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myalgias · 1 year ago

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Excerpts from the article:

Because it’s clear that being “the last public space” isn’t a privilege. It’s a sign that something has gone terribly wrong.

At the time, countless articles asked if new technology meant “the death of the public library.” Instead, the institution completely transformed itself. Libraries carved out a new role providing online access to those who needed it. They abandoned the big central desk, stopped shushing patrons, and pushed employees out onto the floor to do programming. Today, you’ll find a semester’s load of classes, events, and seminars at your local library: on digital photography, estate planning, quilting, audio recording, taxes for seniors, gaming for teens, and countless “circle times” in which introverts who probably chose the profession because of their passion for Victorian literature are forced to perform “The Bear Went over the Mountain” to rooms full of rioting toddlers.

In the midst of this transformation, new demands began to emerge. Libraries have always been a welcoming space for the entire community. Alexander Calhoun, Calgary’s first librarian, used the space for adult education programs and welcomed “transients” and the unemployed into the building during the Depression. But the past forty years of urban life have seen those demands grow exponentially. In the late 1970s, “homelessness” as we know it today didn’t really exist; the issue only emerged as a serious social problem in the 1980s. Since then, as governments have abandoned building social housing and rents have skyrocketed, homelessness in Canada has transformed into a snowballing human rights issue. Meanwhile, the opioid crisis has devastated communities, killing more than 34,000 Canadians between 2016 and 2022, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. And the country’s mental health care system, always an underfunded patchwork of services, is today completely unequipped to deal with demand. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, from 2020 to 2021, Canadians waited a median of twenty-two days for their first counselling session. As other communal support networks have suffered cutbacks and disintegrated, the library has found itself as one of the only places left with an open door.

When people tell the story of this transformation, from book repository to social services hub, it’s usually as an uncomplicated triumph. A recent “love letter” to libraries in the New York Times has a typical capsule history: “As local safety nets shriveled, the library roof magically expanded from umbrella to tarp to circus tent to airplane hangar. The modern library keeps its citizens warm, safe, healthy, entertained, educated, hydrated and, above all, connected.” That story, while heartwarming, obscures the reality of what has happened. No institution “magically” takes on the role of the entire welfare state, especially none as underfunded as the public library. If the library has managed to expand its protective umbrella, it has done so after a series of difficult decisions. And that expansion has come with costs.

#libraries #housing crisis #mental health #cdnpoli

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justinspoliticalcorner · 15 days ago

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Don Moynihan at Can We Still Govern?:

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last four years operating on a couple of assumptions: a) that there was a good chance Trump could return as President and b) that his return would dramatically alter the administrative state. As someone who studies public administration, I figured there was some obligation to communicate those risks. Now that Trump will, in fact, return, I want to summarize what are the most likely outcomes based on my prior writing. Doing so also forces me to make predictions, which is a good practice for being explicit about expectations in the present, and being humble about what I will get wrong when I look back at these predictions at some point in the future. And trust me, I would really like to be wrong by overstating the damage to come.

Trump will reinstate Schedule F, the Executive Order that will allow him to reclassify federal civil servants to be political appointee, and then to fire them. Trump cares intensely about controlling both his own appointees and the bureaucracy, demanding loyalty from them, and being able to dismiss them when that loyalty is not shown. His disdain for the administrative state is both deep and personal, not abstract or rhetorical. He may seek a court judgment to overturn the Biden rule to constrain Schedule F, but if that is not successful, a new rule will likely be in place within six months of his inauguration. By that point his appointees will have identified a) which employees will be reclassified, and b) who will be fired. Some more specific predictions:

I expect 50,000 will be the minimum number of career officials to be reclassified (we currently have 4,000 appointees, so, yes, this is an enormous change).

The initial wave of firings will be much less, say, in the realm of 1,000-2,000. Why? It is more rational for the administration to scare the bureaucracy into submission, and then use their capacity to get things done, then it is to engage in mass firings and then realize they don’t know how to run the government. Call this the “heads on pikes” strategy.

The number of Schedule F appointees will be proportionally higher in agencies that are viewed as liberal leaning (think HHS, Education, regulatory agencies), and lower in agencies viewed as more conservative (e.g. Customs and Border Patrol). It will be higher in agencies with a legal focus, e.g. DOJ, than it has historically been. Trump will especially target General Counsel and other legal positions in the government.

Once the initial round of firings has taken place, it will be used more selectively to remove public officials that Trump’s actual appointees have disagreements with. “Resistance” which might take the form of suggestions that the administration follow the law, will be grounds for dismissal.

There will be a court case seeking to overturn Schedule F, but this Supreme Court will suddenly forget the major questions doctrine and decide that the President has the right to put in place the biggest change to the civil service system since it was created in the 1880s.

What I am outlining assumes a relatively rational President that still recognizes and values administrative capacity. In other words, I see this as a best case scenario. But people around Trump (such as Vance and Musk) have called for broader purges, and Trump himself does not really care for competence. If they decide to make a gutting of public employees a central theme of their administration, the outcome could be much worse: hundreds of thousands of reclassifications and firings. I don’t think that is the most likely outcome, but neither is it unlikely.

A second Trump term will still be chaotic, but more competent. In his first term, Trump really did face resistance, as much from his own appointees as much as from the bureaucracy. The type of appointees in a second term will be much less like John Kelly or Jim Mattis — people with a lot of public experience who see serving the President as a public duty — and more like Russ Vought or Stephen Miller — smart and capable appointees who know how to manage the bureaucracy, and are either personally loyal to Trump or see him as the best vehicle to achieve their shared goals. As described above, Trump will have new tools to quash dissent within the bureaucracy. So, I expect that a second Trump term will enable him to achieve more of his goals, even as I also think this will result in worse public services. For example, expect a general gutting of regulation. This does not mean that Trump will revert to being a normal President, albeit one with far right goals. Trump appears to enjoy the chaos and has little interest in governing. Some of the appointees he attracts and favors will be the same. Some of these are also big egos — think RFK Jr. or Musk — who will fall out with Trump at some point. So the chaos will not disappear, but that does not mean that the government as a whole is not changing in dramatic ways.

Trump will bring a new era of corruption to government, which will largely go unpunished. A feature of Trump’s Presidency is that he has not abided by norms to reduce conflicts of interest between his public and private roles. He has more business interests than he had in his first term (notably in social media and crypto) that foreign governments can use to curry his favor, or threaten his net worth. He will not set aside those interests. The potential for corruption goes beyond Trump and can take different forms.

Trump will engage in a mass pardon of people who broke the law to serve him, including those who attacked Congress on January 6.

A huge proportion of federal money goes through the contracting process. The chances that a lot of federal dollars will now go to Trump supporters has increased.

Musk faces regulatory oversight of his businesses from the federal government, and benefits from federal contracts. Giving Musk, in turn, oversight of those agencies as an efficiency czar generates even bigger conflicts of interest than those of Trump. It may be that Musk loses interest in this role, but even having some sort of advisory role allows him to pick up the phone and make suggestions about which regulator should be fired. Other major donors are in the same position.

All of this, featuring quid-pro-quo exchange of money, influence and power, or clear conflicts of interest, satisfies what most people understand to be corruption. But it turns out we were relying mostly on norms and not rules to rein in Presidential malfeasance. The Supreme Court has offered Trump broad immunity in his presidential office, and Trump does not have to run again. With acquiescent General Counsels and Inspectors General, and terrified bureaucrats, there is little reason to expect constraint at this point. Since much of what I described might be in a grey area that does not violate the laws in obvious ways, I expect actual prosecution of corruption will be rare. Trump will control the DOJ, who are already planning to end their investigations of him. His appointees will dominate the courts. The worst stuff may be the legal stuff, or what we come to accept as legal, happening out in the open. As we come to accept it, we accept a degraded version of ethics in American governance.

[...]

Government institutions will become more aggressively authoritarian. This will not occur uniformly. Regulatory agencies with enforcement responsibilities will withdraw from challenging businesses. Some, such as the IRS or DOJ, may use enforcement powers selectively, setting aside the principle of equal treatment before the law in order to target the President’s enemies. And some coercive power will be deployed on the streets of America. This includes the DHS targeting immigrants, with massive round-ups and camps, supplemented with support from National Guard and local police (at least in red states). If people protest, Trump will be ready to deploy the military to subdue dissent. Some may welcome the images of armed officials engaged in the use of force. I suspect for many others it will become the defining and illegitimate face of government power in the coming years.

[...]

And the public may simply disagree on what constitutes failure. Advocates for Musk have pointed to Twitter as a reason why he should be put in charge of government reform. He cut staffing to the bone, and the app still works. If your only goal is cutting costs, Musk’s tenure at Twitter has indeed been a success. And for Musk and Trump fans, the experience may even be better. But Twitter is worth a fraction of its former value, and the experience is bad enough that many have left. The polarized response to Musk’s Twitter could mirror how the public assesses the Trump attack on government. The federal government will not suddenly collapse, people will be fired, and Trump supporters will be happy. For others, the shortcomings of Trump’s approach will be obvious from the start, even if the direct effects take longer to present themselves to the mass public. But a split electorate is not enough to change Trump’s approach, anymore than it was to cause Musk to change course with Twitter.

In the long run, the Republican Party, and not Trump, will face whatever penalty emerges from those failures. Republicans may want to look at the Tories in the UK, who were riding high after the Boris Johnson election victory, but who took a historical beating when Johnson departed, and the brand of the party had been deeply tarnished. But currently, there does not seem to be a constituency within the Republican Party for good governance. In some spaces, failures may be difficult or impossible to unwind. Government capacity is like reputation: it takes a long time to build, but can be damaged relatively quickly. Potential public employees are likely to be skeptical about a career in the public service even after Trump departs, because that choice now involves some risk of working for an authoritarian who could fire you for simply doing your job. In some policy areas, such as the environment, the damage done in the next four years may have a meaningful long term effect on how habitable the planet will be for our children that cannot simply be reversed by a more competent administration.

