#the employed population is majority blue collar

[babydarkstar]

does tswift actually perform in a different outfit for each song that changes every night of her performance? or at least semi regularly?

anyways instead of talking about her let’s talk about the horrible unprecedented wildfires that are currently raging across the island of maui and ruining the homes of kamakana ali’i who are being forced to relocate to oahu—and how fucking expensive it is to sustain a living compared to the wages of jobs that kama’aina often work. oahu is already cramped but to have so many more come from a BIGGER island?

#like im sure it’s all going to be in some museum some day or whatever #but honestly what a fucking waste if you only wear it once or twice #multiple outfits for every single show. every SONG #that’s kind of insane to me #idk the extent of it bc im not in the mood to go through concert footage #bc i genuinely dont care that much but it’s like girl……YOU are the carbon footprint #most artists perform in One outfit for the whole show #it’s really amazing to me how much money she has #how much she ruins the environment. and how little she cares about helping it at all #anyways. ive never in my life seen wildfires in the islands. not of this magnitude and not on that island #the employed population is majority blue collar #i just worry about them. and from my privileged point of view i wish there was anything i could do #i wish i knew how to help. i was just there

[udhyam]

VYAPAAR: WHY WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT NANO ENTREPRENEURS

To make ends meet, a lot of single moms worked as house cleaners. She put in a lot of overtime seven days a week for little pay. They've always wanted to have their own store, and now she has the means to open one. She was able to spend more time with her kids and earn more money as a self-employed person.

For many of them, the COVID-19 lockdown proved disastrous. The majority of these istriwallas lost every client since nobody was allowed to leave their houses. Thankfully, they have now discovered the means and fortitude to reconstruct her company with Udhyam.  

This belongs to a class of Indian businesspeople known as "nano entrepreneurs." With 79% of this tiny and vulnerable population falling into debt and poverty, COVID-19 has had a particularly severe impact on them. Many have been compelled to permanently close their doors since they are unable to employ better technology like gas iron box for their vyapaar or operate from home.

WHAT IS A NANO ENTREPRENEUR?

People who operate tiny retail or kirana businesses, work as micro wholesalers, or make a living as street sellers are known as nano entrepreneurs. Because they did not have the opportunity to attend college, they are unable to obtain official work. They make less than INR 25,000 ($330 USD) a month and live in leased dwellings. It is considerably more severe for people who have had a health or financial problem during the pandemic because many may have been in debt even prior to the outbreak. Compared to their peers in small and medium-sized businesses, nano entrepreneurs have distinct obstacles. However, small and medium-sized businesses usually lump nano entrepreneurs together.  It is unusual for nano entrepreneurs to distinguish between their personal and corporate revenue.

And unlike MSMEs, they:

possess no loan collateral and very little insurance.

lack the resources necessary to aid in their scaling.

lack any formal training or specialised skills.

possess less or no market access to aid in the expansion of their company.

Put simply, people are just a little push away from being forced into poverty. Focus on micro firms, which comprise the nano cohort, is unusual. This was made clear during the epidemic when small businesses found themselves in the midst and had no recourse to formal financing, government loans, or relief money.

Even while blue-collar gig workers and microfinance clients have access to credit facilities that nano entrepreneurs do not, nano entrepreneurs are frequently confused with these two groups of people. For example, in order to obtain loans, clients of microfinance rely on peer guarantors for vyapaar. Today's gig workers are technologically savvy, with formal records of their employment, transactions, and other information available on a mobile app, much like Uber drivers. They may now obtain official credit, insurance, and investment opportunities thanks to this formalisation, which also helps them become financially independent and well-off.  Nano companies are a special market with particular traits and difficulties of their own. It's time to put them back on track so they can reclaim their livelihoods and expand and sustain their enterprises. They require tailored solutions.

DIFFERENT CHALLENGES NEED DIFFERENTIATED SOLUTIONS

In order to provide more nano entrepreneurs the chance to create profitable enterprises, we have started collaborating with our partners. For instance, Gromor Finance, our partner, awarded istriwallas a returnable grant. They provide a returnable grant, which is a zero-interest financing programme with an ethical responsibility on the part of the buyer to repay the grant without facing interest charges. After the person has gotten back on their feet, repayment starts. Many are able to restart their iron business and keep providing for their families with a returnable award.    

In order to get nanos closer to financial inclusion, other partners have developed a number of models that enable loans without collateral. We have been able to establish guarantor arrangements with our partners in order to access substantial loan amounts. These guarantors offer a fast supply of financial liquidity and safeguard against any form of nonpayment risk. We will keep developing financing models that are specifically tailored to the needs of nanoentrepreneurs in the upcoming year.

BETTER OPPORTUNITIES FOR NANO ENTREPRENEURS

We owe it to individuals like Istriwallas and Udhyam to improve their access to financing so they may expand and grow their companies. We must make higher investments in this demographic segment by growing and creating specialised solutions.

Nano businesses have a big part to play in the expansion of our economy, both by creating jobs and making a sizable contribution to GDP. A thriving workforce is the greatest thing we can do for our economy. It is our collective responsibility to make sure no one is left behind.

#udhyam #organization #Vyapaar

[timac-extraversal]

Big Dumb Legitimacy, Part I

(TIMAC #004, ~2,300 words, 10 minutes)

Summary: When the mythic basis for a country's government is disputed, the government should consider justifying itself by successfully delivering practical, easy-to-measure projects instead.

Epistemic Status: Political speculation.

-☆☆☆-

In early 2019, I discussed the appeal of Trump's Wall.

Previous government programs were seen as ineffective, it's difficult for voters to tell if a program is working, and congress could always quietly defund or nerf a program when voters aren't paying attention. (Lobbyists for companies that employ unauthorized migrants might also have something to say to the senators about any immigration control program that works.) If you think that illegal immigrants coming over the southern border are driving down wages, and you don't trust the government, the appeal of the wall is obvious:

It's a big dumb object.

You know exactly what it is. You know it can be done. And you can easily tell if the government followed through. Even if you don't trust the newspapers, or the President, you can simply drive down to the Texas border and check if it's physically there.

Many on the left (and among the liberals) abhor the idea of Trump's wall, but with the Trump era coming to an end (for now), some are now starting to admit what was once more of a right-contrarian viewpoint - America's institutions have spent down some of their social capital. People just don't trust them as much.

And that's why the big dumb object may be an echo of things to come.

Latino Voters

In Texas, Trump made big gains in 18 counties where Latinos made up at least 80% of the population. A state Democratic party official said Latinos were worried about threats to the fracking industry, a major local employer, and that Republicans were also helped by 'a network of Border Patrol agents, families and unions.' [1☆] That Latinos are in the Border Patrol shouldn't come as a surprise. Latinos climbed from 7.8 to 12.5% of the country's police forces between 1997 and 2016. Previous efforts at integration were in part driven by policing as well-compensated, blue collar work. [2☆]

Latino voters might be more interested in practical issues than abstract ones. Are they productively employed? Are the places they live safe and secure? Philosophical debate and moral posturing can last all day, and with social media, well into the night. But at some point, someone actually has to get out of a truck and pour asphalt if we want to fix the potholes.

At least one hispanic man was not amused with last year's rioting and, infamously, showed up with a chainsaw and shouted for protesters to go home - and that wasn't the meanest thing he had to say. [3☆]

Spiritual Legitimacy

...and practical issues may be for the best.

To pile up recent heated rhetoric, it would be difficult for a "white supremacist" government of a country "built on stolen land" "by the hands of slaves," founded in slavery 1619 (rather than, more famously, in freedom in 1776), to legitimize itself on intergenerational moral grounds. We would need to repair or replace its legitimizing myth.

Countries are social phenomena, not just physical ones. A country is an idea, not just a place or a people. [4] The narrative of what makes a country legitimate is the story that binds the population together towards a shared project, and convinces the people to accept what, due to the limits of information, must necessarily be the rule of a small number of individuals. A country without a legitimizing myth is vulnerable, and from multiple directions at once.

The state is a shape in the minds of the population, and in a high-energy society its boundaries are maintained by the invisible threat of force. If a police precinct building is set on fire where everyone can see, rival rioters might get the idea that they can just bust open a few windows and pay a visit to the national Capitol building, perhaps smiling as they carry off the speakers' podium or live-blog from the offices of congressional representatives. [5]

There is no such thing as a safe riot. The entire point of a riot is that law enforcement is unable to control the situation. There especially isn't such a thing as a safe riot in the national Capitol building, where rioters might make contact with the nation's lawmakers (who carry much of government's sins), and where, for that reason, security personnel may be even more jumpy than usual. It's the sort of thing that might spark the fires of revolution, either in showing the weakness of the central government, or in retaliation for a massacre.

January 6 was bad, but it could have gone much, much worse.

A spiritual struggle for the soul of the nation is certainly exciting. We might imagine it gets excellent television ratings, social media engagement scores, and clicks. In fact, CNN declined from 2.5 million primetime viewers during what we might call the 'President Trump season finale' to 1.6 million primetime viewers after Biden took office. [6☆] Michael Bloomberg's failed candidacy suggests that you can't buy the kind of entertainment provided by pro-wrestling's now most legendary and infamous heel.

...so it might be better to focus on a form of legitimacy that can be achieved more easily, with something more concrete, like bulldozers.

This does not mean we need to 'abandon' suffering minorities or struggling rural residents 'to their fate.'

Streets Before Trust

On the last day of 2020, Alon Levy of Pedestrian Observations posted Streets Before Trust. Alon notes that in a "trust before streets" approach, the focus is on getting community buy-in before starting a project. Often the idea is to avoid disrupting low-income or minority neighborhoods. However, Alon writes that,

The reality of low-trust politics is about the opposite of what educated Americans think it is. It is incredibly concrete. Abstract ideas like social justice, rights, democracy, and free speech do not exist in that reality, to the point that authoritarian populists have exploited low-trust societies like those of Eastern Europe to produce democratic backsliding.

His theory is that the state proves to people that it can provide tangible goods by successfully providing tangible goods. However, he writes,

Such provisions of tangible goods cannot happen in a trust before streets environment. This works when the state takes action, and endless public meetings in which every objection must be taken seriously are the death of the state. ... Low trust is downstream of low state capacity. Build the streets and trust will follow.

On January 6th, Matt Yglesias expanded the concept and provided more examples. [7☆]

The correct way to respond to a low-trust environment is not to double down on proceduralism, but to commit yourself to the “it does exactly what it says on the tin” principle and implement policies that have the following characteristics:

◆ It’s easy for everyone, whether they agree with you or disagree with you, to understand what it is you say you are doing.

◆ It’s easy for everyone to see whether or not you are, in fact, doing what you said you would do.

◆ It’s easy for you and your team to meet the goal of doing the thing that you said you would do.

That’s not a guarantee of political or policy success. Maybe you will pick terrible ideas and be a huge failure anyway. But this triad for success under conditions of distrust at least creates the possibility of success, where people will look back and decide that what you did worked. Committing yourself to that triad may involve some waste and inefficiency relative to a more theoretically optimal scheme with more means-testing.

There's been a running joke among some parts of right-contrarian twitter that Matt Yglesias is a secret reactionary. After a passage like that, we might joke that he's secretly a Rationalist. (He isn't either, of course.) [8]

Who Do You Trust?

Alon writes,

Low trust in many cases exists because people perceive the state to be hostile to their interests,

Right now, many Americans, both left and right, don't trust the state. Even a writer from Sri Lanka wrote that America is in a collapse - and that collapse isn't a single moment, but a low-level hum punctuated by violence that's in the background unless it happens to you. [9☆]

Many liberals will blame this on Trump. From their perspective, the logical thing to do to restore trust is to criticize Trump. The thinking goes something like this: if Trump is discredited, it follows that all his criticisms of other institutions are discredited - and if those criticisms are discredited, you should trust those institutions as much as you did back in, say, 2013.

This will not work. First, the doubt is not solely caused by Trump. Second, if right-wingers trusted the institutions (such as newspapers) needed to make the criticism of Trump, they would not have voted for Trump a second time. (Trump received about 11 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. [10☆]) Their trust in these institutions seemed to erode after 2015, [11☆] accelerating in 2020, culminating in the spectacular fireball of the Trump election fraud allegations and the 2021 MAGA Capitol Riot.

For the left and liberal people, a rising 'consciousness of racial injustice' leads them to question (and distrust) every Western institution. "Will this program benefit People of Color?" Historically, there have been some serious questions about that. [12] If the program is complex or difficult to measure, it will allow those suspicions to sneak in, or even dominate: could the criteria, even if they look reasonable, have been chosen by a racist? What if it's subconscious racism ("implicit bias")? Some institution might tell us the program isn't racist, but what if that institution is itself racist, or unwittingly working from racist data? Etc.

Each of these worldviews has layers of memetic defenses - complex procedures to handle opposing arguments. Each also has a network of paid actors that perpetuate them. The New York Times cannot criticize a MAGA into trusting the New York Times. A self-identified progressive is unlikely to be convinced that a MAGA's criticism of 'racial justice' rhetoric isn't motivated by 'a desire to protect white privilege'. [13] And contemporary political constellations [14] can fabricate entire scandals that would take months for a normal person to fully disprove.

You can't go through it. That's too expensive. You have to go around it.

-☆☆☆-

[1☆] How Latino support for Trump grew in Texas borderlands Los Angeles Times, (2020/11)

[2☆] Latino officers are helping diversify police. Can they help reform the ranks? NBC News, (2020/05)

[3☆] McAllen man who waved chainsaw at protesters charged with assault KRQE, (2020/05)

[4] A country is also a people, not just a proposition, as well as a process and a place. But that's an essay for another time.

[5] Perhaps fittingly given the Florida Man genre of news stories, the man carrying off Nancy Pelosi's lecturn was from Florida. But unlike the more whimsical examples of the Florida Man genre, which might see an alligator thrown a drive-through window, people did die during the 2021 MAGA Capitol Riot, including one of the white women who entered the Capitol building. There were even early reports that a police officer was mortally wounded after being hit with a fire extinguisher, though this may not have been accurate.

[6☆] CNN viewership plummeted after Trump left office New York Post, 2021/03

[7☆] Making policy for a low-trust world Matt Yglesias, Slow Boring, (2021/01)

[8] In both cases, he's just integrating information from outside the current consensus and presenting the resulting outputs from adding it to his considerations politely. This creates a sensation of coherent but novel depth under the surface, in the same sense that Japan is an entire culture with its own sets of unspoken cultural assumptions, providing more novelty to manga and anime for Western readers.

[9☆] I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. Indi Samarajiva, (2020/09)

One day, I was at work when someone left a bomb at the NOLIMIT clothing store. It exploded, killing 17 people. When these types of traumatic events take place, no two people experience the same thing. For me, it was seeing the phone lines getting clogged for an hour. For my wife, it was feeling the explosion a half-kilometer from her house. But for the families of the 17 victims, this was the end. And their grief goes on.

As you can see, this is not a uniform experience of chaos. For some people it destroys their bodies, others their hearts, but for most people it’s just a low-level hum at the back of their minds.

[10☆] An Australian news piece from Nov 5 reports Trump had about 63 million votes in 2016. A later USA Today piece reports a final total of about 74 million for 2020.

[11☆] This is my personal judgment, but tracks a Gallup Poll that ends in 2019. Trust in government remains near historic lows (2019).

[12] From a right-wing perspective, if we consider some norms, beliefs, values, or expectations a form of "social technology," there are even more questions.

From a left-wing perspective, during the Obama Administration, I remember one writer suggesting that Black Lives Matter wanted to convince politicians to want to help black folks rather than agreeing to a specific policy, because they didn't trust the details of policy (which could easily hide implementation details that disadvantage black people).

[13] If members of the white working class seem suspicious of this antiracist explanation, however, it might have something to do with white privilege theory lowering white liberals' sympathy for poor white people.

[14] Networks of interrelated organizations and actors acting semi-independently in a way which, due to conditions, gives the appearance of coordination. No one is specifically 'in charge,' and many actions take place in the open.

#timac #politics #racepol

[tinyshe]

I wanted to snip this because I believe the incoming administration will try to erase and change facts/history to suit them so here is a hot link and one in the title. I hope the copy traveled well because it was so large!

https://www.whitehouse.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/

As of January 2021

Trump Administration Accomplishments

Unprecedented Economic Boom

Before the China Virus invaded our shores, we built the world’s most prosperous economy.

America gained 7 million new jobs – more than three times government experts’ projections.

Middle-Class family income increased nearly $6,000 – more than five times the gains during the entire previous administration.

The unemployment rate reached 3.5 percent, the lowest in a half-century.

Achieved 40 months in a row with more job openings than job-hirings.

More Americans reported being employed than ever before – nearly 160 million.

Jobless claims hit a nearly 50-year low.

The number of people claiming unemployment insurance as a share of the population hit its lowest on record.

Incomes rose in every single metro area in the United States for the first time in nearly 3 decades.

Delivered a future of greater promise and opportunity for citizens of all backgrounds.

Unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and those without a high school diploma all reached record lows.

Unemployment for women hit its lowest rate in nearly 70 years.

Lifted nearly 7 million people off of food stamps.

Poverty rates for African Americans and Hispanic Americans reached record lows.

Income inequality fell for two straight years, and by the largest amount in over a decade.

The bottom 50 percent of American households saw a 40 percent increase in net worth.

Wages rose fastest for low-income and blue collar workers – a 16 percent pay increase.

African American homeownership increased from 41.7 percent to 46.4 percent.

Brought jobs, factories, and industries back to the USA.

Created more than 1.2 million manufacturing and construction jobs.

Put in place policies to bring back supply chains from overseas.

Small business optimism broke a 35-year old record in 2018.

Hit record stock market numbers and record 401ks.

The DOW closed above 20,000 for the first time in 2017 and topped 30,000 in 2020.

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ have repeatedly notched record highs.

Rebuilding and investing in rural America.

Signed an Executive Order on Modernizing the Regulatory Framework for Agricultural Biotechnology Products, which is bringing innovative new technologies to market in American farming and agriculture.

Strengthened America’s rural economy by investing over $1.3 billion through the Agriculture Department’s ReConnect Program to bring high-speed broadband infrastructure to rural America.

Achieved a record-setting economic comeback by rejecting blanket lockdowns.

An October 2020 Gallup survey found 56 percent of Americans said they were better off during a pandemic than four years prior.

During the third quarter of 2020, the economy grew at a rate of 33.1 percent – the most rapid GDP growth ever recorded.

Since coronavirus lockdowns ended, the economy has added back over 12 million jobs, more than half the jobs lost.

Jobs have been recovered 23 times faster than the previous administration’s recovery.

Unemployment fell to 6.7 percent in December, from a pandemic peak of 14.7 percent in April – beating expectations of well over 10 percent unemployment through the end of 2020.

Under the previous administration, it took 49 months for the unemployment rate to fall from 10 percent to under 7 percent compared to just 3 months for the Trump Administration.

Since April, the Hispanic unemployment rate has fallen by 9.6 percent, Asian-American unemployment by 8.6 percent, and Black American unemployment by 6.8 percent.

80 percent of small businesses are now open, up from just 53 percent in April.

Small business confidence hit a new high.

Homebuilder confidence reached an all-time high, and home sales hit their highest reading since December 2006.

Manufacturing optimism nearly doubled.

Household net worth rose $7.4 trillion in Q2 2020 to $112 trillion, an all-time high.

Home prices hit an all-time record high.

The United States rejected crippling lockdowns that crush the economy and inflict countless public health harms and instead safely reopened its economy.

Business confidence is higher in America than in any other G7 or European Union country.

Stabilized America’s financial markets with the establishment of a number of Treasury Department supported facilities at the Federal Reserve.

Tax Relief for the Middle Class

Passed $3.2 trillion in historic tax relief and reformed the tax code.

Signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – the largest tax reform package in history.

More than 6 million American workers received wage increases, bonuses, and increased benefits thanks to the tax cuts.

A typical family of four earning $75,000 received an income tax cut of more than $2,000 – slashing their tax bill in half.

Doubled the standard deduction – making the first $24,000 earned by a married couple completely tax-free.

Doubled the child tax credit.

Virtually eliminated the unfair Estate Tax, or Death Tax.

Cut the business tax rate from 35 percent – the highest in the developed world – all the way down to 21 percent.

Small businesses can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.

Businesses can now deduct 100 percent of the cost of their capital investments in the year the investment is made.

Since the passage of tax cuts, the share of total wealth held by the bottom half of households has increased, while the share held by the top 1 percent has decreased.

Over 400 companies have announced bonuses, wage increases, new hires, or new investments in the United States.

Over $1.5 trillion was repatriated into the United States from overseas.

Lower investment cost and higher capital returns led to faster growth in the middle class, real wages, and international competitiveness.

Jobs and investments are pouring into Opportunity Zones.

Created nearly 9,000 Opportunity Zones where capital gains on long-term investments are taxed at zero.

Opportunity Zone designations have increased property values within them by 1.1 percent, creating an estimated $11 billion in wealth for the nearly half of Opportunity Zone residents who own their own home.

Opportunity Zones have attracted $75 billion in funds and driven $52 billion of new investment in economically distressed communities, creating at least 500,000 new jobs.

Approximately 1 million Americans will be lifted from poverty as a result of these new investments.

Private equity investments into businesses in Opportunity Zones were nearly 30 percent higher than investments into businesses in similar areas that were not designated Opportunity Zones.

Massive Deregulation

Ended the regulatory assault on American Businesses and Workers.

Instead of 2-for-1, we eliminated 8 old regulations for every 1 new regulation adopted.

Provided the average American household an extra $3,100 every year.

Reduced the direct cost of regulatory compliance by $50 billion, and will reduce costs by an additional $50 billion in FY 2020 alone.

Removed nearly 25,000 pages from the Federal Register – more than any other president. The previous administration added over 16,000 pages.

Established the Governors’ Initiative on Regulatory Innovation to reduce outdated regulations at the state, local, and tribal levels.

Signed an executive order to make it easier for businesses to offer retirement plans.

Signed two executive orders to increase transparency in Federal agencies and protect Americans and their small businesses from administrative abuse.

Modernized the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the first time in over 40 years.

Reduced approval times for major infrastructure projects from 10 or more years down to 2 years or less.

Helped community banks by signing legislation that rolled back costly provisions of Dodd-Frank.

Established the White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing to bring down housing costs.

Removed regulations that threatened the development of a strong and stable internet.

Eased and simplified restrictions on rocket launches, helping to spur commercial investment in space projects.

Published a whole-of-government strategy focused on ensuring American leadership in automated vehicle technology.

Streamlined energy efficiency regulations for American families and businesses, including preserving affordable lightbulbs, enhancing the utility of showerheads, and enabling greater time savings with dishwashers.

