media hysteria -it just adds fuel to the fire. The 'mountain lion' fiasco - is a perfect example of it. Yet it's nothing new. I have been reading Edwards Behr's book "Anyone here been raped & speaks English?" (1978) and he speaks of it - and how disinformation and hysteria led to the mass deaths of the India partitions and beyond. I do recommend it. His background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Behr_(journalist)
Jack, that's a fine book. Read it when I was in college and it put me in the right frame of mind to plunge into foreign reporting -- with caution and humility.
That is why news media MUST be better regulated & reigned in. Propaganda should & could be illegal. The Fairness Doctrine did not allow opinion, misinformation, or propaganda in newscasts of the big three network news ABC, CBS, & NBC. The "equal time rule" is the argument they've made for getting rid of The Fairness Doctrine. That's where the rule said you have to give equal time to both sides of an issue, which is a good goal (when possible), but that wasn't the point of the Fairness Doctrine & was a separate rule. They (Bush Sr. & his corrupt FCC) made the argument that The Fairness Doctrine went against the 1st Amendment due to the equal time rule, but that wasn't the point of the F.D. & they knew that. It doesn't negate the urgent need to reinstate the doctrine (without the equal time rule) given what has predictably transpired in the U.S. since it's 1989 removal & the start in 1995 of Fox News & Limbaugh before that. We know it's not healthy, nor is it fair to call yourself a news organization & lie to the American people to corruptly get votes & sell a false agenda that allows the uber rich to steal & loot tax payers at the expense of the working poor. There is no more a question about this. The proof is written in history on a timeline for all to see.
I totally agree.... and the destructive effect is readily evident. What is also noticeable is the trade in hysteria - before, in print journalism , there was a filtering effect.. now... none.... the full story is seldom told...
With regard to plastics. I've thought a lot about this issue. We simply have to stop producing plastics that don't break down. My question is HOW do we get people to outlaw plastic that is contributing to disease & destroying our environment? I've imagined getting a glass company running, but perhaps someone else would be better at doing that, since I really don't know how to do that. I would like to see Pepsi & Coca-Cola bring back glass & stand up for the environment, but again....I don't know how to make that happen. If I could....I would. I would support any company doing it & would vote to outlaw plastic. Maybe it can't happen until we Billionaires thumbs off of the scale of justice & our government. Stop voting for Republicans & Demand propaganda be made illegal during newscasts. That's the quickest/easiest solution I see. If there are better & easier ways to achieve this...please let me know.
Nice commentary, Russ on current events in your recent newsletter.
On the subject of the workers killed in the bridge accident, I would like to find out whether they were here illegally. That seems to be hinted at in some of the reporting, but I’ve seen nothing definitive.
I look at illegal immigration from the perspective of labor rights. To me, illegal workers decrease the power of legal workers, usually American citizens. If there are large number of illegal workers, then the legal workers have less bargaining power for wage increases and less political power economically. This is economics 101. Immigrants are almost always good people, but the question of their effect on labor conditions should not be ignored. When you have large numbers of illegal immigrants in a labor market, that is usually where you find unsafe conditions, long hours, and low wages. It’s a case of double exploitation. The workers here illegally are being exploited, and their presence helps employers exploit the legal workers.
It doesn't decrease the power of legal workers. Anyone who pays dues to a union get to be represented by a union. This has nothing to do with non-union jobs. Migrants don't usually get union jobs. Even if they did, it would not affect bargaining power. You're going to have to explain that. We need those migrant workers to pick fruits & veggies for us & do the jobs that Americans don't want to do. The problem is not whether it is open or closed. Those people are not coming here to commit crime, they're here to work. The U.S. has a shrinking workforce & we need more workers. You might have had a case decades ago, which is where that Econ 101 came from, but it's outdated. The answer is not to build a wall, it's to have a better organized guest work program. We should be welcoming these people into our workforce. If we don't have people picking fruits & they rot on the vine, because Americans don't want to do that job-the price of fruit goes up. This happened during TFG's regime. The idea that a strongman sitting in the WH can make everything better by getting rid of regulations is a proven failure. The MAGA economy was not great...only 1.5% GDP, when all other presidents from 1950-2016 GDP was over 3%. When TFG was sworn in jobs were about 155.5M jobs a month. When he left office in 2021 it was 142.5M jobs. Trump lost 3M jobs for 4 yrs. Covid gets the blame, but it's not true. That was taken into account when calculated & the lockdowns, economic chaos in 2020 & a 30% of GDP loss belongs to Trump. Trump's printing of all that money is what led to inflation, his foreign trade Tariff failure put $360B on the consumer. These are just a few key elements of what went wrong. I don't know if you're a Trump voter or not. I'm just trying to bring clarity to what actually caused bad economics. It wasn't caused by migrants.
media hysteria -it just adds fuel to the fire. The 'mountain lion' fiasco - is a perfect example of it. Yet it's nothing new. I have been reading Edwards Behr's book "Anyone here been raped & speaks English?" (1978) and he speaks of it - and how disinformation and hysteria led to the mass deaths of the India partitions and beyond. I do recommend it. His background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Behr_(journalist)
Jack, that's a fine book. Read it when I was in college and it put me in the right frame of mind to plunge into foreign reporting -- with caution and humility.