[...] Anti-institutionalist politics will extend beyond the federal government, and the use of formal powers. The MAGA movement has an uneasy relationship with institutions. Their politics is defiantly anti-institutionalist. But unlike more traditional conservatives, they show little inclination for smaller government, and greater interest in using government power to achieve their goals. In 2022, I wrote a paper that tried to map out these contradictory tendencies, entitled Delegitmization, Deconstruction and Control which spoke to the strategy of the movement: attack institutions you don’t control, deconstruct those that you do, and exert close control once you have them. These institutional attacks will extend beyond the federal government, and include higher education, and the media, the nonprofit sector and private companies. For example, philanthropies seen as unfriendly to Trump could have their tax status investigated. In particular, I am worried about the many ways federal officials can use resources and power to politicize what is taught on campus. To a greater extent than in 2016, I expect more institutional accommodation of Trump, rather than institutions advertising themselves as sites of resistance. This is in part because of the threats Trump has made, but also because his worldview has had 8 years to gain support among Trumpists who have perfected their critique of those institutions. For example, DEI was already on the back foot in higher education, whether Trump won or lost. Now higher education institutions have stronger incentives to respond to that critique. While federalism serves as a natural check on federal executive power, grants and waivers can be used to influence state and local governments. But it is also the case that there are other forms of power that are not formal. Trump has created a movement where intimidation of public officials has become the norm. The use of terror as a governing strategy will continue. Federal public servants will be publicly attacked by the President and his appointees. They were during the first administration. The difference now is that many of those attacks will lead to, or be used to justify, firing those officials. Public officials at the state and local levels seen at odds with Trump can expect the same treatment, joining the host of librarians, teacher, emergency responders, public health and election officials, who have come to experience terror as a feature of their jobs.

The tyrannical Trump Administration’s 2nd go-around will drastically alter the administrative state and turn civil service into a politicized spoils system.

#Donald Trump #Trump Administration #Schedule F #Regulatory Powers #Major Questions Doctrine #Civil Service #Trump Administration II

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beardedmrbean · 22 days ago

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GABORONE, Botswana -- The party of Botswana's opposition candidate Duma Boko was declared the election winner Friday over incumbent President Mokgweetsi Masisi in a seismic change that ended the ruling party’s 58 years in power since independence from Britain.

Masisi conceded defeat even before final results were announced, with his Botswana Democratic Party trailing in fourth place in the parliamentary elections in what appeared to be a humbling rejection by voters and a landslide victory for the main opposition party.

Hours later, Chief Justice Terence Rannowane announced that the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change party had won a majority of seats in the election, making its candidate, Boko, the next president of the southern African country, which is one of the world’s biggest producers of mined diamonds.

Masisi said he had called Boko to inform him he was conceding defeat.

The final results of the election were yet to be formally declared, but Rannowane said the UDC had reached the 31-seat threshold to win a majority.

“I concede the election," Masisi said in an early-morning press conference two days after the vote. "I am proud of our democratic processes. Although I wanted a second term, I will respectfully step aside and participate in a smooth transition process.”

“I look forward to attending the coming inauguration and cheering on my successor. He will enjoy my support.”

Masisi's BDP dominated politics in Botswana for nearly six decades, since independence in 1966. The nation of just 2.5 million people will now be governed by another party for the first time in its democratic history.

“We lost this election massively,” said Masisi, a 63-year-old former high school teacher and UNICEF employee. “I have not packed a shoe. I did not expect it,” he added.

Boko is a 54-year-old lawyer and Harvard Law School graduate who also ran in 2014 and 2019. He didn't immediately comment but posted on his official page on X: “Botswana First” with a picture of a UDC campaign poster with the words “Change is Here.”

Botswana has been held up as one of Africa's most stable democracies and is regarded as a post-colonial success story having built one of the highest standards of living in the region through an economy that largely relies on diamonds. Botswana is the world's second biggest natural diamond producer behind Russia and has been responsible for all the biggest diamonds found in the last decade.

But Botswana faces new challenges and the mood for change became evident as a downturn in the global demand for diamonds badly impacted the economy, becoming the central issue for the campaign.

Unemployment rose to more than 27% this year, and significantly higher for young people, as the government saw a sharp decrease in revenue from diamonds. Masisi and his party had faced criticism for not having done enough to diversify the economy and the nation has been forced to adopt recent austerity measures.

Even the BDP conceded throughout its campaign that policy change was needed and tried to convince voters it was capable of leading the country out of its economic troubles. Diamonds account for more than 80% of Botswana's exports and a quarter of its GDP, according to the World Bank.

Masisi said the country had hardly sold any diamonds since April through its Debswana company, which the government jointly owns with diamond miner De Beers.

Botswana's general elections decide the makeup of its Parliament, and lawmakers then choose the president. The party that gains a majority is in position to choose its candidate as president. All five of Botswana's post-independence presidents have been from the BDP.

The BDP was one of the longest-serving parties in Africa still in power and its sharp defeat came as a surprise after what was expected to be a tight race. It followed an equally momentous change in neighboring South Africa, where the long-ruling African National Congress lost its 30-year majority in an election in May and was forced to share power for the first time in a coalition government.

#nunyas news #like when pri lost in mexico after forever #not sure if either party is good or bad #but a change is good hopefully #good luck botswana

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mariacallous · 10 months ago

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Much of India came to a standstill on Jan. 22, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi consecrated a temple in the northern city of Ayodhya commemorating Rama, a warrior-king worshipped by Hindus as a god. Schools, colleges, and offices closed and central government offices gave a half-day off to all employees. Some expectant parents even cajoled obstetricians to schedule cesarean sections on the day so that their children are born at the auspicious moment coinciding with the temple’s opening.

Such a public display of religiosity by the Indian government and its leadership may seem peculiar, particularly to those who cherish secularism. But India moved away from the state’s traditional interpretation of secularism a decade ago, when Modi led the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power. With the next national elections only a few months away, Modi has choreographed the Ram temple consecration to consolidate his Hindu vote (about 80 percent of the country’s population is Hindu). The political intent is clear: Cutouts of Modi grace lampposts on the airport road in Ayodhya, with similar images of Rama added almost as an afterthought. In an audio message on social media this month, Modi said, “God has made me an instrument to represent all the people of India.”

The ongoing construction of Ram Mandir is very controversial in India. From the early 16th century until 1992, a mosque known as Babri Masjid stood on the site—built during the time of the emperor Babur, the first Mughal to rule India. Many Hindus say that Babur destroyed a temple honoring Rama that previously stood on the land, which they believe is Rama’s birthplace. In the 1980s, Hindu activists began a movement to reclaim the site and build a temple there. In December 1992, they razed the mosque, an act that shocked the nation.

But in the past two decades, India has changed, and Hindus clamored for the land to be restored to them. In 2019, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that although the initial act of demolition was illegal, it would offer the site to a Hindu trust to build a temple and grant land elsewhere to a Muslim trust to rebuild a mosque. Although the construction of the Ram Mandir is not yet complete, Modi needs the imagery for his election campaign, and so the consecration will go ahead. Some opposition parties, including the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India, did not send their top leadership to the ceremony; however, some Congress leaders were divided over the boycott and at least two attended.

Rama, for many Hindus, is maryada purushottam—the ideal human being who sacrifices himself for others. His is the kind of life to which lesser mortals should aspire; his heroism is based not simply on battlecraft, but upon his ability to put others’ interests before his own. In the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, Rama is the prince of Ayodhya who is about to become king when one of his father’s wives demands that Rama go into exile, and the succession passes to her son instead. Rama leaves with his wife, Sita, and brother Lakshmana. The king of Lanka, Ravana, abducts Sita, and Rama mobilizes an army of monkeys to invade the island fortress, defeating Ravana and rescuing Sita. After 14 years, Rama finally rules Ayodhya, leading to a golden age.

The BJP sees the construction of the Ram Mandir temple as evidence of its single-minded determination, no matter how long it takes. Formed in 1980 by some members of the former Janata Party, the BJP initially struggled electorally. It briefly held power in the 1990s and led a coalition government between 1999 and 2004. In 2014, Modi projected himself as committed to development and boosted the BJP’s vote share to win a majority of seats in parliament with 31 percent of the national vote; five years later, the party increased its tally to 303 seats out of 542, winning 37 percent of the vote. The temple project follows other promises kept by Modi’s government: revoking the special autonomous status of Indian-administered Kashmir and introducing a citizenship act that created a pathway to Indian citizenship for asylum-seekers from neighboring countries but excluded Muslims. Modi has shown that he is the man who gets things done.

The BJP capitalized on three major changes that occurred in India in the 1980s to build its identity and increase its vote share. First, many Indians bristled at how India practiced secularism, perceiving the government as granting special favors to religious communities, such as subsidies for Muslims to perform the Hajj and curriculum exemptions for faith-based schools. Second, Indians were tired of living in an economy beset by sluggish growth and shoddy products due to socialist policies that restricted foreign investment and trade. (That changed in 1991, when the Congress government deregulated the economy.)

Finally, India was a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement, but the appeal of nonalignment was fading with the decline of Soviet influence and the eventual disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Congress party ruled India for most of its first 49 years post-independence, and it was instrumental in developing India’s secularism, socialism, and nonalignment. The BJP took advantage of public disenchantment and stepped into the void, promising “equality for all, appeasement to none,” to promote a market-based economy, and to reset its foreign policy, often aligning with Western interests. (Still, the BJP pursues strategic autonomy in many respects, such as its continuing trade ties with Russia despite Western sanctions.)

