The Economist f'ed up completely on the Nord Stream explosion. They reported as though there was no doubt Russia did it, and told a story of Russia wanting to more permanently cut off Russian gas to Europe, which didn't make sense. They wrote off doubters as unpatriotic.
The vast majority of media did, and citizens as well. Here in Germany all mainstream media suggested Russia as the likely culprit. Which then of course made it into the canon as "Russia did it", when it was always one of the lowest-probability scenarios to begin with. Russia had no motive outside of a false-flag with extremely low probability of successfully blaming the US or Ukraine. Meanwhile, the US actually had a motive, and said they would do it. Ukraine had a motive, the ability and now some ICs are pointing the finger at them.
Still our media here suggests a Russian false flag as equally likely, and people are actually eating it up.
Er, kind of? People like to say the public transit system can be considered a horizonal elevator if you want to take the concept far enough. But even so, the idea is still there.
This is an absurdly biased article that would have been flagged off the front page if it were in the other direction. I don't see any reason to trust the substance of the reporting when the article is adorned with such sanctimoniously juvenile attempts at humor.
I read the "the Texas Legislature is here to protect you" as a sarcastic joke rather than a statemement. If that was the author's intention then it would make the article consistent.
This only works if execs have the company's best interests at heart, which they don't. They reap the benefits when things go well but jump ship as the company files bankruptcy when things go south.
You need Unions. Blue collar workers care about safety and can pressure execs into doing the safe thing when the incentives aren't there higher up.
> You need Unions. Blue collar workers care about safety and can pressure execs into doing the safe thing when the incentives aren't there higher up.
Yep. This happens all the time in other unionized industries. Manager: "Do [unsafe thing that is against policy / the law, or even that is simply physically impossible]". Worker: "Yeeeeah, I'll be looping my union rep into this conversation". Manager: "On second thought, never mind".
I'd guess the problem's that the railroad workers' union is toothless.
[EDIT] Downvotes why? Disbelief? This comes second-hand from friends in various unionized workplaces, it's damn common. Without strong unions they'd 100% for-sure have been forced to choose between doing something unsafe, and losing their jobs, many times—and that's with managers already knowing unions are a factor, I assume the rate of attempts to get workers to do unsafe things (including setting various metrics or policy such that it's impossible to meet expectations while maintaining proper safety) is higher at non-union workplaces, or those with weak unions.
Also labour protections when reasonable action is taken to stop unsafe acts. If someone got fired for stopping unsafe thing they should get big enough payout. Probably years worth of wages.
I used to work in interstate freight (barge, not train). They make it crystal clear any employee has the right to stop work and are protected. The rail workers could have stopped working under their dangerous conditions, they just negligently kept going. The big bad railroad is to blame, but so are the employees.
The regulation was vague, so now you have a situation where two sides are interpreting things differently:
>She said: “The regulation at the time stated that a wheel bearing was bad when it had ‘visible seepage’. But that was very vague, and the bosses used that vagueness to their advantage. For me, it was whenever oil was visible on the bearing. For my bosses, they wanted actual droplets and proof it would leak on the ground.
That's probably why we have an audio leak story, because the company may have some ground to stand on because of this vagueness.
The railway has unions. They even wanted to strike at the end of last year over working conditions, but Congress and Biden quickly passed a law in December to prevent it.
A lot of people forget or don’t know about how the Railroads have a very different system of laws about several of the things that basically everyone else has to deal with.
Starting with social security, railroad employees have a different social security system and other related law regarding retirement benefits.
Second there’s the labour laws, much of which is older and more Byzantine than “normal” labour laws because of the historical context behind the era when they were introduced, and having been introduced in such a way that they managed to isolate themselves from other kinds of workers. You can really see this in the complex series of steps necessary for a railroad union strike, compared to other workers it’s just crazy, but each step of that complicated process had at least some justification from greed and backhanding to genuine concerns regarding the crucial role the railroad has in the fabric of the nation.
That sort of “crucial role” or justification has been at the heart of how the railroads got to the present state. The railroads were at one point in the 19th century, arguably more powerful than the federal government, to the point where in some places you had to clarify that “The President” didn’t mean the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad if you wanted to refer to the President of the United States. This level of power is obviously long gone, but it represents the level of power they once had, power which has translated into over a century of “special cases” carved out for railways in law at all levels of society across the USA.
The railroad unions can’t just threaten to stop work like others can, because the government has a right of refusal on their ability to strike, which basically acts as a muzzle on widespread union action and allows the railroads to squeeze the shit out of employees… if you haven’t, look at what the unions were trying to strike for last year… and then think about if employees willing to put up with that, will be the sort of people to take a stand and blow the whistle on bad workplace practices… railroad unions just don’t have the same level of power as normal unions, they do have power, just not “tactical” power, the kind you use to fight the small things like individual safety breaches by having everyone in the workplace threaten to walk out.
The discussion during the pandemic only lead to the "human designed" blame game, so the similarities are striking. It is a view that everyone can share, regardless of political affiliations, a perfect way to get a mob going. It is interesting to discuss how the views on this has changed though.
The human designed blame game is different from the “bio weapons” blame game mentioned in the parent. I get people are discussing human designed but that’s different from bioweapon.
I am not very good at bio, so I equate the three to some part. The lab leak story is really bad in itself on a political level, I do not know how we can have a sane discussion about it.
I don't get the enthusiasm for raising money from corporate income taxes versus individual income tax. Mr. Rich Moneybags pays the same corporate income taxes per share of Berkshire as Joe Schmoe, whose entire retirement pot might be a single BRK.A.
Mr. Rich Moneybas probably pays no personal income tax, and certainly pays a lower effective rate than Joe Schmoe.
Taking the tax money as corporate tax means they end up paying the same percentage, without Moneybags’ CPA leveraging shell companies and loopholes to avoid tax than Schmoe pays.
Suppose I have 100 million in my investment portfolio and a 5% interest rate. I want to buy a house for $10 million. So I withdraw 2 million in cash and get a margin loan for 2 million so I don't have to sell any securities. I take the 2 million in cash, get a mortgage for 8 million, and buy the house. On average the market returns 7%. So my $100 million portfolio is earning $7 million per year less the loan interest of 100k which comes to $6.9M. After 2 years I pay off the mortgage and repay the margin loan. I now have a house and I didn't have to pay any taxes on my securities to buy it.
What if the market goes down? Well, I just wait for it to go back up again. I can easily afford to wait, my margin of safety is huge. Since the margin loan is for 2 million, and I need a 50% margin of safety by law, then the portfolio value would need to decline to 2 million (98% decline) before my loan gets called.
Because of the class difference between working/labor and capital owning classes. One has a hedge against bad decisions based on the backs and labor of the other.
