#plus they just exported the cost to neighboring nations

[fissionmonkey]

Ah yes, “the crime he did not commit”, the whole bunch of people that were eaten were totally not his fault. It must have been someone else, not the dubiously intelligent 7 foot tall creature covered in blood that is currently using a bone as a toothpick.

transsexuals will be like is anyone else gonna relate to the minotaur

[cyberneticpeoplespolis]

New Zealand’s Paternalism and Imperialism in the Pacific

This is something I wrote back in early march for mainstream news publishers, but didn’t get finished in time before the news cycle moved on from the PIF break up. I’m putting it here for posterity and it might also be of interest for anyone curious about why New Zealand still uses its diplomatic weight to bully its neighbors into line.

New Zealand is losing its grip on the Pacific. That might be a good thing.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Pacific Islands Forum. Many are talking as though it will be the last.

Last month the Micronesian sub-region, comprising Nauru, Kiribati, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, left the PIF. Since only the Polynesian and Melanesian sub-regions remain, the forum now has a distinctly more South Pacific orientation. But alongside the island nations are three big powers who like to think of themselves as “first among equals”. Two are the settler-colonies of Australia, and New Zealand. The third is France, which effectively has two votes at the forum via its tightly-held colonies of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

Ostensibly, the breakup is the result of a broken “gentleman’s agreement” wherein each sub-region takes turns providing a candidate for the role of General Secretary. This election was Micronesia’s turn, but instead of supporting Micronesia’s Marshallese candidate, Gerald Zackios, the forum instead elected Cook Islands PM Henry Puna.

Much has been made of this “gentleman’s agreement,” but it was an unwritten rule, and hardly a democratic one. The fact that it was made at all speaks to the low stakes of the forum, and the fact that it was broken speaks to the greater consequences for this election than those prior. 

These consequences will largely be felt by those outside the Pacific islands. The Pacific Islands Forum always meant a lot more to diplomats in Canberra, Wellington, Paris and Washington than islanders, who see it as relatively inconsequential. 

This was reflected in the coverage of the forum’s breakup. Australian, New Zealand, and U.S. outlets and pundits all vied to levy blame on one another for the catastrophe, and painted the election as part of a grand proxy war between competing powers.

Depending on who you talk to, it was all part of a scheme by Australia, New Zealand and France to snub the interests of the United States in the Pacific. Or it was all the result of New Zealand and Australia’s indifference and poor diplomacy. Or it was the result of U.S. militarisation of the North Pacific and strong-arming of island nations. Many pointed out that the split represented an opportunity for China. Great power conflict also affected the framing of the candidates. Zackios is seen as Washington’s man in the region, and this seems deliberate, since he has a long history of cooperation with U.S. military and diplomatic projects. Likewise Micronesians claimed Puna is a proxy for either New Zealand or Chinese interests, despite considerably less evidence for the claim. All of these narratives of great power diplomacy and conspiracies do have some truth to them, but the framing does seem to deny a lot of agency to Pacific peoples. Apart from a few Micronesian diplomats and politicians, few have expressed any appetite for cold warfare. In fact there is a great deal of anxiety around escalating tensions, reduced aid, militarised borders, and foreign navies.

In western media narratives, we can see the lingering spectres of both cold war proxy warfare and colonial entitlement. Western nations are framed as enlightened protectors shielding islanders from threats they couldn’t possibly understand. It is an unwritten assumption that this  paternalistic form of leadership endears western powers to the South Pacific. In reality, the former colonial powers are perceived as unwelcome interlopers. For New Zealand especially, the rhetoric used mirrors the way we talk about our own indigenous relations. There are pretensions of partnership, but always with the Crown as the ‘major’ partner. Beneath the surface lurks an uncritical, vestigial paternalism from days gone by. The question of whether New Zealand is fit to be a regional leader is never asked, just as similar questions are never asked in Canberra, Paris or Washington.

This paternal attitude is a complex thing. It is equal parts denial of past abuses, denial of present economics and new cold war paranoia.

An inconvenient past

There is an unspoken assumption that  New Zealand is a benign force of leadership and regional cooperation. However, this assumption becomes stranger and stranger the further back we look. Holding it necessarily entails forgetting about New Zealand’s long history of open and shameless colonialism, from Seddon’s project for a “Britain of the South Pacific” to Massey’s acquisition of Samoa at Versailles. It means forgetting the unnecessary deaths of a fifth of Samoa from pandemic mismanagement, and disregarding the Black Saturday massacre on the streets of Apia. It might be said that those incidents are too distant to be relevant today. How about something more recent, like the environmental devastation of strip-mining Nauru for phosphate, conducted under a New Zealand-Australian joint venture, or decades of using Vanuatu as a tax haven for New Zealand businesses? Even that’s a bit far back. What about in 2015, when the GCSB was found to be conducting a massive spy operation across the Pacific through Waihopai, while simultaneously operating a hidden spy outpost, codename “Caprica,” in the Solomon Islands? 

All of these events represent massive breaches of trust, yet New Zealand often acts as if recent history is the ancient past when it comes to the Pacific. It takes its diplomatic relationships for granted and expects neighbors to forget about the past, and turn a blind eye to the present. 

Trade Imperialism

The fact is that the most detrimental effects New Zealand has on the Pacific aren’t even intentional; it’s the passive, downstream consequences of the New Zealand economy and its trading relationships which undermine Pacific islands the most.

It’s a truism of economics that good businesses buy low and sell high. But what happens when that takes place on the scale of whole nations? When low-waged countries countries trade with high-waged countries, their goods often fetch a uniformly low price regardless of quality or productivity. On the flip side, high waged countries can always get a good price, often more than their goods are worth. This is a phenomena called “Unequal Exchange,” first noticed in the context of recently-decolonised African nations in the 1960s. The reasons for this are complicated, and have a lot to do with the fact that people can’t move between international industries as easily as money, but suffice to say that the Pacific’s trade with New Zealand is a perfect example of the problem. While Pacific peoples earn an average of only $300 a month, New Zealanders earn about $2,800. The end result is that the goods produced by a New Zealand employee in one day can be worth as much as 9 times the amount a Pacific worker could produce in the same time.

This means that when Pacific nations trade with New Zealand, they immediately lose a lot of money paying for overpriced goods, and can’t make enough off their own exports to cover the cost. Even with the Government’s “Pacific Reset” policy which increased the dwindling Pacific aid budget, the small amounts New Zealand pays in aid are overshadowed by its profits.

Naturally, a lot of island nations want to trade with each other instead. By building up each other’s industries and establishing equal terms of trade, they can avoid the crushing dependency on goods made in New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. But New Zealand exporters would be vehemently opposed. If Pacific nations  were to shake their dependency, they might get a fair price for their goods, and eventually compete with New Zealand business on an equal playing field. 

Instead, Australia and New Zealand often use the Pacific Islands Forum and other regional bodies to torpedo any proposals for deals that don’t include them, and push their own trade deals. One recent deal was PACER Plus, which was criticised heavily by groups like the Pacific Network on Globalisation for the effects it would have on Pacific communities. One Canadian expert also claimed that deals like PACER Plus are precisely what makes Pacific nations want to trade with China instead.

A Cold War in the Pacific

In recent years the Pacific has split down the middle on the question of addressing trade imbalances. It’s one of those problems everyone recognises, but each solution comes with significant risks. On the one hand, groups like the Wellington-based Pacific Co-operation Foundation argue that unbalanced trade deals like PACER Plus are a positive trend, and any imbalance in outcomes only reflects the poor terms of trade already in place. They say Pacific economies need a chance for capital inflows from New Zealand and Australia, even if the latter countries ultimately benefit much more than the islands ever could.

While once upon a time, this was all that Pacific islands could hope for, nowadays there are other options. Semi-developed economies like China can offer many of the same products as much richer countries, at prices Pacific nations can actually afford thanks to much lower wage costs. But in the context of escalating trade warfare – and possible military conflict – between China and the United States, some island economies have chosen to tie their fates more tightly to superpowers in the hopes of receiving more aid and investment. The U.S. in particular requires new island construction sites across the Western Pacific in order to give strategic depth to its plans for an extensive network of missile and aircraft bases to be aimed at China by 2022.

With Micronesia situated close to the massive US naval base at Guam, it is not surprising that the Mircronesian bloc at the Pacific Islands Forum has taken a strongly anti-Chinese stance, in some cases going further than Washington itself. Three of the nations are official associates of the U.S., and three have fostered ties with Taiwan, a strong US ally which is itself heavily dependent on american military and political backing.

On the other side of the divide, most Polynesian and Melanesian nations have attempted to stay out of the escalating tensions. They have continued to trade with New Zealand and Australia, while simultaneously pushing for greater self-sufficiency, including a growing trade relationship with China. The reason for the shift is perfectly logical: China can offer better terms of trade, and its banks can fund major infrastructure projects that almost no western bank would even consider backing. But what of Chinese debt trap diplomacy? All of the Pacific island nations, apart from the Micronesian bloc, have repeatedly ignored the dire warnings by western diplomats about potential asset seizures for defaulting on their huge Chinese loans. The answer is simple: as an exhaustive analysis from The Atlantic recently pointed out, the debt-trap narrative was made up from the start. It’s one of those post-truth narratives that exist beyond debate no matter how many times it’s debunked. This is especially true in the Pacific, where despite obvious vulnerabilities, experts contend that there is no evidence of debt traps. None of that has stopped the spectre from being raised yet again in the wake of Micronesia’s walk-out.

With nothing much to offer except fearmongering and sabre-rattling, is it any surprise that Pacific nations are seeking alternatives to western trade and aid dependency? If New Zealand is serious about restoring trust and equality in the Pacific, it may want to start by recognising island nations can currently get better deals elsewhere, and try to match them. If it wanted to take a more transformational approach, it would consider something like a Pacific Common Travel Area that could allow labour to move as freely as goods, and permanently mitigate the effects of trade imperialism through better remittance income and wage equalisation. Of course, such things would run counter to too many vested interests to be considered.

Just another Pacific island nation

Returning for a moment to the coverage of the breakdown of the Pacific Islands Forum, let’s re-examine the implicit understanding that New Zealand ought to be taking a leadership role. Part of that is natural – New Zealand will always be the biggest island chain among many – but at least part of that sentiment echoes the colonial entitlement of Seddon or Massey. Why should New Zealand be taking a leadership role when its trade interests will always endanger Pacific sovereignty? What about the last century of Pacific-NZ relations would even remotely suggest that New Zealanders are trusted in the Pacific? This distrust is certainly apparent when it comes to Micronesian leaders, who have criticised Cook Islands PM Henry Puna as a lackey of New Zealand, since his islands are still part of the New Zealand Realm. This is hardly fair to Puna, as his personal positions are clearly at odds with New Zealand’s vision for the region, but the fact that his links to New Zealand are such a handicap speaks volumes about New Zealand’s image across the Pacific.

New Zealand’s foreign policy vacillates between an out-of-touch paternalism and an equally out-of-touch assertion that it is an equal member of the Pacific community. Government reports on the Pacific Reset and PACER Plus are filled with this confusing language, speaking of equal partnership one minute and unilateral leadership the next. Both positions are quite blind to New Zealand’s actual reputation, and its ongoing exploitation of Pacific workers via trade imperialism.

It also says a lot that in every opinion piece published on the PIF debacle, the writers have had but one concern: influence. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was one prominent voice bemoaning the loss of Australia and New Zealand’s influence in the island forum. But what are the actual consequences for island nations? As Stephen Howes and Sadhana Sen pointed out, there aren’t many. Countries were willing to risk a split because no one really had any stakes in the forum. No trade deals were directly tied to forum membership, even those negotiated through its channels, and most of the genuinely important regional initiatives like the University of the South Pacific won’t be affected. 

The only people really bemoaning the loss are those in New Zealand and Australia who used the forum as an opportunity to intervene in Pacific affairs, or those who wanted an opportunity to engage in some old-fashioned cold warfare. Regionalism and cooperation are very good things, but when it comes to diplomacy and trade deals between islands, maybe Australia and New Zealand should sit it out, as their idea of regional leadership is often closer to being the local bullies.

When New Zealand realises the immense imbalances in economic and political power it has perpetuated in the Pacific, maybe then it will be one island nation among many. Until then, it has to earn that right.

[billehrman]

Think As an Investor

We were thrilled to hear the experts/pundits speak on Friday as well as Barron’s most recent roundtable of 10 experts write on Saturday about how cautious/pessimistic they are about the prospects for the financial markets in 2020. There clearly is no over exuberance or froth in the marketplace yet. Just the start of a rotation back into equities, which have been liquidated over the last few years, such that its allocation is well below their historical norm, while reducing bonds and cash positions, which have been the preferred asset classes, and are now over-weighted well above  their historic norms in most portfolios.

While we acknowledge that there could be a correction in the marketplace any time, we see substantial gains for investors over the next year and possibly longer especially if you are correctly positioned. Think as an investor rather than as a trader. Think like Buffett whose record for successful investing longer term is unparalleled. How many rich traders do you know?  Does it make sense to sell positions that you like longer term if you are only looking for a small correction short term? Hell no!

It was very important that tensions between the United States and Iran subsided somewhat last week. We were surprised and pleased that Iranian officials reached out to Iraq and American counterparts warning them of their missile strikes in Iraq beforehand such that no one would be killed. Since no American was killed in the attack, which is Trump’s red line, he did not retaliate. Rather he spoke in a somewhat conciliatory manner about both sides lowering tensions in the region. Trump also asked our NATO partners to work with us against terrorism which is something that we mentioned last week.  NATO’s Secretary General Stoltenberg responded favorably and said that he was pleased with the formation of such an alliance. It did not hurt Trump’s position against Iran/terrorism when Iran took full responsibility yesterday for bringing down a Ukrainian airplane killing 176 innocent people including many Canadians.

Let’s go back and look, once again, at the key variables impacting stock prices today

Monetary policy: It is crystal clear that virtually all of the major monetary bodies—BOJ, Bank of China, ECB and our Fed—have overly accommodative policies that will not reverse anytime soon and that means at least for 2020. Again, if more money is being created than needed by the real economy, the excess funds finds its way into financial/risk assets including stocks, bonds and commodities. Basically, it is risk on!  Remember that our stock market multiple is priced off of bond yields, normally 10-year treasuries, plus some risk premium. Bond yields are incredibly low as there is no inflation and risk premiums are down as there is so much excess liquidity/capital in the system as evidenced by low bond yield spreads. We continue to be surprised that all the experts think that the market is fully valued at 18-19 times earnings which was the high end of the historic range when interest rates were at least 300-500 basis points higher than now. Beside keeping all short-term interest rates down, most monetary bodies, including our Fed, are increasing their balance sheets, too, which keeps downward pressure on longer term rates. We see no reason that our stock market multiple cannot reach 20 times earnings even if the 10-year treasury yields increase to 2.5% from slightly under 2% today.

Trade: It is hard to believe that Phase 1 of a trade deal between the U.S and China will finally be signed this week in D.C. with the Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu. We continue to be surprised by the positive rhetoric out of Beijing and DC about Phase 2 of a trade deal which talks will commence shortly; China state media touts the trade deal as a sign of coexistence; and the U.S and China agreed yesterday to hold semi-annual talks on reforms. Maybe it is true that China would rather negotiate trade deals with Trump than running the risk of dealing with a Democrat President who would take a much harder line, especially on pollution. Finally, the Senate Finance Committee voted 25 to 3 to back the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. We fully expect global trade to improve as we move through 2020 into 2021 boosting global growth.

Brexit: We remain confident that U.K Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the EU will finally reach a deal on Brexit this year. The cost of not reaching is deal is so punitive to both sides such that we expect cooler heads to prevail and a deal to be finalized. IF the economic cost of Brexit has already hit Britain by $170 billion and counting, we could only imagine the penalty borne by the EU so far, too.