Most politicians have the next election on their mind; Modi and the BJP leadership have the next generation in mind. After all, more than 40 percent of Indians have no living memory of the Babri Masjid mosque. Even in the early years, the party began influencing India’s younger generations in the states where it came to power first, changing textbooks and rewriting history to downplay the roles of Mahatma Gandhi and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (and his family members who later came to power) and project alternative heroes who were more militant and outwardly Hindu. By promoting Rama as the warrior-king who ruled over an ideal state, the BJP aims to create a constituency of voters who see their identity primarily in religious terms and equate the Hindu faith with the nation of India.

To the BJP’s core voters—the hardwired Hindu nationalists—the party has promised to restore Hindu glories, embodied by the Ram Mandir temple. The events in Ayodhya have set a precedent: Some party activists want to transform more mosques (and, in some instances, churches), claiming they were also built where Hindu temples once stood. The triumphalism around the temple construction is so vicious that not only is it the opposition leaders boycotting the event who are facing criticism, but also four seers of the Hindu faith who have raised a range of objections—including the choice of Modi to perform the ceremony, which they say should be presided over by a priest.

The Hindu nationalist movement’s elevation of Rama over other Hindu deities is also strange. Hinduism is polytheistic, and its literature does not rest on one book. Many interpretations are liberal, and some contradict each other: Skepticism and atheism are also part of certain strands of Hinduism. In the late 1980s, I interviewed Morarji Desai, who had served as India’s prime minister representing the Janata Party. I asked him what he thought of the movement to build the Ram temple on the site of Babri Masjid, and he suggested that the BJP’s ultimate goal was to undermine Hinduism’s pluralism and turn it into a faith with one book (the Ramayana), one place of worship (Ayodhya), and one god (Rama). The slogan now reverberating through Ayodhya and much of India is Jai Shri Ram, or “Victory to Lord Rama.”

Rama is an exceptionally interesting and nuanced literary figure and well-loved outside of India, especially in Southeast Asia. But many Indians do not take kindly to works that present Rama in a different light, such as the late poet A.K. Ramanujan’s celebrated essay, “Three Hundred Ramayanas,” which shows how the epic’s characters appear in different forms and offer different interpretations in India and beyond. Nina Paley’s charming 2008 animated film that draws on the Ramayana, Sita Sings the Blues, was also controversial. The latest victim of this outrage is a Tamil film released on Netflix last month, Annapoorani, about the daughter of a Hindu priest who wants to be a chef; her Muslim friend encourages her to pursue her dream, correctly citing a verse from the Ramayana that shows that Rama ate meat. Some Hindus who practice vegetarianism for religious reasons were offended; Netflix withdrew the film, and the actor who played the protagonist issued a public apology on a “Jai Shri Ram” letterhead.

India is no longer a land of nuances. A significant part of its population wants an assertive government and a black-and-white narrative where subjugated Hindus are reclaiming their identity, and the foreigners who colonized the country in the past—the British and, before them, Muslims—are cast as villains. Such an approach risks turning a multidimensional country into a cardboard caricature of itself. The Ram temple consecration marked another milestone on that path—which Modi walks in the hope of getting elected once again.

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 1 year ago

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Brazil Central Bank employees upping strike threats

The union representing Central Bank workers announced preparations to increase pressure on the government as they seek higher wages. Bank workers will escalate go-slow operations that started two months ago, amid perceptions that the government is ‘unwilling’ to negotiate.

In a statement, the union says this mobilization by aggrieved staff will delay the Central Bank’s schedule to launch new ways to wire money through PIX, Brazil’s instant payments system.

“Without a complete career restructuring, Central Bank workers’ representatives foresee an inevitable dismantling of the specialist career — a situation that has worsened over the past decade with raises below inflation and growing disparities compared to similar careers,” the union said on Monday.

The demands of the Central Bank workers include the creation of a productivity bonus for specialists, in line with other government sectors; the requirement of a college degree for technician positions at the bank; and the changing of the ‘analyst’ job title to ‘auditor.’ The union complains that José Lopez Feijóo, the Management Ministry’s labor relations secretary, declined to provide a date for presenting a counterproposal to the workers.

#brazil #politics #brazilian politics #economy #workers' rights #central bank #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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newengen · 1 year ago

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To Ban, or Not to Ban: Our Take on How Marketers Should Be Thinking About TikTok

The Latest TikTok News

Tensions between TikTok and the U.S. government came to a head this month after the Biden administration threatened to ban the app should the company refuse to divest from its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance. The escalation comes amidst warnings from U.S. lawmakers that China’s investment in TikTok poses a threat to national security and opens the door for the Chinese government to influence content moderation on the platform.

To top it all off, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced Congress last Thursday and attempted to reassure U.S. lawmakers that the company has implemented measures to address their concerns. Central to Chew’s defense was TikTok’s plan to roll out what it calls “Project Texas” - a $1.5 billion project to migrate American user data to Texas-based Oracle. In another key moment, Chew rebutted accusations that TikTok’s algorithm has adverse effects on kids by pointing to steps the company has taken to protect its younger users.

A Marketing Perspective

Apart from the political drama, TikTok also made headlines this month after its announcement that 150 million American users are on the platform. The app’s popularity and influence are undeniable, and marketers are uniquely aware of this: there’s an appetite for short-form video that won’t be curbed by a TikTok ban. An eMarketer survey from November 2022 found that 63% of TikTok users would move to another platform, with Instagram being the favored alternative. And these platforms are already evolving their video capabilities to meet consumer demand - Instagram introduced 90-second videos last year, and Meta recently followed suit.

So, What Does TikTok Have to Say About All of This?

In response to last Thursday’s hearing, TikTok circulated a Myth vs. Fact Sheet, which counters what the company calls inaccuracies surrounding its ownership, content moderation, and data security. A few notable examples, transcribed directly from the document, include:

“Myth: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd., is Chinese-owned.*

Fact: TikTok’s parent company ByteDance Ltd. was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly sixty percent of the company is beneficially owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group. An additional twenty percent of the company is owned by ByteDance employees around the world, including nearly seven thousand Americans. The remaining twenty percent is owned by the company's founder, who is a private individual and is not part of any state or government entity.”

*Despite TikTok’s attempt at myth-busting ByteDance’s association with the Chinese government, it has been reported that "golden shares" give the Chinese government the ability to appoint a seat on the company's board.

“Myth: TikTok manipulates content in a way that benefits the Chinese government or harms American interests.

Fact: TikTok is an entertainment app. The content on TikTok is generated by our community. TikTok does not permit any government to influence or change its recommendation model.

Myth: TikTok collects a significant amount of sensitive data on its users.

Fact: TikTok's privacy policy fully describes the data the company collects. There have been many inaccurate claims about our policies and practices that have gone unaddressed by the media. To be clear, the current versions of the TikTok app do NOT:

*Monitor keystrokes or content of what people type when they use our in-app browser on third-party websites;

Collect precise or approximate GPS location in the U.S.;

Use face or voice prints to identify individuals.

In line with industry practices and as explained in our privacy policy, we collect information to help the app function, operate securely, and improve the user experience. We constantly update our app and encourage users to download the most current version of TikTok.”

*This talking point conveniently omits what happens off the app via TikTok browser trackers, or “pixels.” But more on that in a minute.

Formalities aside, TikTok knows that the best way to reach an audience is, well, through TikTok. Ahead of his testimony on March 23rd, Chew appeared on TikTok’s verified account to address his upcoming congressional hearing and remind users of what’s at stake - that a ban could “take TikTok away” from 150 million users, 5 million business accounts, and 7,000 U.S.-based TikTok employees.

Creators Sounding the Alarm

TikTok has found support from its creators, who have taken to the platform to sound the alarm about what a ban, in the form of the S. 686 RESTRICT Act, would mean. One example comes from creator @sayheyjames, who recently published a video that generated 12.2 million video views and 2 million likes in the span of a week. In this video, he calls out elements of the bill that he says will “fundamentally change” how we use the internet, like the proposed legal consequences of using VPNs to access banned apps and the ban on hardware manufactured by “foreign adversaries” (including China, Russia, and Iran).

There are countless examples of this type of content, with trending hashtags like #tiktokban accumulating 2 billion views. Given how much creators have to lose in this debate, it’s no surprise that they’re leveraging the platform to create a sense of urgency around the issue.

Making Sense of it All

It’s near impossible to predict what happens next because there’s no playbook on how to best navigate the aftermath of a ban on a platform like TikTok. Kevin Goodwin, VP of Performance Marketing at New Engen, offers some perspective:

“Precedent matters. We have zero precedent for a nationwide ban of such a popular technology and entertainment platform. Since we’ve never seen it happen before, all marketers are skeptical that TikTok will be the first to pay the price. Take Meta and Google for example - they consistently face legislative pressure for specific products and ways of working (albeit on a smaller scale), yet have never been materially impacted in their ability to provide products to users and advertisers.”

On top of the legal and political complexities of a theoretical TikTok ban, the cultural and economic implications are massive. New Engen VP of Performance Marketing, Adam Telian, puts it plainly,

TikTok has done an amazing job of creating demand for a specific type of content which, it seems, a good portion of the world can’t get enough of. Our position is that, even if TikTok gets banned, the format and the attention it demands isn’t going anywhere.

Another key piece of the equation is TikTok creators, who help differentiate the platform from other major social media players. This is why New Engen leaders are asking, “what will happen with creators?” Many creators are already operating cross-platform, but those with an outsized presence on TikTok are at risk of losing potency in their existing brand partnerships. It will be incumbent on brands to diversify their influencer partnerships and plan accordingly for a creator migration to Reels, Shorts, and Triller (or maybe a resurrected Vine) in the wake of a TikTok ban.