Removed unnecessary regulations that restrict the seafood industry and impede job creation.

Modernized the Department of Agriculture’s biotechnology regulations to put America in the lead to develop new technologies.

Took action to suspend regulations that would have slowed our response to COVID-19, including lifting restrictions on manufacturers to more quickly produce ventilators.

Successfully rolled back burdensome regulatory overreach.

Rescinded the previous administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which would have abolished zoning for single-family housing to build low-income, federally subsidized apartments.

Issued a final rule on the Fair Housing Act’s disparate impact standard.

Eliminated the Waters of the United States Rule and replaced it with the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, providing relief and certainty for farmers and property owners.

Repealed the previous administration’s costly fuel economy regulations by finalizing the Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule, which will make cars more affordable, and lower the price of new vehicles by an estimated $2,200.

Americans now have more money in their pockets.

Deregulation had an especially beneficial impact on low-income Americans who pay a much higher share of their incomes for overregulation.

Cut red tape in the healthcare industry, providing Americans with more affordable healthcare and saving Americans nearly 10 percent on prescription drugs.

Deregulatory efforts yielded savings to the medical community an estimated $6.6 billion – with a reduction of 42 million hours of regulatory compliance work through 2021.

Removed government barriers to personal freedom and consumer choice in healthcare.

Once fully in effect, 20 major deregulatory actions undertaken by the Trump Administration are expected to save American consumers and businesses over $220 billion per year.

Signed 16 pieces of deregulatory legislation that will result in a $40 billion increase in annual real incomes.

Fair and Reciprocal Trade

Secured historic trade deals to defend American workers.

Immediately withdrew from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Ended the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and replaced it with the brand new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

The USMCA contains powerful new protections for American manufacturers, auto-makers, farmers, dairy producers, and workers.

The USMCA is expected to generate over $68 billion in economic activity and potentially create over 550,000 new jobs over ten years.

Signed an executive order making it government policy to Buy American and Hire American, and took action to stop the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

Negotiated with Japan to slash tariffs and open its market to $7 billion in American agricultural products and ended its ban on potatoes and lamb.

Over 90 percent of American agricultural exports to Japan now receive preferential treatment, and most are duty-free.

Negotiated another deal with Japan to boost $40 billion worth of digital trade.

Renegotiated the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement, doubling the cap on imports of American vehicles and extending the American light truck tariff.

Reached a written, fully-enforceable Phase One trade agreement with China on confronting pirated and counterfeit goods, and the protection of American ideas, trade secrets, patents, and trademarks.

China agreed to purchase an additional $200 billion worth of United States exports and opened market access for over 4,000 American facilities to exports while all tariffs remained in effect.

Achieved a mutual agreement with the European Union (EU) that addresses unfair trade practices and increases duty-free exports by 180 percent to $420 million.

Secured a pledge from the EU to eliminate tariffs on American lobster – the first United States-European Union negotiated tariff reduction in over 20 years.

Scored a historic victory by overhauling the Universal Postal Union, whose outdated policies were undermining American workers and interests.

Engaged extensively with trade partners like the EU and Japan to advance reforms to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Issued a first-ever comprehensive report on the WTO Appellate Body’s failures to comply with WTO rules and interpret WTO agreements as written.

Blocked nominees to the WTO’s Appellate Body until WTO Members recognize and address longstanding issues with Appellate Body activism.

Submitted 5 papers to the WTO Committee on Agriculture to improve Members’ understanding of how trade policies are implemented, highlight areas for improved transparency, and encourage members to maintain up-to-date notifications on market access and domestic support.

Took strong actions to confront unfair trade practices and put America First.

Imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions worth of Chinese goods to protect American jobs and stop China’s abuses under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

Directed an all-of-government effort to halt and punish efforts by the Communist Party of China to steal and profit from American innovations and intellectual property.

Imposed tariffs on foreign aluminum and foreign steel to protect our vital industries and support our national security.

Approved tariffs on $1.8 billion in imports of washing machines and $8.5 billion in imports of solar panels.

Blocked illegal timber imports from Peru.

Took action against France for its digital services tax that unfairly targets American technology companies.

Launched investigations into digital services taxes that have been proposed or adopted by 10 other countries.

Historic support for American farmers.

Successfully negotiated more than 50 agreements with countries around the world to increase foreign market access and boost exports of American agriculture products, supporting more than 1 million American jobs.

Authorized $28 billion in aid for farmers who have been subjected to unfair trade practices – fully funded by the tariffs paid by China.

China lifted its ban on poultry, opened its market to beef, and agreed to purchase at least $80 billion of American agricultural products in the next two years.

The European Union agreed to increase beef imports by 180 percent and opened up its market to more imports of soybeans.

South Korea lifted its ban on American poultry and eggs, and agreed to provide market access for record exports of American rice.

Argentina lifted its ban on American pork.

Brazil agreed to increase wheat imports by $180 million a year and raised its quotas for purchases of United States ethanol.

Guatemala and Tunisia opened up their markets to American eggs.

Won tariff exemptions in Ecuador for wheat and soybeans.

Suspended $817 million in trade preferences for Thailand under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program due to its failure to adequately provide reasonable market access for American pork products.

The amount of food stamps redeemed at farmers markets increased from $1.4 million in May 2020 to $1.75 million in September 2020 – a 50 percent increase over last year.

Rapidly deployed the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which provided $30 billion in support to farmers and ranchers facing decreased prices and market disruption when COVID-19 impacted the food supply chain.

Authorized more than $6 billion for the Farmers to Families Food Box program, which delivered over 128 million boxes of locally sourced, produce, meat, and dairy products to charity and faith-based organizations nationwide.

Delegated authorities via the Defense Production Act to protect breaks in the American food supply chain as a result of COVID-19.

American Energy Independence

Unleashed America’s oil and natural gas potential.

For the first time in nearly 70 years, the United States has become a net energy exporter.

The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world.

Natural gas production reached a record-high of 34.9 quads in 2019, following record high production in 2018 and in 2017.

The United States has been a net natural gas exporter for three consecutive years and has an export capacity of nearly 10 billion cubic feet per day.

Withdrew from the unfair, one-sided Paris Climate Agreement.

Canceled the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan, and replaced it with the new Affordable Clean Energy rule.

Approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

Opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to oil and gas leasing.

Repealed the last administration’s Federal Coal Leasing Moratorium, which prohibited coal leasing on Federal lands.

Reformed permitting rules to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and speed approval for mines.

Fixed the New Source Review permitting program, which punished companies for upgrading or repairing coal power plants.

Fixed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) steam electric and coal ash rules.

The average American family saved $2,500 a year in lower electric bills and lower prices at the gas pump.

Signed legislation repealing the harmful Stream Protection Rule.

Reduced the time to approve drilling permits on public lands by half, increasing permit applications to drill on public lands by 300 percent.

Expedited approval of the NuStar’s New Burgos pipeline to export American gasoline to Mexico.

Streamlined Liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal permitting and allowed long-term LNG export authorizations to be extended through 2050.

The United States is now among the top three LNG exporters in the world.

Increased LNG exports five-fold since January 2017, reaching an all-time high in January 2020.

LNG exports are expected to reduce the American trade deficit by over $10 billion.

Granted more than 20 new long-term approvals for LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries.

The development of natural gas and LNG infrastructure in the United States is providing tens of thousands of jobs, and has led to the investment of tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure.

There are now 6 LNG export facilities operating in the United States, with 2 additional export projects under construction.

The amount of nuclear energy production in 2019 was the highest on record, through a combination of increased capacity from power plant upgrades and shorter refueling and maintenance cycles.

Prevented Russian energy coercion across Europe through various lines of effort, including the Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation, civil nuclear deals with Romania and Poland, and opposition to Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Issued the Presidential Permit for the A2A railroad between Canada and Alaska, providing energy resources to emerging markets.

Increased access to our country’s abundant natural resources in order to achieve energy independence.

Renewable energy production and consumption both reached record highs in 2019.

Enacted policies that helped double the amount of electricity generated by solar and helped increase the amount of wind generation by 32 percent from 2016 through 2019.

Accelerated construction of energy infrastructure to ensure American energy producers can deliver their products to the market.

Cut red tape holding back the construction of new energy infrastructure.

Authorized ethanol producers to sell E15 year-round and allowed higher-ethanol gasoline to be distributed from existing pumps at filling stations.

Ensured greater transparency and certainty in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.

Negotiated leasing capacity in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Australia, providing American taxpayers a return on this infrastructure investment.

Signed an executive order directing Federal agencies to work together to diminish the capability of foreign adversaries to target our critical electric infrastructure.

Reformed Section 401 of the Clean Water Act regulation to allow for the curation of interstate infrastructure.

Resolved the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil crisis during COVID-19 by getting OPEC, Russia, and others to cut nearly 10 million barrels of production a day, stabilizing world oil prices.

Directed the Department of Energy to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to mitigate market volatility caused by COVID-19.

Investing in America’s Workers and Families

Affordable and high-quality Child Care for American workers and their families.

Doubled the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child and expanded the eligibility for receiving the credit.

Nearly 40 million families benefitted from the child tax credit (CTC), receiving an average benefit of $2,200 – totaling credits of approximately $88 billion.

Signed the largest-ever increase in Child Care and Development Block Grants – expanding access to quality, affordable child care for more than 800,000 low-income families.

Secured an additional $3.5 billion in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help families and first responders with child care needs.

Created the first-ever paid family leave tax credit for employees earning $72,000 or less.

Signed into law 12-weeks of paid parental leave for Federal workers.

Signed into law a provision that enables new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child.

Advanced apprenticeship career pathways to good-paying jobs.

Expanded apprenticeships to more than 850,000 and established the new Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship programs in new and emerging fields.

Established the National Council for the American Worker and the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board.

Over 460 companies have signed the Pledge to America’s Workers, committing to provide more than 16 million job and training opportunities.

Signed an executive order that directs the Federal government to replace outdated degree-based hiring with skills-based hiring.

Advanced women’s economic empowerment.

Included women’s empowerment for the first time in the President’s 2017 National Security Strategy.

Signed into law key pieces of legislation, including the Women, Peace, and Security Act and the Women Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act.

Launched the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative – the first-ever whole-of-government approach to women’s economic empowerment that has reached 24 million women worldwide.

Established an innovative new W-GDP Fund at USAID.

Launched the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) with 13 other nations.

Announced a $50 million donation on behalf of the United States to We-Fi providing more capital to women-owned businesses around the world.

Released the first-ever Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security, which focused on increasing women’s participation to prevent and resolve conflicts.

Launched the W-GDP 2x Global Women’s Initiative with the Development Finance Corporation, which has mobilized more than $3 billion in private sector investments over three years.

Ensured American leadership in technology and innovation.

First administration to name artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and 5G communications as national research and development priorities.

Launched the American Broadband Initiative to promote the rapid deployment of broadband internet across rural America.

Made 100 megahertz of crucial mid-band spectrum available for commercial operations, a key factor to driving widespread 5G access across rural America.

Launched the American AI Initiative to ensure American leadership in artificial intelligence (AI), and established the National AI Initiative Office at the White House.

Established the first-ever principles for Federal agency adoption of AI to improve services for the American people.

Signed the National Quantum Initiative Act establishing the National Quantum Coordination Office at the White House to drive breakthroughs in quantum information science.

Signed the Secure 5G and Beyond Act to ensure America leads the world in 5G.

Launched a groundbreaking program to test safe and innovative commercial drone operations nationwide.

Issued new rulemaking to accelerate the return of American civil supersonic aviation.

Committed to doubling investments in AI and quantum information science (QIS) research and development.

Announced the establishment of $1 billion AI and quantum research institutes across America.

Established the largest dual-use 5G test sites in the world to advance 5G commercial and military innovation.

Signed landmark Prague Principles with America’s allies to advance the deployment of secure 5G telecommunications networks.

Signed first-ever bilateral AI cooperation agreement with the United Kingdom.

Built collation among allies to ban Chinese Telecom Company Huawei from their 5G infrastructure.

Preserved American jobs for American workers and rejected the importation of cheap foreign labor.

Pressured the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to reverse their decision to lay off over 200 American workers and replace them with cheaper foreign workers.

Removed the TVA Chairman of the Board and a TVA Board Member.

Life-Saving Response to the China Virus

Restricted travel to the United States from infected regions of the world.

Suspended all travel from China, saving thousands of lives.

Required all American citizens returning home from designated outbreak countries to return through designated airports with enhanced screening measures, and to undergo a self-quarantine.

Announced further travel restrictions on Iran, the Schengen Area of Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Brazil.

Issued travel advisory warnings recommending that American citizens avoid all international travel.

Reached bilateral agreements with Mexico and Canada to suspend non-essential travel and expeditiously return illegal aliens.

Repatriated over 100,000 American citizens stranded abroad on more than 1,140 flights from 136 countries and territories.

Safely transported, evacuated, treated, and returned home trapped passengers on cruise ships.

Took action to authorize visa sanctions on foreign governments who impede our efforts to protect American citizens by refusing or unreasonably delaying the return of their own citizens, subjects, or residents from the United States.

Acted early to combat the China Virus in the United States.

Established the White House Coronavirus Task Force, with leading experts on infectious diseases, to manage the Administration’s efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and to keep workplaces safe.

Pledged in the State of the Union address to “take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from the Virus,” while the Democrats’ response made not a single mention of COVID-19 or even the threat of China.

Declared COVID-19 a National Emergency under the Stafford Act.

Established the 24/7 FEMA National Response Coordination Center.

Released guidance recommending containment measures critical to slowing the spread of the Virus, decompressing peak burden on hospitals and infrastructure, and diminishing health impacts.

Implemented strong community mitigation strategies to sharply reduce the number of lives lost in the United States down from experts’ projection of up to 2.2 million deaths in the United States without mitigation.

Halted American funding to the World Health Organization to counter its egregious bias towards China that jeopardized the safety of Americans.

Announced plans for withdrawal from the World Health Organization and redirected contribution funds to help meet global public health needs.

Called on the United Nations to hold China accountable for their handling of the virus, including refusing to be transparent and failing to contain the virus before it spread.

Re-purposed domestic manufacturing facilities to ensure frontline workers had critical supplies.

Distributed billions of pieces of Personal Protective Equipment, including gloves, masks, gowns, and face shields.

Invoked the Defense Production Act over 100 times to accelerate the development and manufacturing of essential material in the USA.

Made historic investments of more than $3 billion into the industrial base.

Contracted with companies such as Ford, General Motors, Philips, and General Electric to produce ventilators.

Contracted with Honeywell, 3M, O&M Halyard, Moldex, and Lydall to increase our Nation’s production of N-95 masks.

The Army Corps of Engineers built 11,000 beds, distributed 10,000 ventilators, and surged personnel to hospitals.

Converted the Javits Center in New York into a 3,000-bed hospital, and opened medical facilities in Seattle and New Orleans.

Dispatched the USNS Comfort to New York City, and the USNS Mercy to Los Angeles.

Deployed thousands of FEMA employees, National Guard members, and military forces to help in the response.

Provided support to states facing new emergences of the virus, including surging testing sites, deploying medical personnel, and advising on mitigation strategies.

Announced Federal support to governors for use of the National Guard with 100 percent cost-share.

Established the Supply Chain Task Force as a “control tower” to strategically allocate high-demand medical supplies and PPE to areas of greatest need.

Requested critical data elements from states about the status of hospital capacity, ventilators, and PPE.

Executed nearly 250 flights through Project Air Bridge to transport hundreds of millions of surgical masks, N95 respirators, gloves, and gowns from around the world to hospitals and facilities throughout the United States.

Signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure that Americans have a reliable supply of products like beef, pork, and poultry.

Stabilized the food supply chain restoring the Nation’s protein processing capacity through a collaborative approach with Federal, state, and local officials and industry partners.

The continued movement of food and other critical items of daily life distributed to stores and to American homes went unaffected.

Replenished the depleted Strategic National Stockpile.

Increased the number of ventilators nearly ten-fold to more than 153,000.

Despite the grim projections from the media and governors, no American who has needed a ventilator has been denied a ventilator.

Increased the number of N95 masks fourteen-fold to more than 176 million.

Issued an executive order ensuring critical medical supplies are produced in the United States.

Created the largest, most advanced, and most innovative testing system in the world.

Built the world’s leading testing system from scratch, conducting over 200 million tests – more than all of the European Union combined.

Engaged more than 400 test developers to increase testing capacity from less than 100 tests per day to more than 2 million tests per day.

Slashed red tape and approved Emergency Use Authorizations for more than 300 different tests, including 235 molecular tests, 63 antibody tests, and 11 antigen tests.

Delivered state-of-the-art testing devices and millions of tests to every certified nursing home in the country.

Announced more flexibility to Medicare Advantage and Part D plans to waive cost-sharing for tests.

Over 2,000 retail pharmacy stores, including CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens, are providing testing using new regulatory and reimbursement options.

Deployed tens of millions of tests to nursing homes, assisted living facilities, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), tribes, disaster relief operations, Home Health/Hospice organizations, and the Veterans Health Administration.

Began shipping 150 million BinaxNOW rapid tests to states, long-term care facilities, the IHS, HBCUs, and other key partners.

Pioneered groundbreaking treatments and therapies that reduced the mortality rate by 85 percent, saving over 2 million lives.

The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates in the entire world.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program to expedite the regulatory review process for therapeutics in clinical trials, accelerate the development and publication of industry guidance on developing treatments, and utilize regulatory flexibility to help facilitate the scaling-up of manufacturing capacity.

More than 370 therapies are in clinical trials and another 560 are in the planning stages.

Announced $450 million in available funds to support the manufacturing of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail.

Shipped tens of thousands of doses of the Regeneron drug.

Authorized an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for convalescent plasma.

Treated around 100,000 patients with convalescent plasma, which may reduce mortality by 50 percent.

Provided $48 million to fund the Mayo Clinic study that tested the efficacy of convalescent plasma for patients with COVID-19.

Made an agreement to support the large-scale manufacturing of AstraZeneca’s cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies.

Approved Remdesivir as the first COVID-19 treatment, which could reduce hospitalization time by nearly a third.

Secured more than 90 percent of the world’s supply of Remdesivir, enough to treat over 850,000 high-risk patients.

Granted an EUA to Eli Lilly for its anti-body treatments.

Finalized an agreement with Eli Lilly to purchase the first doses of the company’s investigational antibody therapeutic.

Provided up to $270 million to the American Red Cross and America’s Blood Centers to support the collection of up to 360,000 units of plasma.

Launched a nationwide campaign to ask patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate plasma.

Announced Phase 3 clinical trials for varying types of blood thinners to treat adults diagnosed with COVID-19.

Issued an EUA for the monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab.

FDA issued an EUA for casirivimab and imdevimab to be administered together.

Launched the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium with private sector and academic leaders unleashing America’s supercomputers to accelerate coronavirus research.

Brought the full power of American medicine and government to produce a safe and effective vaccine in record time.

Launched Operation Warp Speed to initiate an unprecedented drive to develop and make available an effective vaccine by January 2021.

Pfizer and Moderna developed two vaccines in just nine months, five times faster than the fastest prior vaccine development in American history.

Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are approximately 95 effective – far exceeding all expectations.

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson also both have promising candidates in the final stage of clinical trials.

The vaccines will be administered within 24 hours of FDA-approval.

Made millions of vaccine doses available before the end of 2020, with hundreds of millions more to quickly follow.

FedEx and UPS will ship doses from warehouses directly to local pharmacies, hospitals, and healthcare providers.

Finalized a partnership with CVS and Walgreens to deliver vaccines directly to residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities as soon as a state requests it, at no cost to America’s seniors.

Signed an executive order to ensure that the United States government prioritizes getting the vaccine to American citizens before sending it to other nations.

Provided approximately $13 billion to accelerate vaccine development and to manufacture all of the top candidates in advance.

Provided critical investments of $4.1 billion to Moderna to support the development, manufacturing, and distribution of their vaccines.

Moderna announced its vaccine is 95 percent effective and is pending FDA approval.

Provided Pfizer up to $1.95 billion to support the mass-manufacturing and nationwide distribution of their vaccine candidate.

Pfizer announced its vaccine is 95 percent effective and is pending FDA approval.

Provided approximately $1 billion to support the manufacturing and distribution of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate reached the final stage of clinical trials.

Made up to $1.2 billion available to support AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate reached the final stage of clinical trials.

Made an agreement to support the large-scale manufacturing of Novavax’s vaccine candidate with 100 million doses expected.

Partnered with Sanofi and GSK to support large-scale manufacturing of a COVID-19 investigational vaccine.

Awarded $200 million in funding to support vaccine preparedness and plans for the immediate distribution and administration of vaccines.

Provided $31 million to Cytvia for vaccine-related consumable products.

Under the PREP Act, issued guidance authorizing qualified pharmacy technicians to administer vaccines.

Announced that McKesson Corporation will produce store, and distribute vaccine ancillary supply kits on behalf of the Strategic National Stockpile to help healthcare workers who will administer vaccines.

Announced partnership with large-chain, independent, and regional pharmacies to deliver vaccines.

Prioritized resources for the most vulnerable Americans, including nursing home residents.

Quickly established guidelines for nursing homes and expanded telehealth opportunities to protect vulnerable seniors.

Increased surveillance, oversight, and transparency of all 15,417 Medicare and Medicaid nursing homes by requiring them to report cases of COVID-19 to all residents, their families, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Required that all nursing homes test staff regularly.

Launched an unprecedented national nursing home training curriculum to equip nursing home staff with the knowledge they need to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Delivered $81 million for increased inspections and funded 35,000 members of the Nation Guard to deliver critical supplies to every Medicare-certified nursing homes.

Deployed Federal Task Force Strike Teams to provide onsite technical assistance and education to nursing homes experiencing outbreaks.

Distributed tens of billions of dollars in Provider Relief Funds to protect nursing homes, long-term care facilities, safety-net hospitals, rural hospitals, and communities hardest hit by the virus.

Released 1.5 million N95 respirators from the Strategic National Stockpile for distribution to over 3,000 nursing home facilities.

Directed the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council to refocus on underserved communities impacted by the coronavirus.

Required that testing results reported include data on race, gender, ethnicity, and ZIP code, to ensure that resources were directed to communities disproportionately harmed by the virus.

Ensured testing was offered at 95 percent of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), which serve over 29 million patients in 12,000 communities across the Nation.

Invested an unprecedented $8 billion in tribal communities.

Maintained safe access for Veterans to VA healthcare throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic and supported non-VA hospital systems and private and state-run nursing homes with VA clinical teams.

Signed legislation ensuring no reduction of VA education benefits under the GI Bill for online distance learning.

Supported Americans as they safely return to school and work.

