October 2024 – Page 11

Did the Abraham Accords Pave the Way for Total War?

Posted on October 10, 2024October 10, 2024 by Lone Candle

“In 1982, before Hezbollah existed, Israel invaded Lebanon to root out Palestinian guerrillas. Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon envisioned an operation aimed at “transforming Lebanon into a reliable ally,” assassinating Palestinian leadership, expelling Palestinians, and eventually overthrowing the government of Jordan, according to Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman.
After Israeli forces stormed Beirut, the Lebanese capital, they successfully installed their ally, Bachir Gemayel, as prime minister and forced the Palestine Liberation Organization to withdraw from the country. (U.S. Marines were sent to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal.) But Gemayel was assassinated by one of his own countrymen, and a new militia called Hezbollah emerged to fight both the Israeli and U.S. presence.”

https://reason.com/2024/09/30/did-the-abraham-accords-pave-the-way-for-total-war/

At V.P. Debate, J.D. Vance and Tim Walz Scapegoat Immigrants, ‘Corporate Speculators’ for High Housing Costs

Posted on October 9, 2024October 9, 2024 by Lone Candle

“There’s a straightforward logic to both candidate’s claims. Increased demand for housing, whether from immigrants or corporate investors, would be expected to increase prices.
But increased demand should also be expected to increase supply, bringing prices back down.

Corporate investors and immigrants also play an important, direct role in increasing housing supply. Investors supply capital to build new homes. Immigrants supply labor for the same.

At least one study has found that the labor shortages caused by immigration restrictions do more to raise the cost of housing than they do to lower it through reduced demand.”

…

“one study has found that restrictions on investor-owned rental housing raised rents and raised the incomes of residents in select neighborhoods by excluding lower-income renters. Studies on the effects of rent-recommendation software have found mixed effects on housing costs. In tight markets, such software raises rents. When supply is loose, it lowers them.

As always, the ability of builders to add new supply is what sets the price in the long term. Both candidates gestured at this in their own way, although Walz was more explicit about the relationship.”

https://reason.com/2024/10/01/at-v-p-debate-j-d-vance-and-tim-walz-scapegoat-immigrants-corporate-speculators-for-high-housing-costs/

USFL v. NFL: The Challenge Beyond the Courtroom

Posted on October 8, 2024October 8, 2024 by Lone Candle

Trump played a key role in destroying the USFL in the 1980s?

“The NFL would later introduce extensive evidence designed to prove that the USFL followed Trump’s merger strategy, and that this strategy ultimately caused the USFL’s downfall. The merger strategy, the NFL argued, involved escalating financial competition for players as a means of putting pressure on NFL expenses, playing in the fall to impair NFL television revenues, shifting USFL franchises out of cities where NFL teams played into cities thought to be logical expansion (through merger) cities for the NFL, and, finally, bringing an upcoming antitrust litigation..”

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/sugarman/Sports_Stories_USFL_v_NFL__-_Boris_Kogan.pdf

Biden’s historic climate record has one big problem

Posted on October 8, 2024October 8, 2024 by Lone Candle

“The challenge is that permitting is an expensive, tedious, and time-consuming process, sometimes stretching decades. Developers often find there’s a lack of accountability between the local, state, and federal authorities that have a say in granting approval for things like wind energy farms or interstate power transmission lines.
The current system puts a lot of project developers in a frustrating limbo — not a “no,” not a “yes,” but a “maybe, we’ll see” that can stretch indefinitely.

This uncertainty makes it harder for companies to make a business case and often leads to proposals falling apart. The net result is that few things get built at all. In the past decade, the United States has built transmission lines at half the rate as in the 30 years prior. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $7.5 billion to build thousands of electric vehicle charging stations, yet only a handful are operating. The American Clean Power Association, an industry group, reports that permitting delays have cost the US economy more than $100 billion in lost investment. Earlier this year, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory surveyed wind and solar power developers and found that one-third of permit applications for placing wind turbines and solar panels in the ground were canceled over the past five years.

These false starts cost businesses a lot of money: The average sunk cost was more than $2 million on average for a canceled solar project and $7.5 million for a scrapped wind farm. The main causes cited for these axed proposals were difficulties in getting approvals from zoning boards, in connecting to the power grid, and opposition from local communities — all issues that inhibit permitting.”

…

“That brings us to permitting reform. The idea is to change the existing system of rules — smoothing out the application process, setting tighter deadlines, reducing veto points — to get a verdict on projects faster.”

https://www.vox.com/climate/367950/permitting-reform-biden-climate-manchin-renewable-energy