“Once we figure out where the creators are moving,” Adam Telian says, “it will be up to the platform to prove they can retain user attention, and deliver the same results and consistent innovation we've seen from TikTok.”

Actions for Marketers (Whether You’re on TikTok Yet or Not)

For the time being, there are several actions marketers can take to leverage TikTok as it exists today.

New Engen Clients Operating on TikTok

These clients are embracing a business-as-usual approach to their TikTok strategy, but they’re also prepared to be agile and flexible as the situation unfolds. Kevin Goodwin explains, “We continue to recommend brands take a diversified channel strategy and approach to short-form video to hedge any extreme risk. We want to avoid the rare scenario where the government bans TikTok and one of our clients suddenly has 50%+ of their revenue at risk.”

In practice, this means incorporating Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts into short-form video strategies, and, as mentioned above, ensuring that content creator programs aren’t over-dependent on the TikTok app and its toolset.

New Engen Clients Not Yet on TikTok

We are advising clients who are not yet on TikTok to move forward with their investment. “Even if TikTok does get banned,” Adam Telian explains, “clients can be using this time to refine their creative approach and learn how to unlock meaningful performance that should translate to whichever platform fills the vacuum created by a ban. And if it doesn’t get banned, then they’re ahead of where they would be if they chose to wait for the dust to settle."

New Engen Clients Concerned About Data Privacy

Anna Otieno, Head of Research & Insights at New Engen, reminds us, “Privacy and security are the top concerns right now, particularly for companies and government institutions. As we head into a world of cookie-less advertising and first-party data, control is key.” She notes that, regarding TikTok, “It’s been confirmed that the app - like Google and Meta - gathers information about people as they move around the internet. TikTok partners with companies that embed tiny website trackers “pixels” to better measure and target ads - usually without user notification.”

With this in mind, some New Engen clients have chosen to refrain from implementing TikTok’s tracking pixel. This allows brands to maintain their presence on the platform without compromising their first-party data.

It’s important to note, however, that creators tend to have a difference of opinion on this front. Anna Otieno tells us that, "While privacy and security are important to TikTok users, content creators are less concerned given the tradeoff. In fact, most social media users know that their data is tracked and shared to make sure ‘the algorithm is working.’ TikTok’s remixed creator fund, known as the Creativity Program Beta, aims to help creators “generate higher revenue potential.” What’s the price of opportunity and revenue? Data."

#tiktok #digital marketing #marketing #social media #content creators #marketing news #seo #advertising

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villainanders · 1 year ago

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Unpopular opinion:

I think aveline's basic premise is salvageable if any 2 of these 3 things happened

- she got actual character growth and didn't fight against the idea of acknowledging her mistakes at every opportunity (post-night terrors, her condolences for Leandra, the start of demands of the qun, favor & fault)

- promotion only happened until act 3 mostly if not entirely because of her role in the invasion and her closeness to Hawke with the templars putting them under closer scrutiny

- she became a competent guard captain, either always being that way by some definition, or improving to get there

like idk. I feel like it's a reductive approach to say acab about her whole thing and move on when the guards aren't even the dominant power in the city compared to the templars, if you made the plot with her & them more centrally about bigotry against ferelden immigrants and the templars grabbing power, kirkwall having some actual self governance it's just. idk I could see that happening with a little nudge in the plot here and there and I'd like to see it. I could fix her

i think a lot could have been done with aveline to make her character work and it simply just wasn't. personally i don't even know that i need her to like become a better person or whatever i just wanted to see movement in some kind of direction! i think aveline's situation is legitimately interesting and fits in well with a game known for companions who are purposely polarizing and difficult but it feels like da2 really does not want to recognize those qualities in aveline -- or at least didn't consider that there's anything a character might clash with her over beyond a potentially ~chaotic~ character clashing with a lawful one. personally i like her making guard in act 1 even though it is a little unrealistic because it sets up what i feel like her storyline could have been - her idealism in believing she can actually achieve justice/peace through the guard clashing with the reality of being a part of an inherently corrupt system and the way it stands in the way of actually accomplishing good. i feel like her act 1 quest sets her up perfectly for that and then gets followed with "aveline needs to get laid" and "aveline's employees only like her if she gets laid". huh!!!

also agreed 100% there were more interesting things that could have been done with her and anti-ferelden xenophobia and the templars seizing control of the city. all things that could have been explored but i guess we had to get her a husband first! god forbid otherwise!

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202101040caic2223 · 2 years ago

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The Tales of Trump's Blunders: How His Stupidity Ruined His Career

Introduction:

Since the early 20th Century, the American population has been plagued by self-indulged douchebags, paving their careers with racism. Donald J Trump is one of those people.

Donald John Trump

Born June 14th 1946 to Fred Trump (a real estate developer and businessman) and Mary Anne MacLeod (a domestic worker).

45th President of the United States of America

Colossal a**hole

Donald Trumps racism spans back to the 1970s and possibly even earlier, a busy-body businessman who believed he had the whole world in his hands. Little did he know what the future would hold for him. From money pay outs to national hatred to presidency, Trump's racism didn't stop him and he continued due to lack of repercussions for such poor behaviour.

Chapter 1: Violation of the Fair Housing Act

This story begins during the administration of Richard Nixon. Trump was working as a real-estate developer, much like his father. His name branded businesses from hotels to golf courses to residential housing. Trump's first indictment was the US department of Justice suing him for refusing to rent to Black tenants, violating the Fair Housing Act. Some would say this is bravery, majority would call it stupidity. Blunder #1.

Chapter 2: The Central Park Five

Trump continued for the next decade to subtly wreak his racist havoc but no-one expected this racist fuelled event. A "modern-day" lynching of one Latino teenager and four Black teenagers, who were accused of raping a jogger in New York City. Trump jumped at the opportunity to take charge of the case, starting with running an ad demanding the death penalty should be reinstated.

After spending many years in prison, the teenagers' convictions were overturned due to false conviction and false evidence. In return for the trauma the teenagers had faced, the city paid a settlement of $41 million (approx. $100 million in 2023). Although, even 27 years later, despite DNA evidence to support it, Trump believes the five teenagers were guilty of their "convictions". HOW UTTERLY UNBELIEVEABLE! Blunder #2 (Arguably one of his biggest mistakes).

Chapter 3: John O'Donnell, The Plaza Hotel and Casino, Lies and more lies

The year is 1991, two years since Trump's conviction of five innocent teenagers. John O'Donnell, the former president of Atlantic City's Trump Plaza and Casino, published a book quoting the "I'm not racist" Donald Trump, regarding his criticism of a Black accountant. He quotes “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.” It's genuinely crazy to think that some awful-minded people can say absurd things like this and admire themselves for it. But clearly Trump can't control his tongue. What makes this blunder even worse is that he agreed with O'Donnell and seemed pleased about it. ABSOLUTELY REVOLTING! Blunder #3.

As a businessman, Trump's establishments continued to grow financially and in popularity. However, the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino seemed to cause many a problem for Trump. This time, one of many, he had to pay a $200,000 fine because it moved Black and women employees from tables to accommodate the piggish prejudices of his big-time gamblers. There's no forgetting here how much money meant to D. J. Trump. Blunder #4.

Trump's web of lies continued to grow throughout the late 20th Century, pouring into the 21st Century. In 2000, Trump felt threatened by his upcoming competition, a casino ran by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe. The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council is "the duly elected and recognised government of the Mohawk people. Both New York State and the United States deal exclusively with the Tribal Council Chiefs in a government-to-government relationship." They work together to build a better tomorrow. To crush his competition, he ran secret ads which suggested that the tribe has "a record of criminal activity that is well documented." The tribe were of Indian heritage, proving yet again that his actions were fuelled by racism.

The lies and deception were amplified by the New York Institute for Law and Society, a new self-described grass-roots anti-gambling group that cruelly targeted the St. Regis Mohawks. Its campaign in 2000, supposedly supported by 12,000 “pro-family” donors, warned of the evils an Indian casino would bring: “increased crime, broken families, bankruptcies and, in the case of the Mohawks, violence.” Trump's racism had successfully trumped (no pun intended) his opponents, but spread his plague of racism to others. Blunder #5.

Chapter 4: The Apprentice

Maybe the 2000s would be a fresh start for Trump?

Nope. His racism still continued controlling everything he did and said.

In 2004, whilst on the Apprentice, Trump fired Black contestant Kevin Allen for being too educated. (Is that even possible? Does that just mean more educated than him? Or was it another attack on the Black population?) Trump quoted "You're an unbelievably talented guy in terms of education, and you haven't even done anything. At some point you have to say 'That's enough.'" Yet again, threat of competition brought out the vile racist side of Trump. Surely he has a good side?

In a 2016 interview with a former Apprentice contestant, Kwame Jackson stated “Trump has created a toxic ecosystem in our political discourse." “Trump has appealed to the lowest common denominator of fear, racism and divisiveness in our populace. And this mix is never the path to American progress.” Blunder #6

The following year Trump publicly pitched the idea of "The Apprentice: White People vs. Black people." A fairly controversial idea where he would create a team of successful white people versus a team of successful African-American people. Now, Trump stated that "Whether people like the idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world." Ultimately, Trump is pitching the idea of segregation between the white population of America and the African-American population of America. IT'S THE 21ST CENTURY, WHY REVERT BACK TO SEGREGATION?! His absurd idea was immediately shut down by NBC executives. Blunder #7.

Chapter 5: Muslims and the Obama controversy

Into the 2010s, we as a worldwide population would hope that Donald Trump would come to his senses, well don't expect too much.

