Stephan: The Gallup Organization is universally recognized as a non-partisan social outcome research entity. This study, like many others they have published, is telling us about the extraordinary decline of America during the Trump administration. It will, of course, have no effect on the Trumplicans who live in a racist fantasy they think of as reality.
Chinese students Credit: Gallup
Aug. 12 marks International Youth Day, which this year focuses on efforts to make education more relevant, equitable and inclusive for all the world’s youth. This analysis is one of two that looks at how people around the world view opportunities for children in their countries to learn and grow.
The U.S. has deficits other than trade to worry about with China. Since the early days of the global economic crisis, China has led the U.S. by as much as 20 percentage points on Gallup’s question of whether most children in their respective countries have the opportunity to learn and grow every day.
In 2018, 92% of Chinese adults said most children in their country have these types of opportunities, while 74% of U.S. adults said the same.
Opportunity for Children to Learn and Grow in World’s Major Economies
Opportunity to learn and grow
% Yes
Switzerland
96
Indonesia
94
China
92
Australia
90
Canada
89
Netherlands
87
India
86
France
86
Japan
85
Spain
84
Saudi Arabia
82
United Kingdom
81
Germany
80
Italy
76
United States
74
South Korea
68
Mexico
65
Russia
57
Brazil
48
Turkey
40
GALLUP WORLD POLL, 2018
The two countries are the world’s largest economies, but you wouldn’t know that based on how […]
Jason Hug, Second Lieutenant in the United States Army - truthdig
Stephan: I have long been surprised that few in journalism have bothered to ask the military, people who make their living surrounded by, and working with, guns how they control them. Finally, I found this story, by a young second lieutenant in the army.
Commonsense Gun Control, the U.S. Army Way. People pray on Aug. 5 by a makeshift memorial for victims of a mass shooting that occurred two days prior at a shopping complex in El Paso, Texas. Credit: John Locher / AP
For nearly the past eight months, I have served as the U.S. Army’s primary Physical Security Manager for 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany. One of my chief responsibilities in this role is to conduct inspections on my unit’s arms rooms, which serve as storage facilities for military-grade assault rifles, machine guns and other equipment. To pass the inspection, the storage facility must comply with a strict set of standards. Furthermore, the person charged with issuing weapons, as well as the end user, must meet a comprehensive set of criteria.
In my lifetime, incidents of gun violence in the U.S. have progressed from rare anomalies to seemingly everyday occurrences. Over the past week, the attack on Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, the atrocious massacre in El Paso, Texas on Saturday, Tuesday’s shooting at […]
Stephan: Wouldn't you love to have a zero interest mortgage? So would I. They have them in Denmark, where people are also better educated, healthier, more affluent, have no concerns about medical care costs, and live longer. Also they don't have mass shootings every other day.
I'd say what do they know that we don't, but the truth is we do know what to do, we just don't do it because we only have one social priority and that is profit.
Danish neighborhood
In Denmark’s $495 billion mortgage-backed covered bond market, another milestone was reached on Wednesday as Nordea Bank Abp said it will start offering 20-year fixed-rate loans that charge no interest.
The development follows an announcement earlier in the week by Jyske Bank A/S, which said it will start issuing 10-year mortgages at a coupon of minus 0.5%. Danes can also now get 30-year mortgages at 0.5%, and Nordea recently adjusted its prospectus to allow for home loans up to 30 years at negative interest rates.
“It’s never been cheaper to borrow,” Lise Nytoft Bergmann, chief analyst at Nordea’s home finance unit in Denmark, said in an email. “We expect this to contribute to driving home prices higher.”
Though good news for homeowners, Bergmann said the development is “almost eerie.”
“It’s an uncomfortable thought that there are investors who are willing to lend money for 30 years and get just 0.5% in return,” she said. “It shows how scared investors […]
Stephan: Trump and the Republican Party are condemning America to second-tier status in the development, manufacture, and marketing of non-carbon technologies, which are coming on much as computers took over world culture. If you were alive and aware you remember the transformation from no computers to computers to Netscape and the internet. Would you say those worlds were very different? And so it will be with the transition from carbon to non-carbon.
We have a Republican president, administration, and senate acting in deference to the rich who own the party, and actively sabotaging the nation's best interests in order to keep oil alive a little longer. Here is the data, and what it implies.
Aerial view of electric cars lining up at Kandi Electric Vehicles Group Co., Ltd in Changxing County on October 24, 2017 in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province of China. Credit: by Tan Yunfeng/VCG
Two new analyses from Bloomberg this week make clear just how bad President Donald Trump’s policies are for the domestic electric car market and U.S. workers.
In the first report, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) explains that Trump’s plan to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles would eliminate any federal requirement for carmakers to build electric vehicles (EVs). BNEF also explains that the deal Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW struck with California last week to avoid the full rollback will not undo most of the damage.
In the second, BNEF concluded that the rapid price drops in the cost of batteries that have driven the energy storage and EV revolutions this decade will continue for the next decade.
In short, while Trump can slow adoption of high-efficiency EVs in the United States, other countries — the E.U. […]
Julie Bosman, Kate Taylor and Tim Arango, - The New York Times
Stephan: For some years, I have suspected that a hatred, a resentment against women should be included in the profile of mass murderers. A factor as affecting as race. But I have only been able to speculate about this, as I have done occasionally in SR. Only now, an insight drawn from misery, do we have enough data to see the pattern. Now there is an emerging confirmation of this hypothesis.
Here is an excellent first assessment; it is quite damning. These men are deranged, but they are also symptoms of a larger cultural issue.
Suspect killed after mass shooting in Dayton Credit: nypost
The man who shot nine people to death last weekend in Dayton, Ohio, seethed at female classmates and threatened them with violence.
The man who massacred 49 people in an Orlando nightclub in 2016 beat his wife while she was pregnant, she told authorities.
The man who killed 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017 had been convicted of domestic violence. His ex-wife said he once told her that he could bury her body where no one would ever find it.
The motivations of men who commit mass shootings are often muddled, complex or unknown. But one common thread that connects many of them — other than access to powerful firearms — is a history of hating women, assaulting wives, girlfriends and female family members, or sharing misogynistic views online, researchers say.
