
Just as south-of-the-border tent cities ballooned under that policy, thousands of migrants are now living in encampments in Mexico. Mexican shelters are stretched far beyond their capacities. A Mexican federal official interviewed by the Los Angeles Times cited this as a “motive for the protest” in Juarez—”68 men were packed into a cell meant for no more than 50 people.”
Crowding may well get worse when the Biden administration imposes a new border rule in May, which will largely bar non-Mexican migrants from receiving asylum in the U.S. if they don’t apply for protection in countries they passed through on their way there. In effect, it “would presume asylum ineligibility for those who enter illegally,” per The Washington Post.
American border policies alone didn’t cause the deaths in Juarez, but the tragedy highlights the limitations of the “prevention through deterrence” approach. If the journey is made inconvenient enough and the penalties sufficiently severe, the logic goes, migrants will be discouraged. But they haven’t been—tens of thousands of people are still attempting the journey, which only grows deadlier as legal entry becomes more limited.”
“The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus—made up of 31 Republicans and 32 Democrats—has reportedly crafted a debt limit proposal that calls for Congress to return to so-called regular order for the passage of annual budget bills. That means the dozen appropriation bills that make up the federal budget would go through the full congressional process, including committee hearings and individual votes for each, rather than being rolled together in the massive omnibus packages that Congress has relied upon in recent years.
According to a draft proposal from the caucus published Wednesday by Axios, a return to regular order would be one of several changes the lawmakers in the group would demand as part of a debt ceiling deal. They’re also asking for the creation of a new fiscal commission to make recommendations on stabilizing the federal government’s dangerously high levels of debt, and the adoption of budget controls (similar to those that were in place between 2011 and 2018) to limit future spending increases.
If those terms are agreed to, the group’s framework would raise the debt ceiling to a level that won’t be reached until after 2025—in other words, until after the next election.
On their own, those proposals won’t solve America’s serious fiscal challenges. But they would be a series of good first steps toward taking the mess seriously and would avert the potentially catastrophic debt default that looms over everything in Washington right now.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russias-wagner-boss-escalates-rift-143720041.html
“The California Teachers’ Association is the most-powerful voice in education. Police and fire unions are the best-funded and most muscular political players at the local level. The prison guards’ union has an inordinate influence on corrections policy.
Unions aren’t entirely to blame for California’s myriad problems and crises, but they provide a heckler’s veto to any reform idea that could realistically improve public services. Consider how vociferously teachers’ unions opposed school reopenings. Lawmakers rarely propose any idea that would antagonize any of the state’s easily antagonized unions. Imagine running a business where the employees could immediately quash any proposal that might help consumers or reduce operating costs.
“Through their extensive political activity, these government workers’ unions help elect the very politicians who will act as ‘management’ in their contract negotiations—in effect handpicking those who will sit across the bargaining table from them,” noted Daniel DiSalvo in a 2010 article in National Affairs. No wonder California’s municipal firefighters earn on average more than $200,000 a year—even as the state complains about an inadequate number of firefighters.”
“There are two primary types of fossil fuel subsidies. Production subsidies offset the costs for companies involved in energy production. Consumption subsidies make the final product less expensive for consumers.”
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“Fuel subsidies lower the cost of energy and incentivize consumption: When the price of fuel is artificially lowered, more people will drive and fewer will turn to carpooling and other commuting alternatives. After all, there’s a reason that demand for electric cars surges whenever oil prices spike.”
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“A decade ago, a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that ending all fossil fuel subsidies would decrease global consumption by 29 billion gallons annually.
Last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact was the first time an international climate agreement included a call to revoke subsidies. Even then, it came after significant opposition from developing countries such as India and China.
The IPCC report notes that ending subsidies can hurt “the most economically vulnerable.” But the IEA noted that “subsidies are rarely well-targeted to protect vulnerable groups and tend to benefit better-off segments of the population.” It recommends prioritizing “structural changes” over short-term relief, while the IPCC report argues that if you want to help poor people pay for transportation, it may make more sense to redistribute the revenue you saved by cutting the subsidies.”