Trump continued with his insensitive, racist comments, but let everyone in on his thought on national television. In 2010, a proposal arose to build a Muslim community centre, near the memorial of the 9/11 attacks. Trump stepped in and stated how insensitive and inconsiderate that would be. Aww lovely, he's cracked down on his racism. Absolutely not, he took to live television on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and stated how he believed it was the Muslim population that were targeting Americans, 'Well, somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.' Does he even have a brain? Some people have no filter and clearly Donald John Trump is bloody well one of them! Blunder #8.

Barack Obama was the first Black president of the United States of America, and he was a threat to Donald Trump. No shock there! Trump played a huge role in creating rumours that Obama was not born in the US. He claimed to send investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama’s birth certificate. One of the many reasons for this clear confusion was due to Obama spending a small part of his childhood in Indonesia, due to his mother divorcing his American father and remarrying an Indonesian man. Obama later released his birth certificate, calling Trump a “carnival barker.”

Trump's attacks on Obama didn't stop there. He continued to degrade the President of the United States by suggesting that Obama wasn't educated enough to both Colombia and Harvard Law School. He pressured the President to release his university credentials and provide proof due to it not being possible. It is without a doubt a racist attack, stating that Black people couldn't possibly be smart enough to attend such high-end university. Trump continuously attacks Obama because of his "lack of credentials" yet Trump didn't attend either. Can't bring a man down who is already up high. Blunder #9

From the 1970s through to the 2010s, people may believe that Trump acted insensitively with lack of care for other. Whilst not overtly racist, his attacks post-Obama truly show the evils which lie within.

Chapter 6: Crime, Drugs and Bans

Trump's attack on Mexicans during his Presidential campaign truly showed that he would stop at nothing, regardless of the ramifications. Even though there are plenty of occasions where Trump has resulted to racism to prove his power and influence, he still became the President of the United States of America. How? Understandably, no President is perfect, there will always be a back story, something that holds them back, but Trump's past attacks are not forgivable. It wasn't like he'd stop once he became President, unfortunately as his power grew, so did the awfulness of his racism.

At the launch of his campaign in 2015, he started by stating that Mexican immigrants were "rapists" who are "bringing" and "bringing drugs" to the US. Throughout his campaign, he highlighted his idea of building a wall between the border of Mexico and the United States to stop the "immigrants" coming into the States. As of October 2020, there were 669 miles of "primary barrier" reports the US Customs and Border Protection. Blunder #10

In 2015, Trump's racism didn't stop there. Reverting back to his old ways, Trump attacked the Muslim population putting them under the "umbrella of terrorists." He called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, much like with the Mexican population. During his administration he subtly implemented a weaker version of the policy. In 2017, his policy was implemented and was in effect indefinitely. However, it was only in effect for certain people from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen who did not have “bona fide relationships” with people or businesses in the United States. Blunder #11

Chapter 7: The Press Conference

Donald Trump didn't stop at press conferences, he seemed well-aware of what he was saying and the implications that went with it. At press conference, Trump showed to the nation that he views black people as a monolithic “other” — a group of people who work and behave in exactly similar ways. Not only does this seem to define an entire group of people down to a lowest common denominator, but it’s also simply dehumanizing to treat individuals as only part of a bigger group.

In his pitch to black voters during the campaign, Trump said, “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?” What a horrible thing to say, especially to a large population who you relied on to become President? Blunder #12

The image above shows the percentage of votes for each party by each race. The above statistics show that Trump relied heavily on white American voters, whilst Clinton obtained the majority of her votes from the Black community. It is without a doubt that the Black population would have thrown their votes to Clinton as Trump's racism focussed mainly on the Black community.

Chapter 8: Coronavirus

2020 was a difficult time for the globe, time seemed to freeze but be flying by all that the same time. Trump wasn't expecting such an issue to arise during his presidential term. Many tweets posted by President Trump contained direct attack at the Chinese nation. At the beginning of the coronavirus before the world went into lockdown, Trump tweeted that he was trying his hardest to work with China and stop the spread of coronavirus, but ultimately became an opportunity to use his racism to blame others for the rising cases of COVID-19. Alternative names were given to the spreading virus by the President, including the "Chinese virus" and the "Kung Flu".

"Anti-Asian sentiment depicted in the tweets containing the term 'Chinese Virus' likely perpetuated racist attitudes and parallels the anti-Asian hate crimes that have occurred since," said Dr. Yulin Hswen, an assistant professor of epidemiology at UC, San Francisco and the study's lead author. After many experts have encouraged a different term for the coronavirus, including the World Health Organisation, Trump still continues to throw racism as the home nation of the coronavirus. Referring to it as the "Chinese virus" encourages further turmoil and hate for a nation that has already faced too much. Donald Trump needs to sit down and have a long hard think of what it would feel like if America had been in China's shoes. He sure wouldn't stand for it. Blunder #13

Chapter 9: The ending

Trump's racism has made him into the person that he is. Not only was he a terrible President, he is a terrible person. Racism is defined as: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. The ultimate question to ask is: why are people racist? What does one gain from it? Power? Pleasure?

Blunder after blunder, from violating laws to contributing to the USA-Mexico wall, why wasn't Trump punished for his actions? Even when Obama was President, why was nothing done to stop such a stupid man?

Why is Trump racist? Why weren't there any repercussion? Throughout school and throughout life, children are told that racism is a very bad thing and that it makes you a bad person to be racist. So why is one of the most negatively influential men of the 21st Century not punished for being racist? Why are there double standards?

These will always be questions that will be left unanswered and your opinion is your opinion.

#caic2223

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newstfionline · 2 years ago

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Tuesday, November 29, 2022

The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths (NYT) About a thousand people gathered on a bright morning on the National Mall the Saturday before Thanksgiving for what has become an American tradition: mourning a roadway fatality. With the Capitol in the background, the crowd had assembled to remember Sarah Debbink Langenkamp, who was biking home from her sons’ elementary school when she was crushed by a semi truck. Ms. Langenkamp was, improbably, the third foreign service officer at the State Department to die while walking or biking in the Washington area this year. The U.S. has diverged over the past decade from other comparably developed countries, where traffic fatalities have been falling. This American exception became even starker during the pandemic. In 2020, as car travel plummeted around the world, traffic fatalities broadly fell as well. But in the U.S., the opposite happened. Travel declined, and deaths still went up. Safety advocates and government officials lament that so many deaths are often tolerated in America as an unavoidable cost of mass mobility. Americans die in rising numbers even when they drive less. They die in rising numbers even as roads around the world grow safer. American foreign service officers leave war zones, only to die on roads around the nation’s capital. In 2021, nearly 43,000 people died on American roads, the government estimates. And the recent rise in fatalities has been particularly pronounced among those the government classifies as most vulnerable—cyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians.

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa erupts, officials warn people to prepare (AP) The world’s largest active volcano was erupting Monday and wasn’t immediately threatening communities on Hawaii’s Big Island, but officials warned residents to be ready for worse. Many current residents weren’t living there when Mauna Loa last erupted 38 years ago. The U.S. Geological Survey warned the roughly 200,000 people on the Big Island that an eruption “can be very dynamic, and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly.” The eruption began late Sunday night following a series of fairly large earthquakes, said Ken Hon, the scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

The great mismatch: Remote jobs are in demand, but positions are drying up (Washington Post) Lori Black has been firing off dozens of applications with one goal: to land a work-from-home job. But four months in, her search is starting to feel impossible. Positions are in short supply, and rejections have been plentiful. Nearly three years into a pandemic that reshaped workplace norms and put the balance of power squarely in the hands of employees, the tides are shifting again. The job market—although still hot—is slowing, and many Americans who had been working from home are being called back into the office. That has led to a tug-of-war between what employees want and what employers are willing to give them. Wage increases are plateauing, signing bonuses are cooling off, and fewer companies are allowing people to work from home than they did even a few months ago. Demand for remote jobs remains near all-time highs, even as companies roll back telework positions.

Mexico’s López Obrador leads massive pro-government march (AP) Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Mexico’s capital Sunday in a show of support for President Manuel López Obrador, who before assuming the presidency had led some of the country’s biggest protests. The “people’s march” marked four years in office for the leftist leader and was a response to a large opposition march two weeks ago to protest López Obrador’s proposal to reform the country’s electoral authority. The president himself led Sunday’s march through central Mexico City, which was accompanied by mariachi music, singing and a festive atmosphere. Many participants had been bused in from provinces across Mexico in trips organized by the ruling Morena party, unions and social groups.

Cuba’s informal market finds new space on growing internet (AP) In the Telegram group chat, the messages roll in like waves. “I need liquid ibuprofen and acetaminophen, please,” wrote one user. “It’s urgent, it’s for my 10-month-old baby.” Others offer medicine brought from outside of Cuba, adding, “Write to me in a direct message.” Emoji-speckled lists offer antibiotics, pregnancy tests, vitamins, rash creams and more. The group message, which includes 170,000 people, is just one of many that have flourished in recent years in Cuba alongside an exponential increase in internet usage on the communist-governed island. The informal sale of everything from eggs to car parts—the country’s so-called black market—is a time-honored practice in crisis-stricken Cuba, where access to the most basic items such as milk, chicken, medicine and cleaning products has always been limited. Before the internet, such exchanges took place “through your contacts, your neighbors, your local community,” said Ricardo Torres, a Cuban and economics fellow at American University in Washington. “But now, through the internet, you get to reach out to an entire province.”