Issued the Guidelines for Opening Up America Again, a detailed blueprint to help governors as they began reopening the country. Focused on protecting the most vulnerable and mitigating the risk of any resurgence, while restarting the economy and allowing Americans to safely return to their jobs.

Helped Americans return to work by providing extensive guidance on workplace-safety measures to protect against COVID-19, and investigating over 10,000 coronavirus-related complaints and referrals.

Provided over $31 billion to support elementary and secondary schools.

Distributed 125 million face masks to school districts.

Provided comprehensive guidelines to schools on how to protect and identify high-risk individuals, prevent the spread of COVID-19, and conduct safe in-person teaching.

Brought back the safe return of college athletics, including Big Ten and Pac-12 football.

Rescued the American economy with nearly $3.4 trillion in relief, the largest financial aid package in history.

Secured an initial $8.3 billion Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Act, supporting the development of treatments and vaccines, and to procure critical medical supplies and equipment.

Signed the $100 billion Families First Coronavirus Relief Act, guaranteeing free coronavirus testing, emergency paid sick leave and family leave, Medicaid funding, and food assistance.

Signed the $2.3 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, providing unprecedented and immediate relief to American families, workers, and businesses.

Signed additional legislation providing nearly $900 billion in support for coronavirus emergency response and relief, including critically needed funds to continue the Paycheck Protection Program.

Signed the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enhancement Act, adding an additional $310 billion to replenish the program.

Delivered approximately 160 million relief payments to hardworking Americans.

Through the Paycheck Protection Program, approved over $525 billion in forgivable loans to more than 5.2 million small businesses, supporting more than 51 million American jobs.

The Treasury Department approved the establishment of the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility to provide liquidity to the financial system.

The Treasury Department, working with the Federal Reserve, was able to leverage approximately $4 trillion in emergency lending facilities.

Signed an executive order extending expanded unemployment benefits.

Signed an executive order to temporarily suspend student loan payments, evictions, and collection of payroll taxes.

Small Business Administration expanded access to emergency economic assistance for small businesses, faith-based, and religious entities.

Protected jobs for American workers impacted by COVID-19 by temporarily suspending several job-related nonimmigrant visas, including H-1B’s, H-2B’s without a nexus to the food-supply chain, certain H-4’s, as well as L’s and certain J’s.

Great Healthcare for Americans

Empowered American patients by greatly expanding healthcare choice, transparency, and affordability.

Eliminated the Obamacare individual mandate – a financial relief to low and middle-income households that made up nearly 80 percent of the families who paid the penalty for not wanting to purchase health insurance.

Increased choice for consumers by promoting competition in the individual health insurance market leading to lower premiums for three years in a row.

Under the Trump Administration, more than 90 percent of the counties have multiple options on the individual insurance market to choose from.

Offered Association Health Plans, which allow employers to pool together and offer more affordable, quality health coverage to their employees at up to 30 percent lower cost.

Increased availability of short-term, limited-duration health plans, which can cost up to 60 percent less than traditional plans, giving Americans more flexibility to choose plans that suit their needs.

Expanded Health Reimbursement Arrangements, allowing millions of Americans to be able to shop for a plan of their choice on the individual market, and then have their employer cover the cost.

Added 2,100 new Medicare Advantage plan options since 2017, a 76 percent increase.

Lowered Medicare Advantage premiums by 34 percent nationwide to the lowest level in 14 years. Medicare health plan premium savings for beneficiaries have totaled $nearly 1.5 billion since 2017.

Improved access to tax-free health savings accounts for individuals with chronic conditions.

Eliminated costly Obamacare taxes, including the health insurance tax, the medical device tax, and the “Cadillac tax.”

Worked with states to create more flexibility and relief from oppressive Obamacare regulations, including reinsurance waivers to help lower premiums.

Released legislative principles to end surprise medical billing.

Finalized requirements for unprecedented price transparency from hospitals and insurance companies so patients know what the cost is before they receive care.

Took action to require that hospitals make the prices they negotiate with insurers publicly available and easily accessible online.

Improved patients access to their health data by penalizing hospitals and causing clinicians to lose their incentive payments if they do not comply.

Expanded access to telehealth, especially in rural and underserved communities.

Increased Medicare payments to rural hospitals to stem a decade of rising closures and deliver enhanced access to care in rural areas.

Issued unprecedented reforms that dramatically lowered the price of prescription drugs.

Lowered drug prices for the first time in 51 years.

Launched an initiative to stop global freeloading in the drug market.

Finalized a rule to allow the importation of prescription drugs from Canada.

Finalized the Most Favored Nation Rule to ensure that pharmaceutical companies offer the same discounts to the United States as they do to other nations, resulting in an estimated $85 billion in savings over seven years and $30 billion in out-of-pocket costs alone.

Proposed a rule requiring federally funded health centers to pass drug company discounts on insulin and Epi-Pens directly to patients.

Ended the gag clauses that prevented pharmacists from informing patients about the best prices for the medications they need.

Ended the costly kickbacks to middlemen and ensured that patients directly benefit from available discounts at the pharmacy counter, saving Americans up to 30 percent on brand name pharmaceuticals.

Enhanced Part D plans to provide many seniors with Medicare access to a broad set of insulins at a maximum $35 copay for a month’s supply of each type of insulin.

Reduced Medicare Part D prescription drug premiums, saving beneficiaries nearly $2 billion in premium costs since 2017.

Ended the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, which provided market exclusivity to generic drugs.

Promoted research and innovation in healthcare to ensure that American patients have access to the best treatment in the world.

Signed first-ever executive order to affirm that it is the official policy of the United States Government to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.

Passed Right To Try to give terminally ill patients access to lifesaving cures.

Signed an executive order to fight kidney disease with more transplants and better treatment.

Signed into law a $1 billion increase in funding for critical Alzheimer’s research.

Accelerated medical breakthroughs in genetic treatments for Sickle Cell disease.

Finalized the interoperability rules that will give American patients access to their electronic health records on their phones.

Initiated an effort to provide $500 million over the next decade to improve pediatric cancer research.

Launched a campaign to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America in the next decade.

Started a program to provide the HIV prevention drug PrEP to uninsured patients for free.

Signed an executive order and awarded new development contracts to modernize the influenza vaccine.

Protected our Nation’s seniors by safeguarding and strengthening Medicare.

Updated the way Medicare pays for innovative medical products to ensure beneficiaries have access to the latest innovation and treatment.

Reduced improper payments for Medicare an estimated $15 billion since 2016 protecting taxpayer dollars and leading to less fraud, waste, and abuse.

Took rapid action to combat antimicrobial resistance and secure access to life-saving new antibiotic drugs for American seniors, by removing several financial disincentives and setting policies to reduce inappropriate use.

Launched new online tools, including eMedicare, Blue Button 2.0, and Care Compare, to help seniors see what is covered, compare costs, streamline data, and compare tools available on Medicare.gov.

Provided new Medicare Advantage supplemental benefits, including modifications to help keep seniors safe in their homes, respite care for caregivers, non-opioid pain management alternatives like therapeutic massages, transportation, and more in-home support services and assistance.

Protected Medicare beneficiaries by removing Social Security numbers from all Medicare cards, a project completed ahead of schedule.

Unleashed unprecedented transparency in Medicare and Medicaid data to spur research and innovation.

Remaking the Federal Judiciary

Appointed a historic number of Federal judges who will interpret the Constitution as written.

Nominated and confirmed over 230 Federal judges.

Confirmed 54 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, making up nearly a third of the entire appellate bench.

Filled all Court of Appeals vacancies for the first time in four decades.

Flipped the Second, Third, and Eleventh Circuits from Democrat-appointed majorities to Republican-appointed majorities. And dramatically reshaped the long-liberal Ninth Circuit.

Appointed three Supreme Court justices, expanding its conservative-appointed majority to 6-3.

Appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.

Appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Achieving a Secure Border

Secured the Southern Border of the United States.

Built over 400 miles of the world’s most robust and advanced border wall.

Illegal crossings have plummeted over 87 percent where the wall has been constructed.

Deployed nearly 5,000 troops to the Southern border. In addition, Mexico deployed tens of thousands of their own soldiers and national guardsmen to secure their side of the US-Mexico border.

Ended the dangerous practice of Catch-and-Release, which means that instead of aliens getting released into the United States pending future hearings never to be seen again, they are detained pending removal, and then ultimately returned to their home countries.

Entered into three historic asylum cooperation agreements with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to stop asylum fraud and resettle illegal migrants in third-party nations pending their asylum applications.

Entered into a historic partnership with Mexico, referred to as the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” to safely return asylum-seekers to Mexico while awaiting hearings in the United States.

Fully enforced the immigration laws of the United States.

Signed an executive order to strip discretionary Federal grant funding from deadly sanctuary cities.

Fully enforced and implemented statutorily authorized “expedited removal” of illegal aliens.

The Department of Justice prosecuted a record-breaking number of immigration-related crimes.

Used Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to reduce the number of aliens coming from countries whose governments refuse to accept their nationals who were ordered removed from the United States.

Ended asylum fraud, shut down human smuggling traffickers, and solved the humanitarian crisis across the Western Hemisphere.

Suspended, via regulation, asylum for aliens who had skipped previous countries where they were eligible for asylum but opted to “forum shop” and continue to the United States.

Safeguarded migrant families, and protected migrant safety, by promulgating new regulations under the Flores Settlement Agreement.

Proposed regulations to end the practice of giving free work permits to illegal aliens lodging meritless asylum claims.

Issued “internal relocation” guidance.

Cross-trained United States Border Patrol agents to conduct credible fear screenings alongside USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) adjudication personnel to reduce massive backlogs.

Streamlined and expedited the asylum hearing process through both the Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP).

Launched the Family Fraud Initiative to identify hundreds of individuals who were fraudulently presenting themselves as family units at the border, oftentimes with trafficking children, in order to ensure child welfare.

Improved screening in countries with high overstay rates and reduced visa overstay rates in many of these countries.

Removed bureaucratic constraints on United States consular officers that reduced their ability to appropriately vet visa applicants.

Worked with Mexico and other regional partners to dismantle the human smuggling networks in our hemisphere that profit from human misery and fuel the border crisis by exploiting vulnerable populations.

Secured our Nation’s immigration system against criminals and terrorists.

Instituted national security travel bans to keep out terrorists, jihadists, and violent extremists, and implemented a uniform security and information-sharing baseline all nations must meet in order for their nationals to be able to travel to, and emigrate to, the United States.

Suspended refugee resettlement from the world’s most dangerous and terror-afflicted regions.

Rebalanced refugee assistance to focus on overseas resettlement and burden-sharing.

85 percent reduction in refugee resettlement.

Overhauled badly-broken refugee security screening process.

Required the Department of State to consult with states and localities as part of the Federal government’s refugee resettlement process.

Issued strict sanctions on countries that have failed to take back their own nationals.

Established the National Vetting Center, which is the most advanced and comprehensive visa screening system anywhere in the world.

Protected American workers and taxpayers.

Issued a comprehensive “public charge” regulation to ensure newcomers to the United States are financially self-sufficient and not reliant on welfare.

Created an enforcement mechanism for sponsor repayment and deeming, to ensure that people who are presenting themselves as sponsors are actually responsible for sponsor obligations.

Issued regulations to combat the horrendous practice of “birth tourism.”

Issued a rule with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make illegal aliens ineligible for public housing.

Issued directives requiring Federal agencies to hire United States workers first and prioritizing the hiring of United States workers wherever possible.

Suspended the entry of low-wage workers that threaten American jobs.

Finalized new H-1B regulations to permanently end the displacement of United States workers and modify the administrative tools that are required for H-1B visa issuance.

Defended United States sovereignty by withdrawing from the United Nations’ Global Compact on Migration.

Suspended Employment Authorization Documents for aliens who arrive illegally between ports of entry and are ordered removed from the United States.

Restored integrity to the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by strictly adhering to the statutory conditions required for TPS.

Restoring American Leadership Abroad

Restored America’s leadership in the world and successfully negotiated to ensure our allies pay their fair share for our military protection.

Secured a $400 billion increase in defense spending from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies by 2024, and the number of members meeting their minimum obligations more than doubled.

Credited by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for strengthening NATO.

Worked to reform and streamline the United Nations (UN) and reduced spending by $1.3 billion.

Allies, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, committed to increase burden-sharing.

Protected our Second Amendment rights by announcing the United States will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty.

Returned 56 hostages and detainees from more than 24 countries.

Worked to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific region, promoting new investments and expanding American partnerships.

Advanced peace through strength.

Withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran Nuclear Deal and imposed crippling sanctions on the Iranian Regime.

Conducted vigorous enforcement on all sanctions to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero and deny the regime its principal source of revenue.

First president to meet with a leader of North Korea and the first sitting president to cross the demilitarized zone into North Korea.

Maintained a maximum pressure campaign and enforced tough sanctions on North Korea while negotiating de-nuclearization, the release of American hostages, and the return of the remains of American heroes.

Brokered economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo, bolstering peace in the Balkans.

Signed the Honk Kong Autonomy Act and ended the United States’ preferential treatment with Hong Kong to hold China accountable for its infringement on the autonomy of Hong Kong.

Led allied efforts to defeat the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to control the international telecommunications system.

Renewed our cherished friendship and alliance with Israel and took historic action to promote peace in the Middle East.

Recognized Jerusalem as the true capital of Israel and quickly moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and declared that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not inconsistent with international law.

Removed the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the group’s blatant anti-Israel bias.

Brokered historic peace agreements between Israel and Arab-Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Sudan.

In addition, the United States negotiated a normalization agreement between Israel and Morocco, and recognized Moroccan Sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara, a position with long standing bipartisan support.

Brokered a deal for Kosovo to normalize ties and establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

Announced that Serbia would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

First American president to address an assembly of leaders from more than 50 Muslim nations, and reach an agreement to fight terrorism in all its forms.

Established the Etidal Center to combat terrorism in the Middle East in conjunction with the Saudi Arabian Government.

Announced the Vision for Peace Political Plan – a two-state solution that resolves the risks of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security, and the first time Israel has agreed to a map and a Palestinian state.

Released an economic plan to empower the Palestinian people and enhance Palestinian governance through historic private investment.

Stood up against Communism and Socialism in the Western Hemisphere.

Reversed the previous Administration’s disastrous Cuba policy, canceling the sellout deal with the Communist Castro dictatorship.

Pledged not to lift sanctions until all political prisoners are freed; freedoms of assembly and expression are respected; all political parties are legalized; and free elections are scheduled.

Enacted a new policy aimed at preventing American dollars from funding the Cuban regime, including stricter travel restrictions and restrictions on the importation of Cuban alcohol and tobacco.

Implemented a cap on remittances to Cuba.

Enabled Americans to file lawsuits against persons and entities that traffic in property confiscated by the Cuban regime.

First world leader to recognize Juan Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela and led a diplomatic coalition against the Socialist Dictator of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.

Blocked all property of the Venezuelan Government in the jurisdiction of the United States.

Cut off the financial resources of the Maduro regime and sanctioned key sectors of the Venezuelan economy exploited by the regime.

Brought criminal charges against Nicolas Maduro for his narco-terrorism.

Imposed stiff sanctions on the Ortega regime in Nicaragua.

Joined together with Mexico and Canada in a successful bid to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with 60 matches to be held in the United States.

Won bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

Colossal Rebuilding of the Military

Rebuilt the military and created the Sixth Branch, the United States Space Force.

Completely rebuilt the United States military with over $2.2 trillion in defense spending, including $738 billion for 2020.

Secured three pay raises for our service members and their families, including the largest raise in a decade.

Established the Space Force, the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces since 1947.

Modernized and recapitalized our nuclear forces and missile defenses to ensure they continue to serve as a strong deterrent.

Upgraded our cyber defenses by elevating the Cyber Command into a major warfighting command and by reducing burdensome procedural restrictions on cyber operations.

Vetoed the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act, which failed to protect our national security, disrespected the history of our veterans and military, and contradicted our efforts to put America first.

Defeated terrorists, held leaders accountable for malign actions, and bolstered peace around the world.

Defeated 100 percent of ISIS’ territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Freed nearly 8 million civilians from ISIS’ bloodthirsty control, and liberated Mosul, Raqqa, and the final ISIS foothold of Baghuz.

Killed the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani.

Created the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) in partnership between the United States and its Gulf partners to combat extremist ideology and threats, and target terrorist financial networks, including over 60 terrorist individuals and entities spanning the globe.

Twice took decisive military action against the Assad regime in Syria for the barbaric use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians, including a successful 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles strike.

Authorized sanctions against bad actors tied to Syria’s chemical weapons program.

Negotiated an extended ceasefire with Turkey in northeast Syria.

Addressed gaps in American’s defense-industrial base, providing much-needed updates to improve the safety of our country.

Protected America’s defense-industrial base, directing the first whole-of-government assessment of our manufacturing and defense supply chains since the 1950s.

Took decisive steps to secure our information and communications technology and services supply chain, including unsafe mobile applications.

Completed several multi-year nuclear material removal campaigns, securing over 1,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and significantly reducing global nuclear threats.

Signed an executive order directing Federal agencies to work together to diminish the capability of foreign adversaries to target our critical electric infrastructure.

Established a whole-of-government strategy addressing the threat posed by China’s malign efforts targeting the United States taxpayer-funded research and development ecosystem.

Advanced missile defense capabilities and regional alliances.

Bolstered the ability of our allies and partners to defend themselves through the sale of aid and military equipment.

Signed the largest arms deal ever, worth nearly $110 billion, with Saudi Arabia.

Serving and Protecting Our Veterans

Reformed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to improve care, choice, and employee accountability.

Signed and implemented the VA Mission Act, which made permanent Veterans CHOICE, revolutionized the VA community care system, and delivered quality care closer to home for Veterans.

The number of Veterans who say they trust VA services has increased 19 percent to a record 91 percent, an all-time high.

Offered same-day emergency mental health care at every VA medical facility, and secured $9.5 billion for mental health services in 2020.

Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017, which ensured that veterans could continue to see the doctor of their choice and wouldn’t have to wait for care.

During the Trump Administration, millions of veterans have been able to choose a private doctor in their communities.

Expanded Veterans’ ability to access telehealth services, including through the “Anywhere to Anywhere” VA healthcare initiative leading to a 1000 percent increase in usage during COVID-19.

Signed the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act and removed thousands of VA workers who failed to give our Vets the care they have so richly deserve.

Signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017 and improved the efficiency of the VA, setting record numbers of appeals decisions.

Modernized medical records to begin a seamless transition from the Department of Defense to the VA.

Launched a new tool that provides Veterans with online access to average wait times and quality-of-care data.

The promised White House VA Hotline has fielded hundreds of thousands of calls.

Formed the PREVENTS Task Force to fight the tragedy of Veteran suicide.

Decreased veteran homelessness, improved education benefits, and achieved record-low veteran unemployment.

Signed and implemented the Forever GI Bill, allowing Veterans to use their benefits to get an education at any point in their lives.

Eliminated every penny of Federal student loan debt owed by American veterans who are completely and permanently disabled.

Compared to 2009, 49 percent fewer veterans experienced homelessness nationwide during 2019.

Signed and implemented the HAVEN Act to ensure that Veterans who’ve declared bankruptcy don’t lose their disability payments.

Helped hundreds of thousands of military service members make the transition from the military to the civilian workforce, and developed programs to support the employment of military spouses.

Placed nearly 40,000 homeless veterans into employment through the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program.

Placed over 600,000 veterans into employment through American Job Center services.

Enrolled over 500,000 transitioning service members in over 20,000 Department of Labor employment workshops.

Signed an executive order to help Veterans transition seamlessly into the United States Merchant Marine.

Making Communities Safer

Signed into law landmark criminal justice reform.

Signed the bipartisan First Step Act into law, the first landmark criminal justice reform legislation ever passed to reduce recidivism and help former inmates successfully rejoin society.

Promoted second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.

Launched a new “Ready to Work” initiative to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.

Awarded $2.2 million to states to expand the use of fidelity bonds, which underwrite companies that hire former prisoners.

Reversed decades-old ban on Second Chance Pell programs to provide postsecondary education to individuals who are incarcerated expand their skills and better succeed in the workforce upon re-entry.

Awarded over $333 million in Department of Labor grants to nonprofits and local and state governments for reentry projects focused on career development services for justice-involved youth and adults who were formerly incarcerated.

Unprecedented support for law-enforcement.

In 2019, violent crime fell for the third consecutive year.

Since 2016, the violent crime rate has declined over 5 percent and the murder rate has decreased by over 7 percent.

Launched Operation Legend to combat a surge of violent crime in cities, resulting in more than 5,500 arrests.

Deployed the National Guard and Federal law enforcement to Kenosha to stop violence and restore public safety.

Provided $1 million to Kenosha law enforcement, nearly $4 million to support small businesses in Kenosha, and provided over $41 million to support law enforcement to the state of Wisconsin.

Deployed Federal agents to save the courthouse in Portland from rioters.

Signed an executive order outlining ten-year prison sentences for destroying Federal property and monuments.

Directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate and prosecute Federal offenses related to ongoing violence.

DOJ provided nearly $400 million for new law enforcement hiring.

Endorsed by the 355,000 members of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Revitalized Project Safe Neighborhoods, which brings together Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement officials to develop solutions to violent crime.

Improved first-responder communications by deploying the FirstNet National Public Safety Broadband Network, which serves more than 12,000 public safety agencies across the Nation.

Established a new commission to evaluate best practices for recruiting, training, and supporting law enforcement officers.

Signed the Safe Policing for Safe Communities executive order to incentive local police department reforms in line with law and order.

Made hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of surplus military equipment available to local law enforcement.

Signed an executive order to help prevent violence against law enforcement officers.

Secured permanent funding for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund for first responders.

Implemented strong measures to stem hate crimes, gun violence, and human trafficking.

Signed an executive order making clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism.

Launched a centralized website to educate the public about hate crimes and encourage reporting.

Signed the Fix NICS Act to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals.

Signed the STOP School Violence Act and created a Commission on School Safety to examine ways to make our schools safer.

Launched the Foster Youth to Independence initiative to prevent and end homelessness among young adults under the age of 25 who are in, or have recently left, the foster care system.

Signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which tightened criteria for whether countries are meeting standards for eliminating trafficking.

Established a task force to help combat the tragedy of missing or murdered Native American women and girls.

Prioritized fighting for the voiceless and ending the scourge of human trafficking across the Nation, through a whole of government back by legislation, executive action, and engagement with key industries.

Created the first-ever White House position focused solely on combating human trafficking.

Cherishing Life and Religious Liberty

Steadfastly supported the sanctity of every human life and worked tirelessly to prevent government funding of abortion.

Reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, ensuring that taxpayer money is not used to fund abortion globally.