That is why news media MUST be better regulated & reigned in. Propaganda should & could be illegal. The Fairness Doctrine did not allow opinion, misinformation, or propaganda in newscasts of the big three network news ABC, CBS, & NBC. The "equal time rule" is the argument they've made for getting rid of The Fairness Doctrine. That's where the rule said you have to give equal time to both sides of an issue, which is a good goal (when possible), but that wasn't the point of the Fairness Doctrine & was a separate rule. They (Bush Sr. & his corrupt FCC) made the argument that The Fairness Doctrine went against the 1st Amendment due to the equal time rule, but that wasn't the point of the F.D. & they knew that. It doesn't negate the urgent need to reinstate the doctrine (without the equal time rule) given what has predictably transpired in the U.S. since it's 1989 removal & the start in 1995 of Fox News & Limbaugh before that. We know it's not healthy, nor is it fair to call yourself a news organization & lie to the American people to corruptly get votes & sell a false agenda that allows the uber rich to steal & loot tax payers at the expense of the working poor. There is no more a question about this. The proof is written in history on a timeline for all to see.
I totally agree.... and the destructive effect is readily evident. What is also noticeable is the trade in hysteria - before, in print journalism , there was a filtering effect.. now... none.... the full story is seldom told...
With regard to plastics. I've thought a lot about this issue. We simply have to stop producing plastics that don't break down. My question is HOW do we get people to outlaw plastic that is contributing to disease & destroying our environment? I've imagined getting a glass company running, but perhaps someone else would be better at doing that, since I really don't know how to do that. I would like to see Pepsi & Coca-Cola bring back glass & stand up for the environment, but again....I don't know how to make that happen. If I could....I would. I would support any company doing it & would vote to outlaw plastic. Maybe it can't happen until we Billionaires thumbs off of the scale of justice & our government. Stop voting for Republicans & Demand propaganda be made illegal during newscasts. That's the quickest/easiest solution I see. If there are better & easier ways to achieve this...please let me know.
Thanks in advance-
L
Nice commentary, Russ on current events in your recent newsletter.
On the subject of the workers killed in the bridge accident, I would like to find out whether they were here illegally. That seems to be hinted at in some of the reporting, but I’ve seen nothing definitive.
I look at illegal immigration from the perspective of labor rights. To me, illegal workers decrease the power of legal workers, usually American citizens. If there are large number of illegal workers, then the legal workers have less bargaining power for wage increases and less political power economically. This is economics 101. Immigrants are almost always good people, but the question of their effect on labor conditions should not be ignored. When you have large numbers of illegal immigrants in a labor market, that is usually where you find unsafe conditions, long hours, and low wages. It’s a case of double exploitation. The workers here illegally are being exploited, and their presence helps employers exploit the legal workers.
It doesn't decrease the power of legal workers. Anyone who pays dues to a union get to be represented by a union. This has nothing to do with non-union jobs. Migrants don't usually get union jobs. Even if they did, it would not affect bargaining power. You're going to have to explain that. We need those migrant workers to pick fruits & veggies for us & do the jobs that Americans don't want to do. The problem is not whether it is open or closed. Those people are not coming here to commit crime, they're here to work. The U.S. has a shrinking workforce & we need more workers. You might have had a case decades ago, which is where that Econ 101 came from, but it's outdated. The answer is not to build a wall, it's to have a better organized guest work program. We should be welcoming these people into our workforce. If we don't have people picking fruits & they rot on the vine, because Americans don't want to do that job-the price of fruit goes up. This happened during TFG's regime. The idea that a strongman sitting in the WH can make everything better by getting rid of regulations is a proven failure. The MAGA economy was not great...only 1.5% GDP, when all other presidents from 1950-2016 GDP was over 3%. When TFG was sworn in jobs were about 155.5M jobs a month. When he left office in 2021 it was 142.5M jobs. Trump lost 3M jobs for 4 yrs. Covid gets the blame, but it's not true. That was taken into account when calculated & the lockdowns, economic chaos in 2020 & a 30% of GDP loss belongs to Trump. Trump's printing of all that money is what led to inflation, his foreign trade Tariff failure put $360B on the consumer. These are just a few key elements of what went wrong. I don't know if you're a Trump voter or not. I'm just trying to bring clarity to what actually caused bad economics. It wasn't caused by migrants.