Author: Lone Candle

General Ryan: This Is What A War With China Will Look Like | Ep. 14 General Mick Ryan

Posted on by Lone Candle

General Ryan: This Is What A War With China Will Look Like | Ep. 14 General Mick Ryan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYAE2jmD-bE

The dangerous resurgence of Germany’s far right, explained

Posted on by Lone Candle

“A relatively young political party, the AfD was born in 2013 after the financial crisis as a group that protested Germany’s efforts to economically bail out southern countries in the European Union.
Yet while its platform initially focused more on the economy, it seized on the issue of immigration following the 2015 refugee crisis, when Germany took in more than one million refugees from places including Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This was a roughly 1.2 percent increase to Germany’s population of 81 million people at the time — but it marked a stark jump in the number of refugees than the country had welcomed before.

In recent years, the party has both driven and capitalized on rising backlash toward refugees and immigration.

Since 2016, the federal government has established new centers to house and welcome asylum seekers across Germany, including in states in east Germany that have historically had less diversity. High inflation and energy costs have also exacerbated economic struggles that people have experienced in these regions, spurring some to blame immigrants for their problems even though they have nothing to do with them.

Tensions with newcomers, which flared in 2015, received new attention in 2022 and 2023 when Germany took in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees who fled the war, and when migrants from other regions increased as well.

“What do you think as a German, if you need an apartment and then hear, there would be an apartment free but that is kept free for Ukrainians?” Mario asked. “Then I say to myself, thank you, Germany. I pay taxes but I don’t get an apartment.”

As part of its answer to addressing the rise in immigration, the AfD has increasingly embraced a xenophobic and anti-Muslim platform — due to the Middle Eastern origins of many earlier refugees — with the purported goal of preserving German identity and nationalism. “Islam does not belong to Germany,” reads the party’s 2016 manifesto. “Burkas? We’re more into bikinis,” read one AfD tagline from 2017. “Unser Land zuerst,” which translates to “Our country first!” adorned AFD campaign banners in 2022.

“The party has radicalized a lot since 2013,” Jakob Guhl, a researcher focused on the far right at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in Germany, told Vox. As it did, the party grew its base in the more socially conservative regions in eastern Germany, which has typically lagged other parts of the country economically as well.”

https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2024/3/12/24080074/germany-afd-far-right

Spring is here very early. That’s not good.

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Warmer winters have meant fewer opportunities to revel in the snow, go sledding and skiing, or venture onto the ice. But beyond making certain activities less feasible, warmer winters are also set to have devastating environmental impacts.
Plants and animals could have their growth and hibernation patterns thrown off, for example. According to Theresa Crimmins, director of the National Phenology Network and an associate professor at the University of Arizona, plants’ pollination schedules could become misaligned if they’re emerging sooner than they normally would and the insects that pollinate them aren’t yet ready to do so. Plants that sprout earlier in the year could also have a tougher time surviving if an unexpected cold front or frost comes back and kills off the initial buds.

Pests like mosquitoes could become more prevalent, too, says Crimmins, and potentially contribute to more diseases, since colder winters tend to depress their population.

A shift in winter could have major impacts on water supply as well, leading to a much smaller snowpack than people in the American West and Southwest currently rely on. Frozen snow that slowly melts over time is a major source of water for these parts of the country, and that resource could be severely reduced if there isn’t much snow to work with. During warmer winters, there’s typically less snow and more rain, which leads to smaller snowpacks and potentially huge dips in water as less snowmelt flows into rivers.

“Water supply affects pretty much everything, not just our drinking water: water for agriculture, water for hydropower, water for municipal uses, water for environmental concerns. It’s really comprehensive,” says Cara McCarthy, a program manager at the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Water from these snowpacks can also help make sure the ground doesn’t become too dry, a factor that contributes to more frequent and more severe wildfires. The National Interagency Fire Center’s forecast through June has projected that parts of the Midwest and Southwest face a higher risk of wildfires this year due to the limited snowfall they received and a higher potential for drought.”

https://www.vox.com/policy/24098936/climate-change-snowpack-el-nino-spring-winter

With new national security legislation, China shows it will never loosen its grip on Hong Kong

Posted on by Lone Candle

“the government of Hong Kong published the latest of a series of increasingly draconian national security laws. This one will target espionage, treason, and foreign political interference, and those found guilty of violating some of its tenets could be sentenced to life imprisonment.
This might sound niche or even well-intentioned; doesn’t the US have its own fears about foreign political interference in its elections? But this isn’t really about national security. It is, as Human Rights Watch put it, “Beijing’s latest effort to transform Hong Kong from a free society to an oppressed one where people live in fear.”