Issued a rule preventing Title X taxpayer funding from subsiding the abortion industry.

Supported legislation to end late-term abortions.

Cut all funding to the United Nations population fund due to the fund’s support for coercive abortion and forced sterilization.

Signed legislation overturning the previous administration’s regulation that prohibited states from defunding abortion facilities as part of their family planning programs.

Fully enforced the requirement that taxpayer dollars do not support abortion coverage in Obamacare exchange plans.

Stopped the Federal funding of fetal tissue research.

Worked to protect healthcare entities and individuals’ conscience rights – ensuring that no medical professional is forced to participate in an abortion in violation of their beliefs.

Issued an executive order reinforcing requirement that all hospitals in the United States provide medical treatment or an emergency transfer for infants who are in need of emergency medical care—regardless of prematurity or disability.

Led a coalition of countries to sign the Geneva Consensus Declaration, declaring that there is no international right to abortion and committing to protecting women’s health.

First president in history to attend the March for Life.

Stood up for religious liberty in the United States and around the world.

Protected the conscience rights of doctors, nurses, teachers, and groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

First president to convene a meeting at the United Nations to end religious persecution.

Established the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative.

Stopped the Johnson Amendment from interfering with pastors’ right to speak their minds.

Reversed the previous administration’s policy that prevented the government from providing disaster relief to religious organizations.

Protected faith-based adoption and foster care providers, ensuring they can continue to serve their communities while following the teachings of their faith.

Reduced burdensome barriers to ensure Native Americans are free to keep spiritually and culturally significant eagle feathers found on their tribal lands.

Took action to ensure Federal employees can take paid time off work to observe religious holy days.

Signed legislation to assist religious and ethnic groups targeted by ISIS for mass murder and genocide in Syria and Iraq.

Directed American assistance toward persecuted communities, including through faith-based programs.

Launched the International Religious Freedom Alliance – the first-ever alliance devoted to confronting religious persecution around the world.

Appointed a Special Envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism.

Imposed restrictions on certain Chinese officials, internal security units, and companies for their complicity in the persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Issued an executive order to protect and promote religious freedom around the world.

Safeguarding the Environment

Took strong action to protect the environment and ensure clean air and clean water.

Took action to protect vulnerable Americans from being exposed to lead and copper in drinking water and finalized a rule protecting children from lead-based paint hazards.

Invested over $38 billion in clean water infrastructure.

In 2019, America achieved the largest decline in carbon emissions of any country on earth. Since withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, the United States has reduced carbon emissions more than any nation.

American levels of particulate matter – one of the main measures of air pollution – are approximately five times lower than the global average.

Between 2017 and 2019, the air became 7 percent cleaner – indicated by a steep drop in the combined emissions of criteria pollutants.

Led the world in greenhouse gas emissions reductions, having cut energy-related CO2 emissions by 12 percent from 2005 to 2018 while the rest of the world increased emissions by 24 percent.

In FY 2019 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleaned up more major pollution sites than any year in nearly two decades.

The EPA delivered $300 million in Brownfields grants directly to communities most in need including investment in 118 Opportunity Zones.

Placed a moratorium on offshore drilling off the coasts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.

Restored public access to Federal land at Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Recovered more endangered or threatened species than any other administration in its first term.

Secured agreements and signed legislation to protect the environment and preserve our Nation’s abundant national resources.

The USMCA guarantees the strongest environmental protections of any trade agreement in history.

Signed the Save Our Seas Act to protect our environment from foreign nations that litter our oceans with debris and developed the first-ever Federal strategic plan to address marine litter.

Signed the Great American Outdoors Act, securing the single largest investment in America’s National Parks and public lands in history.

Signed the largest public lands legislation in a decade, designating 1.3 million new acres of wilderness.

Signed a historic executive order promoting much more active forest management to prevent catastrophic wildfires.

Opened and expanded access to over 4 million acres of public lands for hunting and fishing.

Joined the One Trillion Trees Initiative to plant, conserve, and restore trees in America and around the world.

Delivered infrastructure upgrades and investments for numerous projects, including over half a billion dollars to fix the Herbert Hoover Dike and expanding funding for Everglades restoration by 55 percent.

Expanding Educational Opportunity

Fought tirelessly to give every American access to the best possible education.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expanded School Choice, allowing parents to use up to $10,000 from a 529 education savings account to cover K-12 tuition costs at the public, private, or religious school of their choice.

Launched a new pro-American lesson plan for students called the 1776 Commission to promote patriotic education.

Prohibited the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the Federal government.

Established the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.

Called on Congress to pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act to expand education options for 1 million students of all economic backgrounds.

Signed legislation reauthorizing the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.

Issued updated guidance making clear that the First Amendment right to Free Exercise of Religion does not end at the door to a public school.

Took action to promote technical education.

Signed into law the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, which provides over 13 million students with high-quality vocational education and extends more than $1.3 billion each year to states for critical workforce development programs.

Signed the INSPIRE Act which encouraged NASA to have more women and girls participate in STEM and seek careers in aerospace.

Allocated no less than $200 million each year in grants to prioritize women and minorities in STEM and computer science education.

Drastically reformed and modernized our educational system to restore local control and promote fairness.

Restored state and local control of education by faithfully implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Signed an executive order that ensures public universities protect First Amendment rights or they will risk losing funding, addresses student debt by requiring colleges to share a portion of the financial risk, and increases transparency by requiring universities to disclose information about the value of potential educational programs.

Issued a rule strengthening Title IX protections for survivors of sexual misconduct in schools, and that – for the first time in history – codifies that sexual harassment is prohibited under Title IX.

Negotiated historic bipartisan agreement on new higher education rules to increase innovation and lower costs by reforming accreditation, state authorization, distance education, competency-based education, credit hour, religious liberty, and TEACH Grants.

Prioritized support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Moved the Federal Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Initiative back to the White House.

Signed into law the FUTURE Act, making permanent $255 million in annual funding for HBCUs and increasing funding for the Federal Pell Grant program.

Signed legislation that included more than $100 million for scholarships, research, and centers of excellence at HBCU land-grant institutions.

Fully forgave $322 million in disaster loans to four HBCUs in 2018, so they could fully focus on educating their students.

Enabled faith-based HBCUs to enjoy equal access to Federal support.

Combatting the Opioid Crisis

Brought unprecedented attention and support to combat the opioid crisis.

Declared the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency.

Secured a record $6 billion in new funding to combat the opioid epidemic.

Signed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, the largest-ever legislative effort to address a drug crisis in our Nation’s history.

Launched the Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand in order to confront the many causes fueling the drug crisis.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded a record $9 billion in grants to expand access to prevention, treatment, and recovery services to States and local communities.

Passed the CRIB Act, allowing Medicaid to help mothers and their babies who are born physically dependent on opioids by covering their care in residential pediatric recovery facilities.

Distributed $1 billion in grants for addiction prevention and treatment.

Announced a Safer Prescriber Plan that seeks to decrease the amount of opioids prescriptions filled in America by one third within three years.

Reduced the total amount of opioids prescriptions filled in America.

Expanded access to medication-assisted treatment and life-saving Naloxone.

Launched FindTreatment.gov, a tool to find help for substance abuse.

Drug overdose deaths fell nationwide in 2018 for the first time in nearly three decades.

Launched the Drug-Impaired Driving Initiative to work with local law enforcement and the driving public at large to increase awareness.

Launched a nationwide public ad campaign on youth opioid abuse that reached 58 percent of young adults in America.

Since 2016, there has been a nearly 40 percent increase in the number of Americans receiving medication-assisted treatment.

Approved 29 state Medicaid demonstrations to improve access to opioid use disorder treatment, including new flexibility to cover inpatient and residential treatment.

Approved nearly $200 million in grants to address the opioid crisis in severely affected communities and to reintegrate workers in recovery back into the workforce.

Took action to seize illegal drugs and punish those preying on innocent Americans.

In FY 2019, ICE HSI seized 12,466 pounds of opioids including 3,688 pounds of fentanyl, an increase of 35 percent from FY 2018.

Seized tens of thousands of kilograms of heroin and thousands of kilograms of fentanyl since 2017.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecuted more fentanyl traffickers than ever before, dismantled 3,000 drug trafficking organizations, and seized enough fentanyl to kill 105,000 Americans.

DOJ charged more than 65 defendants collectively responsible for distributing over 45 million opioid pills.

Brought kingpin designations against traffickers operating in China, India, Mexico, and more who have played a role in the epidemic in America.

Indicted major Chinese drug traffickers for distributing fentanyl in the U.S for the first time ever, and convinced China to enact strict regulations to control the production and sale of fentanyl.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 25, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On Thursday and Friday of last week, April 22 and 23, President Biden convened a virtual meeting of 40 world leaders to discuss addressing climate change. It is no longer possible to ignore changes in the world’s climate: the last decade was the hottest in recorded history, and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached record levels. Arctic ice is melting; last summer’s fires in Australia, California, and Colorado were catastrophic.

In 2015, representatives of more than 190 countries, including the U.S., gathered in Paris and hammered out an agreement on mitigating climate change, adapting to it, and financing those changes. Former president Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. On his first day in office, Biden took the U.S. back into the international agreement.

But Biden seems not simply to be trying to adjust the nation’s energy production. With the Leaders Summit on Climate, Biden is taking what his Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm called “our generation’s moonshot,” a reference to the American determination to reach the moon in the 1960s, a goal that spurred previously unimaginable developments in technology, computers, and science.

In the past, refusal to address the issue of climate change has centered around the idea that cutting back on fossil fuels would take jobs from coal miners and those in related fossil fuel industries. That focus was always about more than jobs: the hardworking white man in a hardhat was a cultural symbol for a certain political stance more than it was about reality. Walmart, for example, employs about 28 times the number of people as does coal, even including executives, office workers, and so on. Still, it’s a trope that worked in 2016: Trump won West Virginia by 42 points.

But a lot has changed in the last four years.

For one thing, the market for coal has slid, illustrating that old blue-collar jobs are not coming back. Trump promised to make coal great again and seemed to think that slashing environmental regulations would do the trick, but even combined with an infusion of up to $1 billion, slashing regulations could not stop Trump’s administration from overseeing the fastest decline of coal-fuel capacity in U.S. history. The U.S. lost 10% of coal-mining jobs—5300 of them—between 2016 and 2020. Low natural gas prices and the rise of wind and solar alternatives pushed coal aside. At the same time, mechanization across blue collar industries means the recovery of old manufacturing jobs is not in the cards.

On April 19, the United Mine Workers of America, the largest coal miners’ union, backed Biden’s plan to move away from coal, so long as miners get government support to transition into similar jobs. In a plan endorsed by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia (who is well known for delivering for his constituents), the union asked for funding to plug abandoned oil and gas wells, clean up mining sites, and train workers for new jobs in new energy technologies.

The sentiments of business leaders have shifted, too, as they recognize that climate change is a financial disruptor. Earlier this month, leaders of more than 400 businesses that collectively employ more than 7 million Americans signed a letter asking Biden to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030. “To restore the standing of the U.S. as a global leader, we need to address the climate crisis at the pace and scale it demands,” they wrote. “New investment in clean energy, energy efficiency, and clean transportation can build a strong, more equitable, and more inclusive American economy.” Signatories included Etsy, Facebook, Nike, Microsoft, Verizon, and Walmart.

Biden has already embraced the idea that addressing climate change is not a loss but an opportunity. It will, he insists, bring good jobs to ordinary Americans. “When people talk about climate, I think jobs,” Biden said on Thursday. “Within our climate response lies an extraordinary engine of job creation and economic opportunity ready to be fired up.”

Indeed, Biden’s American Jobs Plan already calls for $16 billion to clean up abandoned mining sites and more for the training in new infrastructure jobs coal miners want. It also addresses job losses in rural areas in an obvious but novel way: by supporting the caregiver economy. Caregiving jobs cannot ever be mechanized, and there are caregivers—and people who need care— in every single community in this country. Supporting those positions will bring money into towns left behind by the loss of jobs like mining.

Biden’s emphasis on new energy jobs is part domestic politics, but it is also a major play for redefining future world power. It was no accident that the overarching political theme of last week’s conference was “America is back.”

As the White House fact sheet on the conference stated: “Over the course of two days and eight sessions, President Biden convened heads of state and government, as well as leaders and representatives from international organizations, businesses, subnational governments, and indigenous communities, to rally the world in tackling the climate crisis, demonstrate the economic opportunities of the future, and affirm the need for unprecedented global cooperation and ambition to meet the moment.”

America is back, indeed.

But what does that mean, in this context? At the summit, Biden announced that by 2030 the U.S. would reduce emissions by 50–52% from the levels of 2005, more than doubling our commitment under the Paris Agreement. He called for other countries, which make up 85% of emissions, to “step up” to “tackle the climate crisis and support the most vulnerable.” (The U.S., which has 4% of the world’s population, emits 15% of the world’s greenhouse gases). This is all pretty standard for U.S. climate statements. Biden went farther, though, calling for changing the American economy over to renewables, including wind, solar, nuclear, and so on, to make the country carbon-free by 2035.

Still, what jumps out from the rest of the Biden proposal is what sure looks like a major reworking of the world economy and thus its political tensions.

While the U.S. focused on fossil fuels and refused to jump wholeheartedly into research and development of alternative energies, China did. That nation is still dependent on fossil fuels and expects not to reach its highest pollution levels until sometime before 2030, but it has heavily subsidized solar power and now has 8 of the top 10 solar companies in the world. America has one; Europe has none. Chinese dominance of the technology and supply chains for the solar industry threatens to sideline American technology and national security, as even American solar manufacturers depend on Chinese materials.

Dominating the world of alternative energy would give China a powerful geopolitical tool. Remember how hard the supply chain failures in China during the early days of the coronavirus hit the U.S.? Now, think energy. A recent piece by Emerging Markets journalist Kenneth Rapoza in Forbes is titled: “How China’s Solar Industry Is Set Up To Be The New Green OPEC,” a reference to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose oil embargo to the U.S. in 1973 slammed the U.S. economy.

Countries, especially weaker countries, would need to turn toward China if that’s where they get their energy technology. And even stronger countries would be dependent on China for one of their most vital needs. To forestall that scenario, Biden has stepped in to reclaim leadership on new energy technologies for the United States, enabling other countries to work toward an energy future that is not dominated by China. On April 22, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg signed onto the idea of NATO cooperation on climate change and other security challenges.

After four years in which our leaders saw the height of American strength as standing alone, our leadership is now focusing on the idea of international teamwork. Biden’s climate plan is about saving the planet, but it also seems to be about saving global alliances, binding countries together with a new climate agreement to retain their power over their own energy in the future.

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #Climate Change #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #history #global

[catalysisrp]

As mobile tumblr no longer likes to let people click page links ( 😒 ) we've decided to drop today's preview in a post for all our mobile users' viewing pleasures!

PERDITION, NV POPULATION 1,974

Sitting stubbornly in the southern tip of Nevada, Perdition is 111 miles north of Las Vegas in rocky, sparsely habited Lincoln County. It sits in a scorched valley between the South Pahroc Range and the Delamar Range. Big Rock Wilderness stands directly north, across highway 93, so from any point in town you can see the teeth of jagged desert mountain ranges jutting up from the horizon. Its population is a small and ever-shrinking 1,974. Despite the harsh surroundings, a variety of flora and fauna surround the small town, digging out life from the feet of the mountains. Mesquite, creosote, greasewood, yucca, and more than 30 varieties of cacti dot the landscape. Sheep, foxes, coyotes, bats, wild horses, owls, tortoises and reptiles are among the hundreds of species co-existing in the rugged landscape. Check your shoes before heading out the door: three different types of scorpions live in the deserts of Nevada. Emergency rooms are also frequented by those bitten by local snakes: sidewinders, the Great Basin rattler, the western diamondback, and kingsnakes are all venomous and common.

WEATHER & CLIMATE SOUTHWESTERN USA

Perdition enjoys highs from 100 degrees in the summer to as low as 50 degrees in the winter. On average, they get 159 days of sunshine year-round. It is a semi-arid climate with very little precipitation.

NEIGHBORHOODS & RESIDENCES

King’s Canyon Estates - Home to the ever-shrinking upper echelon of Perdition, patrolled by a security guard and watched by hawkish blue bloods out of gleaming windows. The lawns are unsettlingly green and the manses are polished and opulent. Rebel Creek - Perdition residents call this run-down, burnt-out neighborhood ‘the wrong side of the creek’. Populated by shotgun houses and a few poorly maintained trailers, Rebel Creek is where the down-and-out lurk. As more of the city falls on hard economic times, more residents find themselves washed up here. It’s not advised to walk through at night. Steptoe Terrace Apartments - Close to downtown, reasonably priced, utilitarian. Nothing fancy, not run down; lived-in. It’s a step up from Rebel Creek, at least. Sunridge Court - Middle class Perdition residents live here in their modest but well-built houses and small but pleasantly tended yards. It’s close to the schools, the small city library, and most of downtown proper. Alta Vista - ATLAS employees have brought an unusual white-collar wealth to Perdition, driving up property values and forcing some people out of their homes altogether. This new development sprung up shortly after the ATLAS compound’s arrival, built on land wrenched from the impoverished hands of ranchers and homeowners on the outskirts of Perdition. Eminent Domain and skyrocketing property taxes have left a small but not insignificant portion of residents relocating to Steptoe and Rebel Creek, unable to afford to rebuild and unwilling to move away from the town their families have called home for so many generations.

PERDITION PROPER & LOCAL BUSINESSES

City Hall - The administration building of local municipal government, like everything in Perdition, has seen better days. Not many folk in town are particulalry pleased with their mayor, but no one ever seems to run against him. Sheriff’s Department & Perdition Jailhouse - Sheriff’s office, a small dispatch office, and a few jail cells for penning any rowdy drunks from the Widowmaker. Red Rock Elementary School - Pre-k - grade 6 Perdition High School - Grades 7 - 12, home of the Fighting Mules! Pike’s Food & Drug - The only grocer & pharmacy in town, owned by the Pike family, six-generation Perdition locals. It’s a snapshot in time, especially the functioning-and-fully-stocked cigarette vending machine and the soda fountain that’s still in service. Golden Oasis Casino - With the promise of a major highway to connect Perdition to the rest of the world, eager investors saw dollar signs and poured piles of money into a brand new casino in 1952. When the highway development fell through and the money dried up, it decayed into what it is today: a place for locals to pull the creaky levers on old penny slots and ignore the indoor smoking ban. Silver Strike Diner - While its silvery accents and vinyl booths are dinged and sunbleached, the food is just as good as when the Silver Strike opened in 1950. Cheap, greasy, open 24/7. The jukebox hasn’t worked since 2002. The Widowmaker - This saloon, built in 1902 and originally named The Silver Dollar Saloon, stands right on the edge of Rebel Creek and decent society. It’s an utter dive: dark, dingy, cheap, and rowdy. Look out for bar fights and pickpockets. Sandman Motel - Its peeling-paint neon sign can be seen from the highway, a symbol of bygone days (and missing the ‘T’ on one side). You have to be pretty desperate to stay here; all-sorts roll in off the highway to rent out these rooms. Last Chance Gas - Local gas station open 24/7 selling cold beer, cigarettes, essentials, and lotto tickets. It’s the ‘last chance for gas’ for the next 100 miles down America’s Loneliest Highway.

OUTER PERDITION & SURROUNDING WILDERNESS

Professor Chromium’s Monster Museum & Creature Feature! - Just off Highway 50! Come, be amazed! Mysterious creatures great and small from the world over; creatures as you’ve never seen! In the time-honored tradition of now-defunct circus freak shows, Professor Chromium’s Monster Museum is a sprawling old warehouse made into a maze of clever taxidermy, creative Frankensteining of stuffed creatures, jars of mysterious claws and limbs. Locals serve as tour guides for tourists and cashiers at the wildly overpriced gift shop stuffed with kitschy souvenirs. Some even say a few of the creatures are genuine horrors, but who would believe them? Perot Mine - There’s a saying around town, and it’s ‘all the money in Perdition comes from Perot’. The mine opened for operation in 1902 when prospectors were hunting for new veins as the mine in Delamar had been providing dwindling returns for a few years before the fire ravaged the town in 1900. William Perot founded the mine and the town of Perdition sprung up nearby. All of high society in Perdition is related to, or married to, a Perot. It employs a huge portion of the Perdition population, but its returns are now dwindling, too. Quarter after quarter, less and less gold and silver ore has been hauled out of Perot. There are whispers of lay-offs on the horizon and even the upper crust of Perdition is starting to get nervous. Perdition Uranium Mine & Mill - from 1951 to 1968, a uranium mining boom swept across America. Spurred by the Atomic Energy Commission and the Cold War, Nevada was a focal point for substantial uranium prospecting and mining. Just outside Perdition, a uranium mine and mill cropped up, employing hundreds of locals and bringing an additional economic boom to the small town in addition to the long-standing gold mine. It was shuttered in 1972, boarded up, and now stands as an ugly relic littered with radioactive warning signs all along the perimeter. Curious teenagers have gone missing inside, and sometimes strange noises can be heard across the flat desert from within its neglected depths. The ATLAS Compound - In 2015, after a flurry of federally funded construction activity behind high chain link fence, a collection of bureaucratic government buildings cropped up like a deposit of hard, shiny minerals along the horizon just outside of town, near the old Perdition Uranium Mine and Milling site. Its perimeter is gated and the gatehouse is always manned by armed guards. This government compound includes a huge lab, offices, and a medical wing. Officially, it is designated as an arm of the Department of the Interior. Delamar - A ghost town dubbed ‘The Widow-maker’ due to deadly dry milling techniques that killed dozens and dozens of the men who worked at the Delamar mine. Established in 1891, the mine operated lucratively until 1900 when nearly the entire city burned to the ground. After a difficult recovery, the mine closed in 1909 and by 1914 the town was abandoned. Nothing but the skeleton of old buildings and lingering ghosts remain in Delamar. Big Rock Wilderness - Fully encompassing the southernmost portion of the South Pahroc Range, this gorgeous national park includes steep and jagged mountains, canyons and an expansive field of large, jumbled boulders loved by rock climbers all over the state. Recreational opportunities include climbing, camping, hiking, horseback riding and hunting.

#catalysisrp #update

[faroukgumel]

Farouk Gumel - The Role of Agriculture in the Economic Development of Nigeria

Nigeria, like many Africa nations, is an agrarian nation. Contrary to the general perception that it is an oil and gas country, the majority of Nigerians in reality earn their living through the agricultural and food value chain. This should not be a surprise. A country with over 200 million people will surely have a large appetite. 

In this article, we are going to briefly look at how agriculture is one of the biggest reasons why Nigeria is the world’s 27th largest economy, and why investing in this sector will propel Nigeria  to greater heights globally.

