Friday, January 5th, 2018
Edward Helmore , Reporter - Alternet/The Guardian
Stephan: The stock market may be doing great, and the rich may be getting much richer, but 10% of young people have been homeless at some point. We are a sick society, and we don't seem to be able to acknowledge that. Here is the latest on what I see as the Neo-feudalist Trend.
Credit: Marek/Flickr Creative Commons
One in 10 young adults aged 18 to 25 in the U.S. have slept on the streets, in shelters, run away from home, been kicked out of their home, or couch-surfed in the past year, according to a national survey. (emphasis added)
The study, Missed Opportunities: Youth Homelessness in America, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, also found that at least one in 30 adolescents aged 13-17 experienced some form of homelessness unaccompanied by a parent or guardian over the same period.
Researchers with Chapin Hall, a youth policy center at the University of Chicago, polled more than 26,000 young people and their families over the past two years. Extrapolated nationally, the findings suggest nearly 3.5 million young adults and 660,000 adolescents had been homeless within the previous year.
The report aimed to challenge the notion that homelessness afflicts mostly older men. Key to understanding the statistics, the authors wrote, is that spot or “point in time” surveys had […]
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Friday, January 5th, 2018
Stephan: If you read SR regularly you know I have been saying for some years that one of the important indicators to watch is how the re-insurance industry, that is the insurance companies to which the insurance industry lays off some of its risk, react to climate change. Here is the latest, from Munich RE, one of the major re-insurers, and it is not a happy story.
The hurricane trio of Harvey, Irma and Maria will cost the insurance industry a record amount in 2017: the final insurance bill for those and other natural catastrophes, including a severe earthquake in Mexico, is expected to come to US$ 135bn – higher than ever before. And overall losses – i.e. including uninsured losses – amounted to US$ 330bn, the second-highest figure ever recorded for natural disasters. The only costlier year so far was 2011, when the Tohoku earthquake in Japan contributed to overall losses of US$ 354bn in today’s dollars.
Torsten Jeworrek, Munich Re Board member responsible for global reinsurance business: “This year’s extreme natural catastrophes show how important insurance is in absorbing financial losses in the wake of such disasters. Munich Re is willing to develop this business further – we have the necessary capacity and expertise. For me, a key point is that some of the catastrophic events, such as the series of three extremely damaging hurricanes, or the very severe flooding in South Asia after extraordinarily heavy monsoon rains, are giving us a foretaste of what is to come. […]
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Friday, January 5th, 2018
JOSH GERSTEIN and CRISTIANO LIMA, - Politico
Stephan: Jeff Sessions has now set in motion a major confrontation between the Trump administration and those states that have legalized marijuana. In my opinion this decision by Sessions could have a huge negative effect on the Republican Party in the 2o18 elections
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Credit: AP Andrew Harnik
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Thursday that he was rescinding an Obama-era policy that had paved the way for legalized marijuana to flourish in states across the country, prompting quick pushback from at least two Republican senators from states that allow its use.
In a long-awaited move, the Justice Department chief withdrew federal guidelines that effectively limited prosecutions of businesses and individuals who sold pot in a legal manner under state law, even though the drug remains illegal under federal law.
Sessions said future prosecutions would be up to individual U.S. attorneys. However, the announcement appeared intended to discourage marijuana-related business by being deliberately vague about future federal enforcement efforts.
The new approach will probably increase confusion about the legal risk of marijuana-related activity in states that have passed legislation allowing people to grow, buy or use pot.
“Given the Department’s well-established general principles, previous nationwide guidance specific to marijuana enforcement is unnecessary and is rescinded, effective immediately,” Sessions said in a one-page memo sent to federal prosecutors […]
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Friday, January 5th, 2018
Patrick McGreevy, Writer - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: This report, speaks directly to the previous story about Jeff Sessions attempt to suppress marijuana, and the reaction that is evoking from states where it is legal. I think this is going to be a major battle that will do great damage to the Republican Party, which I think is good news.
Marijuana Shop
Credit:www.tokeofthetown.com
Days after California began issuing licenses for marijuana sales, state leaders were preparing Thursday for possible political and legal battles in response to a decision by U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to rescind a federal policy that has allowed dispensaries to operate without fear of prosecution.
Officials from the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown and California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said they are prepared to defend state laws including Proposition 64, the initiative approved by California voters in November 2016 that allows possession and sale of marijuana for recreational use.
“In California, we decided it was best to regulate, not criminalize, cannabis. Unlike others, we embrace, not fear, change. After all, this is 2018 not the 20th century,” Becerra said. “At the California Department of Justice we intend to vigorously enforce our state’s laws and protect our state’s interests.”
The state defiantly continued Thursday to process hundreds of licenses allowing pot sales, said Bureau of Cannabis Control Chief Lori Ajax.
Brown’s administration “is conferring with the California attorney general and other states in response to this action,” Ajax said. “We […]
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Thursday, January 4th, 2018
Elizabeth Kolbert, - The New Yorker
Stephan: Here is the latest on why people believe things that are obviously untrue, and why the psychophysiology of politics is a trend that I cover regularly.
The vaunted human capacity for reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with thinking straight.
Illustration by Gérard DuBois
In 1975, researchers at Stanford invited a group of undergraduates to take part in a study about suicide. They were presented with pairs of suicide notes. In each pair, one note had been composed by a random individual, the other by a person who had subsequently taken his own life. The students were then asked to distinguish between the genuine notes and the fake ones.Some students discovered that they had a genius for the task. Out of twenty-five pairs of notes, they correctly identified the real one twenty-four times. Others discovered that they were hopeless. They identified the real note in only ten instances.
As is often the case with psychological studies, the whole setup was a put-on. Though half the notes were indeed genuine—they’d been obtained from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office—the scores were fictitious. The students who’d […]
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