That effort has been underway at varying speeds since Hong Kong was returned to Beijing’s control in 1997. It is now all but complete.

Despite complaints from foreign governments, from what remains of Hong Kong civil society, and even from the city’s increasingly beleaguered international business community, Hong Kong’s now opposition-less legislature will almost assuredly fast-track it into law.

For Hong Kong’s 7.4 million citizens, the multi-year fight to maintain some semblance of self-government and political rights is all but over.”

https://www.vox.com/2024/3/13/24098918/china-hong-kong-national-security-law-article-23

Biden isn’t advertising America’s record oil boom

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The US is the largest crude oil producer in the world, pumping out nearly 13 million barrels on average every day in 2023, an all-time record, according to new data from the US Energy Information Administration.
That’s an awkward milestone for President Joe Biden, who has arguably done more than any modern president to facilitate America’s transition away from fossil fuels to greener alternatives.

For the last six years, America has outstripped Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC countries in crude oil production. And it has picked up the pace under Biden, who had approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands by last October than former President Donald Trump had by the same point in his presidency.

Biden has expedited the construction of an oil pipeline in West Virginia and approved the Willow oil project in Alaska, over the opposition of environmental activists and despite his 2020 campaign promise to stop drilling on federal lands altogether.”

https://www.vox.com/climate/24098983/biden-oil-production-climate-fossil-fuel-renewables

The billionaire’s guide to doing taxes

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Do you want to pay less taxes? Great. Step one, be a rich person. Then, buy a yacht. Or a sports team. Give a lot to charity. Lose some money in the stock market. Above all, make sure most of your money exists in the form of assets, not cash — stocks, real estate, a Dutch master painting, fine jewelry, or whatever else strikes your fancy.
They say that money is a universal language, but it speaks at different volumes. When you have a fathomless bounty of wealth, money doesn’t quite register as an expense until you add a lot of zeros to the end — so spending a lot to save a lot is a no brainer. It’s why the mega-rich often hire expensive tax lawyers, wealth managers, or even set up a whole office dedicated to tax strategy. “It’s not just preparing the return,” says Paul Wieseneck, a tax accountant and director of the Fuoco Group. “There’s so much more involved in planning, in accumulating, offsetting, and trying to mitigate the taxes as best as possible.””

…

“Jeff Bezos, when he was still Amazon CEO, had a base salary of around $80,000 a year. Elon Musk doesn’t take a salary at all at Tesla. Apple CEO Tim Cook does get a $3 million salary, but it’s a small slice of the $63 million he received overall last year. Most wealthy entrepreneurs are paid in bountiful stock rewards; Musk is currently fighting to keep his record-breaking Tesla pay package, made up of a bunch of stock options and now valued at almost $56 billion. ProPublica found that, because their income fell below the threshold, at least 18 billionaires got a Covid-19 stimulus check.

Paul Kiel, a ProPublica reporter who was an integral part of the newsroom’s billionaire tax return stories, says the income versus wealth divide was crucial in helping the public understand how differently the wealthy operate. “If you can avoid income as it’s defined in our system, and still get richer, that’s the best route,” he tells Vox.

Stocks aren’t taxed until they’re sold — and even then, what’s taxed is the profit on the sale, called a capital gains tax. Billionaires (usually) don’t sell valuable stock. So how do they afford the daily expenses of life, whether it’s a new pleasure boat or a social media company? They borrow against their stock. This revolving door of credit allows them to buy what they want without incurring a capital gains tax. Though the “buy, borrow, die” strategy isn’t quite as sweet right now because interest rates are high, a Wall Street Journal piece from 2021 notes that those with $100 million or more could get interest rates as low as 0.87 percent at Merrill Lynch. The taxable value of a stock also resets when it’s passed on to an heir, so that if a wealthy scion chooses to sell their inherited stock, they’d only pay a tax on the increase in value since the original owner’s death.”

…

““We’ve talked to a lot of former IRS agents, and they would often hear the line that for wealthy taxpayers, their tax return is like an opening offer,” says Kiel.”

https://www.vox.com/money/2024/3/13/24086102/billionaires-wealthy-tax-avoidance-loopholes