The Truth About Nigerian GDP

Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa with the highest population on the continent. It was ranked the 27th largest economy globally and is among the largest producers of oil and gas in the world. 

The whole world knows Nigeria for its Oil while ignoring its other assets – arable land, water, solid minerals and ofcourse, its young and talented population. 

Oil is considered by many as the biggest contributing factor to the Nigerian economy, and to some extent, they are right. Oil reserves in Nigeria amount to 35 billion barrels and oil still remains the largest earner for the Nigerian government. Most of the oil is exported in crude form. There is little value addition locally this means only a few jobs are created locally.

So if oil is such a big factor in the Nigerian economy, then why is agriculture the main focus of this article?

Statistically, agricultureis a key factor of the Nigerian GDP. In 2019, agriculture accounted for nearly 22% of Nigeria’s GDP and employs more than one-third of the population. We have 14 million cattle produced in our countryand are the largest producer of cassava (59.4 million tons) and yam (47.5 million tons) plus major exporters of cocoa,  cashew, sesame and beans to mention a few. For local consumption, Nigeria produces maize, sorghum, rice, millet and wheat. It has a vibrant and fast growing poultry and fisheries industry. There have also been significant investments in vegetable oil refining in recent years. 

It is worth noting that as the oil and gas and many other sectors fell into recession in recent years, Nigeria’s agriculture sector continued to grow and create jobs.

What can be Done in the Future?

Just to be clear, Oil is and will remain a huge factor in the GDP of Nigeria, but to create a better and more inclusive economy, Nigeria needs to focus on its secret weapon,  agriculture which supports more than 70 million people in Nigeria, 

In the last 5 years,  the Nigerian Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria have pushed aggressive fiscal and monetary policies aimed at harnessing Nigeria's agricultural potentials. The policies, which target both small scale farmers and large scale corporates, have resulted in significant investments in Nigeria’s agricultural value chain.

TGI Group, through its numerous subsidiaries such as WACOT Ltd is one of the many private sector companies to participate in this latest push by Nigeria to put Agriculture to work.

WACOT Ltd has started up projects of new rice mills across Nigeria and employs over 9,000 workers both in blue and white-collar jobs. Its new rice mill which is speculated to be the turning point in Nigerian agriculture and will provide farming the boost it needs can store up to 120,000 tonnes of rice paddy and has the storage facility to keep that much raw produce for 6 months in advanced silos.

Farouk Gumel, executive director of Tropical General Investment (TGI) Group has rightly stated in an article that TGI/WACOT Ltd projects are made to take advantage of the new government policy direction and that the new WACOT Ltd rice mill will bring with it a lot of opportunities for the people of Nigeria. Farouk Gumel also stated that WACOT is planning to build two more rice mills in the coming years.

In addition to WACOT, many other well known brands are participating in Nigeria’s rice revolution. For example, Dangote Industries, intends to set up 10 rice mills in the coming years. Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man announced he is investing over $4 billion in farming and food processing in Nigeria. Olam in a recent press release also announced its plans to make more investments in food production and processingacross Nigeria. As these big names and many more continue to invest in food production, Nigeria’s agricultural sector may finally deliver its true potential.

#farouk gumel #farouk gumel nigeria #farouk gumel agriculture #farouk gumel tgi #farouk gumel pwc #agriculture nigeria #nigeria #agriculture

[carcino-generic]

HOW HUMANS ARE HAVING THEIR LIVES RUINED BY KARKAT VANTAS

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ALRIGHT, HERE’S THE BASICS OF CAPITALISM FROM A WORKING CLASS AMERICAN. I WANT TO START OUT BY SAYING I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT EUROPE, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, OR ANY OTHER “FIRST-WORLD” COUNTRIES. I DON’T KNOW WHO TORIES ARE AND I DON’T CARE ABOUT EMMANUEL MACRON. FOREIGN AFFAIRS ARE NOT MY CUP OF TEA THANKS. I HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS WITH DOMESTIC POLITICS. ALSO DON’T GET ON MY ASS ABOUT CALLING IT AMERICA INSTEAD OF THE U.S.A., CANADIANS DON’T ACTUALLY WANT TO BE AMERICANS AND IF THEY DO THEY’RE MORONS FOR REASONS THAT WILL BECOME CLEAR AS YOU READ ON. 

YOU KNOW HOW IN A NORMAL SOCIETY, TRADE IS DRIVEN BY RESOURCES AND PRICES ARE DETERMINED BY THE AVAILABILITY, COMPLEXITY, AND DIFFICULTY IN PRODUCTION OF A PRODUCT? SO IMAGINE YOUR COUNTRY GETS ENOUGH MONEY, POWER, AND SHEER BLIND DEVOTION FROM ITS CITIZENS TO THROW ALL THAT IN THE GARBAGE, AND THEN IMAGINE THAT EVERYONE CAPABLE OF MAKING MEANINGFUL CHANGES AT A FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL, WHILE REMAINING WITHIN THE CURRENT SYSTEM, IS OWNED BY SOMEONE WHO BENEFITS EGREGIOUSLY FROM EVERYTHING STAYING THE SAME, AND EVEN MORE EGREGIOUSLY FROM THINGS BECOMING WORSE. NOW IMAGINE THAT WHEN I SAID “SOMEONE” I MEANT “ONE OF MAYBE FIFTEEN MEGA-CORPORATIONS THAT OWNS EVERY OTHER BUSINESS IN THE COUNTRY,” AND WHEN I SAY “EVERYONE CAPABLE OF MAKING MEANINGFUL CHANGES...” I MEAN POLITICIANS WE ELECT TO PRETEND TO REPRESENT OUR INTERESTS WHO HAVE IN REALITY BEEN BOUGHT OUT BY CORPORATE INTERESTS AND RISK LOSING THEIR JOBS IF THEY MAKE LAWS THAT THREATEN THOSE CORPORATE INTERESTS’ BOTTOM LINES. BASICALLY, WE INVESTED ALL OUR POWER INTO PRIVATELY OWNED MONEY SINKS AND FORGOT TO CARE ABOUT THE THINGS THAT MATTER, LIKE THE ACTUAL CITIZENS? OKAY THIS IS GETTING AWAY FROM ME, WE MIGHT HAVE TO START FROM THE BASICS. 

I DON’T KNOW HOW YOUR SOCIETY WORKS, BUT IN OURS, YOU START OUT AS A LITTLE BABY. AS SOON AS YOU’RE PHYSIOLOGICALLY CAPABLE OF EXISTING FOR CONSECUTIVE HOURS WITHOUT THE PEOPLE WHO RAISED YOU, THEY SHOVE YOU IN A CLASSROOM AND START FEEDING YOU A MIXTURE OF COLONIAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND POLITICAL PROPAGANDA. THAT’S ALSO WHERE THEY TEACH YOU HOW TO SOCIALIZE WITH KIDS YOUR AGE AND SHIT. FOR SOME KIDS IT’S THE *ONLY* PLACE THEY CAN LEARN TO SOCIALIZE, BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS ARE TOO BUSY, ABSENT, OR PROTECTIVE TO BRING YOU OUT TO INTERACT WITH PEERS. EITHER WAY, THIS IS WHERE KIDS FORM THEIR CONCEPTS OF BOTH PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND SOCIAL CONTRACTS. THE TRAUMA OF RACIAL AND GENDER PROFILING IS NASCENT HERE, BUT OH BOY IT INTERNALIZES QUICKLY. (MORE ON HOW PEOPLE OF COLOR, THE WAR ON DRUGS, AND PROFIT ARE ALL LINKED LATER ON, OR MAYBE JUST LOOK UP A VIDEO ESSAY ON IT IDK.) 

IT’S PRETTY MUCH THIRTEEN YEARS OF THIS SAME SHIT, ESPECIALLY THE PROPAGANDA BIT. KIDS GROW UP BEING INDOCTRINATED WITH THIS COMPLETELY WHITEWASHED VERSION OF REALITY, BELIEVING CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS* IS THE SHIT AND CAPITALISM IS THE ONLY EFFICIENT MODEL FOR MODERN SOCIETY. THEY’RE USUALLY TAUGHT ALL ABOUT WORLD WARS I AND II, THE VIETNAM WAR, THE COLD WAR, AND THE SPACE RACE, WHICH (BY UNEQUIVOCALLY POSING AMERICANS AS THE GOOD GUYS AND THE SOVIETS AND CHINESE AS THE BAD GUYS,  CEMENTS THE CONCEPT THAT CAPITALISM INHERENTLY RULES AND COMMUNISM INHERENTLY FAILS) FURTHER INDOCTRINATES KIDS. IF YOU’RE REALLY AN ALIEN I DOUBT YOU’VE SEEN THIS IMAGE, BUT EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN EARTHLING HAS:

THIS GUY IS NAMED UNCLE SAM, HE’S BASICALLY AMERICA’S FURSONA. HE EXISTS TO PRESSURE YOU INTO SIGNING UP TO FIGHT IN A WAR. HE WAS USED A LOT IN THOSE WARS I TALKED ABOUT UP THERE, ESPECIALLY THE FIRST THREE. HE’S NOT AROUND SO MUCH ANY MORE BUT THE GENERAL SENTIMENT IS. HERE’S HOW. 

WHEN YOU GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL, THE LAST “REQUIRED” STAGE OF SCHOOL, YOU ARE EXPECTED TO MOVE OUT AND GET A JOB TO SUPPORT YOURSELF. BUT NOWADAYS, IF YOU WANT A JOB THAT PAYS FOR YOUR HEALTH CARE, LETS YOU STAY HOME WHEN YOU GET SICK, GIVES YOU DAYS OFF TO GO TO FAMILY EVENTS SUCH AS WEDDINGS, FUNERALS, THE BIRTH OF YOUR CHILDREN, AND OTHER UNIMPORTANT DRIVEL THAT DOESN’T MAKE CEOS MONEY, YOU BET YOUR ASS YOU’D BETTER GET A COLLEGE DEGREE. HAVING A DEGREE IS THE NUMBER ONE WAY YOU CAN GUARANTEE THAT YOU MAKE MORE MONEY. THAT ALL SOUNDS FINE AND DANDY, EXCEPT NOW YOU HAVE TO PAY SOME INDUSTRIAL-SCALE LOAN SHARK MORE THAN YOU’LL EVER HAVE IN YOUR 401(K) TO LET YOU GET YOUR HIGHER EDUCATION. A LOT OF PEOPLE END UP OWING UPWARDS OF FIFTY GRAND TO A PRIVATELY OWNED LOAN AGENCY BY THE TIME THEY’RE TWENTY-ONE, BECAUSE AS FRESH ADULTS THEY WERE TOLD THEY WOULDN’T GET A WORTHWHILE JOB UNLESS THEY HAD A DEGREE. BUT HERE’S THE THING: A LOT OF TIMES, JOBS LIKE THAT WON’T EVEN HIRE YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE A MASTER’S DEGREE NOW! THAT’S ANOTHER TWO YEARS OF CLASSES AND ANOTHER HUGE CHUNK OF MONEY YOU NEVER HAD TO BEGIN WITH. 

OF COURSE THERE ARE LESS EXPENSIVE OPTIONS, LIKE TRADE SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE. BUT REMEMBER THE PROPAGANDA I MENTIONED? IT’S SO PERVASIVE, A LOT OF YOUNG PEOPLE DON’T EVEN CONSIDER TRADE SCHOOL AN OPTION NOW, BECAUSE WE CULTURALLY VALUE THE “INTELLECTUAL” JOBS—DOCTOR, LAWYER, ENGINEER, ACCOUNTANT, BUSINESSMAN—WHICH ARE STRANGELY ALSO THE CAREER PATHS THAT REQUIRE THE MOST INVESTMENT OF TIME AND MONEY! NOW IF YOU DECIDE TO BE LIKE ME AND GET A JOB RIGHT OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL BECAUSE THE EDUCATION INDUSTRY IS A PUTRID WASTELAND, YOU’RE AUTOMATICALLY LOOKED DOWN UPON. A LOT OF TIMES PEOPLE WHO ARE PURSUING LESS LUCRATIVE CAREERS THAT INTEREST THEM***, INSTEAD OF THE BIG MONEY JOBS, ARE DISPARAGINGLY ASKED IF THEY WANT TO “END UP WORKING AT MCDONALDS.” I DON’T PERSONALLY WORK AT MCDONALDS BUT THIS SHIT STILL OFFENDS ME. BUT THEN AGAIN I’M A MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKE SO WHAT DO I KNOW. 

ACADEMIA HAS A LOT OF ITS OWN PROBLEMS BUT I’VE ONLY HEARD THOSE SECONDHAND, SO LET’S LEAVE THAT HELLSCAPE TO ITS ELITISM AND STAY WITHIN THE BLUE-COLLAR SUBCLASS. COMMON PARLANCE WILL REFER TO THREE MAJOR CLASSES: THE LOWER CLASS (DIPLOMATICALLY CALLED THE “WORKING CLASS”, HA FUCKING HA!), THE MIDDLE CLASS (WHICH THEORETICALLY MAKES UP THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION), AND THE UPPER CLASS (FUCK THOSE GUYS BUT WE’LL GET AROUND TO THAT LATER.) THIS MODEL IS PRETTY MUCH JUST DESIGNED TO CREATE TENSION WITHIN THE PROLETARIAT, BUT HANG ON A SECOND, I JUST REMEMBERED YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE PROLETARIAT IS YET. 

SO BASICALLY, THERE’S NOT THAT MUCH DEFINABLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE “MIDDLE CLASS” AND THE “WORKING CLASS.” WHEN YOU THINK OF WORKING CLASS, COLLOQUIALLY, YOU THINK OF THOSE LOSERS THAT WORK IN THE SERVICE INDUSTRY OR DRIVE TAXIS OR (AND THIS IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO SOME PEOPLE) HAVE NO JOB AT ALL. THE MIDDLE CLASS IS MORE LIKE TEACHERS AND MIDDLE MANAGERS AND GUYS THAT BUILD SOFTWARE REMOTELY FOR MICROSOFT. REALLY THOUGH, THERE’S NO WAY TO DRAW A DEFINITIVE LINE BETWEEN THESE PEOPLE. THE BEST WAY TO DEFINE CLASS IN AMERICA, (AND ALSO APPARENTLY GERMANY, AT LEAST IN THE 19TH CENTURY,) IS TO SEPARATE THOSE WHO PRODUCE GOODS AND THOSE WHO OWN THE GOODS THAT ARE PRODUCED. THERE IS NO “MIDDLE CLASS”, THAT’S JUST A MEANINGLESS THING TO STRIVE FOR BASED ON WHAT WHITE FAMILIES IN SITCOMS LOOK AND ACT LIKE. 

WORKERS WHO PRODUCE GOODS AND SERVICES ARE THE BACKBONE OF SOCIETY AND THEY’RE CALLED THE PROLETARIAT. THEY ARE SERVICE WORKERS AND JANITORS AND TAXI DRIVERS AND HOTEL VALETS, BUT THEY ARE ALSO ELECTRICIANS AND PLUMBERS AND MECHANICS, AND THEY ARE LAWYERS AND DOCTORS AND PROFESSORS, AND THEY ARE YOUTUBERS AND INFLUENCERS AND SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS. THE PROLETARIAT IS ANYONE WHO MAKES MONEY BY SELLING THEIR LABOR. THEY CAN BE CONTRACTORS SELLING THEIR LABOR TO INDEPENDENT BUYERS, OR FREELANCERS SELLING THEIR LABOR TO MULTIPLE LARGER BUSINESSES, BUT MOST OF THE PROLETARIAT IS DIRECTLY EMPLOYED BY SOME KIND OF COMPANY OWNED BY A MEMBER OF THE BOURGEOISIE. 

THE BOURGEOISIE IS KIND OF A MEME AT THIS POINT BUT THEIR IMPACT ON THE WAY WE LIVE IS FUCKING INESCAPABLE. THEY’RE PEOPLE WHO *BUY* OUR LABOR, ACCRUE CAPITAL BY SITTING ON THEIR (SOMETIMES LITERAL!!!) THRONES, OWNING COMPANIES AND PEOPLE, SOMETIMES BEING A PUBLIC FIGURE (LIKE ELON MUSK) WHO RAKES IN ADORATION FROM HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MINDLESS TWITTER DRONES WHO STILL BELIEVE IN CLASS MOBILITY****, OR SOMETIMES BEING A SHADOWY FIGURE IN THE BACKGROUND (LIKE THE KOCH BROTHERS) WHO JUST PASSIVELY RAKE IN THE BENEFITS OF OUR HARD WORK AND CAN’T BE ASSASSINATED BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD RECOGNIZE THEM IF THEY WERE SEEN AT KROGER. THEY ARE USUALLY BORN WEALTHY, BUT VERY RARELY THEY CAN USE THEIR CHARISMA, INTELLIGENCE, SOCIAL CONNECTIONS, AND INTRINSIC PRIVILEGE AS A WHITE PERSON TO YANK THEMSELVES UP FROM THE PROLETARIAT (READ MY CLASS MOBILITY NOTE FOR MORE!!!) 

SO THE RESULT OF THIS CLASS DIVISION IS AS FOLLOWS: 

THE PROLETARIAT NEVER EARNS THE ACTUAL VALUE OF THEIR LABOR. A “SMALL” CHUNK IS ALWAYS TAKEN OUT FOR THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP, WHO “RUN” THE COMPANY (BUT REALLY THEIR JOB IS USUALLY TO EAT FANCY LUNCH AND TELL RACIST GOLF JOKES TO RICH INVESTORS). IN FACT, WAGES ARE USUALLY ENTIRELY DISSOCIATED FROM THE ACTUAL PROFIT THE COMPANY MAKES. FOR A BUSINESS TO BE PROFITABLE, IT HAS TO PAY THE EMPLOYEES IT RELIES ON LESS THAN WHAT THEY BRING TO THE TABLE, WHICH MEANS MOST COMPANIES ESTABLISH A BASE WAGE THAT’S EITHER EXACTLY THE STATE’S MINIMUM WAGE OR A COUPLE CENTS HIGHER TO COMPETE. THEY LITERALLY PAY THE LEAST THEY LEGALLY CAN. SOMETIMES *LESS*.

YOUR JOB IS EXPECTED TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN YOUR LIFE. EXHAUSTED AFTER YOUR FORTY, FIFTY, OR SIXTY HOUR WORK WEEK? THAT’S JUST NORMAL, THEY’RE NOT SQUEEZING THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF LABOR OUT OF YOU THAT THEY CAN WITHOUT KILLING YOU! WANT TO TAKE A FEW DAYS OFF TO SPEND TIME WITH YOUR WIFE AFTER SHE GAVE BIRTH TO YOUR INFANT CHILD? SORRY, YOU’RE OUT OF SICK DAYS. MISSED THE BUS AND THERE’S NOT ANOTHER ONE FOR AN HOUR? IT’S YOUR FAULT FOR NOT HAVING A CAR OR SPENDING FIFTY BUCKS ON AN UBER. TRYING TO GO TO YOUR FIFTH FAMILY FUNERAL BECAUSE ALL YOUR RELATIVES ARE DROPPING LIKE FLIES AFTER A HARD SIXTY YEARS OF LABOR? OOH, SORRY, YOU ONLY GET FOUR FUNERAL DAYS A YEAR! NEED TO GET ANOTHER JOB BECAUSE YOUR CURRENT ONE DOESN’T PAY ENOUGH? WELL, YOU FORGOT TO DISCLOSE IT TO YOUR BOSS AND THEY FIRED YOU FOR TWO-TIMING THEM! A JOB IS MORE OF A COMMITMENT THAN A SPOUSE, AND IF YOU HAVE OTHER PRIORITIES, YOU WON’T LAST LONG. 

BECAUSE THE BOURGEOISIE OWNS SERVICES THAT SHOULD BE PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT, LIKE HEALTHCARE, HOME AND AUTO INSURANCE, A LOT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ESTABLISHMENTS, CREDIT BUREAUS, LOAN COMPANIES, AND HOSPITALS, PROFIT IS THE MOTIVE THERE TOO! WHICH MEANS IF YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF INSURANCE, NEED TO BUY A HOUSE OR A CAR, WANT OR NEED AN EDUCATION, ARE CHRONICALLY ILL, OR JUST EXIST ON A GENERAL BASIS, COMPANIES ARE RIPPING YOU OFF. YOU ARE BASICALLY PAYING THOUSANDS A MONTH FOR THE CHANCE TO GET *SOME* OF YOUR MASSIVE HOSPITAL BILL COVERED IF YOU GET IN AN ACCIDENT. THIS ONE IS NEAR AND DEAR TO ME. FOR UNIMPORTANT REASONS, I MANAGE TO RACK UP A LOT OF DEBT EVERY YEAR GOING TO HOSPITALS AND URGENT CARE, CALLING AMBULANCES, PAYING FOR MEDICATION THAT DOESN’T WORK. DID YOU KNOW YOU’RE CHARGED NIGHTLY TO STAY IN HOSPITALS LIKE THEY’RE GODDAMN HOTELS? LIKE IT’S A FUCKING VACATION? AND DID YOU KNOW THE BILLING DEPARTMENTS OF EACH OF THESE PRIVATELY OWNED ESTABLISHMENTS IS MADE UP OF UNDERPAID, OVERSTRESSED MEMBERS OF THE PROLETARIAT WHOSE JOB IS TO FUCK UP YOUR BILL SO YOU OWE MORE THAN YOUR VISIT ACTUALLY COST? 

MEDICAL FACILITIES ARE ALSO PUSHED TO SELL OVERPRICED DRUGS THAT DON’T WORK TO PEOPLE. HEADS UP, GUYS, BUT ANTIBIOTICS DON’T WORK AGAINST VIRAL INFECTIONS, AND YET THEY’RE PRESCRIBED FOR THE FLU AND COMMON COLD EVERY DAY. AND SOMETIMES THE DRUGS DO WORK, BUT THEY’RE STILL OVERPRICED! IF YOU’VE BEEN ON THE INTERNET AT ALL THIS YEAR YOU’LL KNOW ALL ABOUT THE INSULIN CRISIS, WHICH WAS CREATED ARTIFICIALLY. BASICALLY THE PEOPLE WHO OWN INSULIN (YEAH, *OWN* A LIFE-SAVING MEDICATION) RACKED UP THE PRICE SO MUCH THAT PEOPLE COULDN’T FUCKING AFFORD IT ANYMORE, DESPITE A NORMAL DOSE OF INSULIN COSTING LIKE FIFTY CENTS TO MAKE?? OR, HOW ABOUT THIS—THEY INVENTED THIS COOL NEW CHEAP PAIN-RELIEVING DRUG CALLED FENTANYL AND DISCOVERED THEY COULD MAKE A SHIT TON OF MONEY OFF IT, SO DOCTORS PRESCRIBED THE HELL OUT OF IT UNTIL PEOPLE GOT SO ADDICTED TO IT THAT TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED OF OVERDOSES. OH, DID I SAY “PRESCRIBED” IN THE PAST TENSE? MY BAD, THEY CONTINUE TO PRESCRIBE IT EVERY SINGLE DAY. IF YOU HAVE CHRONIC PAIN AND ASK DOCTORS NOT TO PUT YOU ON PAIN MEDICATION, A LOT OF TIMES THEY WILL STILL PUT YOU ON PAIN MEDICATION. IF YOU EXPLAIN TO YOUR DOCTOR THAT YOU KICKED A HEROIN ADDICTION AND YOU REALLY WOULD NOT LIKE TO HAVE OPIOIDS PUT IN YOUR BODY, THEY WILL PROBABLY STILL BE LIKE, HUH, SUCKS FOR YOU, AND PUT OPIOIDS IN YOUR BODY. 

DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE ANY OF THIS? PERHAPS PETITION YOUR LOCAL POLITICIAN, OR GOD FORBID, STATE CONGRESSMAN, TO PASS A LAW THAT YOU THINK MIGHT IMPROVE YOUR LIFE? WELL, IT TURNS OUT YOU NEED A LOT OF MONEY TO RUN A CAMPAIGN NOWADAYS, AND POLITICIANS ARE ALLOWED TO BE SPONSORED BY BIG BUSINESSES, BECAUSE BUSINESSES ARE PEOPLE. SO IF YOU’RE THE SENATOR OF NEW JERSEY OR WHATEVER, AND YOUR CONSTITUENTS WANT YOU TO VOTE TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE, BUT YOUR CAMPAIGN IS OWNED BY WALMART, WHO WANTS TO KEEP PAYING ITS WORKERS ELEVEN BUCKS AN HOUR, YOU HAVE THE CHOICE BETWEEN MAKING A COUPLE LITTLE WORKING CLASS IDIOTS ANGRY OR GETTING ALL YOUR FUNDING FROM WALMART PULLED BECAUSE YOU THREATENED THEIR PROFIT MARGINS. 

NOT ACTIVELY DYING FROM A TREATABLE ILLNESS, WASTING AWAY FROM DRUG ADDICTION, OR ENTRENCHED IN SLAVERY TO A CORPORATION WHOSE PRODUCT YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN? GREAT! DID YOU KNOW THE PLANET WILL BE ON FIRE IN LIKE A FEW DECADES? OIL AND GAS COMPANIES HAVE SO MUCH INFLUENCE OVER THE LAWMAKERS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO PROHIBIT THEM FROM RUINING THE PLANET, THEY’VE PUT THE ONUS OF SAVING IT ON INDIVIDUALS’ SHOULDERS. REDUCE YOUR CARBON EMISSIONS BY TAKING THAT HOURLY BUS (YOU’LL EITHER BE FIFTY MINUTES EARLY TO WORK OR TEN MINUTES LATE!) OR RECYCLING YOUR SHIT (BUT IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOUR MUNICIPALITY CAN’T RECYCLE, THEY’LL THROW THE WHOLE BATCH OUT WHEN YOU PUT TRASH IN) OR TURNING THE LIGHTS OFF IN YOUR HOUSE (JUST EAT DINNER IN THE DARK YOU PIECE OF SHIT) OR INSTALLING SOLAR PANELS ON YOUR HOUSE (FUCK ME FOR RENTING I GUESS?) THERE IS SO MUCH WE CAN DO JUST WHENEVER TO SWITCH TO SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, BUT EXXON AND BP AND SHELL OWN SO MUCH INFLUENCE THAT WE’RE JUST *NOT*, AND LEAVING THIS WASTELAND OF A HOME PLANET TO OUR FUTURE GENERATIONS. BUT AT LEAST ELON MUSK BUILT THIS REALLY COOL LOW-POLY BETHESDA LOOKING PIECE OF SHIT FOR US TO MAKE MEMES ABOUT

HERE’S THE SKINNY OF IT, PEOPLE. THERE’S NO OUT WITHIN OUR CURRENT SYSTEM. EVEN IF YOU DID THE MAGIC AND PULLED YOURSELF UP BY YOUR BOOTSTRAPS AND NOW YOU’RE A BIG BOY WHO OWNS HIS OWN COMPANY, YOU LEFT BEHIND A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T WIN THE BIRTH LOTTERY LIKE YOU DID. INNOCENT FOLKS ARE DYING OF HUNGER OR ILLNESS THEY CAN’T AFFORD TO TREAT, CRASHING CARS THEY CAN’T AFFORD TO FIX, WORKING THEMSELVES LITERALLY TO DEATH TO SUPPORT THEMSELVES OR THEIR FAMILIES, AND SCRAPING BY WITH A MEASLY ALLOWANCE OF FREE TIME WITH WHICH TO UNWIND AND CATCH UP WITH OTHER PEOPLE. THEY DON’T HAVE TIME TO WATCH THE NEWS, THINK CRITICALLY ABOUT THE SOCIETY THEY LIVE IN, CONCEPTUALIZE UNIONIZING OR REVOLTING OR BUILDING GUILLOTINES. THEY WANT TO KEEP US EXHAUSTED AND STRUGGLING BECAUSE IT’S WHAT KEEPS THEM COMFORTABLE UP THERE, KNOWING NO ONE HAS THE ENERGY OR THE GALL TO TOUCH THEM. THE ONLY FUCKING WAY TO ESCAPE THIS HELL WE’VE CREATED IS THROUGH REVOLUTION. WE NEED TO SCRAP THIS WHOLE THING AND START OVER. BUT I THINK THAT’S ANOTHER ESSAY. ANYWAY I HOPE THIS WAS THOROUGH ENOUGH FOR A LITERAL ALIEN SOCIETY. 

TL;DR: WE ARE ALL FUCKED IF WE DON’T OVERTHROW THE RICH. 

---------------

*CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IS SOME EUROPEAN WHO SAILED THE WRONG WAY AND ENDED UP IN THE AMERICAS. HE AND HIS BUDDIES RAPED AND PILLAGED THEIR WAY THROUGH A BUNCH OF INDIGINOUS COMMUNITIES AND DECIDED THIS COUNTRY WAS “FREE REIGN” TO SETTLE IN. HE IS HAILED AS THE AMERICAN ODYSSEUS AND CREDITED WITH THE “DISCOVERY” OF AMERICA BECAUSE OF COURSE ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO LIVED HERE FIRST DON’T COUNT??

**I DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT WARS EITHER BUT LET’S GET INTO IT FROM THE POV OF A GUY WHO PASSED HIS WORLD HISTORY CLASS WITH A STRAIGHT B MINUS. 

THE FIRST WORLD WAR: I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THIS ONE.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR: THE ONE WHERE A BUNCH OF SCIENTISTS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICERS BOMBED A COUPLE OF CIVILIAN SETTLEMENTS IN JAPAN AND I’M PRETTY SURE AN *ENTIRE HAWAIIAN ISLAND* JUST TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED. TURNS OUT IT KILLED A BUNCH OF CIVILIANS. HUH! WHO’D HAVE EXPECTED THAT! OH IT ALSO TURNED AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF OTHERWISE DECENT FOLKS INTO RABIDLY PATRIOTIC IDIOTS, BECAUSE THE PACE AT WHICH THIS COUNTRY CHURNS OUT PROPAGANDA DURING A WAR IS FASTER THAN THE SPEEDING RUBBER BAND I SHOT WITH MY FINGERS AT THE TEACHER WHO WAS EXPLAINING WHY EVERY OTHER COUNTRY WAS IN THE ABSOLUTE WRONG DURING THIS CATASTROPHE.

VIETNAM: OKAY SO BASICALLY PEOPLE HATED THIS ONE BECAUSE THEY REALIZED SOLDIERS WERE GOING ALL CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS ON THE COUNTRIES WHERE THEY WERE STATIONED. ENOUGH SAID. 

COLD WAR: THIS IS NOMINALLY A WAR BECAUSE THE GOOD OLD U.S.A. AND ITS HATEFUCKBUDDY THE U.S.S.R.† DID THIS WITH WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION 

(EVENTUALLY THEY DECIDED TO PUT THE FINGER GUNS AWAY. I’M GONNA LET YOU TRY TO PUZZLE OUT ON YOUR OWN HOW COUNTRIES “PUT AWAY” NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAPABLE OF ENDING ALL LIFE ON EARTH.)

SPACE RACE: THE U.S. AND THE U.S.S.R. HAD A FUN COMPETITION TO SEE WHOSE DICK WAS BIG ENOUGH TO GET TO THE MOON. SCIENCE IS RUINED. 

***ARTISTS, WRITERS, JOURNALISTS, VIDEO ESSAYISTS, AND ANYONE ELSE WHO ISN’T EITHER OWNED OR SPONSORED (THAT’S A FANCY WORD FOR “OWNED”) BY BIG BUSINESS TEND TO BE THREATENED BY POVERTY. PRETTY MUCH ANYONE WHO CAN FREELANCE ACTUALLY, BECAUSE WORKING FOR A CORPORATION PROVIDES THE SAFETY NET THAT SOCIAL PROGRAMS WOULD OTHERWISE TAKE CARE OF IF SOCIAL PROGRAMS WERE FUNDED EVER. 

****ALSO KNOWN AS THE AMERICAN DREAM, IN WHICH *ANYBODY* CAN MAKE IT IN THIS COUNTRY IF THEY TRY HARD ENOUGH! UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS A MYTH, AS YOU CAN SEE BY THE FACT THAT I AM STILL REALLY POOR, AS IS LIKE 90% OF THE COUNTRY. PLUS CLASS MOBILITY WORKS REALLY HARD TO KEEP MINORITIES IN EXTREME POVERTY, BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST AS AN ISOLATED SYSTEM AND ANYONE WHO THINKS IT DOES IS A DUMBSHIT WHO’S BOUGHT INTO THIS EVEN MORE THAN THE AVERAGE DUMBSHIT. 

†RUSSIA’S COOL NEW NAME WHEN IT TRIED OUT SOCIALISM

#HERE YOU FUCKING GO ALIENS. #I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN A D MINUS FOR THIS IN SCHOOL. #FOR REASONS THAT ARE ESTABLISHED UNDER THE CUT. #{{i typed this in google docs? its uhhh 8 pages long #addiction/ #drugs/ #war/ #uncle sam/ #tesla truck/ #watch as it fucks up the formatting and kills me instantly

[youbusiness2025]

If you are trying to find the best audit company in Pittsburgh for your local business, the Best Accounting Firm in Pittsburgh for Your Small Business below are five definitive realities about the city and five excellent methods to find the audit company there that ideal satisfies your local business demands.

Pittsburgh-- The Most Comfortable City In The U.S. Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania's second-biggest city, a populace of 311,647. The 7 county area bordering the city boasts a populace of 2,354,957.

Allegheny Area, which includes Pittsburgh, is without a doubt the largest and most flourishing.

In these seven regions, there are over 1,000 audit companies, 40% of which remain in Pittsburgh. Over half of them cater to small businesses.

In 2005 and again in 2009, The Economic expert placed Pittsburgh the leading most livable city in the USA.

In 2007, Pittsburgh asserted the primary area in the Places Rated Almanac.

In 2010, both Forbes Magazine as well as Yahoo! had Pittsburgh at the top of their listings. Entrepreneur Magazine placed Pittsburgh as one of the very best for business owners.

Pittsburgh-- The City Of Bridges.

Pittsburgh is the globe record owner for bridges with 446 of them included entirely within the city limits.

These bridges go across the Allegheny River from the northeast and also the Monongahela River from the southeast to form the Ohio River and the Midtown location of the city referred to as the Golden Triangle.

They link the city to the four locations bordering it, namely the North Side/North Hills, the South Side/South Hills, the East End and also the West End.

4 interstates (I-376, I-279, i-579 and also i-79), recognized to Pittsburghers as the Parkway East, the Parkway West, the Parkway North and also Crosstown as well as two major expressways (Route 28 and Course 22) connect 237 boroughs as well as 202 areas with each other and with Downtown Pittsburgh.

The majority of the larger audit firms serving Pittsburgh's significant companies remain in Midtown Pittsburgh.

Nonetheless, practically all of the audit companies serving the city's ever-growing local business population lie in the locations north, south, eastern and also west of the city.

These companies offer small businesses in Pittsburgh and Allegheny Region as well as likewise supply their services to the various other six counties that compose the Greater Pittsburgh Area.

The local business bookkeeping firms in these areas have deep-seated connections to the area, the people and the businesses living there.

Best Accounting Firm in Pittsburgh for Your Small Business

Pittsburgh-- A City Transformed. Thirty years back, Pittsburgh was an unclean, smoky steel town, called the Steel City, due to its predominance as a mighty steel-making center.

When that industry fell down and also Pittsburgh shed its manufacturing base, its blue-collar workers, and business titans like Westinghouse, Gulf Oil, Koppers and also Rockwell International, the city encountered its initial recession in more than a century.

To its debt, though, the city transformed like none other in the country and also emerged twenty years later on as a growing white-collar city.

Today, Pittsburgh is still a steel city.

United States Steel, the 10th largest steel business in the world, is headquartered there.

Allegheny Technologies, a world-class steel maker, has 8 manufacturing plants in the area.

The city still employs 7,000 steel employees as well as one more 12,000 in the primary metals market. Though the area shed 100,000 manufacturing tasks in the last three decades, that sector is still among the greatest factors to the region's economic situation.

What altered is just how diversified that market is currently.

Sophisticated businesses in life sciences, robotics, information technology and study have actually signed up with ranks with 8 Fortune 500 businesses.

Healthcare, education, research, monetary solutions and entertainment/tourism are the recently arising sectors that are driving earnings and work for the region.

One of the fastest-growing areas supporting the city's change to a white-collar economy is accounting.

This is particularly real as the city remains to move far from sector to solution as well as modern technology.

Much of the recently arising companies across all fields of the regional economy are small businesses.

Though there are already over 400 accounting companies in Pittsburgh as well as Allegheny Area alone servicing those services, that number raises drastically as you move into the various other 7 regions bordering the city.

Pittsburgh-- A City Of Growth. The local economic situation mirrors the country's economy as it remains to battle the recession.

Nonetheless, the area has gotten on much better than the majority of areas in the country and is positioned for substantive development in 2011.

Economists from the city's largest financial institutions anticipate that the Greater Pittsburgh Area will include 13,000 new jobs this year.

Unemployment is anticipated to drop listed below 8 percent as larger companies begin to work with and also newly established businesses begin to expand. Added hiring will certainly also appear as brand-new companies situate there.

New IT companies to support the growing research activity

The College of Pittsburgh Medical Facility, the city's biggest employer, is presently in a hiring mode. Retail titans like Cock's Sporting Product and also General Nutrition Facility (GNC) are growing. Google now runs a 40,000 square foot office in Pittsburgh and just recently announced plans for expansion.

Marcellus Shale natural gas will be a significant factor to the neighborhood's economic situation.

The Cultural Arts, consisting of movie manufacturing, continues to blossom and dozens of new information technology firms are emerging to support the growing research activity at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University.

Most of the new companies being created in the area are small businesses supporting these major industries remains to bloom as well as lots companies arising College

business location small companies.

As the location grows, these organizations will certainly expand too and also their requirement for more specialized accounting services will become significantly evident.

Presently, accounting professional companies in the Pittsburgh area deal 18 various kinds of accounting to small businesses, income tax obligation accountancy and project accounting to name a few.

Pittsburgh-- The City Of Champions. Pittsburgh is house to 3 major league franchises-- the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Pittsburgh Steelers as well as the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Two of those teams have enhanced the city with championships, the Steelers winning six Super Dish titles and also the Penguins winning three Stanley Cups.

Thanks to the inventive idea of a cherished Pittsburgh sportscaster and also his Awful Towel, the Steelers have actually given Pittsburgh fans the factor to proclaim their hometown satisfaction by just waving their Terrible Towel.

This marketing icon singlehandedly created Steeler Nation, a brotherhood of loyal fans across the country that has quietly and selflessly raised millions of dollars for a local charity in Pittsburgh.

This hometown pride, this brotherhood, this spirit of generosity is championed in almost advertising and marketing symbol developed Country devoted followers nation and also elevated numerous bucks regional home town league kindness nearly every community and community in the Greater Pittsburgh area.

Pittsburghers are proud, laborious, charitable as well as friendly people.

Many of them have actually stayed in their hometown for years and also have developed numerous small companies to support their households, their neighborhoods and also the city they call home. Accounting companies throughout the area have their origins in these exact same areas as well as have actually handled to successfully assist and sustain these organizations as well as the local communities and also organizations they offer.

These small organizations continue to thrive since of their efforts.

With the excellent working expertise of the city, its economic climate as well as its people, you can quickly locate the accounting firm in Pittsburgh that ideal satisfies your small company demands. Right here are 5 sure-fire means to assist you do that.

Pay attention to your area and the location of the accounting office you choose to work with

Pay attention to your area and the place of the bookkeeping firm with whom you select to work. Pittsburgh is a big urban city with over 400 neighborhoods and areas as diverse as the people living there. These neighborhoods and communities are what make Pittsburgh unique and it is important that you find an accounting firm that knows these places and the businesses that reside there. Pittsburgh is also a city area as well as a community distinct and also is essential audit company recognizes and also live , like several various other huge cities in the country, tormented with traffic jams, building delays and also negative weather condition. These problems cause mayhem when driving in and out of the city at any time throughout a normal service day. Don't waste time driving completely across the community to meet with your accounting professional. Besides, if your audit company is close to you, they should be willing ahead to your place of business.

#IFTTT #Blogger

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

President Trump seems ready to declare victory in his effort to make America great again; last month, he said the slogan for his 2020 re-election campaign will be “Keep America Great.” But how much has really changed, particularly for the “everyday, working Americans” whom Trump said were the “backbone and heartbeat of our country” — and whose votes helped him secure the presidency?

Recent decades have been cruel to working-class Americans, a group I’m roughly defining as the 84 million prime working-age1 people in the U.S. who lack a college degree. But in the first year of Trump’s presidency, there was some good news. Workers with high school educations finally saw a sizable wage increase after years of scant growth. The economy added more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs, something that was unimaginable a decade ago when cheap imports from China put around a million Americans out of work.

Zoom in and this story about the turnaround of blue-collar America gets a lot less clear. That’s partly because it lumps together large swaths of the population — rural and urban residents, white and black people, men and women — in a way that obscures the sometimes-gaping fissures between these groups. And the hidden reality doesn’t always match up with the way politicians talk about blue-collar Americans, particularly when it comes to the plight of rural America and embattled white men.

Think the rural heartland is the struggling core of modern America? Actually, America’s middle has been outperforming the coasts for decades. And while Trump’s ascendance has shined a spotlight on the plight of white men left behind by a changing economy, they still enjoy vast advantages over blue-collar black and female workers.

Large parts of rural America are doing fine

If you gather all of rural America into one homogeneous blob, the story looks bleak indeed, with the population shrinking as job growth lags. But this rural vs. the rest approach muddies the picture more than it reveals — because the experiences of rural areas vary widely across the country.

In particular, counties in the Plains states and the resource-rich middle of the country have enjoyed some of the largest per capita income gains in the entire country. And that includes lots of thinly populated spaces that easily fit the definition of rural.2

Consider the 200 counties that had the strongest per capita income growth nationwide from 2000 to 2016.3 More than 60 percent of those counties — 122 — are designated “completely rural” by the U.S. Census Bureau. And the vast majority of those — 99 — lie in a vertical band of 10 states that stretch from North Dakota and Montana south to New Mexico and Texas.4 That’s five times what you’d expect from chance alone; rural counties in this region make up just 10 percent of all counties nationwide, but nearly half of the top 200 with the highest income growth.5

Look to rural areas elsewhere in the country, and it’s a different story. The median change in per capita income for the rural counties in the band was 38 percent, compared with just 21 percent for all the rural counties outside of that area. Only two rural counties in the entire area that stretches from Mississippi across to Florida and up to Delaware6 even crack the list of the top 200. Nebraska alone has six in the top 10.

Looking at average incomes in this way has limitations, though, because it tells us nothing about distribution. Gains could have gone into the pockets of a highly educated few while everyone else was left with crumbs.

But that doesn’t seem to have been the case, at least not in that high-performing band of states in the middle-west. If you look specifically at wage gains among low-wage workers7 — instead of per capita income as a whole — the states where people saw the biggest wage increases from 2000 to 2016 are North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.8 Montana, Oklahoma and Nebraska are also among the top 10.

Another way to see that blue-collar residents in these states are outpacing peers elsewhere is to look at employment rates.9 The Plains states — including North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska — stand out for having large shares of 25- to 54-year-olds without college degrees who are employed.10 As you can see from the map below, some of the weakest areas are in the southern parts of the country.

White workers fare well when compared with black workers

Add race to the mix, and the story of working-class America fractures into pieces. Whether you focus on wages or employment, black workers seem to be struggling far more than white or Hispanic workers.

In 2017, black workers with just a high school degree saw their wages fall, even as paychecks grew for similarly educated Hispanic and non-Hispanic white workers. And while Hispanics at every education level still earn less than non-Hispanic whites, the gap between whites and blacks is substantially larger. Black high school grads earn 78 cents for every dollar that white high school grads take home; Hispanic high school grads get 87 cents.

Nationwide, 65 percent of 25- to 54-year-old black Americans without a college degree have jobs, well below the 73 percent rate for Hispanics and 74 percent rate for non-Hispanic white people. But the gaps aren’t uniform across the country.

As you can see from the map below, some of the areas with the highest employment rates for working class blacks are in the South, a very different regional pattern than you see for white workers.11 In contrast, the Midwest remains a region of relative strength for whites even though it has become a kind of shorthand for working-class woes.

Working-class men far outearn women

Across blue-collar America, working-class men are a relatively privileged group, with prospects that are vastly better than those of women: At every education level — from those with less than a high school degree to those with some some college — men outearn women by at least 20 percent.

These advantages are even more pronounced among white men. A recent paper from economists at Harvard, Stanford and the Census Bureau found that white men with lower-income parents12 tend to have incomes around $31,000, while white women with similarly paid parents earned just $23,000. Black women (and men) can expect a similar salary, between $23,000 and $25,000.

And yet, even if they do make more than female and black workers, white men still aren’t able to outearn their parents — a bleak commentary on the American Dream. Simply finding a job can be a struggle. In 1980, about 88 percent of 25- to 54-year-old white men without college degrees had jobs; today, that number is 80 percent.