Police bring down European cocaine “super cartel” (AP) Law enforcement authorities in six different countries have joined forces to take down a “super cartel” of drugs traffickers controlling about one third of the cocaine trade in Europe, the European Union crime agency said on Monday. Europol said 49 suspects have been arrested during the investigation, with the latest series of raids across Europe and the United Arab Emirates taking place between Nov. 8-19. Over 30 tons of drugs were seized during the investigations run in Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UAE with the support of Europol. “The scale of cocaine importation into Europe under the suspects’ control and command was massive,” Europol said, adding that the suspects used encrypted communications to organize drugs shipments. More than 214 tons of cocaine were seized in the region in 2020, a 6% increase from the previous year, and experts from the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction believe that amount could reach 300 tons in 2022.

Europe’s south offers a warm welcome to energy migrants (Reuters) Software developer Victor Varlamov logs in every morning to work on a sunny Spanish island off the coast of Africa after the prospect of steep heating bills and a winter made harsher by the Ukraine war drove him to leave his adoptive home in Poland. He is not alone in pursuing a warmer, cheaper way of life as tourist boards across southern Europe have seized on the cost-of-living crisis to advertise the benefits of wintering abroad to those living in more northerly countries. Varmalov, 50, together with his wife and teenage daughter, moved from Poland’s Baltic coast to Gran Canaria in Spain’s Canary Islands two months ago and plans to stay for the coming months. Before leaving Gdansk, where he has lived since 2016, Varmalov calculated he could save 250 euros ($259) on rent each month and pay 140 euros for all his utilities and internet, instead of the 200 euros he was paying for electricity alone in Poland. What he now saves, he spends on eating out, he said, and also enjoys beach walks in his lunch breaks. “The reality is better than my expectations,” he said.

As Winter Looms, Snowfall and Mud Present New Hardships for Ukraine (NYT) Increasingly frigid winter weather presented new challenges for Ukraine on Sunday as mud churned up the battlefield and snowfall made the government’s task of restoring power supplies devastated by weeks of Russian bombing all the more urgent. The state energy company urged Ukrainians to continue to use electricity sparingly to avoid overwhelming a national grid that has been weakened by repeated barrages of Russian cruise missiles and drones. Analysts say that while fighting is unlikely to stop for winter, the weather will make it harder for both armies to maintain troops in the field. In the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces have pummeled for months but failed to capture, residents have taken to cutting down trees and foliage to burn for warmth, its utilities having been destroyed by unrelenting attacks. The ground, not yet frozen, has turned to mud, sticking to uniforms and weapons and ensnaring vehicles, military and civilian alike. Analysts said that cold can affect morale, and that mud will present a particular obstacle for vehicles over the next few weeks before the ground freezes.

China’s Xi faces threat from public anger over ‘zero COVID’ (Bloomberg) The protests that erupted against China’s Covid Zero strategy represent one of the most significant challenges to Communist Party rule since the Tiananmen crisis more than 30 years ago. How Xi Jinping responds to it may end up being just as pivotal for the country’s future. From the capital Beijing to the far western outpost of Kashgar, Chinese residents frustrated by lockdowns and mass-testing campaigns have taken to the streets in recent days to urge change. In Shanghai—stricken by a grueling two-month Covid clampdown earlier this year—one crowd called for Xi to step down, defying the risk of a long prison term. Demonstrations ranged from a few people to street rallies of hundreds. Easing the outcry presents Xi with perhaps his biggest policy dilemma after a decade in power. A rapid exit from Covid Zero could fuel a surge in deaths, undercutting Xi’s efforts to cast China’s pandemic response as superior to that of the West. Cracking down on the protests, on the other hand, could build public sympathy for a cause that has already demonstrated nationwide support.

Succession Rumors in North Korea (1440) The 10-year-old daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made her second-ever public appearance over the weekend, sparking rumors over her potential future in the country’s male-dominated leadership hierarchy. Her appearance, the first of which came earlier in the month, makes her the first to be publicly confirmed as one of Kim’s children. Named Ju Ae, she is believed to be Kim’s middle child, with an older brother aged around 12 and a younger sister around 5 years old. Her abrupt debut has left international observers speculating about the status of Kim’s supposed eldest child, a boy who has never been revealed in public. Fueling further speculation, she was introduced with honorifics describing her as her father’s “most beloved” and “precious” child. The tightly scripted events come a year after Kim supposedly suffered undisclosed health problems, though those reports have been disputed.

Japan births at new low as population shrinks and ages (AP) The number of babies born in Japan this year is below last year’s record low in what the the top government spokesman described as a “critical situation.” The total of 599,636 Japanese born in January-September was 4.9% below last year’s figure, suggesting the number of births in all of 2022 might fall below last year’s record low of 811,000 babies, he said. Japan is the world’s third biggest economy but living costs are high and wage increases have been slow. The conservative government has lagged on making society more inclusive for children, women and minorities. So far, the government’s efforts to encourage people to have more babies have had limited impact despite payments of subsidies for pregnancy, childbirth and child care.

Water levels in Zimbabwe’s biggest dam too low for power (AP) Electricity shortages that have been plaguing Zimbabwe are set to worsen after an authority that manages the country’s biggest dam said water levels are now too low to continue power generation activities. The Zambezi River Authority, which runs the Kariba Dam jointly owned by Zimbabwe and neighboring Zambia, said in a letter dated Nov. 25 that water levels are at a record low and electricity generation must stop. The Kariba South Hydro Power Station provides Zimbabwe with about 70% of its electricity and has been producing significantly less than its capacity of 1,050 megawatts in recent years due to receding water levels caused by droughts. The dam “no longer has any usable water to continue undertaking power generation operations,” said the authority’s chief executive officer, Munyaradzi Munodawafa, in a letter to the Zimbabwe Power Company. The authority “is left with no choice” except to “wholly suspend” power generation activities pending a review in January when water levels are expected to have improved.

#headlines #news

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sistaffingsblog · 4 days ago

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Why Baltimore, MD is Home to Some of the Best Employment Agencies in the Region

Baltimore, MD, often referred to as "The Charm City," is not just known for its vibrant culture, diverse neighborhoods, and rich history—it also stands as a central hub for employment opportunities. As one of the largest cities on the East Coast, Baltimore is home to a variety of thriving industries, and its strategic location makes it a prime destination for businesses and job seekers alike. With this dynamic job market comes the abundance of employment agencies in Baltimore, which play a critical role in helping connect top talent with employers.

But why is Baltimore such a great location for employment agencies, and what makes its staffing firms stand out from those in other regions? In this article, we’ll dive into the factors that contribute to Baltimore being home to some of the best employment agencies in the region and how these agencies benefit both job seekers and employers.

1. Diverse and Expanding Job Market

Baltimore boasts a diverse economy with a broad range of industries that are constantly in need of skilled professionals. These industries include healthcare, information technology (IT), education, finance, government services, and manufacturing. As a result, the demand for staffing services is high, with Employment Agencies in Baltimore MD needed to match skilled candidates with the right employers.

Key Industries Driving Demand for Employment Agencies:

Healthcare: With top medical institutions like Johns Hopkins Medicine, the University of Maryland Medical System, and the Baltimore VA Medical Center, healthcare staffing is a major part of Baltimore’s job market. Employment agencies specializing in healthcare are often in high demand to provide nurses, doctors, medical technicians, and administrative staff.

IT and Technology: Baltimore's tech scene is growing rapidly, with tech companies, cybersecurity firms, and research organizations looking for top IT talent. Employment agencies in this sector are vital for connecting tech professionals with the region’s expanding startup culture and established tech firms.

Education: Baltimore is home to renowned universities like Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Employment agencies specializing in education roles help place teachers, administrators, and other education professionals in schools and academic institutions.

Government and Nonprofit: With its proximity to Washington, D.C., Baltimore has a strong presence of government-related and nonprofit organizations. Employment agencies that focus on government contracting and nonprofit sector placements are vital to the region’s economy.

The diversity of these industries requires employment agencies to have specialized expertise in matching candidates with positions in various sectors, making the agencies in Baltimore particularly effective.

2. Strategic Location and Economic Hub

Baltimore’s geographic location—situated between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia—places it in the heart of the Mid-Atlantic region, making it an economic hub with connections to a wide range of industries and global markets. It is also located near major transportation centers, including the Port of Baltimore, BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, and an extensive highway system.

This strategic location benefits employment agencies in Baltimore in several ways:

Access to a large talent pool: Baltimore attracts talent from the surrounding areas of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and even Delaware, expanding the pool of candidates available to staffing agencies. The city’s proximity to major metropolitan areas also makes it a convenient location for job seekers looking for new opportunities.

Regional economic growth: The economy of Baltimore is growing, and with it, the need for staffing services. Employment agencies help businesses keep pace with the demand for new employees and specialized talent in various industries.

For job seekers, this means more job opportunities and an easier connection to employers looking for their skills. For employers, the high-quality staffing agencies in Baltimore can help them find top candidates from a larger pool.

3. A Reputation for Quality Staffing Services

Baltimore’s employment agencies have built a reputation for quality staffing services over the years. Many agencies have established strong relationships with top employers in the region, making them trusted partners for both job seekers and businesses. These long-standing relationships allow agencies to deeply understand the specific needs of each employer and ensure they can match candidates with the right roles.

How Employment Agencies in Baltimore Stand Out:

Industry Expertise: Staffing agencies in Baltimore specialize in different industries, allowing them to provide candidates who meet the specific demands of each sector. Whether it’s a highly technical role in IT or a managerial position in healthcare, these agencies have the expertise to place candidates who are the best fit for their clients.

Tailored Services: Many Employment Agencies in Baltimore MD provide personalized support to both job seekers and employers. For job seekers, this may include resume reviews, interview coaching, and ongoing career advice. For employers, agencies offer recruitment services tailored to their organizational needs, from temporary staffing solutions to permanent placements.