Trump: Since strength in the U.S economy and stock market appear to be the key factors boosting Trump’s chances for re-election, we are confident that he will do all in his power as incumbent President to increase his odds for victory. That will include introducing new tax legislation to lower taxes on the middle to lower classes while penalizing the wealthy; new healthcare legislation to reduce costs, especially for medicine; an infrastructure bill and further reducing regulations/red tape holding back our economy. Protecting our country and trade policy will remain at the forefront of his legislative agenda, too.

The bottom line is that we remain confident/optimistic that the global economy will do better in 2020/2021 than 2019. We were amused that the World Bank trimmed its global growth forecast last week for 2019 and 2020 basically looking in the rearview mirror rather than through the windshield. They had no idea that Phase I of a trade deal between the U.S and China would finally be signed, nor the completion of the USMCA, as well as Johnson winning his election in Britain.  We expect global growth to build sequentially as we move through 2020. We do not expect a growth spurt at the beginning of the year. After all, trade deals are just being finalized; fiscal stimulus is just beginning to be implemented in many nations; and finally, it takes at least 6 to 8 months for monetary ease to kick in. Also, it will take time for business/consumer confidence to build until reality/certainty sets in that all of this is for real.  But it will as the year progresses.

Here are some brief comments on the most recent data points by country:

United States: We fully expect fourth quarter real GNP to exceed 2% and growth in 2020 to build sequentially bolstered by continued strength in strong consumer spending and a slow but steady improvement in manufacturing/capital spending as the year progresses as global trade improves. The employment data reported Friday was just fine as 145,000 new jobs were created while hourly earnings slowed to a 2.9% year over year gain which still exceeds the inflation rate by a wide margin.  Our economy created over 2.11 million new jobs in 2019 which is nothing to sneeze in spite of slowing global growth. We were pleased that Trump reversed his position and now supports the U.S. Export-Import Bank which is helpful to U.S manufacturers.

China: Fourth quarter GNP was apparently stronger than anticipated such that economic growth for 2019 will fall well within the government target of 6-6.5% growth. We now believe that China may even exceed 6% growth in 2020 as it benefits from the U.S trade deal, fiscal stimulus and aggressive monetary ease. China will easily be the fastest growing major industrialized country in 2020. And inflation will moderate as U.S exports of ag products finally begin arriving in size.

Europe/Britain: There is nothing reported that looks good economically in Europe/Britain. One can only hope that global trade will improve as 2020 progresses which will benefit Europe and that Brexit is reached reducing corporate/consumer uncertainty. Europe is clearly the problem child region of the world.

Japan: We expect the Japanese economy to pick up sequentially through 2020 too, as global trade improves and fiscal stimulus kicks in supported by continued monetary ease.

Investment Conclusions

We expect global growth to pick up sequentially as we move through 2020 benefitting from increased trade, fiscal stimulus and continued monetary ease.  The U.S will certainly benefit disproportionately as we institute Phase 1 of a trade deal with China boosting our exports big time over the next few years; the USMCA is finally passed supporting trade growth between our neighbors; additional fiscal stimulus kicks in federally as well as locally; monetary policy remains very easy (let it rip!) including the Fed injecting billions into the financial system; regulatory relief; and Trump doing whatever else he can do to boost the economy and our stock market.

While we have already discussed why a 20-market multiple is supported even if 10-year treasuries rise in yield. We have not discussed our forecast for S & P earnings which we still estimate at $170 per share for 2020, vs. an estimated $163/share in 2019, but with a run rate closer to $180 p/s by the end of the year. Don’t forget that the huge equity shrink continues at amazingly high levels that boosts reported eps. Just ask Apple owners what it has meant to them!

The bottom line is that our market could easily exceed 3400 this year with the potential of hitting 3600 which is not our forecast at this time. The key to outperformance will be stock selection. While technology, especially semis, has remained the largest portion of our portfolios, we have reduced the more defensive sectors adding to the more economically sensitive sectors such as financials, expecting the yield curve to steepen and loan growth to accelerate; global industrial, capital goods and machinery companies which will benefit from accelerating global growth and increased capital spending; low cost, free cash generating industrial commodity companies as expect both volume and pricing to improve; defense companies for obvious reasons; some retailers who have adapted to a changing marketplace and are gaining market share; agricultural companies who will benefit from recent trade deals; and many special situations selling well beneath intrinsic value. We own no bonds and expect the dollar to weaken over time.

Unfortunately, we are unable to hold our weekly investment webinar this week due to a prior commitment but feel free to email us questions which we will respond to as promptly as possible.

Remember to review all the facts; pause, reflect and consider mindset shifts; be open to shift your asset mix with risk controls as necessitated by the environment; listen to the upcoming earnings calls focusing on the future rather than the past; do independent research and …

Invest Accordingly!

Bill Ehrman

Paix et Prospérité LLC

Bill.ehrman@prosperitefund.com

[davids69811]

Lynchburg Hardscaping 22182 - A Plus Lawn Care

When To Call In a Lawn Upkeep Business To Look After Your Grass

Mowing lawns is among those most dreadful jobs by property owners. But the sad part is no matter just how much you loathe this task it requires to be done. Depending on the dimension of your grass, this task can take a couple of hrs or one complete day to finish. It is for that reason such a chore for many homeowners, especially because there are most likely a great deal of other home duties that you are delaying in order to take care of your Lawn Care Lynchburg.  Lynchburg Hardscaping 22182

To make matters worse, the turf in your backyard expands instead swiftly. Also just a couple of days after you last mowed your lawn, you can already see the turfs prospering. This implies that you ought to be doing maintenance operate at mowing your yard at the very least as soon as a week, or more often than that depending on where you live. That is not a fun idea in all. Not to mention, you should additionally buy costly trimming devices to make the process of lawn cutting quicker and also a lot more efficient.

Nonetheless, right here is some great news. If you are still cutting your own yard, you no more have to do it yourself. There are specialists that want to handle the unenviable task of cutting your grass for you. However when should you call in a professional service? Is it actually an excellent investment for you? What are various other benefits that you can take pleasure in?

The concept of working with a specialist solution to cut yard in your home could have appeared like an alien concept a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, it is becoming a typical service these days. Actually, several property owners in America are choosing to tap an expert solution to deal with their grass! This is a helpful service these days. The majority of people lead a hectic way of living and not every person simply seems to have the moment to spend one full day or several hours trimming grass Lawn Care Lynchburg.

A large component of the advantages supplied by touching a specialist grass maintenance firm comes from seeing the results. Of course, even if you have actually masterfully developed ways where you can achieve quality cause your lawn if you mow it on your own, but there is nothing fairly like when you leave it to specialists. The main factor behind this is that yards trimming and maintenance companies are geared up with all the tools required for the work. The majority of house owners are working just with a couple of standard tools, and also in some cases most do it manually! Besides having accessibility to specialized tools to mow grass, they are additionally outfitted with proper training so you can improve the appearance of your grass!

Some expert yard maintenance firms utilize chemicals for application right into your grass, which aids in the upkeep process. However, it will certainly vary from one provider to an additional, so it is best to make a query. They can also handle various other intricate work, apart from grass mowing, such as de-thatching, aerating, landscape design, to name a few. Because time is beneficial for you, you can focus on doing what you delight in as well as let the lawn upkeep experts pimp your backyard!

The expense is an additional major issue amongst homeowners regarding touching professional yard treatment services. However you should anticipate to shell out this quantity knowing the comfort that you can enjoy for their solutions. See to it to ask a firm that offers lawn upkeep services regarding their rates first, to make certain that it is within your spending plan. There are many elements that would cost their specialist costs to rise up, such as devices and specialized devices, products, gas (for operating the yard treatment equipments), and also the labor itself. Ultimately, it is a win-win situation because of the professional-quality results Lawn Care Lynchburg.

When to Think About Outsourcing Lawn Maintenance

Before we venture deep right into our conversation on when to consider outsourcing grass upkeep, it is important for us to attempt and place the term 'outsourcing' in the ideal context for the functions of this conversation. In recent days, words 'outsourcing,' has actually involved bear a negative connotation, especially in the established western nations -as it is seen to be a recommendation to the fad where western companies 'export tasks' to affordable eastern locations, therefore robbing fellow westerners of job opportunities. In actual fact, what that fad describes is what would certainly be more exactly referred to as 'off-shoring.' Off-shoring belongs to outsourcing, but it is by no implies the only thing that there is to outsourcing. It is yet just one element of outsourcing. Outsourcing is larger, and also it just describes the plan where one firm contracts one more one to deal with a certain functional component on its behalf. In this situation, it is fairly of no consequence whether the other company so contracted is regional or foreign. It is the contracting that constitutes outsourcing. A minimum of, that is the interpretation of outsourcing we will work with, for the purpose of this discussion Lynchburg.

Having actually comprehended what we imply by outsourcing, we can now continue to discover when one should take into consideration outsourcing their maintenance of lawn feature. It is clear, from our earlier entry, that contracting out lawn upkeep would imply having another firm to take care of the maintenance of lawn. So what we are interested in here is attempting to comprehend when it would make sense to think about doing so: getting one more firm to manage your yard upkeep.

As it ends up, there are 2 circumstances in which maintenance of grass outsourcing would be considered a reasonable action. The initial is where a bookkeeping analysis shows that it would be far better to get one more company to do yard maintenance for you, than for you to try to do the lawn maintenance in-house. Oftentimes, this commonly turns out to be the situation - other than in the countries where labor is absolutely economical. It is worth keeping in mind that the main price element in maintenance of yard is the labor aspect - since lawn maintenance, whatever way you pick to go about it, still becomes an instead labor intensive task. The advantage regarding it, nonetheless, is that it does not need continuous labor: a hr or two daily will typically be adequate for maintenance of lawn. This suggests that maintaining a full-time in-house worker to do yard maintenance may be wasteful, as the worker needs to be still for several hrs. There is, obviously, the choice of contracting a part-timer to do it - however we often tend to face a circumstance where obtaining trustworthy part-timers comes to be a really uphill struggle, as the part-timers have to keep running around for other work to make ends fulfill. This is where the concept of getting the upkeep of grass company to a company focusing on that makes good sense, as they will normally be able to supply dependable part-time employees for the task Lawn Care Lynchburg.

Yard Upkeep Solutions

So many residential home owners enjoy landscaping as well as caring for their yards. This is definitely to be anticipated when you consider just how essential the picture of a flawlessly polished lawn is today. It is only all-natural that you take on your next-door neighbors as well as try to have the most effective looking grass on the block. However, placing all of that time and also effort into your backyard or grass can get rather lengthy. So no you are stuck with the problem of wanting your lot to look the very best, but not having enough time to get it to that ideal factor. What do you do to manage this situation? Well, you could always try among the expert grass maintenance services Lawn Care Lynchburg.

Regardless of where it is you reside, there is most likely to be a few yard upkeep services in your neck of the timbers. The reality is that landscape design as well as lawn maintenance is a huge business nowadays. This means that plenty of household homeowners utilize these solutions to take care of their yards as well as yards all the time. While some are type of costly, others are not so negative. The key is to locate one that can satisfy your needs in relation to lawn as well as landscaping maintenance. You might intend to take a better look at your neighbor's lawn. It is most likely that they are utilizing among the lots of lawn upkeep services in your area to keep their lot looking its best Lawn Care Lynchburg.

It is simple to locate grass maintenance solutions and landscaping professionals any longer. First off, you should guide you attention to the internet. Online there are a couple of helpful websites that can lead you right to lawn as well as garden care professionals in your community or city. As a matter of fact, a couple of web sites you must not lose out on are worldcampus.PSU.edu/ Grass, competitivecutz.localplacement.net, as well as MyContractorLink.com. These three sites can use you a great deal of information on yard care and also routine backyard maintenance. You merely need to put in the time to see what all they have to supply. Consider the sort of lawn, yard and also tree treatment you need Lynchburg.

You constantly have to compare and also comparison grass upkeep solutions in order to discover the appropriate one for you and also your lot. Needless to say, there is a great deal of competitors around at this point, as well as this means prices will absolutely vary. When you begin exploring grass maintenance solutions, you should always keep credibility and also price in mind. You certainly want to choose a reputable landscaping or yard upkeep solution in your location. One that home owners rave concerning for a reason. Then there is rates. You absolutely do not want to pay greater than you really require to. This is why it is critical to compare rates, and afterwards make your decision Lawn Care Lynchburg.

5 Lawn Maintenance Tips

A grass is an important part of your home. It not only cheer up the aesthetic allure of your residence however at the exact same time functions as the field where you can renew your mind and heart with yard games such as tennis, cricket, bocce round, Frisbee, golf, Kubb, grass bowling, lawn darts, croquet, badminton, horseshoes etc. You can also use your lawn in order to toss a vacation party or organize a barbeque or delight in any various other leisure activity, which is meant to be appreciated outdoors. Your grass must be preserved well to make sure that you can delight in these fun activities. Effective grass maintenance is vital to keep it healthy. Look into 5 selected yard treatment pointers, which will be effective in this regard Lynchburg.

Level the yard

You require to level your yard to begin with if you have an eye for exact lawn maintenance. When you establish on your own to do the task, you need to maintain the structural element of the lawn in mind. Be realistic in your approach. To begin the upkeep task, you need to ensure that the very first layer of dirt is removed from the lawn. After that you need to place in your initiatives in leveling the subsoil. An excellent yard needs to be without swellings. So you need to make some extra efforts to get rid of the swellings. After the first phase of progressing is done you need to add the first layer of soil or leading dirt once again Lawn Care Lynchburg.

Use fertilizers

You will certainly benefit if you use natural yard care composts purposefully. Fertilizers must be used when the temperature level is still cozy. It is much better if you feed your lawn in August. You can feed again in October. Make sure that you make use of plant foods, which are especially suggested to be utilized on yard Lynchburg.

Pick lawn seeds sensibly

Appropriate option of lawn seeds forms part of an efficient yard care method. When you pick lawn seeds, you ought to think about longevity as well as good appearances. Depending upon your demand as well as the size of your grass you can choose carpeting grass, Rye lawn, Vermin yard etc. Before you acquire any one of these variants, you need to guarantee which is the best season to plant them Lawn Care Lynchburg.

Mow thoroughly

Mowing is a vital part of a streamlined lawn upkeep method. You require to chop the blades of your lawn turf very carefully. It is important that greater than one third of lawn blade height does not get removed during mowing Lynchburg.

Dethatch the lawn of your lawn area

At times, you might see dead thatches in some parts of your yard area. Generally, these thatches develop in between the dirt surface area and also environment-friendly blades. It certainly makes your lawn look poor. The procedure of dethatching is a reliable yard maintenance strategy that you can use in such a circumstance. You will certainly be called for to pick up all loosened thatches by raking them up. Make it certain that you do this throughout summertime or springtime. Do not forget to water the exposed origins Lawn Care Lynchburg.

[ourworldofenergy]

Green Energy in Germany, How's it Really Going?

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: With so much talk about Green New Deals (U.S.A.) and a Green Way Forward (Canada) these days, I thought it might be worth looking at the poster child for green energy, Germany and its frequently lauded Energiewende . Way back in 1971, the Germans started thinking about ways to shift their energy mix in order to promote sustained economic prosperity, especially, at that time, in the face of Global authoritarian (communist) threats. It was necessary then to find ways to reduce West Germany’s dependence on the Soviet bloc for energy supplies. After all, in case of war, one cannot expect one’s enemy to continue supplying fuel for one’s tanks and jet fighters.

However it wasn’t until the late 1990s and early 2000s that the Germans, now unified, began making a significant push into Energiewende. After the Fukishima disaster, groups of social activists added the urgent demand to get rid of nuclear as quickly as possible.

Change in Electricity Production

Examining what happened to Germany’s electricity production seems to confirm that the Germans have indeed managed to get on track with their Energiewende’s objectives, of reduced reliance upon foreign suppliers and of reducing their climate impact in terms of CO2 emissions. Looking at German electricity production by source (Fig. 1 – sources: energy-charts, cleanenergywire.org) confirms the success that Germans have had introducing wind energy into their mix, and in removing nuclear (uranium) from the supply.