So Trump might want to pause before popping the champagne corks. Many in his base are still hurting, and some of those in other constituencies are doing even worse.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Evan Horowitz

[pyratetm-a]

I know I do this more than actual rp sometimes (and you’d think I’d be sick of it, considering how often I do it academically but lmao no), but considering it is my sacred duty to correct misconceptions in general in the rpc about early to mid eighteenth century sailing life and colonial life (it’s an uphill battle but I’m actually not going to stop because it drives me batshit, I’m even doing all the research and work for people), let’s talk about land society versus sailors.  I include pirates in this, too, because as I’ve started only about a million times previously, pirates are still sailors who operate on the other side of the law, and most pirates actually weren’t pirates for an extended period of time.  They moonlighted as pirates, instead, returning to legit sailing or logging jobs after they’d made the money they set out to make.

Sailors were a necessary part of the global mecantile economy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; their work is what allowed manufactured goods from Europe to reach colonial holdings in the New World, it allowed gold and silver mined by the peoples held in bondage by the Spanish to reach Spain, it got cotton and sugar and things like rice and tea and coffee from all parts of the globe into Europe - in essence, sailing kept the economies of Europe strong.  It allowed money to circulate to a degree, though society itself was very much stratified and busting the glass ceiling that kept those from lower levels of society in their place was rare if those in the lower levels weren’t already of some means (such as please remember that a true middle class did not actually exist, and there was, instead, a range of middling layers of differing socio-economic status).  Sailors themselves were vital to the functioning of European states.

Despite this however, despite playing a vital function in keeping Europe as the burgeoning powerhouse it was during the time period (and it really was, this was the beginnings of imperialism on the parts of European states), they were, to make a modern comparison, kind of looked at like mechanics are in the modern day.  Mechanics are useful.  They have knowledge in a particular area a good number of people do not - repairing vehicles. They serve a vital function in the modern world in that they keep things moving along, right?  But honestly, how many times have you heard that a mechanic is overpriced?  That they’re stupid?  That the idea of the very necessary and vital blue collar work they provide somehow makes them less than?    A lot, right?  People will always bitch about mechanics making a living on what they do.

Well, shocker, this is literally the exact scenario you found when talking about sailors.  It’s true, sailing was blue collar work.  But it required a set of skills the majority of the population did not have.  It required on the job training.  It was (and still is) dangerous.  Massively so.  The work was hard and the hours long (unless you were a pirate, and even then, it didn’t change the fact that you still worked your ass off) and there were threats to them that the average person on land would never face.  Add to that fairly low wages and people bitching that you were being paid entirely too much for what you were doing, while using cotton brought in from the southern colonies, while smoking tobacco from Virginia, while using sugar from Barbados, while drinking tea from China or coffee from Africa and South America, and you can see where there was most certainly social strife, to a degree.  Sailors were a very necessary part of a sea-based global economy, but they were still, for the most part, treated like trash, to a degree.  Which isn’t to give anyone an angle for angst:  Sailors did not give a tin shit about this for the most part.  What they did care about was how low their wages were.  What they cared about was a ship master being fair.  What they cared about was the route not being changed, because literally no sailor wanted to go to Africa and participate in the slave trade.  Disease would kill at least thirty percent of them if they did, an amazing amount felt guilt over what they were doing and knew it was wrong, and even if they did feel no guilt, doing so would provide no increase in wages.  It’s why you have so many accounts of mutinies.  And of crews taking their masters and officers to court over it.  Of men jumping ship in a port and turning around and signing on to another ship.

In short, sailors were expendable, were treated as such by a good bit of society as a whole, and it seems only pirates got the praise, because the general public viewed their outlawism as something romantic in its own way during the time (source: a lot of fucking research I’ve done recently that I can’t share fully).  So consider that, if you rp anything other than a naval sailor.  Navies were different, and to be honest, a lot of men - able bodied seaman, that is, but you see so few of those in the rpc, it’s officers everywhere - were not there by choice, the Navy employed disgusting tactics to force these men into service (it’s why beer glasses have glass bottoms now), and while standards were a little higher than your average merchant ship, they still weren’t great.  Sailing was an escape for poor men looking to get out of a crowded row house in Wapping or Bristol, but it wasn’t anything romantic or seen as something to strive for.

#; { with vigilance and vim : history #// i've been thinking about this lately #// because the social history is important #// and it's important to know that if you're rping a ship's officer #// then men under you #// are probably resentful #// and for good reason #// no matter how kind you are

[readonline]

The Internal Structure of Cities

The Structure of Cities <!-- BODY {font-family:"Arial"; font-size:14;margin:0px;padding:0px;text-align:center;min-width:734px;} P {font-family:"Arial"; font-size:14;} FORM {margin:0;padding:0;} #centerwrapper {text-align:left;width:734px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;} -->

The Internal Structure of Cities

Here we look at models that describe the internal structure of cities in more detail. Some terms to note are: the central business district (CBD), which is the easiest region of any city to recognise, as this is generally the first part of the city to develop and remains as an industrial or administrative core of the city and is often the city centre, if not geographically then in terms of transport it will be where the transport routes converge and where the main train, subway and bus stations will be located. We shall look at how the functions of the CBD continue to change later. Around the CBD there is often a transition zone, in which a mixture of industry and housing is located. Often industries that are either unable to afford expensive land in the CBD site here, as do those services which gain little advantage from being in the CBD. For example, specialist shops like jewellers and furniture stores may locate here, on the assumption that people will make the effort to travel there for these special commodities. However, most people only pass through the transition zone on their way to the CBD and businesses located here may go undetected by many potential customers. Consequently, these places are often characterised by economic depression and degeneration. The suburbs are largely middle class houses on the periphery of the city.

Burgess’ Concentric Zone Model, 1925. The diagram above shows Burgess's model of a city. Burgess followed the ecological school of thought that saw cities rather like ecosystems in which people compete for resources. (It has to be said that this was the old Darwinian evolutionary way of thinking but in modern evolutionary theory, cooperation can be at least as important as competition). This lead to a demand-dominated model in which demand for better housing drives the wealthiest away from the aging and decaying housing near the industrialising city centre toward the periphery where new expensive housing is constructed to satisfy this demand. Similarly, industry also competes for the most desirable land. This leads to invasion of the best land by those residents and industries that can afford it. Furthermore, dominant land uses may take over large regions of the city, for example the central business district (CBD) expands into the surrounding transition zone. The result is that natural areas develop in the city as a result of these ‘natural’ processes. Combined with these facts Burgess also incorporated the effects of mass immigration and social class into his model. Immigrants from poorer countries, or freedmen from the plantations, flocking to a rapidly expanding city in search of work, would be forced to occupy the worst housing since they have the weaker competitive position. Furthermore, ethnic immigrants tend to stick together as they form neighbourhoods which speak their language and in which their culture dominates, for example Chinatowns. This results in ethnic divide as well as social divide within cities. This racial and economy driven sorting of residential households tends to create a series of concentric circular zones within the city, as shown in Burgess’ model below. The transition zone (zone 2) is a mixed industrial/residential area often comprising low income residential areas or slums, skid rows and ethnic ghettos. Zone 3 is the blue collar residential zone or the ‘workingmen’s quarters’ and is more stable than zone 2 and is often ethnically dominated by those who managed to break free from the ghettos and are moving toward the periphery as they demand better housing and as the CBD pushes into the transition zone. Zone 4 is middle class housing where established city residents dwell, many having moved outwards as the city grew and public transport developed. These people commute to work in the CBD. Burgess applied his model to Chicago, as shown in the diagram below:

Chicago was Burgess’ home town. The city core was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871 and as the city was rebuilt, more obvious social patterning evolved and Chicago became a segregated city with concentric zones. Burgess’ model was either the source of his model or the first test of his model, or perhaps both (?). Nevertheless, the model describes Chicago well, albeit in a simplified way, since the detailed housing patterns do not exactly match the concentric zones, but the model is a good approximation. Chicago was formally and legally ethnically segregated until the 1870s with schools, public transport, hotels and restaurants enforcing racial segregation. School segregation officially ended in 1874. However, educational and employment discrimination continued in practise. In the 1840s there were about one thousand African Americans in Chicago, but that number soared to 15 000 by 1890 and 40 000 by 1910 and continued to rise. By 1910, 78% of this ethnic group lived in the dilapidated housing along the Black Belt (see diagram). These people simply found it hard or impossible to find work as employers preferred not to employ them. This discrimination lessened, temporarily,  by necessity during World War I when black people were needed in industry. However, the problems encountered by this ethnic group did not end overnight! In 1919, 26 American cities, including Chicago witnessed race riots. During the 1920s, the black Americans, especially in Chicago made a major contribution to American (and World) culture, and one which seems under-acknowledged – the Age of Jazz. Chicago saw the development of bright-light districts, such as the Stroll on South State Street. These areas were characterised by night-life, where people of all races would gather at to hear Jazz performances. In the 1930s came the Great Depression. In 1939, 50% of black families were on government aid and 40% of the relief rolls went to black people, clearly they were the worst hit. This time saw an increase in black activism, with the  ‘Spend your money where you can work’ campaign, which referred to the fact that many businesses were happy to take money from black customers whilst refusing to employ black people! World War II saw an increase in new jobs in Chicago, coupled to the increasing use of mechanical cotton-pickers in rural places, there was a big increase in immigrant job-seekers from the countryside, this was the Second Great Migration. In the 1990s there was a burst of racial incidences in the police force. New housing schemes sought to demolish 51 high rise low-income housing blocks and replace them with mixed housing. Residential ethnic segregation continues, with some areas comprising more than 90% black people in the so-called ‘Black Metropolis’. Today gentrification schemes are occurring in the near west and south sides of Chicago. Gentrification is the process whereby old deteriorated industrial or low-class housing areas are regenerated, for example, riverside industrial units in disuse after the decline of heavy industry may be replaced with middle-class apartments, shopping centres and leisure centres. The new mixed housing causes controversy, with officials claiming that enough is being built to house all the former residents of the high rise blocks, 50 out of 53 of which have now been demolished, however, others claim that the poorest have been simply forced out onto the streets. A ghetto bus tour takes tourists around the remnants of the all but destroyed ghetto area. The Chicago Chinatown has some 68 000 Chinese residents in its main area. In the 1870s Chinese people came here as ex-railroad workers avoiding discrimination in the western states, and as immigrants fleeing the communist revolution in China in the 1950s-1960s. Chicago grew rapidly, with its population increasing more than 20 times from 1860 to 1910. Chicago now has a population of more than 3 million and is the third most populous city in the USA and its metropolitan area has a population of over 9.5 million, making it the third largest metropolitan in the USA. The principle structural regions of Burgess’ Chicago are: 1. Loop (CBD), the business centre and the region of greatest mobility. Hotels are located here and the residents are primarily transients. This area empties at night and fills in the morning. 2. Transition zone: occupied by slums. This was the former suburbs of the old city and was taken over by businesses expanding from the CBD. Apartments here are flats, furnished rooms and are deteriorated and occupied primarily by childless people. 3. Workingmen’s homes: roomers (on the edge of the slums) where factory workers and shop workers with families dwell and unsettled young people – the ‘respectable’ working class. 4. Zone of better residences: apartments, small families and delicatessen shops. Here the middle class residents dwell and this area is served by local subsidiary shopping centres. 5. The commuter’s zone: duplex apartments (houses converted into double flats), single dwellings, house owners and families. Further out we can identify two more concentric zones: 6: the agricultural district and zone 7: the hinterland. Also note the following on the diagram: Little Sicily, an area so-called for its Italian culture and cuisine, even though Italians apparently did not make up the bulk of the population but merely a large proportion. Note also the Vice district, protected by organised crime, and used for its for illegal gambling houses and brothels. Note also the area dominated by the Chicago underworld – gang crime was rife in some parts of early Chicago. Criticisms of Burgess’ Model Parts or sectors of each concentric zone often exist, but they rarely link up to form a complete ring around the city centre. However, intervening barriers, such as old industrial centres, may prevent completion of the arc. Burgess was a sociologist and so gave most emphasis to social class and ethnic factors in determining residential land use and not much emphasis to other land uses. No model is ever perfect since it is a simplification and generalisation of reality. Nevertheless, Burgess’ model gives great insight into the structure of North American cities, especially in the recent past, and explains some of the factors that determined the structure of these cities. It is impossible to deny that social class and race were major factors in the growth of many American cities – the ghettos were a reality, although some debate how much of the reality was media hype at the time, nevertheless these places existed. Furthermore, race and social class continue to be major issues in modern North American cities. Hoyt’s Sector Model, 1939 Hoyt analysed 142 American cities and mapped the residential rents block by block and found that the spatial arrangement was described better by using sectors rather than concentric circles (though indications of the concentric regions still occur in Hoyt’s model). Initially a mix of land uses develops in the city centre and then, as the city expands outwards, these extend along sectors. High rent neighbourhoods follow high ground, or extend along non-industry river or lake fronts, or along communication lines or toward open country. Low income people may occupy the old and deteriorating housing vacated by the wealthy as they moved on to better areas (such houses are further divided into small apartments) or they occupy regions near to industry or twilight zones and other undesirable areas. Old decaying housing remains in the centre as new expensive housing is built on the periphery of the city, so some concentric zoning still occurs. Hoyt’s model is an extension rather than a replacement of Burgess’ concentric zone model. Hoyt’s model emphasises supply rather than demand – construction of new housing allows the wealthy to middle classes to move out to the periphery and their vacated housing can then be divided up into apartments and rented to low income groups, a process known as filtering. Robson's Model, 1963-75: a modification of Burgess' and Hoyt's models. One problem with Hoyt’s model is that it over-emphasises economic social class and ignores ethnic factors. Although developed for American cities, Hoyt’s model has been applied, with some success, to the English city of Sunderland by Robson in 1963, as shown in the diagram below. The model had to be modified to take into account unique physical factors, such as the coastal position and the River Wear running through the city and it was found that a more or less equal emphasis on sectors and concentric zones best fitted Sunderland. Note that this was applied to Sunderland as it was in 1963-1975 and note the dominance of heavy industry such as shipbuilding and engineering and the dominance of low and medium income housing. This example illustrates how models can apply well to specific cases, but typically require some modification. Another point to note, is that in contrast to North American cities, in British cities there are often found large council housing estates on the periphery of a city. This housing, though not middle-class is sometimes of near middle-class quality (though sometimes it is low quality high rise flats).

Above: Hoyts' sector model. Below: Hoyts' model applied (and modified) to Sunderland, England. Note: rooming houses occupied by roomers are more often called lodging or boarding houses in England and are houses in which the land-owner lets out one or more rooms.

Harris and Ullman's Multiple Nuclei City Model (1945) This model does not assume that cities grow around a single CBD - although the CBD is retained additional nuclei are recognised. For example, industry may locate near to transport routes, such as major roads, canals, ports or railway lines. Some activities also repel one another, for example high-class housing locates far away from industry. There are also businesses that would benefit from being sited in the CBD but cannot afford the high cost of land there, especially if they require large areas of land, for example warehouses often locate in transition zones or in suburbs. Finally, similar activities may group together, such as the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, UK (why?). The multiple nuclei model is shown below:

The advantages of this model lie in its multinuclei approach - many sources give slight varaints on the model shown in the diagram, since the model is rather flexible and adapts to local situations (the exact positions of the nuclei are not important but only the basic trends) so it can be modified to match the city under consideration. These concentric ring, sectorial and multiple nuclei models are the so-called classical models of urban land use. Cities may in reality be a mixture of all three. For example, London has concentric rings, with older and poorer inner city areas and more affluent suburbs. London also exhibits sectors, such as  the zone of worker's dwellings that developed in the industrial revolution and extended from the East End to Dagenham and beyond. An affluent residential sector developed in the north and west, from Mayfair to the Chiltern hills. London also contains multiple nuclei, such as the financial centre or the centre of medical services around Harley Street (similarly banks and media institutions tend to be clustered). We have seen how these classical models, which were all based on North American cities in the first half of the twentieth century can be applied with some success to cities in other places at other times, for example we saw how Robson modified the Burgess and Hoyt models and applied them to Sunderland, England in the 60s and 70s. In particular, Burgess' model works well to cities that grew very rapidly, due to massive immigration - a characteristic of many North American cities. Coming soon we shall look at other variants of these models as applied to British cities. We shall then go on to look at models of cities in the less economically developed world, such as cities in Asia and Africa.

Vance’s urban realms model is an extension of the multiple-nuclei model and is based on the San Francisco Bay area but has been applied to other US cities. The key feature is the emergence of large self-sufficient urban areas, each focused on a centre independent of the traditional downtown and central city. The area, shape and other characteristics of each realm depends upon the following several factors: 1. The terrain – mountains and rivers and other barriers will help to determine the extent and shape of a region. 2. The size of the metropolis – a larger metropolis may have more and larger realms. 3. The amount of economic activity within each realm – a determinant of the area it can serve and hence its size. 4. The transport infrastructure available within each realm – an easily accessible economic core increases the area of influence and thus size of each realm. 5. Transport infrastructure between realms – e.g. circumferential links (such as freeways) and airports such that people no longer have to travel to the CBD and its central realm in order to travel to other realms and to other metropoli. If a realm can become more important in this manner then it may increase in importance. E.g. West Los Angeles is within easy reach of the LAX airport (along the freeway) but to travel by train residents have to travel to the CBD (by bus or car).

Cities Intro        Cities Structure         External structure         British cities          Deprivation      

See also: The External Structure of Cities

        Cronodon      Cities Intro        Cities Structure         External structure         British cities          Deprivation      

White's model of the twenty-first century city (1987) Cities are, of course, in constant flux and new forces come in to play in shaping their continued development. The populations of the Earth are not in equilibrium: they are rapidly expanding, their ethnic and cultural make-up is rapidly shifting, distribution of wealth is becoming more uneven, technology is advancing, populations are on the move at least as much as they ever were, transport methods and commuter patterns change, economics is unstable and in constant flux, political motives and methods change and then there is globalisation. Cities are strained and struggling to adapt. Newer models, for cities in the MEDW (more economically developed world) at least, attempt to factor in economic deindustrialisation and the rise of the service and technical industries, the reliance on the automobile and urban planning. The key features of White's (1987) model are as follows: The old CBD persists as the city's core and functions primarily as a financial centre and as a centre for entertainment industries and tourist attractions. Some large stores may persist downtown, though most retailing is now suburban. Clearly shops, coffeehouses and cafes cater for commuters / workers and tourists. A zone of stagnation develops around the CBD, which has developed upwards rather than outwards. The clearance of slums and the relocation of warehouses to suburban areas has left the old 'transition zone' under-invested and deprived. This zone may be revitalised or gentrified with entertainment and shopping centres and residential areas or it may be abandoned. The poor and ethnic minorities occur largely in pockets. These may include dysfunctional families and the homeless (an underclass) as well as ethnic minorities. Many of these areas surround the stagnation zone and may constitute modern 'slums'. The middle class is diffused, spreading to occupy most of the city metropolis. Generally, those closest to the core are older areas occupied by those of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Ethnic groups, historically of lower income, originally dominated the areas closest to the core, but are now moving outwards to the suburbs, but remain segregated in their own enclaves. The more affluent middle classes live in better and newer accommodation in the suburbs. The wealthy 'elite' live in spacious homes in their own enclaves, where they are largely isolated from the problems of the city (such as overcrowding and poverty). Although many are on the periphery, some are also in the centre, where areas may have been gentrified or where old properties may be highly sought after because of their 'prestigious' location. Institutions can have tremendous influence over the neighbouring region, for example, universities may build student accommodation and provide custom for local shops, whilst 'science parks' may occupy large landscaped areas. Epicentres are commercial centres which have taken over many of the functions of the old CBD and are generally sited where main highways converge or develop as corridors along main transport routes. Personally, i find it disappointing that after so many decades, in some cases centuries, cities still face tremendous problems of inequity and deprivation. It is, perhaps, the single greatest failure of humankind to date. Policy makers seem devoid of new ideas and often declare that things are the best they can be, or will someday improve, but offer little in the way of intelligent strategy. Alas! There are surely answers out there, but those who hold the reigns of power seem content with their lot, and perhaps this imbalance of power is the real barrier to progress.

E = ethnic enclave, I = institution (university, R&D centre or business park, hospital, etc.), MC = middle class (orange areas), blue indicates areas of poor housing, red areas indicate areas occupied by the city's 'elite'.

#city #design #chicago

[apnajobs]

The Importance of Speed while Hiring Frontline Workers

Frontline workers, or blue-collar workers as they are more popularly referred to as form the backbone of the Indian economy. Almost every industry -  be it Healthcare, IT, FoodTech, Delivery/Logistics, Hospitality or Manufacturing provide employment to a staggering percentage of India’s population. As per an ET report, India has nearly 170 million people employed in skilled and semi-skilled blue-collar jobs. These jobs have a very high demand but hiring right and screening candidates remains slow, while attrition also makes the process slower.

According to a whitepaper published by Apna, approximately 12.5 crore jobs were lost in India as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them were either completely laid off or had received severe pay cuts or no salaries for the majority of the year. More than 30 % of the job losses took place in major cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Delhi. As a result, India saw an exodus of laborers migrating back to their home towns and villages from these larger cities. Those working in hospitality, salons, field sales, and back-office administration suffered the most layoffs, while there was a surge in last-mile delivery and logistics, frontline health workers, and allied technical categories.

As industries get a new lease of life, pan-India unlock guidelines unfold, and the fear of the pandemic subsides, it is imperative for companies to hire their frontline workforce. In order to ensure a speedy economic recovery for most industries, their hiring personnel must set the foundations strong. This implies that for a hotel to operate back at optimum efficiency, it must hire sizeable staff and train them in-time. Call centers must reopen with a substantial number of phone operators. Retail stores must have manned salespersons. Supply chain and logistics companies’ must hire an adequate number of delivery personnel. Construction companies must acquire carpenters, HVAC technicians, so on and so forth.

Industries that are leading the resurgence of blue-collar hiring is delivery segment, including food and grocery with demand returning back to 100% of the pre-COVID level. One of the key factors that can salvage several companies in industries that need blue-collar workers, is their talent acquisition, which needs to be fast but effective. Hire candidates in Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur & Ranchi  

Here are a few ways in which you can optimize your time and efforts and improve the speed at which you hire blue-collar workers:

1. Be clear on the job profile and pay scale

While most jobs in the blue-collar sector do tend to be vague, it would be extremely effective if hiring managers can nail down the key responsibilities and the average pay scale for each distinguished role, to set the right expectations from day zero.

2. Differentiate between skilled and unskilled laborers

While some jobs do not require specific skillsets such as that of a security guard or facility personnel; others like carpentry, painting, etc. do need relevant skillsets. In order to save time during on-job training, it is important for hiring managers to differentiate skilled and unskilled laborers and seek suitable candidates accordingly.