Proven Track Record: Baltimore’s top staffing agencies have proven track records of successfully placing candidates in roles. Whether you’re a job seeker looking for your next opportunity or an employer searching for the right candidate, you can trust these agencies to deliver.

The combination of experience, industry knowledge, and a commitment to quality has contributed to Baltimore’s reputation as a city with some of the best employment agencies in the region.

4. Access to Specialized Talent

Baltimore’s diverse economy requires specialized talent in a variety of fields, and employment agencies in the area have the expertise to find and place candidates with specialized skills. Whether a company needs a highly experienced IT professional, a qualified healthcare worker, or a skilled manufacturing employee, staffing agencies in Baltimore can access a network of specialized candidates who meet these needs.

Specialized staffing agencies play an essential role in filling critical positions that require unique skills or certifications. For example:

Healthcare staffing agencies work with medical professionals like nurses, physicians, and medical technicians who have specialized training or certifications.

IT staffing agencies focus on placing tech professionals who have certifications in software development, cybersecurity, and systems engineering.

Finance and accounting agencies specialize in matching accountants, auditors, financial analysts, and other financial professionals with employers who need their expertise.

The ability to connect employers with candidates who possess niche skills is one of the defining characteristics of Baltimore’s top employment agencies.

5. Strong Community and Networking Opportunities

Baltimore has a tight-knit business community that fosters networking, collaboration, and growth. Employment agencies in the region benefit from this strong sense of community by having access to a vast network of local employers, businesses, and organizations. These relationships help agencies stay connected to the latest job openings and hiring trends, which allows them to better serve both employers and job seekers.

Networking is particularly important in a city like Baltimore, where many companies rely on local agencies to find talent. As a result, employment agencies in Baltimore are often deeply integrated into the business landscape, which helps them stay ahead of hiring trends and foster long-term connections.

6. Economic Resilience and Stability

Baltimore has demonstrated strong economic resilience in the face of challenges like recessions and shifts in global markets. The city’s economic stability makes it a prime location for employment agencies, as they can confidently connect employers with talent, knowing that both the economy and demand for workers remain steady.

Employment agencies in Baltimore have weathered economic ups and downs by adapting to changing demands in the workforce. This adaptability and stability make agencies in the city a reliable resource for both job seekers and employers, as they can depend on the agencies to match talent with the right opportunities, even in challenging times.

7. Access to Top Employers in the Region

Baltimore is home to some of the top employers in the region, including major hospitals, universities, technology companies, and government agencies. Employment agencies in the city have established relationships with these employers, making them a crucial link between the talent pool and the organizations that need skilled workers.

These top employers often partner with staffing agencies to fill open positions quickly, which provides job seekers with access to well-established companies and prestigious organizations in the Baltimore area.

Conclusion

Baltimore, MD, offers a unique combination of economic diversity, specialized talent, and a thriving business community that makes it home to some of the best employment agencies in the region. These agencies are well-equipped to connect job seekers with opportunities across a wide range of industries, from healthcare and IT to education and manufacturing. With their expertise, strong networks, and reputation for quality service, employment agencies in Baltimore are key players in the local job market, helping both employers and job seekers navigate the ever-changing world of work. Whether you’re an employer looking for top talent or a job seeker in search of your next career move, Baltimore’s employment agencies offer the resources and connections you need to succeed.

#Employment Agencies in Baltimore MD #Employment Agencies in Baltimore #Employment Agencies #Employment #maryland #education #baltimore

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sankhlaco · 5 days ago

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Understanding Minimum Wages in India: A Critical Analysis

Minimum wages play a crucial role in ensuring fair compensation and protecting workers from exploitation in the labor market. In India, the concept of minimum wages is not just an economic necessity but also a socio-legal mandate to uplift the working class and ensure equitable growth.

This blog explores the framework, significance, and challenges of minimum wages in India.

What are Minimum Wages?

Minimum wages refer to the minimum amount of remuneration that an employer is required to pay workers for their labor. This ensures that workers can meet their basic needs and live a dignified life. In India, the fixation and revision of minimum wages are governed by the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

Objectives of Minimum Wages in India

Eliminate Exploitation: Prevent underpayment and ensure fair remuneration.

Reduce Poverty: Provide workers with income security to meet basic needs.

Promote Equity: Bridge the income gap between skilled and unskilled workers.

Boost Productivity: Motivate workers through fair compensation, improving efficiency.

Key Provisions of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948

1. Coverage

The Act applies to all employments listed in its schedule, which includes both organized and unorganized sectors. It empowers state governments to expand the schedule based on local conditions.

2. Fixation of Minimum Wages

Authorities determine minimum wages for various sectors, skill levels, and regions. These wages can differ by:

Industry.

Type of employment (skilled, unskilled, clerical, etc.).

Geographic region.

3. Revision

Minimum wages must be reviewed and revised every five years or sooner, accounting for inflation and economic changes.

4. Enforcement

Inspectors and labor officers are responsible for ensuring compliance, and non-compliance may result in penalties, including fines or imprisonment.

How Minimum Wages are Determined in India

The calculation of minimum wages considers:

Cost of Living: Prices of essential goods and services.

Standard of Living: Basic human dignity and living standards.

Skill Levels: The complexity and expertise required for a job.

Economic Conditions: Sectoral productivity and employer capacity to pay.

Two key components of minimum wages are:

Basic Wage: Fixed amount for the labour rendered.

Variable Dearness Allowance (VDA): Adjusted for inflation, linked to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Challenges in Implementation

1. Fragmented Structure

The dual governance by central and state governments often leads to inconsistencies in wage rates across regions and sectors.

2. Non-Compliance

In the unorganized sector, which employs over 90% of the workforce, enforcement remains weak.

3. Inflation Adjustments

Periodic revisions do not always keep pace with inflation, eroding the real value of wages.

4. Skill Disparities

The Act doesn’t adequately address growing skill gaps and demands in emerging industries.

Significance of Minimum Wages in India

Social Justice: Ensures dignity and equality for the working class.

Economic Stability: Boosts purchasing power and reduces income inequality.

Industrial Relations: Promotes harmony between workers and employers by providing a fair wage baseline.

Poverty Reduction: Directly addresses income poverty by setting a floor for earnings.

Recent Developments

The Code on Wages, 2019 consolidates and simplifies wage laws, including the Minimum Wages Act. Key highlights include:

National Floor Wage: A central benchmark to guide states in setting minimum wages.

Uniform Coverage: Applies to all employees irrespective of sector or skill level.

Digital Payments: Encourages transparency in wage disbursal.

Streamlined Compliance: Reduces complexity in labor laws for businesses.

Way Forward

Strengthen Enforcement: Enhance monitoring mechanisms, particularly in the unorganized sector.

Bridge Disparities: Standardize wage rates across states and sectors.

Account for Inflation: Conduct frequent revisions to align with real-time economic conditions.

Skill-Linked Wages: Establish clear wage distinctions based on skill levels and certifications.

Minimum wages in India are a powerful tool to uplift the working class and promote economic equity. While significant strides have been made since the introduction of the Minimum Wages Act, systemic challenges remain. A robust enforcement framework, coupled with periodic revisions and alignment with economic realities, can ensure that the policy achieves its intended objectives of fairness, dignity, and inclusivity.

What are your thoughts on the current state of minimum wages in India? Share in the comments below!

#MinimumWages #LabourRights #EconomicEquity #WorkerWelfare #IndianLabourLaws #CodeOnWages #FairPay #WageReforms #LabourEconomics #InclusiveGrowth

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beardedmrbean · 2 years ago

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The prospects for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) next year look almost as gloomy as at the end of 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Uutissuomalainen news group report (siirryt toiseen palveluun) in Jyväskylä's Keskisuomalainen.

The article reviews a fresh survey by the Finnish Confederation of Industries (EK) showing that 41 percent of SMEs are preparing for layoffs next year. Ten percent said that they may have to close down in 2023.

"The outlook is bleak in many respects. The biggest challenges are related to the rise in the prices of raw materials and energy due to Russia's war of aggression. At the same time, there is a shortage of skilled labour," said EK Chief Policy Advisor Jari Huovinen.

Other major challenges are a decline in domestic sales and weakening liquidity.

According to Huovinen, the outlook is particularly bleak for the smallest employers.

"They have gone from crisis to crisis. Many have pretty much used up their financial buffers," noted Huovinen.

According to the report, only 23 percent of small and medium-sized companies believe that demand will increase during the coming year. Just over one third anticipate a decline in demand.

The outlook is pessimistic all around the country – gloomiest in northern regions and somewhat more optimistic in Uusimaa and Pirkanmaa.

A company with at least two, but fewer than 250 employees is considered an SME. There are approximately 84,500 such firms in Finland.

Nato and nukes

Helsingin Sanomat reports (siirryt toiseen palveluun) on an interview Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto (Green) gave to the Japanese news agency Kyodo News in which he said that Russia's nuclear weapons programme was one of the key factors influencing Finland's application for Nato membership.

HS notes that the interview, published on Sunday morning, was quickly picked up by the Russian state-owned news agency Tass which misreported Haavisto as saying that "Russia's alleged nuclear threats were the main reason for Finland's desire to join Nato."

According to Helsingin Sanomat, Haavisto spoke more broadly about Finland's Nato decision and mentioned Russia's nuclear weapons as one of several reasons behind the application.

The paper points out that this was nothing new.

For example, the Finnish government's report on changes in the security environment, published last spring, stated that Russia has "repeatedly expressed its readiness to use nuclear weapons". That report was one of the key documents considered when Finland's foreign policy leadership decided to apply for Nato membership last May.

Not gas dependent

The farmers' union paper Maaseudun Tulevaisuus (siirryt toiseen palveluun) looks at some of the historic reasons that Finland is buffered from the impact of natural gas shortages which now threaten much of central Europe.