Not shown in Fig. 1 is electricity generated by other small sources, such as biofuels and hydropower which contribute the remainder of German electricity.

In addition to national sources of production, Germany is connected to the larger central European power grid and Germany can import or export electrical power between its neighbors such as Poland, Austria or France. I looked at those import – export figures for the last 10 years and there has been no significant change in the direction or volume of electricity flows, so the Germans are not cheating by purchasing electricity produced by nuclear power in France.

What can also be seen in Figure 1 is how quickly the Germans reacted to the Fukishima disaster by shutting nuclear (uranium) power. But what’s most impressive is the significant rise in power generated by wind turbines since 2015 while coal (hard and brown) has declined in almost the same proportion. This suggests that Germany’s Energiewende is achieving the goal of moving away from fossil fuels.

Or is it?

There are two problems going forward with the Energiewende:

1) Germans have hit wind turbine saturation with NIMBYism starting to limit where wind turbines can be sited and installed, with estimates of 12,000 local resistance groups fighting new wind energy installations now.

2) There still is no nationally significant means of storing electrical energy generated by wind turbines

There are a few additional problems arising, such as insufficient grid network capable of transferring windy power from the north to the south, but this type of grid network problem is common to a lot of nations and I’ll just skip over it for now.

Unexpectedly and quietly, the Germans have also been increasing imports of natural gas (Fig. 2 – source: ceicdata.com).

In the period from 2009 to 2018, while wind energy electricity production grew by 160%, natural gas imports grew by 50%. Looking at the nuclear option in Fig. 1, one can see that in the same period the Germans reduced their nuclear power by about 50%. In effect, for every three wind turbines put up in Germany, they had to import an extra unit of natural gas. Furthermore, they replaced stable, baseload energy from nuclear with varying wind energy in about the same proportion. Swapping energy sources is rarely a one-to-one matter.

Hence, in spite of incredible government support for renewable energy, the German government has also been a stalwart supporter of the NordStream 2 pipeline which will bring more gas into Germany directly from Russia. But I’ll have more to say about this in a couple later paragraphs and another Canadian energy blog in about a month or two.

The S-Curve for German Renewable Wind Energy

S-curves, or as readers in Mississippi call them, crooked-letter curves, are wonderful charts that economists and futurists like to point to when explaining or predicting changes in behavior (reduction in smoking in a society) or adaption of new gadgets, like color television sets in households. S-curves also appear in such things as epidemiology and as the pandemic shows, efforts can be undertaken to change the shape of the S-curve, flatten it or eventually kill it off completely with a vaccine.

In a capitalist, free market and innovative society, S-curves can be affected by competition. If one looks at the early S-curve projections for Blackberry or Nokia phones, it would have seemed inevitable that those technologies were destined to achieve over 90% of household saturation. But then someone invented the Apple I-Phone. 

In a natural state, S-curves are subject to physical resource limits. This has often been observed when new species are introduced into islands. At first the population grows following an S-curve trajectory but eventually it grows no more because of physical limits, the ability of the island to support the population density. Which brings me back to Germany and the question about what the S-curve for German renewables looks like going into the future.  Up until now, the vast bulk of German wind farms have been built onshore and in the northern half of the country plus a bit offshore (Fig. 3 – source: strom-report).

Fig. 3 German Wind Power Distribution

In order for Germany to completely divest from all remaining coal and uranium electricity production (43% in 2019), Germany will need to double its wind power generating capacity (24.5% in 2019) going forward. Add in another 10.3% of gas in the power mix and wind power generating capacity will need to more than double. That’s a problem because local political pressure is mounting and is preventing wind farms from being established in the remaining turbine free areas of Germany. In effect, Germany has run out of space for wind farms.

The S-curve for wind power in Germany is not yet complete, but the question is, what will it eventually look like?  I plotted two possible S-Curves (Fig. 4), taking into account historical data along with required green goals and probable achievable in the face of the two problems of growing political opposition and the natural geographic limits to wind energy in Germany.

There are a couple of possible solutions to NIMBYism, namely the Germans can move further in the North and Baltic seas with more wind farms, which they are already doing. But, as with land installations, objections by fishing groups and others are growing and political curtailment could eventually arise in the oceans as well. Germany it seems is stuck between land and the ocean with not enough of either to build all the wind farms that it needs.  The second solution is repowering older turbine sites, but at best that might increase by 5%, still well below of what’s required for Germany to replace all fossil fueled power with renewables.

At What Cost?

Another problem with the Energiewende is that nobody knows for certain to the last Euro how much the Energiewende has cost to date and how much more it will cost to reach even 50% of electricity production in the next ten years or so (thegwpf.com, wsj.com). This surprises me for the Germans had a reputation for exactness and extensive records on everything. But for some reason Government, Industry and Social Justice Groups in Germany can’t agree on the cost for the Energiewnede.  Amounts of 250 billion Euro spent to date on government costs alone are bantered about while simultaneously being acknowledged as too low.

German Natural Gas Consumption

Astute readers may have noticed that I haven’t said much about the fact that even though natural gas imports are rising, German electricity production by natural gas has remained relatively constant. This is because natural gas is being mostly used to supplant coal based heating. A lot of German buildings and homes, especially in the Eastern part were heated by coal and much of the natural gas being imported now is being used to replace coal heating. However, if the Germans start to hit an S-curve limit, I could see them turning to gas fired generators for electricity production. Hence, another reason for the unwavering commitment of Germany to the Nordstream 2 pipeline. Presently, Germany gets about 40% of its natural gas from Russia. When Nordstream 2 comes on stream, both the natural gas from Russia as well as the political indifference will increase. In this sense, the Germans have failed to achieve the 1971 objective to prevent possible political interference and develop energy security.

German CO2 Emissions: The Paradox and the Conundrum

Here’s the really surprising part. In spite of large numbers of wind turbines added to the German energy mix, the amount of CO2 emissions did not see a significant decline when compared to the years before wind turbine installation (Fig. 5).

Germany has been reducing CO2 emissions at a fairly constant rate since 1971.  Looking between 1971 to 1991, a time when there were virtually no wind farms of any size in Germany, CO2 emissions were being reduced at the same rate as between 2001 to 2019 when wind farms really began to take off in Germany (in Fig. 5 I assume that wind share of electricity generated is a proxy for number of wind turbines installed). It seems then that adding more green energy doesn’t seem to have an effect on CO2 emission. Oh no, a paradox!

Perhaps then, economists, woke environmentalists and politicians need to reexamine what really works in reducing CO2 emissions. Of course, shutting coal plants will work, and we”ve seen that in the United States. But it could also be that switching to more efficient technologies (higher mileage vehicles, lower energy lighting and heating) may have had a substantial effect on German CO2 reduction. Which raises the question, apart from electrical power production, what good are wind farms in Germany?

Here’s another uncomfortable fact. Looking at CO2 emission data around the times of major economic upheavals, for example the 2008 – 2009 financial collapse, shows that Co2 emissions fell significantly during those times of contracted economic activity. In fact, we’re seeing the same effect now with the COVID pandemic. This suggests that killing economic activity is the fastest was to reduce CO2 emissions. Oh no, a conundrum!

Trigger Warning

Germany deserves to be commended on its technical achievement of all that wind energy installed. Yet in terms of the goals of the Energiewende, Germany has failed on two critical elements: eliminating fossil fuels and establishing energy independence. It also seems that the goal of reducing CO2 emissions has been total unaffected by the addition of wind farms. Regrettably now it seems that Germany will soon hit a wall of wind farm saturation. Let’s see if Germany can figure things out and prove everyone wrong in the next 10 years.

The lesson to other nations, politicians and environmental crusaders is this: Simple fixes fix simple things, but a complex society cannot be fixed with simple thinking. As identified in this blog there are paradoxes and conundrums that are not easily resolved. As argued in prior blogs, energy matters require long term vision, planning and understanding. Politicians in the democracies don’t have the patience to cultivate or understand long term vision, and their planning is most often limited to electioneering. Environmental wonks most often lack understanding and are very quick to dismiss complex issues that do not agree with their simplistic pre-conceptions.

It seems these days that energy policy is being driven by self-interested mobs, one in the halls of government led by self-entitled ideologues, the other in the streets emboldened by uninformed arrogance. If reason is not introduced into the discussion then apart from the political elite class, societies will soon enough see reductions in standards of living and quality of life for everyone.

Vive l’Alberta Libre! 

Vive le Shetlands Libre!

Green Energy in Germany, How’s it Really Going? was originally published on OurWorldofEnergy

[therealestatesparkblog]

Rental Owners Everywhere Should Be Concerned About California's Push for Rent Control--Here's Why

Its not just the weather that travels from west to east across the continental United States. Everything from Tony Hawks skateboarding to the humble Cobb salad got its start in California, eventually drifting eastward. For better or worse, the West Coast has a long history of setting trends and then spinning them out across the country. More recently, California has been pushing its historically low cap rates into neighboring states like Arizona and Nevada, much to the delight of incumbent local investors. The burning question for rental property owners today is: will statewide rent control regimes be the next West Coast export? Oregon Leads the Way in Rent Control In unlikely fashion, its actually Oregon thats leading the charge with a first-in-the-nation statewide rent control bill passed earlier this year. Senate Bill 608 was signed into law in February and immediately capped annual rent increases at the consumer price index (CPI) plus 7 percent. The only exemptions are for buildings less than 15 years old and subsidized below market rentals. In practical terms, that means most Oregon landlords will be limited to raising rents, on average, a maximum of 8 to 10 percent per year. Notably, the new legislation does not include vacancy control, so Oregon rental property owners will retain the right to set rents as they wish once an existing tenant vacates. Whats perhaps most notable about the recent action in Oregon is that while the legislation potentially sets a dangerous precedent for property owners, its also relatively mild in its actual restrictions. Even 8 percent annual rent increases can add up fairly quickly, and with compounding, can result in a 26 percent bump in just three years. All things considered, the result could have been worse for Oregon property owners. Time will tell if the new regulation delivers enough stability to the rental market to short-circuit support for more drastic rent controls. Related: 6 KEY Attributes that Affect the Risk Level of a Rental Market California Starts Down Two Paths to Rent Control Not to be outdone by its slightly damp neighbor to the north, California legislators are now proposing a slew of new regulations aimed at protecting existing tenants and increasing the housing supply across the nations most populous state. AB 1482 advanced out of assembly committee on April 25 and promises to cap annual rent increases at CPI plus 5 percent statewide, except where more restrictive local rent control laws remain in place. In areas with existing rent control, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and other cities, the more restrictive local regulations would continue to prevail. If AB 1482 becomes law, rental property owners from San Diego to Yreka will see their ability to increase rents for existing tenants capped at roughly 6 to 8 percent per year, with no exceptions for single family homes or newer construction. Of all the rent-control or anti-rent gouging bills currently being considered by California lawmakers, AB 1482 is probably the one with the best prospect of becoming law. Taking a slightly different tack, the California Senate is currently considering SB 50, which would wrest control of certain residential zoning regulations from local cities and counties. Its a complicated package of legislation thats designed to force higher density housing construction near rail and bus transit corridors. While there are notable carve-outs for smaller cities and beach towns, many of Californias urban centers would see a significant uptick in higher density new construction near transit. Under a separate provision, communities throughout the state would also be unable to prevent the further subdivision of many existing duplexes and single family homes into three- and four-unit properties.

Whats Behind the New Legislation? Taken together, AB 1482 and SB 50 can be seen as roughly representing two camps of thought regarding solutions to the continuing housing affordability crisis that grips not only California, but also an increasing number of urban areas across the country. On the one side, organized and well-financed tenant advocates are beginning to gain some modest ground in their efforts to bring rent controls to increasingly large swaths of the country. Its likely they will succeed in California, in one form or another before the end of the 2020 election cycle. Early results from the legislative push for more rent control in California will certainly influence what happens in other parts of the country, where rents are rising and tenant rights groups are gaining political influence. On the other hand, housing advocates (and developers) are also gaining traction, advancing the argument that restrictive land use policies are a significant source of upward pressure on housing costs, especially on the West Coast. Many California communities are so united in their distaste for residential growth and its negative perceived impacts on schools and traffic that it has become nearly impossible to get approval for even fully conforming new housing developments. This is likely to change significantly over the next few years, as a direct result of SB 50 or from whatever similar bill rises to take its place should SB 50 falter this year. Taken together, there is a decent chance that this two-pronged approach may yet move the California housing market back toward a more sustainable balance in time to avoid more draconian restrictions on rental property owners. Six years of steadily rising rents and a continued shortage of new home deliveries has resulted in a pressure cooker environment around all things housing related up and down the West Coast. Letting some steam out now may be the best hope for avoiding a major blow up. Related: What Property Owners and Managers Need to Know about Risk Management Emerging Risks for Rental Investors Changing populations and emerging legislation nearly always bring new risks (and rewards) to forward-thinking real estate investors. Lets take a closer look at a few key implications of the forces at work in California, on the assumption that they will eventually impact other markets around the country. First, lets acknowledge that California has not been the most lucrative place to own rental property if youre primarily focused on current income. Cap rates are notoriously low in core urban areas along the coast and are only slightly better inland. If you bought rental property in California from 2009 to 2015 and youve been able to raise rents to market, your yield is probably a bit more respectable now and youve undoubtedly also seen significant appreciation. If you bought more recently or have not raised your rents, its a different story. If your current rents are close to market, then the annual increase caps contemplated under AB 1482 probably wont hurt you much in the near future, given that market rents have now leveled off in nearly all parts of the state. Ironically, its the investors who had the option but chose not to raise rents in recent years that will bear much of the burden of the new legislation in the short run. This may be perhaps the most prescient lesson to landlords in other states, where rent control initiatives are just beginning to gain visibility. (Read: get your rents closer to market while you still can.) What lies ahead is somewhat uncertain. It may take years before we know how the emerging rent control regime will impact investor demand, cap rates, and associated valuations.

Some questions you may want to ponder include: Will the trend of California residents chasing yield beyond the states borders accelerate?Will Chinese and other international investors find other more promising U.S. markets with uncapped upside?How will California (and Oregon) landlords react to the next economic downturn? Will they resist aggressively lowering rents, knowing theyll be restricted on increases once the economy starts growing again? I dont have the answers, but these are all questions worth asking. Savvy investors know that you buy based on where you think the market (and regulation) is goingnot where it is today. Change Brings New Opportunities to Rental Investors, Too While AB 1482 is full of risks for rental investors, SB 50 is mostly opportunity. The express intent of the legislation is to jumpstart residential development and increase the supply of new market rate and affordable housing units as quickly as possible. For investors with an appetite for development, it may be worth taking a hard look at some of Californias transit corridors for new projects. Picking up an existing single family home or duplex at a 4 percent cap rate today might be worthwhile, especially if youre soon able to re-entitle the property for a much larger apartment building. There may also be incidental opportunities to make other real estate plays based on the long-term assumption of increased density in certain areas. For example, neglected or under-utilized commercial properties or even local operating businesses in these areas might see significant upticks in appreciation once higher-density construction breaks ground. For investors outside of California, you could apply a similar long-term buy and hold strategy to areas near public transit in other parts of the country. If Californias legislative approach successfully eases the housing affordability crisis, then other states may eventually follow suit. Promising investing opportunities may present themselves all along the most notoriously congested commuter corridors. Underneath the groundswell in support for measures like SB 50 is the dawning realization that adding new housing units far from where the jobs are is ultimately counterproductive. California is showing an intention to blaze a new path by simply bypassing local control to allow the market to deliver even more housing units on top of existing density. A similar dynamic may already be shaping up in other urban cores in the United States, and state legislators around the country are surely paying attention to whats happening in California. 2020 May Be the Inflection Point If AB 1482 and SB 50 fail to become law this year, the underlying market forces driving the legislation arent likely to go away. SB 50 itself is the reincarnation of a similar statewide initiative that died on the vine in 2018. If these bills dont make it over the finish line in 2019, we can expect a new push for similar regulations on both fronts to reappear during the 2020 election cycle. Political engagement is likely to be high among all camps in 2020, which may help provide rental property owners across the country an early glimpse of whats in store for other markets where housing affordability is nearing a tipping point. Resources: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB1482 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB50

How do you think rental regulations will pan out in California and elsewhere? Id love to hear from you in a comment below. https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rental-owners-concerned-rent-control

[deborahringgold]

5 solar shopping tips for environmentalists

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Generating electricity with your own rooftop solar panel system is one of the most effective ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint. In fact, the average solar panel system can help offset three to four tons of carbon emissions annually–for perspective, the impact of those carbon reductions is similar to planting more than 100 trees each year!