3. Narrow down platforms and vendors

Most blue-collar laborers thrive in communities and get their next gig via networks. In order for a hiring manager to acquire blue-collar laborers in bulk, and at record-time, it is important that they make a list of relevant portals, platforms, and vendors that can understand their needs, and fulfill them accordingly.

4. Harness the power of the internet

With the Jio phenomenon taking the country by storm, and increased digital literacy in semi-urban and rural areas, a lot of the daily wage and blue-collar laborers can be seen using the internet. This has given rise to several platforms that streamline opportunities for these workers and connect them with relevant employers. Apna, Aasaanjobs and Work India are few among the many that operate in this segment. Identify what works for you, and leverage it for results.

5. Create a pipeline to fight churn

Employee retention is a major concern, especially among blue-collar employees that jump ship for meager raises or other benefits. To mitigate the downsides of frequent employee churn, partner with platforms like Apna that helps you replace the workforce in record-time. Having a healthy pipeline of potential candidates to take the place of the current ones is important to ensure smooth business operations.

All in all, in order for your company to operate back at pre-COVID levels and even better, hiring plays a crucial role. In industries where most of the jobs are meant for blue-collar laborers, the challenge does not lie in quality but speed and efficiency. Unlike white-collar jobs, that need a curated approach and demand high cognitive aptitude and specific skill sets, blue-collar jobs require urgency. These are the jobs that lay the ground for any company upon which to stand tall. Hence, it is important to not just hire right but also hire fast.

apna is a job searching and professional networking app. Learn more at apna blog.

[ziqitzahealthcare]

Ziqitza : Indian Healthcare In India Needs Life Support

It is no surprise that the medical sector of India is appalling when compared to our competing nations, but we get away with it by masquerading as a ‘developing country’. However, with the onslaught of a pandemic that was predicted to happen, India needs to pull up its socks to gather momentum in its healthcare and medical equipment department. 

 Why India’s Healthcare Is Inadequate

Our current situation because of the spread of the Coronavirus shows how weak the disaster preparation of our country’s hospitals truly is, and the same mistake has been committed by other leading countries as well. The United States Of America has been reporting a continuous rise in COVID-19 cases and its death rate is significant as well. But this can’t be used as an excuse for a country like India to ignore our inadequacy and keep focusing on issues that divert attention from severe problems like our healthcare sector.

 What Stats Show That India Can’t Provide Basic Life Support To Its Citizens

For example, in India, for a heart attack victim to reach a hospital in an ambulance to get emergency treatment, it takes him/her 400 minutes. 400 minutes. The ideal transportation window is about 30 minutes to save the patient’s life by performing emergency procedures, but we take 370 minutes more than for it to be the most effective. After 180 minutes, the heart vessels suffer irreversible damage due to lack of blood supply but our ambulances still take more than 6 hours on average to take a heart attack victim to a hospital. Moreover, only 50% of the said cases are taken to the hospital, the rest never do receive ambulance services during a heart attack.

But these are ambulances we are talking about. If we dive into the situation of hospitals in India, it is both amusing and scary how weakly planned the medical sector of the world’s largest democracy is. 74% of doctors in India serve the 28% of the urban population, leaving the healthcare of 72% of the population living in rural areas dangling by a thread. Although it is not all bad, the Aayushman Bharat Scheme will cover up to Rs 5 lakh for 10 crores at-risk Indian families, most of them residing in rural areas or urban slums. Still, the healthcare that an average Indian receives is in no shape or form adequate for a person.

 Why Is Indian Healthcare Not Improving After Major Efforts By Everyone

There are several reasons why Indian healthcare continues to decline year after year despite government efforts and awareness raised among the population. A mere 1% of the GDP was spent on the Indian public healthcare system in the year of 2015. In a country where a third of its population is living below the poverty line, public healthcare must be pulled out of its inadequacy. 

The number of beds in Indian hospitals amounts to 7,13,986. This means that there are 0.55 beds for every 1,000 people in the country. If this stat wasn’t scary enough 12 states that make up for over 70% of India’s population lie below the 0.55 beds per 1000 people figure. The worst state is Bihar with only 0.11 beds per 1000, while states like Karnataka(8.6), Tamil Nadu(7.6), and Kerala(7.4) are some of the better ones.

This disparity is caused due to financial mismanagement in the public healthcare sector of India. Due to a tremendously low budget for an enormous population, the public healthcare of India cannot, not even on paper, serve the massive population that is dependent on it for treatments and other medical care. Private healthcare expenditure amounts to over 75% of the total expenditure on healthcare, a massive proportion for a country of our size. The Indian healthcare department plays a major role in continuing the cruel cycle of systematically keeping the rich rich, and the poor poor.

Because of a majority of healthcare options in India are beyond the capabilities of a person living below the poverty line, they either have to resort to poor public healthcare or no healthcare at all, while the rich people who can afford private healthcare make no strides in fixing the oppressive system

 What Can Be Done To Fix The Indian Healthcare System?

There are a lot of ways to go on about fixing the Indian healthcare system, but the most effective way would be more financial investment by the government. An increase in the proportion of GDP that is utilized by the public healthcare system would go a long way in increasing and improving the facilities of government hospitals.

An increase in expenditure can also be diverted towards paying government doctors more as the quality of practitioners in government hospitals and private hospitals is worlds apart. More money can attract talented but philanthropic practitioners towards public healthcare, ultimately leading to two birds being killed with one stone: Indian citizens receiving better healthcare and practitioners being compensated handsomely for providing said better healthcare. It is a big dream but the motion of big dreams should be set in early on.

 How does Ziqitza Help?

Ziqitza Healthcare ltd is a private emergency service provider that operates in a total of 16 states of India. It was co-founded by CFO Manish Sacheti in Rajasthan but has now moved its operations to Mumbai. Ziqitza is the largest social enterprise not only in India but in sub-Asia as well. We employ over 10,000 people involved in our blue/white-collar jobs and provide the people of India with the best emergency healthcare services they deserve. Ziqitza Limited is also experienced in operating health helplines across the country and operating private ambulances for individuals and Corporate wellness solutions. 

Moreover, Ziqitza Healthcare is involved in a multitude of public-private services. Ziqitza operates the national COVID-19 helpline 104, and since March 2020 we have handled over 16.3 lakh distress calls. Ziqitza operators are professionally trained to handle grievance and distress calls and handle them based on urgency. All of our employees are determined in helping you out to the fullest.

As the ambulances of India are in frightful conditions, Ziqitza Healthcare ltd has launched MMUs(mobile medical units) that provide basic and advanced life support systems as India reports an absurdly high number of preventable ambulance deaths. To know more about our MMUs click here.

Due to Ziqitza’s standardized protocols, quick response strategies, and trained staff, we are proud to announce that Ziqitza Healthcare has been awarded two prestigious emergency healthcare awards:

Best Post-Crash Service' at the FICCI Road Safety Awards

Integrated referral transport Ambulance Service in Madhya Pradesh at the Elets Annual Healthcare Excellence Awards

At Ziqitza, we aim to provide Indian citizens with emergency services better than the international standard through our dependable, hardworking staff, world-class equipment, and a zeal to help out people in need.

If you found this blog helpful check out more of us at our blog and read up more on our ambulance services here.

#Ziqitza Ziqitza Healthcare Ziqitza Healthcare ltd Ziqitza Rajasthan Ziqitza Limited Ziqitza ltd Ziqitza Healthcare limited Ziqitza Health ca

[aion-rsa]

Warrior Season 2 Episode 2 Review: The Chinese Connection

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This Warrior review contains spoilers.

Warrior Season 2 Episode 2

When Warrior was first announced, Bruce Lee fans were worried that this was going to be just another Bruceploitation. After all, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Bruceploitation flicks. Bruce Lee is the most impersonated icon on the planet. No one needed to see another weak caricature of the Little Dragon, even if it was on Cinemax.

However, Warrior isn’t Bruceploitation at all. The creator and writer of the show, Jonathan Tropper, credits Bruce’s daughter, Shannon Lee for making sure that Warrior didn’t go “overboard with the Bruce Lee stuff.”

Instead of Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) doing yet another Bruce Lee imitation, there are sequences in his fight choreography that reference timeless scenes from the Little Dragon’s films. There are also clever Easter Eggs throughout the show, like the character names O’Hara (Kieran Biew) and last season’s Bolo (Rich Ting). Both O’Hara and Bolo are the names of villains in Enter the Dragon however these characters are completely different in Warrior. 

This gives this episode title that extra ‘Wataaah!’ of excitement because The Chinese Connection was an alternate title for Bruce’s second major Kung Fu film, Fist of Fury. The closest Easter Egg title of Season 1 was episode 9, “Chinese Boxing.” Every Bruce fan remembers Ah Gung (Chin Ti) saying “Chinese Boxing!” as he pointed at Bruce and gave him the thumbs up. For this episode to take on the name of one of Bruce’s most beloved films, it had better deliver. And it does, especially with the most important facet of Warrior, the Kung Fu fighting.

Young Jun Gets Stabby

The first fight of this episode is a showcase for Young Jun (Jason Tobin). In their quest for cheaper product, Ah Sahm hooks Young Jun up with a new molasses connection through his fight manager Vega (Maria Elena-Lass). They visit Happy Jack (Nat Rambulana), an African drug dealer. There’s some historical basis to this. During the period when Warrior is set, there were attempts to produce opium in South Africa to undermine the British dominance of the global opium trade.

Opium was weaponized by the British as part of its strategy to establish colonial rule. This was largely controlled by the nefarious East India Company that smuggled opium from India, mostly to cripple China’s port cities. In Chinese coastal provinces during the mid 1830’s, it was estimated that 90% of the adult Chinese population were opium addicts. In San Francisco, opium was still legal and taxable until 1889 when local ordinances restricted it to medical use only. But beyond the nod to history, Rambulana is a South African TV star and Warrior was filmed in South Africa, so his appearance works on several levels.  

The deal with Happy Jack goes sour. This elicits a lovely bit of ultraviolence in which Tobin delivers a solid long take sequence. Long takes are the hallmark of good fight choreography because each movement increases the challenge exponentially. It’s a good showcase for Tobin’s Kung Fu and he sells his slice and dice attacks with a convincing ferocity.

Tobin has appeared in a few martial arts themed films before such as Beverly Hill Ninja, Rob-B-Hood, and House of Fury, but he’s most known for his other projects with Warrior’s producer Justin Lin including Better Luck Tomorrow and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Tobin is reprising his Tokyo Drift character in Lin’s upcoming F9, due out next year. In Warrior, Tobin nails the tough punk qualities of Young Jun perfectly. As the son of the leader of the Hop Wei, he’s been entitled yet he’s still eager to prove himself. His viciousness in battle is spot on.

For martial arts fans, there’s a subtle yet significant correction in Young Jun’s dagger play from Season 1. In episode 6 “Chewed Up, Spit Out, and Stepped On,” Young Jun deploys a conventional forward knife grip where the blade is on the thumb side of the hand. Double daggers like Young Jun wields are a common weapon in Kung Fu, however they are almost always used with a reverse grip where the blade is on the pinky finger side of the hand, more like an ice pick.

In the fight with Happy Jack’s squad, Young Jun deploys the more proper ice pick grip. It’s a trivial detail but given that Warrior is catering to the Kung Fu fandom, it’s important to get this right. 

The fight ensues after Happy Jack refuses to store the opium, leaving Young Jun and Ah Sahm in the lurch. Later, Penny (Joanna Vanderham) hires the Hop Wei to protect her coolie workers from the Irish, and Ah Sahm takes advantage of the situation to secretly store the opium at Mercer Steel. It’s not hard to project how this will turn out in upcoming episodes and adds even more tension to the relationship of Ah Sahm and Penny.

Blue Lives Matter

The Season 2 premiere left Chinatown in a bloody mess. Ah Sahm, Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng) and Lai (Jenny Umbhau) chopped up the racist Teddy Boys and Leary (Dean Jagger) blew up a factory that employed coolies. Chinatown is a tough beat for SF cops and O’Hara and Lee (Tom Weston-Jones) have a ton of work cleaning up.

They’re investigating the sword killings and the explosion while O’Hara wrestles with his obligation to the Fung Hai Tong and Zing (Dustin Nguyen) and Lee struggles with his growing laudanum addiction. O’Hara’s wife Lucy (Emily Child) grows more suspicious of her husband’s dealing and after a binge, Lee wakes up in a piss-soaked alley just as it is getting a fresh drenching. This episode’s title comes from Lee. After the partners question Patterson (Frank Rautenbach), Lee says to O’Hara that he’s trying to find ‘the Chinese connection’ in the sword killings.

O’Hara and Lee form a stereotypic police partner ‘buddy’ relationship: the old, jaded cop who is tainted by a corrupt system and the young brilliant detective who is too cocky to get along with the rest of the department. In their heart of hearts, they both want to be good cops, but their world is too dirty to stay clean. Biew gives his character a lot of soul as a father and husband just trying to do right by his family. Lee’s backstory is hinted at when he begins his laudanum binge, but his haunted past is still unclear. 

The repercussions of killings and the explosion result in the SFPD being lambasted at a political rally along with Mayor Blake (Christian McKay). Here, the parallels between the political climate of Warrior and America right now are disturbingly uncanny, especially because this was filmed a year prior. When the crowd starts chanting ‘Send them back,’ it is echoed by some of the rising anti-China sentiment today. The Exclusion Act comes up, foreshadowing worse times to come. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by congress and signed into law by President Arthur in 1882, so this provides some indication of where Warrior is set in time. 

Martial Melodrama and the Moonlight Sonata

Sophie (Celine Buckens) meets Leary at the rally, and they go to Leary’s place, the Banshee. She reveals to Leary that she’s Mercer’s daughter and while flirting with him, plays Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the pub piano. It sets up a poignant musical interlude at the end of the episode, so typical of television shows nowadays, where a tune is laid over all the characters as they ruminate over their various complicated circumstances.

The Moonlight Sonata is a melodramatic choice, and at the end it drifts into Warrior’s heavy guitar riffs. This feels a little overdone – the show leans too heavily on those guitar riffs – but Warrior redeems itself musically with its end credit Chinese raps, which have been solid throughout the entire show. 

The other ladies of Warrior continue with this season’s fashion show. When Mai Ling (Dianne Doan) hires the ex-Pinkerton man Nichols (Emmanuel Castis) to spy on Buckley (Langley Kirkwood), she’s wearing a luxuriant deep blue hooded robe and strange vambrace rings. She looks more like someone out of Game of Thrones than SF Chinatown. And Ah Toy appears later in a resplendent emerald gown with a flared collar more befitting of a Vulcan bride than a whorehouse madame.

But Warrior is a fantasy so the costume designers can be forgiven of indulging their leading ladies. As ridiculous and incongruous as these outfits appear when all the other characters are in period dress, Doan and Cheng fill out these outfits beautifully and are lieterally dressed to kill. They’re too busy looking good. 

Another new character is introduced in this episode. Enter Nellie Davenport (Miranda Raison), a wealthy widow committed to rescuing Chinese women from prostitution and exploitation. Davenport is the first character based directly upon a real historic figure, although plenty of artistic liberties have been taken with how she is depicted. The forthcoming interaction between her and Ah Toy is promising. Both Ah Toy and Davenport are strong women and given their principles and position, they are sure to go head-to-head in upcoming episodes.

Back to the Action

The finale fight in this episode is worth the wait. Mai Ling dispatches Li Yong (Joe Taslim) and Zing to stop a small time Tong from encroaching on the Long Zii’s opium business. Li Yong settles things peacefully, but Zing (Dustin Nguyen) is ready to pick a fight, and mayhem breaks out when he slashes the Tong leader’s throat. Taslim and Nguyen are the veteran martial artists on Warrior. Any fight scene that features their work delivers the level of masterful choreography one would expect from a show attached to Bruce Lee. 

Nguyen is remembered for his leading role as Harry Ioki on 21 Jump Street. Over the years, he’s appeared in several martial arts related Hollywood productions like 2 Ninjas Kick Back, Vanishing Son and Justin Lin’s mockumentary Finishing the Game.

However, he truly established himself as a martial arts star after he returned to his homeland, Vietnam. There he made a series of Vietnamese martial arts films: The Rebel, Clash, and Once Upon a Time in Vietnam. These films put Vietnam on the martial arts movie map. Solidly paced with brilliant choreography, they demonstrated that Nguyen is a force to be reckoned with and a serious practitioner of the martial arts.

He is credited as studying Muay Thai, Taekwondo and Bruce Lee’s creation Jeet Kune Do, but where he really shines is with the indigenous Vietnamese martial art called Vovinam. This style of fighting was seldom seen outside the country until Nguyen showcased it in his films. It gave him an extra stylistic edge in the martial arts genre. As Zing, Nguyen’s choreography is ruthless, befitting of the most villainous Tong leader in Warrior. 

Taslim is Indonesian and studied Wushu and Taekwondo. He is a decorated Judo champion who represented Indonesia in world competitions from 1997 to 2007 as a member of the national team. He medaled in two major Southeast Asian competitions and captured the gold in the national games.

Taslim appeared in the groundbreaking Indonesian film The Raid, which raised the bar on cinematic ultraviolence. That film also introduced Silat masters Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian, who have been dominating action films in recent years with appearances in films like Mile 22 and Stuber for Uwais and John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum and Wira for Ruhian. They even had a quick cameo together in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Following The Raid and its sequel, The Raid II, Taslim has appeared in Fast & Furious 6 and Star Trek Beyond. 

It’s no mistake that Li Yong was set up as the ultimate rival for Ah Sahm last season. Taslim is not just another stuntman throwing haymakers. He is at the top of his game choreographically and every in every fight scene he appears in has a crisp precision that can only be achieved by a veteran martial arts master. He moves with style and grace, doling out the damage with a sophisticated flair that Warrior demands. With Ah Sahm’s defeat at Li Yong’s hands in what was arguably the best fight scene in last season, Season 2 is all about that rematch. 

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Warrior Season 2 can be seen exclusively on CINEMAX.

The post Warrior Season 2 Episode 2 Review: The Chinese Connection appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Class Notes: Explaining the rise of populism, generosity in policymaking, and more

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Class Notes: Explaining the rise of populism, generosity in policymaking, and more

By Ember Smith, Richard V. Reeves

This week in Class Notes:

Lack of social mobility, rather than income inequality or cultural change, fuels populism.

Higher federal student loan limits make for better student outcomes, in terms of graduation rates, earnings, and loan repayments.

Acting selflessly makes people happy; smart policy design can capitalize on it.

This week’s top chart shows that most Americans think casual sex is always or sometimes OK.

The recession is already in the rearview mirror for high-income earners; the road to recovery for the bottom half, Catherine Rampell opines, will be long.

Check out a new piece by Richard Reeves and Katherine Guyot, which considers workers’ schedule and income uncertainty.

Limited time offer: As a loyal reader of this newsletter, we wanted to give you a chance to snag a free copy (while supplies last) of “A New Contract with the Middle Class,” an upcoming book from Isabel Sawhill and Richard Reeves. If you didn’t earlier this month, register here with a U.S. address.

A lack of social mobility explains populism’s rise

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, as well as Brexit and other European elections have generated plenty of speculation about the precise cause of rising populism. Different theories chalk it up to economic inequality, social media use, high levels of immigration, or older generational backlash against younger generations’ values. Eric S. M. Protzer tests several hypotheses across four elections in a quest to find the cause of populism’s rise. According to his study, the most likely culprit is a lack of social mobility. Drawing from data on long-term trends in social mobility and voting patterns in U.S. counties and European countries, Protzer suggests that low rates of mobility predict higher vote shares for populists causes or candidates. He argues that a sense of economic unfairness underpins voting decisions – and that populists seduce disillusioned voters by attributing inequity to elites or foreigners, especially where social mobility is in short supply.

Do student loan limits affect students’ success?

Over half of U.S. undergraduates depend on federal student loans to help pay for college, and many are constrained by the limits on borrowing. But would it be worthwhile for students to take on additional debt if the limit were higher? According to Black et al., the answer is yes, at least for students who are constrained by federal student loan limits. When the limit increases, these students borrow more—which improves their degree completion, raises their post-graduation earnings, and improves their student loan repayment rate. Contrary to student debt skeptics’ concerns, the authors find that increased borrowing benefits come at no cost to students’ homeownership or ability to repay other debt.

Generosity and happiness in policymaking

Acting selflessly – volunteering, donating, giving advice, sharing food, donating organs – makes people happy. And, according to Aknin & Whillans, policymakers can make the most of this emotional benefit by designing policies that give people autonomy, make them feel useful, and facilitate social connection. The authors demonstrate their reasoning in three policy areas: taxation, where taxpayers are more satisfied with paying and feel more connected to their community when they see how their money is allocated; blood donation – people are more likely to donate blood again when they can choose when to give, and when they see where their blood went; and workplace initiatives – giving employees the opportunity to donate, choose their preferred charity, actively engage in charity, and build social connections boosts morale and charity.

Top chart: Attitudes about premarital sex

This week’s top chart from Pew Research Center gauges views on premarital sex. The majority (65%) of survey respondents say sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is acceptable at least sometimes, while a quarter say it never is. Even casual sex is accepted by most (61%), with 29% saying it is “always” acceptable, compared to 24% who say it is “never” acceptable.

Choice opinion: Two economies, two recoveries

“There are two American economies right now: a buoyant recovery resting atop a possible depression. There’s the economy of higher-income, mostly college-educated white-collar workers: people who can still work from home (as I can), who can order delivery for nearly every need or desire, and whose finances have been barely dented by the recession, if at all. For these households, the recession is largely over…. Then there’s the other economy. That’s the economy of lower-wage, predominantly non-college-degreed, blue- (or pink-) collar workers. These are people once employed in restaurants, bars, hotels, salons, gyms and retail stores, who generally must show up in person, but whose customers are now afraid to do so,” writes Catherine Rampell for the Washington Post.

Self-promotion: Unpredictable work hours

Nearly 20% of workers know their schedules less than a week in advance. Companies profit from “just-in-time” scheduling, but their employees are paying the price. In their latest piece, Katherine Guyot and Richard Reeves find that unpredictable schedules constrain workers’ ability to arrange child care, result in uncertain incomes, and can put workers’ access to safety net programs at risk. The good news? Some companies and local governments are now cracking down on schedule uncertainty, and it’s improving both productivity and morale.

Last chance: Request your free book!

Isabel Sawhill and Richard Reeves have authored a new book entitled, “A New Contract with the Middle Class.” It covers five areas where the quality of life for the middle class could be improved: their relationships, their material resources, the allocation of their time, their health, and the respect they receive from others. If you didn’t last time and you’re a U.S. resident, submit your contact information and we will send you a free physical copy while supplies last!