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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
“A previously unnoticed disclosure by FirstEnergy Corp. says the millions of dollars the company says it paid to someone shortly before they were hired as a top state utility regulator led to that person taking actions on the company’s behalf in their new state job,” Andrew Tobias reported for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “In densely-worded legal disclosures filed in November, the Akron-based company said the $4.3 million payment the company made in January 2019 led to ‘conduct corresponding to such payment,’ and to that person ‘acting at the request or for the benefit of FirstEnergy as a consequence of receiving such payment.’”
“The company said the payment was a ‘noncompliance’ event that violated its terms with banks that lend it money, as was conduct by FirstEnergy officials ‘during the time period after such payment during […]
Stephan: For 20 years, the Republican Party in Texas has worked to deregulate corporations providing essential services like electricity, and the people of Texas have voted Republicans into power election after election. And now those same voters reap the consequences of their decisions. Deregulation ALWAYS leads to abuse to the detriment of ordinary people.
Homes and roads in Dallas, Texas covered in snow. The 2021 winter storm dropped temperatures as low as zero degrees. Credit: Isaac Murray / Moment / Getty Images
An independent market monitor says ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, left wholesale electricity prices at the legal maximum for two days longer than necessary, and overcharged power companies $16 billion in the process during the winter storm that caused massive grid and gas system failures and left more than 4 million Texans without electricity.
Potomac Economics, the firm hired by the state to assess ERCOT’s performance, recommended to regulators that the charges be reversed. The move could help alleviate stress on Texas power providers facing shortfalls, default, or bankruptcy following the massive price spikes.
The “error” and potential reversal could also have major implications for the Texas wind energy industry. Due to the nature of the financial instruments used by Texas wind firms, those that were unable to produce power during the storm were forced to pay the legal maximum of $9,000 per megawatt hour (the average price in 2020 was $22.18) for four days. At that rate, wind companies could be forced […]
Stephan: Freedom is hard to keep; it requires a deep commitment within the social entity, be it a town or a nation, and worldwide freedom is decreasing. I have been thinking about why this is happening, and I think it is because we are undergoing a second Gutenberg transition. Just as printing made information available to average people transforming western culture, electronic media has changed our culture magnifying the tactical and strategic power of disinformation as a social tool by which a certain percentage of a population can be manipulated. That plus greed and the quest for power is one of the biggest threats civilization faces.
To see the full report go to: https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores
Zoom in: The report calls particular attention to India, which slipped from “free” to “partly free” due to the government’s “scapegoating of Muslims” and “crackdown on critics.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi is, according to the report, “driving India itself toward authoritarianism.”
What’s happening: Governments in several countries used the cover of the pandemic to consolidate control.
In the Philippines and Cambodia, authorities cracked down on critical news outlets and social media users in the name of preventing misinformation.
In Algeria, the government used coronavirus restrictions as a justification to suppress a protest movement.
Perhaps the most disheartening aspects of the report include places like Belarus, Hong Kong and Venezuela where pro-democracy movements rose up in the last two years — only to be met by deeper repression.
Stephan: Here is a perfect example of how fostering wellbeing is always the superior option. Always more efficient, more productive, more efficient, nicer to live under, and much cheaper than other options. Here is yet another proof of this principle. Then think about the Republican opposition to $15 an hour as a minimum hourly wage.
Payments for the experiment were delivered on a debit card, which allowed the funds to be tracked. The biggest spending category was food. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli/AP
After receiving $500 per month for two years without rules on how to spend it, 125 people in California paid off debt, got full-time jobs and had “statistically significant improvements” in emotional health, according to a study released Wednesday.
The program was the nation’s highest-profile experiment in decades of universal basic income (UBI), an idea that gained national attention when it became a major part of Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaign for president.
The central idea behind UBI is to lift people out of poverty with a guaranteed monthly income. Supporters say it gives people needed financial security to find good jobs and avoid debt. But critics have argued free money would eliminate the incentive to work, creating a society dependent on the state.
The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration sought to test those claims. Run by the not-for-profit organization Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, founded by Michael Tubbs, the former mayor of Stockton, California, the program included people who […]
Robert Brockman attends an intimate al fresco dinner celebrating the Rice University groundbreaking of James Turrell’s Rice University Skyspace project at the home of Phoebe and Bobby Tudor, Tuesday evening, May 17, 2011, in Houston. Credit: Dave Rossman/Houston Chronicle|AP
The billionaire accused of running the biggest tax fraud scheme in U.S. history was a prolific donor to Republican groups and causes.