In Finland, district and electric heating are overwhelmingly the most common forms of heating services.

Riku Huttunen, who heads the Energy Department at Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, pointed out to the paper that one key reason for this is that unlike central Europe, Finland does not have natural gas deposits.

According to Huttunen, when district heating networks started to be built in the 1950s, natural gas was not even an option. The Soviet Union started exporting gas in the mid-1970s, and by that time, district heating networks in Finland had already been practically completed.

Finland's wood processing industry started co-production of electricity and heat before the Second World War. Later, the lessons learned from the wood processing sector were adopted by cities, which started building plants that produce both electricity and heat.

Wood, oil and nuclear power are the main sources of heating and electricity production in Finland.

Even more snow

The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) is forecasting over 10 centimetres of fresh snowfall around most of the country over the next few days, and 20cm to 30cm in some areas, according to Helsingin Sanomat (siirryt toiseen palveluun).

FMI has issued warnings of hazardous driving conditions in the north on Monday, and the same in southern, central and eastern parts of the country on Tuesday.

Temperatures over the next few weeks will remain a few degrees below the average.

In the dark

It's the time of year that we here in Finland spend much of our time in the dark.

In an item that might bring readers some comfort, Hufvudstadsbladet reports (siirryt toiseen palveluun) that Tuesday, at least for a brief time, almost all of humanity will be in the dark.

On 6 December, at 9:56 PM local time, the most populated areas in the world will simultaneously be on the night side of the earth - nearly 9 out of 10 people worldwide will experience darkness at the same time.

Although the sun will be up in the Americas, New Zealand and most of Australia, the earth is much more densely populated around Asia, Africa and Europe, meaning that a full 86 percent of humanity will have the sun at least 18 degrees below the horizon, and so some darkness, all at the same time on Tuesday.

#nunyas news #updates from up north #i cast magic missile

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forblogmostly · 5 days ago

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Board Meeting Updates: K&R Rail Engineering Limited Reports Financial Results

In a significant update for stakeholders, K&R Rail Engineering Limited, a prominent player in the engineering sector, has disclosed the outcomes of its recent board meeting held on November 11, 2024. The meeting, convened at the company’s registered office in Hyderabad, addressed critical financial and operational updates, reflecting the company’s ongoing commitment to transparency and performance optimization.

A Meeting of Strategic Importance The board meeting commenced at 4:00 PM and concluded at 6:00 PM, marking a comprehensive two-hour session where the board deliberated on and approved crucial matters. Central to the agenda were the unaudited financial results—both standalone and consolidated—for the quarter and half-year ending September 30, 2024. Additionally, the board reviewed and endorsed the Limited Review Report for the same period, aligning with regulatory obligations stipulated under Regulation 30 read with 33 (3)(c) of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015.

Financial Highlights The unaudited financial results reveal the company’s robust operational capabilities and adaptability amidst a dynamic market environment. Revenue from operations for the quarter stood at ₹16,116.58 lakhs, a testament to the company’s strong project execution and steady market demand. For the half-year ending September 30, 2024, the revenue aggregated to ₹26,027.19 lakhs, showcasing consistent growth compared to the corresponding period last year.

Expenses during the quarter primarily comprised material costs, employee benefits, and other administrative costs, cumulatively amounting to ₹15,446.64 lakhs. Consequently, the company achieved a profit before tax of ₹763.20 lakhs, reaffirming its operational efficiency.

Balance Sheet Insights K&R Rail Engineering Limited’s financial position as of September 30, 2024, highlights its prudent asset management and strategic financial planning. Total assets increased to ₹37,488.38 lakhs from ₹20,149.14 lakhs as of March 31, 2024, driven primarily by an uptick in trade receivables and inventories. The equity base also witnessed growth, underscoring the company’s commitment to enhancing shareholder value.

Cash Flow Analysis Despite a challenging operational landscape, the company managed its cash flow effectively. The half-year saw a net cash outflow from operating activities amounting to ₹2,259.95 lakhs, primarily due to increased trade receivables and short-term loans. However, the cash flow from financing activities, boosted by a substantial inflow from share warrants, partially offset the operational outflows, reflecting the company’s resilience and strategic financial management.

Auditor’s Review The financial results underwent a review by M/s J. Singh & Associates, the company’s independent auditors. Their assessment confirmed compliance with applicable accounting standards and SEBI regulations, ensuring accuracy and reliability in reporting.

Looking Ahead As K&R Rail Engineering Limited progresses into the next quarter, the results reflect a robust financial foundation and an optimistic growth trajectory. With a strong focus on operational excellence and strategic expansions, the company continues to position itself as a leader in the engineering domain.

This announcement underscores K&R Rail Engineering Limited’s dedication to maintaining transparency with stakeholders and adhering to the highest standards of corporate governance. The board’s decisions and financial disclosures set the stage for sustained growth and shareholder confidence in the coming quarters.

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industrynewsupdates · 5 days ago

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Growth of Core Banking Software Market: Key Trends and Forecast

The global core banking software market was valued at USD 10.89 billion in 2022 and is projected to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.3% from 2023 to 2030. This significant growth is primarily driven by the increasing adoption of technology to streamline and enhance core banking operations and services. The widespread digitization of banking processes has notably improved the quality of services, reduced turnover times, and increased overall operational efficiency for financial institutions. These technological advancements have enabled banks and other financial institutions to more effectively respond to the evolving needs of their customers, with omnichannel banking being one of the most prominent examples of this transformation.

Core banking software is designed to allow customers to manage their accounts remotely, offering convenient access through online banking and mobile channels. This has become an essential feature for modern financial institutions seeking to provide seamless, customer-centric services. Beyond enabling remote account management, core banking software offers several other advantages that help improve banking operations and service delivery.

One of the key benefits of core banking software is its ability to connect multiple branches of a bank to a centralized system. This interconnected structure allows for more efficient operations by facilitating data sharing and ensuring consistency across various locations. It enables employees to access up-to-date information from any branch, improving the efficiency of tasks such as data search, comparison, and retrieval.

Moreover, core banking software provides powerful tools for data analysis, allowing financial institutions to better understand customer behavior and improve their internal processes. For example, the software can generate insights into customer preferences, financial trends, and operational bottlenecks, enabling banks to fine-tune their offerings and optimize their workflows.

Gather more insights about the market drivers, restrains and growth of the Core Banking Software Market

Regional Insights

North American

The North American region led the core banking software market in 2022, capturing more than 27.0% of the global revenue share. This dominance can be attributed to North America's reputation for early adoption of technology across various industries. The region's banks are continually at the forefront of integrating the latest innovations into their infrastructure. For example, Arvest Bank launched its first equipment financing product based on cloud technology in February 2023, showcasing a shift toward modernizing financial services through technological advancements. The continued focus on upgrading core banking systems by prominent regional banks to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer service, and meet regulatory requirements is expected to drive further growth in the North American core banking software market.

Asia Pacific

In contrast, the Asia Pacific region is forecasted to experience the fastest market growth during the period from 2023 to 2030. A key factor driving this growth is the region's significant unbanked population—many individuals in countries like India, China, and Southeast Asia still lack access to basic banking services. The proliferation of fintech companies in the region is contributing to the increased availability of innovative banking products and services, catering to both underserved populations and tech-savvy consumers. Furthermore, financial inclusion initiatives by governments and international organizations are helping to expand access to banking services. These efforts aim to integrate a larger portion of the population into the formal financial system, which is expected to substantially boost demand for core banking solutions. As a result, the Asia Pacific core banking software market is poised for rapid growth over the forecast period.

Browse through Grand View Research's Next Generation Technologies Industry Research Reports.

• The global wealth management software market size was estimated at USD 5.51 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.0% from 2025 to 2030.

• The global virtual cards market size was estimated at USD 19.02 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 21.2% from 2025 to 2030.

Key Companies & Market Share Insights

The core banking software market is moderately fragmented, with robust competition from both established players and emerging companies in the sector. Leading vendors are employing a range of strategic initiatives to strengthen their position in the market and maintain their competitive edge. Common strategies include forming joint ventures, entering into partnership agreements, pursuing mergers and acquisitions, introducing innovative products, expanding into new geographical markets, and focusing heavily on research and development to enhance product offerings.

For instance, in April 2023, Regions Bank, based in the U.S., partnered with Temenos Group, a global leader in core banking software. This collaboration aims to modernize Regions Bank's existing systems, with a focus on delivering personalized and robust banking solutions that enhance customer experiences. Such partnerships are instrumental in helping financial institutions adopt cutting-edge technologies, stay ahead of competition, and meet the evolving demands of their customers.

Core banking software providers are focusing on the development of pre-built financial solutions that offer a strategic advantage by addressing specific market needs. These solutions are designed to enhance the functionality of a bank's core architecture, making it easier for institutions to integrate new services and improve operational efficiency. In addition, vendors in this market are increasingly prioritizing customer feedback to continuously refine and improve their digital platforms, ensuring that their offerings align with the practical and technical requirements of modern financial institutions. By doing so, they aim to offer tailored solutions that can be seamlessly integrated into a variety of banking environments, helping banks optimize their operations and stay competitive in an increasingly digital landscape.

Some prominent players in the global core banking software market include:

• Capgemini

• Finastra

• FIS

• Fiserv, Inc.

• HCL Technologies Limited

• Infosys Limited

• Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.

• Oracle Corporation

• Temenos Group

• Unisys

Order a free sample PDF of the Core Banking Software Market Intelligence Study, published by Grand View Research.

#Core Banking Software Market #Core Banking Software Market Analysis #Core Banking Software Market Report #Core Banking Software Market Regional Insights

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