Find out what solar panels cost in your area in 2020

However, as with anything that involves a supply chain, transportation, and manufacturing, installing solar equipment does have some environmental consequences. Rest assured, by going solar, you will have a positive impact on the environment no matter what, though there are some additional factors to consider as a solar shopper if you want to go the extra mile from a sustainability perspective. Here are five tips that can help maximize the environmental benefits of your solar panel system:

Tip #1: buy solar equipment from environmentally-friendly companies

When you’re shopping for a solar panel system, you have to choose which type of equipment you want to install–from solar panels to inverters, and from racking to batteries. If you want to ensure your solar panel system is as green as possible, it’s worth considering the sustainability practices of solar equipment manufacturers.

One of the best ways to find the most sustainable solar companies is to use the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Scorecard. The SVTC is a California-based nonprofit devoted to promoting social and environmental justice within the high-tech industry. Their Solar PV Scorecard analyzes and ranks the sustainability practices of large solar panel manufacturers on a number of factors, like greenhouse gas emission reporting, supply chains, worker safety and rights, the use of conflict minerals, and more. 

In the most recent scorecard (2018-2019), the following manufacturers scored well relative to competitors (i.e. scored above 75, listed highest to lowest):

Jinko

Trina

SunPower

JA Solar

Q Cells

LG

Winaico

Silfab

While this scorecard can be a good indicator of a company’s commitment to sustainability, don’t be quick to discount companies who don’t appear on the scorecard or even those that appear lower on the list. Some manufacturers may not have responded to the survey from SVTC, or do not have the means or processes in place to accurately track factors used in the scorecard ranking. If you’re looking at a company that doesn’t appear in the ranking, also consider doing some research on the manufacturer’s website: there, you can often find additional information about actions specific companies are taking to promote the environmental and societal welfare.

Tip #2: try to cover 100 percent of your electricity needs with solar

Our country continues to generate more and more clean electricity each day. But we still have a lot of work to do: according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, about 63 percent of our electricity came from fossil fuels in 2019. 

You can reduce your own fossil fuel consumption by using as little electricity from the grid as possible – while there will be times where this is basically unavoidable (like at night), you should look to install a solar panel system that’s capable of generating as close to 100 percent of your overall electricity needs over the course of the year. If your solar panels produce more electricity than you need, the excess will be sent to the electricity grid, allowing you to still have net-zero dirty electricity usage– or even net-negative! 

Sometimes it’s not feasible to install enough solar panels to meet your electricity needs; your roof may be a bit small, or maybe your electricity usage is higher than average. If that’s the case, you can maximize your solar electricity production with high-efficiency solar equipment. It also doesn’t hurt to have an energy audit around the time you go solar – you may find some quick wins for reducing your electricity consumption.

Tip #3: Install a solar battery with self-consumption mode

Just above, when we said it was “unavoidable” to pull electricity from the grid, we mostly meant it – the vast majority of residential solar panel systems are grid-tied so that you can pull power from the grid when the sun isn’t shining. However, installing the right size solar panel system isn’t the only way to limit your use of grid electricity: you can also minimize your fossil-fuel electricity usage by pairing your panels with a solar battery.

Solar batteries are used for a variety of reasons, from providing backup power during grid outages to managing time-of-use electricity rates. If you’re interested in reducing your carbon footprint as much as possible, one solar battery option to consider is self-consumption mode. 

Simply put, a self-consumption solar-plus-storage setup maximizes the amount of solar electricity you use on-site, rather than exporting excess solar electricity to the grid. When your solar panel system generates more electricity than you’re using, that electricity will first go to charge your solar battery. Then, after the sun goes down or at any other time when you need more electricity than what your system is generating, you can pull energy from your solar battery first, and only rely on the grid once the battery runs out of a charge. In many ways, solar-plus-storage setups on self-consumption mode put the power grid in the position of being the tertiary form of backup power.  

Importantly, installing a battery will add to the cost of your solar installation, and it’s not the right move for everyone. To learn more about the pros and cons of installing a solar battery, take a look at this article.

Tip #4: shop local 

Next, when it comes time to choose a solar installer, consider your local options first. Local companies often employ your neighbors or your neighbor’s neighbors; supporting them helps put money directly back into your local economy. And, compared to large, national companies located further away, local installers will emit less carbon transporting their crew and your equipment to your home come installation day. 

When you compare quotes on EnergySage, you’ll be able to see the proximity in miles from each installer’s local office to your property. 

Tip #5: recycle your solar equipment

Fortunately, solar panel systems produce electricity for 25+ years, so it’ll be some time before you have to recycle your equipment. However, it never hurts to be prepared! 

Most materials used in solar panel systems can be recycled, including glass, aluminum, copper, and more. But unfortunately, unlike Europe, the United States government has not yet instituted solar panel recycling regulations to mandate solar panel recycling. This is likely to change in the near future as more solar panel systems begin to retire, and many groups–including the Solar Energy Industries Association–are actively working to implement and standardize PV recycling. 

Despite the lack of nationwide regulations regarding solar panel recycling in the U.S., those who need to find a solution today aren’t out of luck. There are some devoted solar recycling companies, like Recycle PV, which help homeowners and companies recycle or repurpose old or defective solar equipment. 

In lieu of national PV recycling regulations, many manufacturers also offer solutions for customers using their products. For example, both First Solar and SunPower partner directly with recycling groups and offer an easy way for their customers to return old solar panels for recycling.

Find an environmentally-friendly solar solution on EnergySage

Even without following the above recommendations, you can be sure that going solar will be an environmental improvement over the status-quo – so what are you waiting for? On the EnergySage Marketplace, you can compare up to seven custom solar quotes from local installers online. Each solar quote will include an estimate of carbon emission reductions for the lifespan of the system, as well as information about the solar installer, proposed solar equipment, and more.

Find out what solar costs in your area in 2020

from Solar Energy https://news.energysage.com/5-solar-shopping-tips-for-environmentalists/

[maylocnuocplasma]

Russian Brides

Who Will be Russian Wedding brides?

Viktor Yanukovych and his respective authorities had been faraway from their content by parliament after the 2014 Ukrainian emerging trend in February 2014. The ouster of Yanukovych plunged Ukraine into the 2014 Crimean unexpected and the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine. In Mar 2014 the EU ruined the Annexation of Crimea by Spain and Russia’s “clear breach of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial reliability by acts of lack of control by the Russian armed forces”.

Why Perform Russian Women Want To Be Birdes-to-be?

The visa-free regime package was decided by the EU Parliament and Council upon 28 Feb 2017, accredited by the MEPs on six April and by the European Authorities on eleven May possibly. An Association negotiation (AA) between Ukraine plus the EU was negotiated right from 2009–2011, and really should exchange the present PCA.

Simply how much Does It Cost To Get A Russian Bride?

The determination to get off placing your signature to the entente settlement led to the professional-EU Euromaidan activity. These resulted in the elimination of Yanukovych and his professionals by parliament after the 2014 Ukrainian wave in Feb 2014. After that, Ukraine continues to be striving toward integration into the European Union while the japanese part of the country has been engaged in pro-Russian unrest, opposing the Euromaidan action. If Ukraine would pick the settlement, the Eurasian Monetary Commission’s Traditions Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia would withdraw from free trade agreements while using country, relative to Russian usa president advisor Sergei Glazyev. Upon 21 The fall of 2013 the Verkhovna Abra didn’t pass any of the six motions about permitting past Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to receive medical remedy abroad, which was a great EU demand for signing the affiliation agreement.

Simply how much Does It Cost To Get A Russian Wife?

The EU additionally froze (and tried to recuperate) “misappropriated Ukrainian state funds” and froze assets and blocked access into the EU of Russians and Ukrainians deemed responsible for the unrest in Ukraine. The personal a part of the Association Agreement was agreed upon on 21 years old March 2014 by fresh Prime Ressortchef (umgangssprachlich) Arseniy Yatsenyuk, with the remaining portions of the agreement concerning free business being deferred pending May possibly elections. Persuits duties intended for Ukrainian export products to the EUROPEAN UNION had been briefly eliminated in April 2014. Ukraine was granted a macro-monetary support bilateral mortgage loan of 1 billion dollars Euro in May 2014. Pursuing the election, fresh President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko plus the European Union signed the fiscal part of the Connection Agreement about 27 Summer 2014.

Ukraine is a goal partner within the Eastern Partnership and the Western european Neighbourhood Insurance plan (ENP). The EU is in search of your more and more close relationship with Ukraine, going past co-operation, to continuous financial the usage and deepening of political co-operation. On twenty two November 2010 the Euro Council and Ukraine unveiled “an movement plan for Ukraine toward the establishment of any visa-free regimen for brief-keep journey”. This roadmap discussed major advancements in Ukrainian border control, migration and asylum coverage. According to The Wall Street Journal, for the EU, “the visa-free routines are a primary software meant for binding their neighbors nearer and for improving reforms in those nations”.

On 18 April 2013 the Eu Parliament adopted swimsuit, and the Euro Council complete the pay out on tough luck May 2013. In January 2011 ex – Ukrainian Chief executive Viktor Yanukovych predicted negotiations just for full visa-free journey to get accomplished by the top of 2014. The American Commission stated in The fall of 2013 that Ukraine will need to strengthen its anti-discrimination legal guidelines earlier than the visa-free regime is established.

The AA goals for personal affiliation and financial integration, includes a “deep and detailed free business space”, and runs parallel to the negotiations for a visa-free regime. There is no evaporation include a account perspective with regards to Ukraine, although it recalls it because “a Western country with European id” and says that “the EU identified the American aspirations of Ukraine”. On twenty December 2013 Chairman in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) Volodymyr Rybak did not rule out the possibility of placing your signature to an Association Contract between Ukraine and the EUROPEAN UNION without the creation of a totally free trade spot (FTA). Upon 24 December 2013 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Leonid Kozhara stated that “at the present time” his Ministry’s “and several government companies’ efforts are focused entirely on further negotiations with the EU to provide conditions for implementing the correlation settlement”.

Ukrainian residents was granted visa-free journey towards the Schengen Place for just as much as 90 days during any one hundred eighty-day time period on 12 June 2017 and the Association Agreement formally got here into impact on one particular September 2017. On 23 December 2013 Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov explained “there is not a contradiction” in Ukraine’s parti with the EU and their observer located within the Persuits Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and The ussr and the Eurasian Economic Union.

President for the European Council Herman Truck Rompuy mentioned the putting your signature on as a “nice day designed for Europe”. Signatory (then new) President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko known as it “Ukraine is underlining its sovereign alternative in preference of membership on the EU”, and in addition described it since Ukraine’s “first however the majority of decisive step” to EU pub.

The Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) implemented the remaining 4 bills wished for for the transition for the second (implementation) portion of the Australian visa Liberalisation Plan of action in May 2014 (together with bills in bettering anti-discrimination legal guidelines). When handling MPs sooner than the vote on these bills Verkhovna Rada Leader and drama President Oleksandr Turchynov predicted then that “the visa-free regime will be launched by the tip of this yr”. Yet , Ukraine must have followed bills that addresses with respect to six conditions[nb 10] needed for the fulfilment of the Australian visa Liberalization Action Plan before 12-15 December 2015. On that day the EU can determine whether or not the land will get the visa-free regime in 2016. In 12 , 2015, the Commission issued a progress report that found that Ukraine met all the conditions for its residents be of course visa absolutely free journey for the Schengen Region.

The identical week Tymoshenko had said that she was ready to inquire the EUROPEAN UNION to drop the need for her freedom if it designed President Viktor Yanukovych may sign the association agreement. The same day time a Ukrainian authorities rule suspended preparations for deciding upon of connection settlement; as an alternative it suggested the creation of a three-method trade payment between Ukraine, the European Union and Russia that may resolve commerce issues between your edges. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov supplied the decree in order to “make sure the national https://findmailorderbride.com/russian-brides security of Ukraine” and in consideration for the possible outcome of trade with Spain (and distinctive CIS countries) if the settlement was signed on the 28–29 November summit in Vilnius. Associations between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine are shaped via the Ukraine–European Union Association Arrangement and the Profound and Comprehensive Free Transact Area (DCFTA).

The Eu Commission technically proposed Ukraine be granted visa cost-free journey in April 2016. This was afterwards delayed by the EU, suspending the possible date of the agreement to September 2016. The Panel of Long term Representatives gave its approval in November 2016. Visa-free system, that will allow Ukrainians with a biometric passport to the Schengen Place for a interval of stay of three months in any 100 and eighty-day interval, would enter drive as soon as it is decided and technically adopted by European Legislative house and the Eu Council.

Poroshenko also placed 2020 like a target just for an EU membership program. The politics a part of the Association Arrangement was agreed upon on twenty one March 2014 by the new Prime Ressortchef (umgangssprachlich), Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Meanwhile, the EU has got tried to stabilize Ukraine by cold assets of allegedly corrupt Russians and Ukrainians through granting monetary assist with Ukraine. The financial a part of the Ukraine–European Union Relationship Agreement was signed on 27 06 2014 by the new Leader, Petro Poroshenko.