The leaders of those organizations have kept quiet on the accusations against him.
Robert Brockman, former CEO of Ohio-based software company Reynolds & Reynolds, was charged in October with running a $2 billion tax fraud scheme.
The billionaire accused of running the biggest tax fraud scheme in U.S. history was a prolific donor to Republican groups and causes. The leaders of those organizations have kept quiet on the federal charges against him.
Robert Brockman, former CEO of Ohio-based software company Reynolds & Reynolds, was charged in October with running a $2 billion tax fraud scheme.
Department of Justice officials said at the time that the businessman had hidden capital gains income for more than 20 years through various offshore entities in […]
Stephan: I think this is a very good essay on the Republican strategy. It has nothing to do with wellbeing, and is entirely centered on power. This is the psychophysiology of politics on full display.
Mr. Potato Head, The Cat In The Hat and Marjorie Taylor Greene Credit: Salon/Getty Images/Dr Sues Media Center
It’s early, but Republicans have already seized on their strategy for winning the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Of course, it does not depend on mundane tactics like “running on their record” or “making robust arguments about how their policies are better than their opponents.” The GOP is instead returning to the well that has, time and again, paid off handsomely: feigning umbrage over culture war flashpoints, usually ones wholly invented by the right or propped up with lies, to distract from substantive policy debates that actually impact American lives.
And it will probably work — again— because Democrats, hamstrung by their own inability to end the Senate filibuster, will not be able to pass substantive legislation they can tout as accomplishments in future campaigns. And so the election will come down to the Great Potato Head and Dr. Seuss Wars of 2022. Even more unfortunate, truly vulnerable people — like those who are part of the trans community — are also […]
Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine, Economics Professor at the University of Maryland | Economics Professor at Wellesley College - The New York Times
Stephan: Men with markedly lower sperm counts, women choosing to have fewer babies, and later in life. Increasing poverty. A spectrum of trends is suggesting that the fear of overpopulation so strongly believed by futurists, although not by me, was wrong and that exactly the opposite situation is likely.
A young couple with their newborn daughter. Credit: Alice Proujansky/ The New York Times
The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the country into an economic recession and an unprecedented restructuring of our work and social lives. Early on, some likened the public health crisis to a blizzard, imagining that people would stay home, cozy up with their romantic partners and make babies.
These playful visions have given way to a more sobering reality: The pandemic’s serious disruption of people’s lives is likely to cause “missing births” — potentially a lot of them. Add these missing births to the country’s decade-long downward trend in annual births and we can expect consequential changes to our economy and society in the years to come. Unfortunately, there are no easy fixes.
Research we did last year showed that the Covid pandemic would lead to a decline in U.S. births of about 8 percent, as compared with the number of expected births without a pandemic, resulting in 300,000 fewer births this year than would otherwise be expected. This prediction was based largely on the […]
Stephan: White supremacy has been a curse on American society and politics since the 1600s and colonial times. We have never been able to expunge it, and in the Red value states, particularly the southern ones, it is still destructive, a kind of social 4th stage cancer. Sadly the Republican Party has become the political entity expressing that cancer, which is one of the reasons the South, more than a century and a half after the civil war, has such poor social outcomes. Many of these states, left to their own devices, are basically Third World racist oligarchies.
It has really begun to concern me, and I think it should concern you, that the Republican Party has devolved into a racist cult and that people like Paul Gosar are elected for high public office.
Republican Representative and overt White supremacist Paul Gosar
Former Republican lawmakers slammed the GOP for its silence after Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., spoke at a conference organized by a white nationalist who praised the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, weeks after being linked to the rally that sparked the deadly attack
Gosar skipped Friday’s vote on a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package approved by the House to attend the America First Political Action Conference, which was organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who mused about killing members of Congress days before the riot. Gosar later condemned “white racism” during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference ahead of former President Donald Trump’s speech over the weekend — and then met with Fuentes again after the event.
Former Rep. Joe Walsh, an Illinois Republican who was elected alongside Gosar during the 2010 Tea Party wave before rejecting far-right extremism after Trump’s rise to power, said he was “stunned” by Gosar’s extremist turn and expressed frustration that Republican leaders have stayed silent on […]