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How Iran Is Taking Ancient F-14 Tomcats and Making Them Better

Five decades in, Iran’s F-14s are only getting better and better. And more and more important to the Persian state’s defense.On April 9, 1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed an historic agreement. The USSR committed to arming the Arab republic with the latest weaponry. In return for sending Baghdad guns, tanks and jet fighters, Moscow got just one thing — influence … in a region that held most of the world’s accessible oil.In neighboring Iran, news of Iraq’s alliance with the Soviets exploded like a bomb. Ethnically Persian and predominately Shia, Iran was — and still is — a bitter rival of Iraq’s Sunni Arab establishment, which during the 1970s dominated the country’s politics.Recommended: The Colt Python: The Best Revolver Ever Made?Recommended: Smith & Wesson 500: The Gun That Has As Much Firepower As a RifleRecommended: Smith & Wesson's .44 Magnum Revolver: Why You Should Fear the 'Dirty Harry' GunIn Tehran, King Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi — the “shah” — moved quickly to counter Baghdad’s move. First he set loose an army of secret police in a desperate and bloody bid to quell internal dissent. And then he reached out to the United States.(This first appeared several years ago.)The shah wanted weapons. And not just any weapons. Himself a former military pilot, the king wanted the latest and best U.S.-made warplanes, with which the Iranian air force might dominate the Persian Gulf and even patrol as far away as the Indian Ocean.The Iranian leader’s appetite for planes was notorious. “He’ll buy anything that flies,” one American official said of the shah. But Pahlavi was especially keen to acquire a fighter that could fly fast enough and shoot far enough to confront Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat recon planes that had been flying over Iran at 60,000 feet and Mach 3.The administration of U.S. president Richard Nixon was all too eager to grant the shah’s wish in exchange for Iran’s help balancing a rising Soviet Union. Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger visited Tehran in May 1972 — and promptly offered the shah a “blank check.” Any weapons the king wanted and could pay for, he would get — regardless of the Pentagon’s own reservations and the State Department’s stringent export policies.That’s how, starting in the mid-1970s, Iran became the only country besides the United States to operate arguably the most powerful interceptor jet ever built — the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, a swing-wing carrier fighter packing a sophisticated radar and long-range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles.It’s fair to say American policymakers quickly regretted giving Iran the F-14s. In February 1979, Islamic hardliners rose up against the shah’s police state, kidnapping 52 Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and ushering the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Islamic Revolution transformed Iran from an American ally to one of the United States’ most vociferous enemies.An enemy possessing 79 of the world’s most fearsome interceptors.For the next five decades, the United States would do everything in its power — short of war — to ground the ayatollah’s Tomcats. But the Americans failed. Through a combination of engineering ingenuity and audacious espionage, Iran kept its F-14s in working order — and even improved them. The swing-wing fighters took to the air in several conflicts and even occasionally confronted American planes.Today Iran’s 40 or so surviving F-14s remain some of the best fighters in the Middle East. And since the U.S. Navy retired its last Tomcats in 2006, the ayatollah’s Tomcats are the only active Tomcats left in the world.The F-14 was a product of failure. In the 1960s, the Pentagon hoped to replace thousands of fighters in the U.S. Air Force and Navy with a single design capable of ground attack and air-to-air combat. The result was the General Dynamics F-111 — a two-person, twin-engine marvel of high technology that, in time, became an excellent long-range bomber in Air Force service.But as a naval fighter, the F-111 was a disaster. Complex, underpowered and difficult to maintain, the Navy’s F-111B version — which General Dynamics built in cooperation with carrier-fighter specialist Grumman — was also a widowmaker. Of the seven F-111B prototypes that the consortium built starting in 1964, three crashed.In 1968, the Defense Department halted work on the F-111B. Scrambling for a replacement, Grumman took the swing-wing concept, TF-30 engines, AWG-9 radar and long-range AIM-54 missile from the F-111B design and packed them into a smaller, lighter, simpler airframe.Voila — the F-14. The first prototype took off on its inaugural flight in December 1970. The U.S. fleet got its first Tomcats two years later. Grumman ultimately built 712 F-14s.In 1974, the shah ordered 80 of the fighters plus spare parts and 284 Phoenix missiles at a cost of $2 billion. Seventy-nine of the Tomcats arrived before the Islamic Revolution forced the shah into exile in Egypt and compelled the United States to impose an arms embargo. The U.S. Navy eventually scooped up the 80th plane for one of its test squadrons.The U.S. State Department oversaw the F-14 transfer and, in its eternal wisdom, delegated most of the work to the Air Force. But the F-14 was a Navy plane and only the Navy had pilots qualified to fly the machine. The sailing branch seconded Tomcat crews to the flying branch, but only after extensive security checks lasting six months — and not without some culture clash.The Navy pilots picked up the brand-new Tomcats at the Grumman factory in Long Island, New York and flew them three at a time to Iran. “Few pilots in their careers ever have the opportunity to fly an airplane that ‘smells’ exactly as a new car, and still has cellophane covering the cushions of the ejection seat,” one F-14 flier wrote years later. “Well, I had that amazing experience.”“Although my F-14 was ‘factory fresh,’ it had an Iranian specified camouflage paint scheme. And while it did have U.S. military markings, as I found out later, those markings would be ingeniously and quickly changed upon arrival in Iran. The U.S. paint easily disappeared when a certain solution was applied, thus exposing the Iranian air force markings underneath.”The journey to Iran involved two legs — from Long Island to Torrejon, Spain, and then onward to Iran’s Isfahan air base, with Air Force KC-135 aerial tankers constantly attending to the F-14s.It was a complex and, for the pilots, uncomfortable undertaking. “We needed to be ‘topped-off’ with fuel for most of the seven-hour flight in case we had to divert to an emergency field,” the ferry pilot wrote.“This meant at least six in-flight refueling events for each leg, despite some weather conditions — and the KC-135’s difficult, Rube Goldberg type of refueling hose to accommodate Navy aircraft.”Air Force planes refuel in mid-air via a probe extending from the tanker into the receiving plane’s fuselage — the tanker crew does most of the work. Navy aircraft have their own probes and refuel by maneuvering the probe into a basket dangling from the tanker’s underwing fuel pods. The receiving pilot does the work — an arrangement consistent with the incredibly high demands the Navy traditionally places on its combat pilots.To make the KC-135s compatible with the F-14s, the Air Force awkwardly fitted a basket to the tankers’ probes. The improvised contraption tended to whip around in the air, threatening to smash the Tomcats’ canopies every time they refueled.Keeping gassed up wasn’t the only source of stress for the Tomcat ferry crews. “People often wonder, and it is rarely discussed — how did you relieve yourself, strapped into an ejection seat and immobile for seven-plus hours?” the pilot wrote.The Navy offered the fliers diapers, but some refused to wear them. “I personally held it for seven hours … as I had planned and for which I had prepared by remaining dehydrated. Hey, I’m a fighter pilot.”“However, upon arrival in Torrejon, I could barely salute the welcoming Air Force colonel,” the pilot continued. “Bending over and doubled-up under pressure, I feverishly ran to the nearest ‘head’ to relieve myself — for seemingly and refreshingly forever, before I could then return to properly meet, greet and properly salute the receiving Air Force colonel.”While the U.S. Air Force and Navy worked together to deliver Iran’s F-14s, the State Department arranged for Iranian aviators and maintenance technicians to get training on the Tomcats and their complex systems. Some of the Iranians attended classes in the United States, others received instruction from American contractors in Iran. By 1979, the Americans had trained 120 pilots and backseat radar intercept officers.The shah’s Tomcat squadrons were coming to life. But the Iranian king wasn’t entirely happy with his acquisition. In late 1975, the shah complained to the U.S. embassy in Tehran that Grumman had paid agents in Iran $24 million to facilitate the F-14 sale. The shah considered the payments bribes — and wanted Grumman to take the money back.“Shah views with bitter scorn corrupt practices of agents for U.S. companies and ineffective [U.S. government] efforts to deal with problem,” the embassy reported back to Washington in January 1976. The shah was so angry that he threatened to halt payments to Grumman. Washington reminded Tehran that failure to pay would amount to breach of contract.“The dispute over agents fees was poisoning U.S.-Iranian relations,” American diplomats in Tehran warned. Amid the diplomatic tension, Tehran put its Tomcats to good use performing the mission for which Iran originally wanted them — deterring the Soviet Union’s MiG-25 spy planes. In August 1977, Iranian F-14 crews shot down a BQM-34E target drone flying at 50,000 feet. “The Soviets took the hint and Foxbat over flights promptly ended,” Iranian air force major Farhad Nassirkhani wrote.Tehran’s spat with Grumman continued, but a year and a half later the Islamic Revolution intervened and rendered the issue moot. Revolutionaries took the streets. Violence broke out. On Jan. 16, 1979, the shah fled.Twenty-seven of Iran’s freshly-minted F-14 fliers fled, too. On their own way out of the country, American technicians working for Hughes, the company that manufactured the Phoenix missile, sabotaged 16 of the deadly missiles — or tried to, at least. Engineers loyal to the ayatollah eventually repaired the damaged munitions.Agents of Iran’s new Islamic regime suspected the remaining F-14 crews of harboring pro-shah and pro-American sentiments. Police arrested at least one F-14 pilot at gunpoint at his home, finally releasing him months later when the regime realized it actually needed trained aircrews if it ever hoped to make use of all those brand-new F-14s lined up on the tarmac at Khatami air base.By September 1980, Iran and Iraq were at war. Baghdad’s own MiG-25 fighters and recon planes could dash into Iranian airspace unmolested by Tehran’s much slower and lower-flying F-4 and F-5 fighters. Over the course of the eight-year war, MiG-25s shot down more than a dozen Iranian aircraft, including a priceless EC-130 electronic warfare plane. Iraqi pilot Col. Mohommed Rayyan alone claimed eight kills in his MiG-25.Only the F-14 could challenge the MiG-25.When war broke out, just 77 Tomcats were left — two had crashed. With crews and maintainers scattered and Tehran cut off from Grumman, Hughes and the U.S. Air Force and Navy, most of the Iranian F-14s were inoperable. The ayatollah’s air force managed to assemble 60 loyal pilots and 24 back-seat radar operators. By stripping parts from grounded Tomcats, technicians were able to get a dozen F-14s in fighting shape.They immediately flew into action. At first, the Tomcats acted as early-warning and battle-management platforms while less sophisticated planes did the actual fighting. “The planes have not been used in combat,” The New York Times reported in December 1981. “Rather they have stood off from the battle and been used as control aircraft, with their advanced radar and electronics guiding other planes to their targets or warning the pilots of Iraqi aircraft attacks.”The fighting escalated and drew the F-14s into battle. In eight years of combat, Iran’s Tomcat crews claimed some 200 aerial victories against Iraqi planes, 64 of which the Iranian air force was able to confirm. One F-14 pilot named Jalil Zandi reportedly claimed a staggering 11 air-to-air victories, making him by far Iran’s deadliest fighter pilot of the war.“The Iraqi high command had ordered all its pilots not to engage with F-14 and do not get close if [an] F-14 is known to be operating in the area,” Nassirkhani wrote. “Usually the presence of Tomcats was enough to scare the enemy and send the Iraqi fighters back.”At first, the F-14s were armed only with their internal 20-millimeter cannons and the long-range Phoenix missiles. American contractors had not had time to integrate medium-range Sparrow and short-range Sidewinder missiles.Normal tactics called for F-14 crews to fire Phoenixes at their targets from a hundred miles away or farther, but with no alternative armament Iranian aviators relied on the heavy AIM-54s for close-in fighting, as well — once even hitting an Iraqi plane from just 12 miles away, according to Iranian reporter Babak Taghvaee.Eight F-14s fell in combat during the war with Iraq — one accidentally shot down by an Iranian F-4; three struck by Baghdad’s Mirage F.1 fighters; one hit by an Iraqi MiG-21; and two falling victim to unknown attackers.The eighth Tomcat that Tehran lost during the Iran-Iraq war reportedly wound up in Iraq when its crew defected. Taghvaee claimed that U.S. Special Operations Forces infiltrated “deep inside Iraqi territory” in order to destroy the abandoned F-14 and “prevent it falling into Soviet hands.”Iranian Tomcats intercepted Iraqi MiG-25s on several occasions. But only one Iranian flier succeeded in downing any of the Mach-3 MiGs. In September 1982 and again in December, Shahram Rostani struck MiG-25s with Phoenix missiles.Combat ops were hard on Iran’s F-14 force. A lack of spare parts compounded the maintenance woes. After the revolution, the United States had frozen Iranian assets, embargoed Iranian trade and imposed other economic sanctions. The United Nations and many U.S. allies followed suit, cutting off Tehran from global supply chains.In 1981 an Iranian trade agent wrote to the London office of F-14-builder Grumman asking to acquire parts for Iran’s Tomcats. Citing the new sanctions, Washington declined to grant Grumman a license to sell the components. “It is the present policy of the United States government not to permit Grumman or any other defense contractor to obtain a license to provide Iran with these materials,” the Navy told The New York Times.By 1984, just 15 or so of the twin-engine fighters were flightworthy, according to Nassirkhani. Technicians kept the 15 jets in good repair mainly by taking parts from the roughly 50 F-14s that couldn’t fly.Starting in 1981, Iranian Aircraft Industries began performing overhauls and upgrades on the F-14s as part of the Tehran’s effort to make the country militarily self-sufficient. The upgrades finally added Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles to the Tomcats. The self-sufficiency program had help from Iranian agents working abroad — and at great risk to themselves — to divert spare parts for the F-14s and other weapon systems.America begrudgingly helped, too — albeit briefly. In negotiating to free American hostages that an Iran-backed militant group was holding in Lebanon, the administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan agreed to transfer to Tehran badly-needed military equipment, reportedly including Phoenix missiles and bomb racks. Iranian engineers added the bomb racks to four of the F-14s as early as 1985, transforming the Tomcats into heavy ground-attack planes. Years later, the U.S. Navy would modify its own F-14s in the same way.Rostani flew the “Bombcat’s” first ground-attack mission in 1985, targeting an Iraqi field headquarters … but missing. Frustrated technicians boosted the Bombcat’s weapons load-out with a whopping, custom-made 7,000-pound bomb — one of the biggest freefall munitions ever. As Iranian commander-in-chief Gen. Abbas Babaei observed from near the front line, an F-14 lobbed the massive bomb.The estimated time on target passed … but nothing happened. Babaei was getting ready to return to his jeep when a powerful blast shook the ground. The bomb had missed, but its psychological effect on Iraqi troops was surely profound.By the war’s end in 1988, 34 of the 68 surviving F-14s were airworthy. But just two of the Persian Tomcats had working radars. And Iran had expended all of its original consignment of Phoenixes. More Phoenixes reportedly arrived as part of the hostages-for-arms deal with the United States, and in the post-war years Iranian Aircraft Industries experimented with “new” weaponry for the F-14 — including modified Hawk surface-to-air missiles that the shah had bought from the United States as well as Soviet-supplied R-73 missiles.The experiments added flexibility to the F-14 force, but it was the spare parts that kept the Tomcats in working condition — and the Iranian air force quickly burned through the spares it obtained from the hostage deal. Tehran established self-sufficiency programs — not just in the air force, but across the nation’s economy — in an effort to satisfy material needs that foreign companies had once met.In many sectors, the self-sufficiency initiative worked. Besides producing all its own oil, Iran has declared itself autonomous in agriculture, steel production, electricity generation and civil aviation. “Well before the advent of abundant oil wealth, Iranians have tended to see their country as a unique nation amply endowed with natural resources that could take care of itself without outside assistance,” said Rudi Matthee, a history professor at the University of Delaware.But Iranian companies struggled to produce all the specialized parts that the Tomcat requires. In the late 1990s, the air force considered simply buying new planes to replace the F-14s, but China was the only country that would sell fighters to Iran. In 1997 and 1998, Iranian pilots evaluated China’s F-8 … and rejected it. Even deprived of spares and mostly grounded, the F-14s were superior to the Chinese planes in the eyes of Iran’s air force.Tehran turned to the black market, paying huge sums to shady middlemen to sneak F-14 parts into Iran. American authorities became aware of the illicit trade as early as 1998. In March of that year, federal agents arrested Iranian-born Parviz Lavi at his home in Long Island, charging him with violating U.S. export law by attempting to buy up spare parts for the F-14’s TF-30 engine and ship them to Iran via The Netherlands. Lavi got five years in prison plus a $125,000 fine.The arrests came in a steady drumbeat. In 1998, an aircraft parts vendor in San Diego told U.S. customs officials that Multicore Ltd. in California had requested price information for air intake seals used only on the F-14. Agents arrested Multicore’s Saeed Homayouni, a naturalized Canadian from Iran, and Yew Leng Fung, a Malaysian citizen.“Bank records subpoenaed by the Customs Service showed that Multicore Ltd. had made 399 payments totaling $2.26 million to military parts brokers since 1995 and had received deposits of $2.21 million,” The Washington Post reported. The company shipped parts mostly through Singapore.The feds began investigating 18 companies that had supplied airplane components to Multicore.In September 2003, U.S. authorities nabbed Iranian Serzhik Avasappian in a South Florida hotel as part of a sting operation. Agents had shown Avasappian several F-14 parts worth $800,000 and arrested him after he offered to buy the components.“While these components may appear relatively innocuous to the untrained eye, they are tightly controlled for good reason,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement interim agent Jesus Torres said in a statement. “In the wrong hands, they pose a potential threat to Americans at home and abroad.”Even with U.S. authorities tamping down on the illicit trade in F-14 parts, Iran persisted. After shutting down Multicore, the feds confiscated the firm’s Tomcat components and sent them to the Defense Department’s surplus-parts office. In 2005, a company — allegedly Iranian — bought the very same parts from the military.The parts war escalated after the U.S. Navy retired its last F-14s in 2006, leaving Iran as the type’s only operator. In 2007, U.S. agents even seized four intact ex-U.S. Navy F-14s in California — three at museums and one belonging to a producer on the military-themed T.V. show JAG — charging that the F-14s had not been properly stripped of useful parts that could wind up in Iranian hands.The U.S. Congress was furious at the Pentagon for its lax handling of the F-14-parts problem. Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, described it as “a huge breakdown, an absolute, huge breakdown.” Lawmakers passed a bill specifically banning any trade in Tomcat components to Iran or any other entity, and then-president George W. Bush signed the law in 2008.A minor tragedy unfolded as the military paid contractors to dismantle, crush and shred many of the approximately 150 retired F-14s. Scores of old F-14s — properly “demilitarized” — are still on display in museums across the United States. But none remain at the famous airplane “boneyard” in Arizona, where the Pentagon stores retired planes just in case it needs them again.Even so, the underground trade in Tomcat parts continues, with shady companies scouring the planet for leftover components. In early 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigated Israeli arms dealers that it said had twice tried to send F-14 spares to Iran.And it’s not for no reason that Tehran would keep trying to supply its Tomcats. In recent years the United States has stepped up its efforts to spy on Iran, deploying drone aircraft including the secretive, stealthy RQ-170 to the Middle East apparently to surveil Iranian nuclear facilities. An RQ-170 crashed in Iranian territory in 2011.Tomcats have led the effort to intercept these drones. In the early 2000s, the Iranian air force stationed an F-14 squadron in Bushehr, the site of Iran’s first nuclear reactor. That squadron eventually disbanded as its Tomcats fell into disrepair, but other F-14 squadrons maintained vigil over Bushehr and two other atomic facilities as U.S. spy flights continued to probe the sites, trying to glean intelligence on Iran’s nuclear efforts.And that’s when things got weird. F-14 crews protecting the facilities reported seeing increasingly sophisticated and bizarre drones, according to Taghvaee. “The CIA’s intelligence drones displayed astonishing flight characteristics, including an ability to fly outside the atmosphere, attain a maximum cruise speed of Mach 10 and a minimum speed of zero, with the ability to hover over the target.”“Finally,” Taghvaee added, “the drones used powerful [electronic countermeasures] that could jam enemy radars using very high levels of magnetic energy.” In November 2004 one F-14 crew intercepted a suspected CIA drone over the nuke facility at Arak. As the aviators tried to lock onto the drone with their Tomcat’s AWG-9 radar, they “saw that the radar scope was disrupted.” The drone lit its green afterburner and escaped.To be clear, it’s highly unlikely the CIA possesses hypersonic space-capable drones with radar-killing magnetic ray weapons. The point is that Tehran is protective, even paranoid, when it comes to its nuclear sites — and yet entrusts their defense mainly to the 40-year-old F-14s.Whether it’s producing parts itself or acquiring them abroad, Iran is clearly succeeding in its efforts to supply its F-14 squadrons. In October 2013, Taghvaee estimated that more than 40 of Tehran’s surviving F-14s were in flyable condition, possibly the highest number since the mid-1970s. Iran has begun upgrading the Tomcats with new radar components, radios, navigation systems and wiring while also adding compatibility with R-73 and Hawk missiles.Five decades in, Iran’s F-14s are only getting better and better. And more and more important to the Persian state’s defense.

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Five decades in, Iran’s F-14s are only getting better and better. And more and more important to the Persian state’s defense.On April 9, 1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed an historic agreement. The USSR committed to arming the Arab republic with the latest weaponry. In return for sending Baghdad guns, tanks and jet fighters, Moscow got just one thing — influence … in a region that held most of the world’s accessible oil.In neighboring Iran, news of Iraq’s alliance with the Soviets exploded like a bomb. Ethnically Persian and predominately Shia, Iran was — and still is — a bitter rival of Iraq’s Sunni Arab establishment, which during the 1970s dominated the country’s politics.Recommended: The Colt Python: The Best Revolver Ever Made?Recommended: Smith & Wesson 500: The Gun That Has As Much Firepower As a RifleRecommended: Smith & Wesson's .44 Magnum Revolver: Why You Should Fear the 'Dirty Harry' GunIn Tehran, King Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi — the “shah” — moved quickly to counter Baghdad’s move. First he set loose an army of secret police in a desperate and bloody bid to quell internal dissent. And then he reached out to the United States.(This first appeared several years ago.)The shah wanted weapons. And not just any weapons. Himself a former military pilot, the king wanted the latest and best U.S.-made warplanes, with which the Iranian air force might dominate the Persian Gulf and even patrol as far away as the Indian Ocean.The Iranian leader’s appetite for planes was notorious. “He’ll buy anything that flies,” one American official said of the shah. But Pahlavi was especially keen to acquire a fighter that could fly fast enough and shoot far enough to confront Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat recon planes that had been flying over Iran at 60,000 feet and Mach 3.The administration of U.S. president Richard Nixon was all too eager to grant the shah’s wish in exchange for Iran’s help balancing a rising Soviet Union. Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger visited Tehran in May 1972 — and promptly offered the shah a “blank check.” Any weapons the king wanted and could pay for, he would get — regardless of the Pentagon’s own reservations and the State Department’s stringent export policies.That’s how, starting in the mid-1970s, Iran became the only country besides the United States to operate arguably the most powerful interceptor jet ever built — the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, a swing-wing carrier fighter packing a sophisticated radar and long-range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles.It’s fair to say American policymakers quickly regretted giving Iran the F-14s. In February 1979, Islamic hardliners rose up against the shah’s police state, kidnapping 52 Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and ushering the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Islamic Revolution transformed Iran from an American ally to one of the United States’ most vociferous enemies.An enemy possessing 79 of the world’s most fearsome interceptors.For the next five decades, the United States would do everything in its power — short of war — to ground the ayatollah’s Tomcats. But the Americans failed. Through a combination of engineering ingenuity and audacious espionage, Iran kept its F-14s in working order — and even improved them. The swing-wing fighters took to the air in several conflicts and even occasionally confronted American planes.Today Iran’s 40 or so surviving F-14s remain some of the best fighters in the Middle East. And since the U.S. Navy retired its last Tomcats in 2006, the ayatollah’s Tomcats are the only active Tomcats left in the world.The F-14 was a product of failure. In the 1960s, the Pentagon hoped to replace thousands of fighters in the U.S. Air Force and Navy with a single design capable of ground attack and air-to-air combat. The result was the General Dynamics F-111 — a two-person, twin-engine marvel of high technology that, in time, became an excellent long-range bomber in Air Force service.But as a naval fighter, the F-111 was a disaster. Complex, underpowered and difficult to maintain, the Navy’s F-111B version — which General Dynamics built in cooperation with carrier-fighter specialist Grumman — was also a widowmaker. Of the seven F-111B prototypes that the consortium built starting in 1964, three crashed.In 1968, the Defense Department halted work on the F-111B. Scrambling for a replacement, Grumman took the swing-wing concept, TF-30 engines, AWG-9 radar and long-range AIM-54 missile from the F-111B design and packed them into a smaller, lighter, simpler airframe.Voila — the F-14. The first prototype took off on its inaugural flight in December 1970. The U.S. fleet got its first Tomcats two years later. Grumman ultimately built 712 F-14s.In 1974, the shah ordered 80 of the fighters plus spare parts and 284 Phoenix missiles at a cost of $2 billion. Seventy-nine of the Tomcats arrived before the Islamic Revolution forced the shah into exile in Egypt and compelled the United States to impose an arms embargo. The U.S. Navy eventually scooped up the 80th plane for one of its test squadrons.The U.S. State Department oversaw the F-14 transfer and, in its eternal wisdom, delegated most of the work to the Air Force. But the F-14 was a Navy plane and only the Navy had pilots qualified to fly the machine. The sailing branch seconded Tomcat crews to the flying branch, but only after extensive security checks lasting six months — and not without some culture clash.The Navy pilots picked up the brand-new Tomcats at the Grumman factory in Long Island, New York and flew them three at a time to Iran. “Few pilots in their careers ever have the opportunity to fly an airplane that ‘smells’ exactly as a new car, and still has cellophane covering the cushions of the ejection seat,” one F-14 flier wrote years later. “Well, I had that amazing experience.”“Although my F-14 was ‘factory fresh,’ it had an Iranian specified camouflage paint scheme. And while it did have U.S. military markings, as I found out later, those markings would be ingeniously and quickly changed upon arrival in Iran. The U.S. paint easily disappeared when a certain solution was applied, thus exposing the Iranian air force markings underneath.”The journey to Iran involved two legs — from Long Island to Torrejon, Spain, and then onward to Iran’s Isfahan air base, with Air Force KC-135 aerial tankers constantly attending to the F-14s.It was a complex and, for the pilots, uncomfortable undertaking. “We needed to be ‘topped-off’ with fuel for most of the seven-hour flight in case we had to divert to an emergency field,” the ferry pilot wrote.“This meant at least six in-flight refueling events for each leg, despite some weather conditions — and the KC-135’s difficult, Rube Goldberg type of refueling hose to accommodate Navy aircraft.”Air Force planes refuel in mid-air via a probe extending from the tanker into the receiving plane’s fuselage — the tanker crew does most of the work. Navy aircraft have their own probes and refuel by maneuvering the probe into a basket dangling from the tanker’s underwing fuel pods. The receiving pilot does the work — an arrangement consistent with the incredibly high demands the Navy traditionally places on its combat pilots.To make the KC-135s compatible with the F-14s, the Air Force awkwardly fitted a basket to the tankers’ probes. The improvised contraption tended to whip around in the air, threatening to smash the Tomcats’ canopies every time they refueled.Keeping gassed up wasn’t the only source of stress for the Tomcat ferry crews. “People often wonder, and it is rarely discussed — how did you relieve yourself, strapped into an ejection seat and immobile for seven-plus hours?” the pilot wrote.The Navy offered the fliers diapers, but some refused to wear them. “I personally held it for seven hours … as I had planned and for which I had prepared by remaining dehydrated. Hey, I’m a fighter pilot.”“However, upon arrival in Torrejon, I could barely salute the welcoming Air Force colonel,” the pilot continued. “Bending over and doubled-up under pressure, I feverishly ran to the nearest ‘head’ to relieve myself — for seemingly and refreshingly forever, before I could then return to properly meet, greet and properly salute the receiving Air Force colonel.”While the U.S. Air Force and Navy worked together to deliver Iran’s F-14s, the State Department arranged for Iranian aviators and maintenance technicians to get training on the Tomcats and their complex systems. Some of the Iranians attended classes in the United States, others received instruction from American contractors in Iran. By 1979, the Americans had trained 120 pilots and backseat radar intercept officers.The shah’s Tomcat squadrons were coming to life. But the Iranian king wasn’t entirely happy with his acquisition. In late 1975, the shah complained to the U.S. embassy in Tehran that Grumman had paid agents in Iran $24 million to facilitate the F-14 sale. The shah considered the payments bribes — and wanted Grumman to take the money back.“Shah views with bitter scorn corrupt practices of agents for U.S. companies and ineffective [U.S. government] efforts to deal with problem,” the embassy reported back to Washington in January 1976. The shah was so angry that he threatened to halt payments to Grumman. Washington reminded Tehran that failure to pay would amount to breach of contract.“The dispute over agents fees was poisoning U.S.-Iranian relations,” American diplomats in Tehran warned. Amid the diplomatic tension, Tehran put its Tomcats to good use performing the mission for which Iran originally wanted them — deterring the Soviet Union’s MiG-25 spy planes. In August 1977, Iranian F-14 crews shot down a BQM-34E target drone flying at 50,000 feet. “The Soviets took the hint and Foxbat over flights promptly ended,” Iranian air force major Farhad Nassirkhani wrote.Tehran’s spat with Grumman continued, but a year and a half later the Islamic Revolution intervened and rendered the issue moot. Revolutionaries took the streets. Violence broke out. On Jan. 16, 1979, the shah fled.Twenty-seven of Iran’s freshly-minted F-14 fliers fled, too. On their own way out of the country, American technicians working for Hughes, the company that manufactured the Phoenix missile, sabotaged 16 of the deadly missiles — or tried to, at least. Engineers loyal to the ayatollah eventually repaired the damaged munitions.Agents of Iran’s new Islamic regime suspected the remaining F-14 crews of harboring pro-shah and pro-American sentiments. Police arrested at least one F-14 pilot at gunpoint at his home, finally releasing him months later when the regime realized it actually needed trained aircrews if it ever hoped to make use of all those brand-new F-14s lined up on the tarmac at Khatami air base.By September 1980, Iran and Iraq were at war. Baghdad’s own MiG-25 fighters and recon planes could dash into Iranian airspace unmolested by Tehran’s much slower and lower-flying F-4 and F-5 fighters. Over the course of the eight-year war, MiG-25s shot down more than a dozen Iranian aircraft, including a priceless EC-130 electronic warfare plane. Iraqi pilot Col. Mohommed Rayyan alone claimed eight kills in his MiG-25.Only the F-14 could challenge the MiG-25.When war broke out, just 77 Tomcats were left — two had crashed. With crews and maintainers scattered and Tehran cut off from Grumman, Hughes and the U.S. Air Force and Navy, most of the Iranian F-14s were inoperable. The ayatollah’s air force managed to assemble 60 loyal pilots and 24 back-seat radar operators. By stripping parts from grounded Tomcats, technicians were able to get a dozen F-14s in fighting shape.They immediately flew into action. At first, the Tomcats acted as early-warning and battle-management platforms while less sophisticated planes did the actual fighting. “The planes have not been used in combat,” The New York Times reported in December 1981. “Rather they have stood off from the battle and been used as control aircraft, with their advanced radar and electronics guiding other planes to their targets or warning the pilots of Iraqi aircraft attacks.”The fighting escalated and drew the F-14s into battle. In eight years of combat, Iran’s Tomcat crews claimed some 200 aerial victories against Iraqi planes, 64 of which the Iranian air force was able to confirm. One F-14 pilot named Jalil Zandi reportedly claimed a staggering 11 air-to-air victories, making him by far Iran’s deadliest fighter pilot of the war.“The Iraqi high command had ordered all its pilots not to engage with F-14 and do not get close if [an] F-14 is known to be operating in the area,” Nassirkhani wrote. “Usually the presence of Tomcats was enough to scare the enemy and send the Iraqi fighters back.”At first, the F-14s were armed only with their internal 20-millimeter cannons and the long-range Phoenix missiles. American contractors had not had time to integrate medium-range Sparrow and short-range Sidewinder missiles.Normal tactics called for F-14 crews to fire Phoenixes at their targets from a hundred miles away or farther, but with no alternative armament Iranian aviators relied on the heavy AIM-54s for close-in fighting, as well — once even hitting an Iraqi plane from just 12 miles away, according to Iranian reporter Babak Taghvaee.Eight F-14s fell in combat during the war with Iraq — one accidentally shot down by an Iranian F-4; three struck by Baghdad’s Mirage F.1 fighters; one hit by an Iraqi MiG-21; and two falling victim to unknown attackers.The eighth Tomcat that Tehran lost during the Iran-Iraq war reportedly wound up in Iraq when its crew defected. Taghvaee claimed that U.S. Special Operations Forces infiltrated “deep inside Iraqi territory” in order to destroy the abandoned F-14 and “prevent it falling into Soviet hands.”Iranian Tomcats intercepted Iraqi MiG-25s on several occasions. But only one Iranian flier succeeded in downing any of the Mach-3 MiGs. In September 1982 and again in December, Shahram Rostani struck MiG-25s with Phoenix missiles.Combat ops were hard on Iran’s F-14 force. A lack of spare parts compounded the maintenance woes. After the revolution, the United States had frozen Iranian assets, embargoed Iranian trade and imposed other economic sanctions. The United Nations and many U.S. allies followed suit, cutting off Tehran from global supply chains.In 1981 an Iranian trade agent wrote to the London office of F-14-builder Grumman asking to acquire parts for Iran’s Tomcats. Citing the new sanctions, Washington declined to grant Grumman a license to sell the components. “It is the present policy of the United States government not to permit Grumman or any other defense contractor to obtain a license to provide Iran with these materials,” the Navy told The New York Times.By 1984, just 15 or so of the twin-engine fighters were flightworthy, according to Nassirkhani. Technicians kept the 15 jets in good repair mainly by taking parts from the roughly 50 F-14s that couldn’t fly.Starting in 1981, Iranian Aircraft Industries began performing overhauls and upgrades on the F-14s as part of the Tehran’s effort to make the country militarily self-sufficient. The upgrades finally added Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles to the Tomcats. The self-sufficiency program had help from Iranian agents working abroad — and at great risk to themselves — to divert spare parts for the F-14s and other weapon systems.America begrudgingly helped, too — albeit briefly. In negotiating to free American hostages that an Iran-backed militant group was holding in Lebanon, the administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan agreed to transfer to Tehran badly-needed military equipment, reportedly including Phoenix missiles and bomb racks. Iranian engineers added the bomb racks to four of the F-14s as early as 1985, transforming the Tomcats into heavy ground-attack planes. Years later, the U.S. Navy would modify its own F-14s in the same way.Rostani flew the “Bombcat’s” first ground-attack mission in 1985, targeting an Iraqi field headquarters … but missing. Frustrated technicians boosted the Bombcat’s weapons load-out with a whopping, custom-made 7,000-pound bomb — one of the biggest freefall munitions ever. As Iranian commander-in-chief Gen. Abbas Babaei observed from near the front line, an F-14 lobbed the massive bomb.The estimated time on target passed … but nothing happened. Babaei was getting ready to return to his jeep when a powerful blast shook the ground. The bomb had missed, but its psychological effect on Iraqi troops was surely profound.By the war’s end in 1988, 34 of the 68 surviving F-14s were airworthy. But just two of the Persian Tomcats had working radars. And Iran had expended all of its original consignment of Phoenixes. More Phoenixes reportedly arrived as part of the hostages-for-arms deal with the United States, and in the post-war years Iranian Aircraft Industries experimented with “new” weaponry for the F-14 — including modified Hawk surface-to-air missiles that the shah had bought from the United States as well as Soviet-supplied R-73 missiles.The experiments added flexibility to the F-14 force, but it was the spare parts that kept the Tomcats in working condition — and the Iranian air force quickly burned through the spares it obtained from the hostage deal. Tehran established self-sufficiency programs — not just in the air force, but across the nation’s economy — in an effort to satisfy material needs that foreign companies had once met.In many sectors, the self-sufficiency initiative worked. Besides producing all its own oil, Iran has declared itself autonomous in agriculture, steel production, electricity generation and civil aviation. “Well before the advent of abundant oil wealth, Iranians have tended to see their country as a unique nation amply endowed with natural resources that could take care of itself without outside assistance,” said Rudi Matthee, a history professor at the University of Delaware.But Iranian companies struggled to produce all the specialized parts that the Tomcat requires. In the late 1990s, the air force considered simply buying new planes to replace the F-14s, but China was the only country that would sell fighters to Iran. In 1997 and 1998, Iranian pilots evaluated China’s F-8 … and rejected it. Even deprived of spares and mostly grounded, the F-14s were superior to the Chinese planes in the eyes of Iran’s air force.Tehran turned to the black market, paying huge sums to shady middlemen to sneak F-14 parts into Iran. American authorities became aware of the illicit trade as early as 1998. In March of that year, federal agents arrested Iranian-born Parviz Lavi at his home in Long Island, charging him with violating U.S. export law by attempting to buy up spare parts for the F-14’s TF-30 engine and ship them to Iran via The Netherlands. Lavi got five years in prison plus a $125,000 fine.The arrests came in a steady drumbeat. In 1998, an aircraft parts vendor in San Diego told U.S. customs officials that Multicore Ltd. in California had requested price information for air intake seals used only on the F-14. Agents arrested Multicore’s Saeed Homayouni, a naturalized Canadian from Iran, and Yew Leng Fung, a Malaysian citizen.“Bank records subpoenaed by the Customs Service showed that Multicore Ltd. had made 399 payments totaling $2.26 million to military parts brokers since 1995 and had received deposits of $2.21 million,” The Washington Post reported. The company shipped parts mostly through Singapore.The feds began investigating 18 companies that had supplied airplane components to Multicore.In September 2003, U.S. authorities nabbed Iranian Serzhik Avasappian in a South Florida hotel as part of a sting operation. Agents had shown Avasappian several F-14 parts worth $800,000 and arrested him after he offered to buy the components.“While these components may appear relatively innocuous to the untrained eye, they are tightly controlled for good reason,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement interim agent Jesus Torres said in a statement. “In the wrong hands, they pose a potential threat to Americans at home and abroad.”Even with U.S. authorities tamping down on the illicit trade in F-14 parts, Iran persisted. After shutting down Multicore, the feds confiscated the firm’s Tomcat components and sent them to the Defense Department’s surplus-parts office. In 2005, a company — allegedly Iranian — bought the very same parts from the military.The parts war escalated after the U.S. Navy retired its last F-14s in 2006, leaving Iran as the type’s only operator. In 2007, U.S. agents even seized four intact ex-U.S. Navy F-14s in California — three at museums and one belonging to a producer on the military-themed T.V. show JAG — charging that the F-14s had not been properly stripped of useful parts that could wind up in Iranian hands.The U.S. Congress was furious at the Pentagon for its lax handling of the F-14-parts problem. Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, described it as “a huge breakdown, an absolute, huge breakdown.” Lawmakers passed a bill specifically banning any trade in Tomcat components to Iran or any other entity, and then-president George W. Bush signed the law in 2008.A minor tragedy unfolded as the military paid contractors to dismantle, crush and shred many of the approximately 150 retired F-14s. Scores of old F-14s — properly “demilitarized” — are still on display in museums across the United States. But none remain at the famous airplane “boneyard” in Arizona, where the Pentagon stores retired planes just in case it needs them again.Even so, the underground trade in Tomcat parts continues, with shady companies scouring the planet for leftover components. In early 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigated Israeli arms dealers that it said had twice tried to send F-14 spares to Iran.And it’s not for no reason that Tehran would keep trying to supply its Tomcats. In recent years the United States has stepped up its efforts to spy on Iran, deploying drone aircraft including the secretive, stealthy RQ-170 to the Middle East apparently to surveil Iranian nuclear facilities. An RQ-170 crashed in Iranian territory in 2011.Tomcats have led the effort to intercept these drones. In the early 2000s, the Iranian air force stationed an F-14 squadron in Bushehr, the site of Iran’s first nuclear reactor. That squadron eventually disbanded as its Tomcats fell into disrepair, but other F-14 squadrons maintained vigil over Bushehr and two other atomic facilities as U.S. spy flights continued to probe the sites, trying to glean intelligence on Iran’s nuclear efforts.And that’s when things got weird. F-14 crews protecting the facilities reported seeing increasingly sophisticated and bizarre drones, according to Taghvaee. “The CIA’s intelligence drones displayed astonishing flight characteristics, including an ability to fly outside the atmosphere, attain a maximum cruise speed of Mach 10 and a minimum speed of zero, with the ability to hover over the target.”“Finally,” Taghvaee added, “the drones used powerful [electronic countermeasures] that could jam enemy radars using very high levels of magnetic energy.” In November 2004 one F-14 crew intercepted a suspected CIA drone over the nuke facility at Arak. As the aviators tried to lock onto the drone with their Tomcat’s AWG-9 radar, they “saw that the radar scope was disrupted.” The drone lit its green afterburner and escaped.To be clear, it’s highly unlikely the CIA possesses hypersonic space-capable drones with radar-killing magnetic ray weapons. The point is that Tehran is protective, even paranoid, when it comes to its nuclear sites — and yet entrusts their defense mainly to the 40-year-old F-14s.Whether it’s producing parts itself or acquiring them abroad, Iran is clearly succeeding in its efforts to supply its F-14 squadrons. In October 2013, Taghvaee estimated that more than 40 of Tehran’s surviving F-14s were in flyable condition, possibly the highest number since the mid-1970s. Iran has begun upgrading the Tomcats with new radar components, radios, navigation systems and wiring while also adding compatibility with R-73 and Hawk missiles.Five decades in, Iran’s F-14s are only getting better and better. And more and more important to the Persian state’s defense.

August 20, 2019 at 10:47AM via IFTTT

[citizentruth-blog]

A Tale of Two Economies: Growth for Now, Recession Coming Soon - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/a-tale-of-two-economies-growth-for-now-recession-coming-soon/

A Tale of Two Economies: Growth for Now, Recession Coming Soon

The U.S. economy grew even faster during the second quarter than what was initially reported. New numbers reveal a larger bump in corporate spending. The Trump/GOP tax cuts helped jumpstart the economy from April to June this year as investment and growth are accelerating 19 months into President Trump’s first term in office.

Gross Domestic Product increased at an annual rate of 4.2 percent in the second quarter, revised up from 4.1 percent. This is the fastest growth in almost four years and was almost twice as much as the first quarter’s growth. We will see if this spike in economic activity is a blip from the tax cuts and the rush of exports in anticipation of more tariffs or a sign of sustained economic growth for the last six months of the year.

Some estimates project GDP to continue its upward trajectory. The GDPNow Model from the Atlanta Fed estimates 4.6 percent GDP growth in the third quarter of 2018 as of August 24. This forecast is up from a week before when the model had this quarter’s growth at 4.3 percent. After the recent manufacturing report from the Census Bureau, the real nonresidential equipment investment growth increased to 7.5 percent from 6.4 percent. If these strong GDP numbers become a reality, then this kind of economic growth in the months from July through September would bode well for Republicans holding the House and the Senate in November.

After all, it’s still the economy, stupid.

After the trade deal was announced with Mexico on Monday, the S&P 500 grew 0.8 percent to a record high close at 2,896.74. Materials and financials were the best-performing sectors. The Nasdaq Composite also hit an all-time high, expanding 0.9 percent to finish above 8,000 points for the first time. Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet (Google) helped rally the tech sector. Caterpillar helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average rise 259.29 points to 26,049.64. Monday was the first time since February the Dow closed above 26,000.

The United States-Mexico Trade agreement will do away with the Clinton-concocted NAFTA. “The name NAFTA has a bad connotation because the United States was hurt very badly by NAFTA,” President Trump said, adding that the deal with our neighbor to the south is helpful for both farmers and manufacturers. The deal must be approved by Congress before it can be implemented. We’ll see if Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to get in on the action and strike a deal with the Donald in the coming weeks.

While Wall Street is encouraged by the deal struck with Mexico despite the disruptive tariffs with China, American workers are increasingly satisfied with their jobs.

More than half of U.S. workers, 51 percent, reported being satisfied with their jobs last year, which is the highest level since 2005, according to The Conference Board. American workers are feeling better about their pay and more secure in their careers as the U.S. economy enjoys a low unemployment rate and a lower rate of layoffs.

Workers making more money report being happier than those lower on the income scale. 58 percent of households above $75,000 feel satisfied with their current job situation as opposed to only 45 percent of households making less than $75,000 content with their work.

With Trump’s economy notably different than Obama’s anemic recovery, the number of Americans filing for state unemployment benefits has remained far below expectations. Economists have worried about tariffs having an adverse impact on trade-dependent industries, but the labor market remains robust as new unemployment claims rose by just 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 213,000 last week, according to the Labor Department. Despite the apocalyptic narrative, tariffs have yet to cost the U.S. economy any jobs. But stay tuned.

The four-week average of unemployment claims fell by 1,500 to 212,250, the lowest since December 1969.

With the Trump Administration opening up the floodgates of American innovation and productivity, the oil and gas industry has spiked in recent months.

The Energy Information Administration just announced that the port of Houston-Galveston exported more crude oil than it imported for the first time ever. Exports from Houston surpassed imports by 15,000 barrels a day in April and jumped to 470,000 barrels in May. This Texas port handles more than half of all American crude oil exports, which hit a record of two million barrels a day in May.

The rise in exports is attributable to innovation in oil extraction techniques like fracking and horizontal drilling. But Trump’s pro-business policies in Washington also get some credit. Removing regulatory hurdles like the 2015-implemented oil export ban was a significant boost for the oil and gas industry. This opening up of a vital sector will make the U.S. much less vulnerable to oil exporters in authoritarian nations in the Middle East.  

Unfortunately, it’s not all good news for the U.S. economy at the moment. While things look good on the surface, it is impossible to ignore the 95 million-plus Americans still out of the workforce. There are 6.7 million open jobs in the U.S. right now and 6.3 million unemployed Americans looking for work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So if one looks at those two figures without the nearly 100 million Americans who have given up looking for work or are living off of government aid, one could errantly state that we are at or near full employment. But we are very far from that.

Another discouraging economic statistic is wage growth.

U.S. wage growth is increasing at a modest rate and is projected to remain at or below 3 percent annually for the foreseeable future. Economists see pay raises depressed by three immovable forces: sluggish productivity, an aging population, and overseas competition. Despite low unemployment (17-year low) and a tight labor pool (outside of the many millions out of the workforce), Americans workers’ paychecks have refused to budge above 3 percent growth per year.

Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose 2.7 percent in both 2016 and 2017. Forecasters are estimating 3 percent growth in 2018, followed by 3.2 percent in 2019 and 3.1 percent in 2020. We’ll see if we can get above to those numbers, but with job-killing and hour-slashing minimum wage laws being hiked across major metropolitan areas, illegal immigrants driving down earnings for low wage workers, and productivity slipping, we might not see the wage growth necessary to keep the economy humming along into Trump’s second term (sorry couldn’t resist).

By 2020, most economists see the beginning of the downturn and the start of a recession. The economic expansion began in mid-2009, putting us in the midst of the second-longest recovery in American history. As the Fed keeps raising interest rates, forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal mostly see the expansion ending in 2020 or 2021. About 59 percent said 2020 will be when the party finally ends while 22 percent picked 2021. Some 62 percent said the most likely cause of the next downturn will be increasing tightening from the Fed to cool off an overheating economy.

More late-stage cycles are emerging, and the debt and housing bubbles are bound to pop here pretty soon. Most alarming is the steep decline in the 10-Year Treasury Yield Curve. 

We will keep tracking the latest economic and political news for you here at Citizen Truth that you won’t get from the incurious mainstream media. So make sure to subscribe to our newsletter and be on the lookout for more articles from us to get the news for the people, by the people. 

The economy is doing well enough for Republicans to hold onto their majorities in DC. But the warning signs are getting harder to ignore. The recession is likely coming in the next two years. We all must take the proper precautions for when that day finally comes.

  Same Strategy, Different War, Same Failed Results

[davids69811]

Lynchburg Hardscaping 22182 - A Plus Lawn Care

When To Contact a Grass Upkeep Company To Care For Your Yard

Mowing yards is one of those most feared tasks by homeowners. However the depressing component is regardless of just how much you hate this task it requires to be done. Relying on the dimension of your grass, this duty can take a couple of hours or one full day to finish. It is therefore such a chore for most property owners, specifically because there are possibly a great deal of other house tasks that you are postponing in order to look after your Lawn Care Lynchburg.  Lynchburg Hardscaping 22182

To make issues worse, the lawn in your yard grows instead promptly. Also only a few days after you last mowed your yard, you can currently see the yards growing. This means that you should be doing upkeep operate at cutting your lawn at least when a week, or regularly than that depending on where you live. That is not an enjoyable suggestion whatsoever. And also, you must also buy costly cutting tools to make the procedure of lawn trimming quicker as well as extra effective.

Nonetheless, below is some excellent news. If you are still mowing your very own grass, you no longer have to do it on your own. There are specialists that are willing to take care of the unenviable job of trimming your yard for you. But when should you hire an expert solution? Is it actually an excellent investment for you? What are various other benefits that you can delight in?

The concept of employing a specialist service to trim lawn in your house could have looked like an unusual concept a few years ago. Nevertheless, it is coming to be an usual service these days. Actually, lots of property owners in America are deciding to touch a professional solution to deal with their yard! This is an advantageous service these days. Lots of people lead a chaotic way of life and also not everyone simply seems to have the moment to spend one complete day or a number of hrs mowing yards Lawn Care Lynchburg.

A large component of the advantages offered by tapping a specialist lawn maintenance firm comes from seeing the outcomes. Of course, also if you have actually skillfully developed means where you can achieve top quality cause your lawn if you cut it on your own, however there is nothing fairly like when you leave it to specialists. The primary reason behind this is that grass mowing and maintenance business are furnished with all the tools needed for the job. The majority of property owners are functioning just with a couple of standard devices, and sometimes most do it by hand! In addition to having actually access to specialized devices to cut grass, they are additionally furnished with appropriate training so you can enhance the appearance of your lawn!

Some expert yard maintenance firms use chemicals for application into your lawn, which helps in the maintenance procedure. Nonetheless, it will differ from one provider to an additional, so it is best to make an inquiry. They can likewise handle various other complicated work, in addition to yards cutting, such as de-thatching, aerating, landscape design, among others. Due to the fact that time is useful for you, you can concentrate on doing what you enjoy and allow the grass upkeep experts pander your backyard!

The price is another main concern amongst property owners concerning touching professional lawn care solutions. Yet you must expect to spend this quantity understanding the benefit that you can enjoy in exchange for their services. Ensure to ask a firm that uses grass upkeep services about their costs first, to ensure that it is within your budget plan. There are many variables that would cost their professional costs to rise, such as devices as well as specialized tools, products, fuel (for running the lawn care tools), and also the labor itself. In the long run, it is a win-win situation because of the professional-quality outcomes Lawn Care Lynchburg.

When to Take Into Consideration Outsourcing Lawn Upkeep

Before we venture deep right into our conversation on when to take into consideration contracting out grass upkeep, it is important for us to attempt as well as put the term 'outsourcing' in the ideal context for the purposes of this discussion. In current days, words 'outsourcing,' has concerned bear an adverse undertone, specifically in the developed western countries -as it is attended be a referral to the pattern where western firms 'export jobs' to affordable eastern locations, therefore robbing fellow westerners of work possibilities. In actual truth, what that fad refers to is what would certainly be extra specifically referred to as 'off-shoring.' Off-shoring becomes part of outsourcing, yet it is by no implies the only thing that there is to outsourcing. It is yet simply one element of outsourcing. Outsourcing is bigger, and also it just refers to the arrangement where one firm contracts an additional one to take care of a certain functional component on its part. In this instance, it is fairly of no consequence whether the other firm so contracted is local or foreign. It is the having that constitutes outsourcing. At the very least, that is the interpretation of outsourcing we will certainly collaborate with, for the function of this conversation Lynchburg.

Having actually comprehended what we suggest by outsourcing, we can currently continue to check out when one must take into consideration outsourcing their maintenance of lawn function. It is clear, from our earlier entry, that contracting out lawn maintenance would imply having an additional firm to take care of the maintenance of yard. So what we have an interest in right here is attempting to recognize when it would certainly make sense to think about doing so: getting an additional firm to manage your yard maintenance.

As it ends up, there are two scenarios in which upkeep of yard outsourcing would certainly be thought about a sensible step. The initial is where an accountancy analysis reveals that it would be much better to get another firm to do yard upkeep for you, than for you to attempt to do the yard maintenance in-house. In a lot of cases, this commonly becomes the instance - except in the nations where labor is absolutely economical. It is worth bearing in mind that the major price component in maintenance of yard is the labor aspect - since yard maintenance, whatever way you pick to set about it, still becomes an instead labor intensive activity. The good idea about it, however, is that it doesn't need constant labor: an hour or more each day will typically be adequate for maintenance of lawn. This implies that maintaining a full time in-house staff member to do grass maintenance might be wasteful, as the employee has to be idle for many hrs. There is, certainly, the alternative of acquiring a part-timer to do it - but we have a tendency to encounter a scenario where obtaining trusted part-timers becomes a very uphill struggle, as the part-timers have to maintain running around for various other tasks to make ends fulfill. This is where the concept of contracting the maintenance of yard organization to a firm concentrating on that makes good sense, as they will normally be able to supply reputable part-time workers for the job Lawn Care Lynchburg.

Yard Maintenance Services

So many residential home owners are into landscape design as well as taking care of their grass. This is definitely to be anticipated when you take into consideration exactly how vital the picture of a flawlessly polished lawn is today. It is just all-natural that you take on your neighbors and attempt to have the very best looking grass on the block. Nevertheless, placing every one of that time as well as effort right into your backyard or grass can obtain rather time-consuming. So no you are stuck to the issue of wanting your great deal to look the most effective, yet not having adequate time to get it to that ideal factor. What do you do to manage this predicament? Well, you could always attempt one of the professional lawn upkeep solutions Lawn Care Lynchburg.

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5 Lawn Maintenance Tips

A yard is an essential part of your household. It not just cheer up the visual appeal of your residence but at the same time functions as the field where you can revitalize your mind and spirit with grass video games such as tennis, cricket, bocce ball, Frisbee, golf, Kubb, yard bowling, grass darts, croquet, badminton, horseshoes and so on. You can also utilize your grass in order to toss a holiday event or arrange a bar-b-que or relish any kind of other entertainment task, which is indicated to be appreciated outdoors. Your grass ought to be maintained well to make sure that you can delight in these fun activities. Efficient lawn upkeep is vital to keep it in good shape. Take a look at 5 selected grass treatment suggestions, which will certainly work in this regard Lynchburg.

Degree the yard

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Use fertilizers

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Pick grass seeds intelligently

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Trim very carefully

Cutting is a vital part of a streamlined yard maintenance practice. You require to slice the blades of your yard turf very carefully. It is necessary that more than one third of lawn blade elevation does not obtain removed throughout trimming Lynchburg.

Dethatch the turf of your grass area

Sometimes, you could discover dead thatches in some parts of your grass area. Usually, these thatches develop between the soil surface and also environment-friendly blades. It definitely makes your yard look poor. The process of dethatching is a reliable lawn maintenance technique that you can use in such a circumstance. You will certainly be needed to get all loose thatches by raking them up. Make it certain that you do this during summer or spring. Do not neglect to water the exposed roots Lawn Care Lynchburg.

[investmart007]

TOKYO | Kim's charm offensive may benefit his army if sanctions ease

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/bNIal1

TOKYO | Kim's charm offensive may benefit his army if sanctions ease

TOKYO — While raising hopes for denuclearization and a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s newly found focus on diplomacy comes with an ironic flipside: It could be a godsend for his generals.

Kim’s thinking on how his military fits in to his plans to foster detente on the Korean Peninsula and negotiate security guarantees from Washington may become clearer when he sits down with President Donald Trump next week in Singapore.

But one thing is already clear. Kim cannot survive without his loyal troops. Whatever grand strategy he has in mind will strongly reflect their interests — and that includes the ability to make lots of money.

Along with the nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles that have gotten the world’s attention, the Korean People’s Army is deeply involved in everything from raising mushrooms and apples to running its national airline and selling the country’s mineral resources abroad.

So they stand to benefit greatly if Kim succeeds in depleting support for sanctions by negotiating with Trump and the North’s affluent neighbors.

Rivaled only by the ruling party itself, with which it is carefully intertwined, the military is the biggest and most formidable organization in North Korea. It consumes roughly one-third of the country’s annual budget and employs 1 million-plus personnel, making its standing army one of the world’s largest despite the North’s small population of less than 25 million.

From the reign of Kim’s father, one of North Korea’s most important slogans has been “Military First.” And since he took power, Kim has set his sights on simultaneously developing the nation’s nuclear forces and its economy. His current diplomatic overtures to China, Seoul and Washington are based on his claim, laid out to party elites in April, to have already “completed” the development of his nuclear arsenal.

With the nuclear development mission accomplished, his argument goes, it’s time to adopt a “new strategic line” that emphasizes the economy and the strategic use of diplomacy.

That should not be seen as a move against his military.

Just as shifts in the economy since Kim assumed power in late 2011 have created a growing income gap in the civilian sector, so have they contributed to growing disparity within the military ranks, suggests William Brown, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and former analyst with the U.S. State Department and CIA.

“Some units and some soldiers are making good money doing construction work and others are making essentially nothing doing their foxhole duty. Same for the officers,” he said. “Some are coming out of their 10-year tour of duty with marketable skills, like driving and fixing taxis, and others with no skills at all.”

Brown said that, in the long run, diplomatic success could free Kim to cut costs by reducing the military’s bloated ranks. But he stressed that for now “keeping soldiers happy when others seem to be getting rich is of paramount importance.”

“I get the sense that Kim is getting ready for another massive state wage increase to make state workers, including the military, a little more happy,” he said.

The military’s involvement in such a wide variety of side-businesses also means it is in its interest to see an increase in trade well beyond sales of nuclear technology or missile parts that will likely remain the target of international non-proliferation watchdogs no matter how well Kim’s talks go.

“They own a large number of enterprises, and their share in the mining sector is probably one of the largest. So they’ve definitely lost out as sanctions have made North Korean coal and mineral exports plunge,” said Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, an associate scholar with the non-profit Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Silberstein added that the most important role of the military in the economy is its ability to readily provide manpower where needed, doing construction and road repair work, helping out with the harvest and working in the mines. “That role is hard to quantify,” he said, “but it is likely massive.”

Unconfirmed reports this week out of Seoul and Washington that Kim recently replaced his top three military officials could suggest he is already trying to ensure the military is properly positioned to handle more foreign investment and to toe his new line without being lured by an influx of money into corruption or insubordination.

Symbolic of the military’s dual role, one of the three new generals, Kim Su Gil, was at Kim’s side during a recent trip to the Wonsan-Kalma tourism zone, a massive development project along the east coast that Pyongyang hopes will become a major attraction for South Korean visitors if sanctions are lifted.

The area, crawling with troops known as “soldier-builders” erecting luxury hotels and paving new roads, was popular with South Korean visitors during a previous period of detente.

Its popularity ended abruptly when a North Korean soldier fatally shot a South Korean woman who strayed into a restricted area.

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By ERIC TALMADGE, By Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (A.S)

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[tornadorojo5]

Was the European Union a Good Idea or Should all take the GB path?

This is the question nowadays, and part of the reason is that some people feel strongly disconnected to the E.U, while others praise its achievements. All things considered. Is its existence good or bad for Europeans?.

Remember that the U.K is leaving the E.U, so I think we better treat it like if it's no longer part of the club (well, I think it was always like that, remember that they kept the Pound as national currency). The E.U is the combination of 27 countries and has a population of a little more than 508 million people, making it the third most populous country in the world and in case that you wonder, followed by the United States in 4th place (327 million people). It's the world's second-largest economy by GDP (approx. 17 trillion dollars) and has the biggest single market in the world. But this was not the original idea of the creation of the E.U, the original purpose was "peace". Europeans are really good at war, so they have been involved in bloody conflicts for basically all their history (the list is huge but, click this link to check out the most important since 1450). From all that hate, it is remarkable the one-century long rivalry between Germany and France that has cost millions of lives and ran so deeply that the Germans invented a word for that, that is "Erbfeindschaft" which can be translated as "enmity". So, after WWII, Europeans decided that they wanted lasting peace that is not based on a balance of military power, instead, the economies, the politics and all the people of Europe should become so closely integrated and interconnected, that war would become unthinkable and unpractical, and it worked, between Euro members we'd had over seventy years of peace.

Yeah, peace is great but, is that all? is peace the only achievement of the European Union?, clearly not, look, today, many citizens benefit from several individual freedoms, treaties, and regulations to ensure easy traveling between countries, cheap phone communications, an awesome variety of food and services, as well as very strong health and safety standards.

Europe is not afraid to pick a fight with any industrial giant, (Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and much more) in regards tax evasion, data protection or fair competition.

Talking about the E.U science program, the European Union became a collaborative engine that works as a hub of science in the wider world, unrestricted travel and the possibility to work anywhere in the continent, makes it easy to apply for funds and to set up an international team of experts with the best equipment possible. In turn, the European Union became the world's leader in terms of its global share of science, that makes more than 34% of the world's research output, that is very impressive especially if you think that all that knowledge comes from only 5% of its population.

Despite all of the above, more than a few citizens feel distrust toward the E.U, Brussels seems far away, untransparent and technocratic and somehow difficult to understand. To make things even worse, the E.U is terrible at outreach and explaining what it actually does. This is leading to an ever-shrinking voter turnout over the decades. The E.U is in desperate need of more transparency and accountability, that is if it wants more institutional trust on behalf of their citizens.

Currently, the EU is still shaking from the refugee crisis of 2015, some countries have accepted far greater numbers of asylum seekers than others, while the border countries are overwhelmed and feel like they were left alone in this terrible situation. Other countries a shocked by the initially unregulated mass migration, therefore closing their borders, effectively shutting down the largest route into Europe.

Due to E.U's freedom and wealth, people think of it as an attractive destination and this is not about to change, but the population is split on how to react to that. Some people argue that Europe is letting in too many immigrants with different culture without strictly demanding integration, while others think that immigration is not the problem, but the racism and discrimination of immigrants are preventing integration.

To strike a balance between helping refugees turning illegal immigrants away and integrating the ones that stay is nowadays the most difficult challenge that the Union faces. 

Immigration aside, several more challenges lie in the future, such as defense. It is a tradition that the European countries had relied strongly on the protection of the United States of America through NATO. But in today's political climate, Europe has to ask itself if it really wants to depend in such a great manner on the USA for its safety. 

If combined today, militaries of the European Union could form an effective defensive force and be the third largest military in the world. I know this is a sexy topic, let's take a moment to check the E.U military forces and the top 4 most powerful military forces on the planet.

What About Money?

Well, as you could probably think, this is a very complicated issue. The E.U created the largest single market in the world, inside of it, you can trade border and customs free, countries that entered the European Union got a massive boost on their economies, even between neighbors, trade increased by one hundred percent, and there was a steady creation of new jobs. Research has suggested that joining the European Union has left most of its members with an average of a 12% higher GDP than if they had remained outside and for those regions with weaker economies and poor infrastructure, E.E institutions provide billions of Euros every year helping economic investments, infrastructure, and social development.

But there is a negative side, that is because the E.U tries to hold together countries that with vastly different economies and laws regarding labor, social security, taxes, etc. The cost of one hour work in an E.U country ranges from 4 Euros to 40 Euros, some countries have large industries and strong exports, while others focus on services, tourism, or natural resources. On top of this, the Euro is the common currency of most but not all these countries.

As the Greek crisis shows, this can be a recipe for disaster because you can't unify vastly different economies under one currency, but keep their economy policies separated, that is because if something really bad happens (2008 world economic crisis) weaker economies cannot depreciate their currencies and make their products and services be perceived as cheaper to the eyes of other stronger countries (potential buyers), this way, getting their economies into the path of economic recovery. This among other irresponsible decisions got the Greek economy broke in a few months.

I think the question is: Should all European Union countries unite under the common currency, or not?. Should the weakest links of the chain be thrown out of the Euro, or should countries be made to adopt common policies on taxes, healthcare, and social security?. This question has been brewing for years now and it is nowhere near a suitable solution.

So all things considered. Is the European Union a good idea, or should every country follow the UK path?. Well, I think that the E.U is very flawed, and still needs a lot of work and refinement, but it is very fair to say that the E.U makes Europeans a solid and powerful figure in the world, remember that they lead the path of science, through extensive investments in research and development, plus they are one of the strongest economic and military power in the world, but more importantly, the European Union gives Europeans peace, security, and a sense of shared identity, and something very important to humans in theses turbulent times, stability. I think that if Europeans want to protect the values that they are so proud of, a strong European Union is the way to go so they can make sure that their voices are heard throughout the world. If the E.U breaks apart, all its countries as small states will hardly stand a chance in a world of shifting superpowers (USA, China, Russia or even India).

If you don't agree with me, that's fine, you just have a different opinion, in the words of Evelyn Beatrice Hall (English writer-Voltaire's Biographer, Known as S. G. Tallentyre): "I do not agree with what you have said, but I'd defend to the death your right to say it" 

Cheers Friends,

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[touristguidebuzz]

Where UK Political Parties Stand on the Big Tourism Issues

Britain's Prime Minister and Conservative party leader Theresa May gestures, during the Conservative Party manifesto launch in Halifax, England. The document does not mention tourism once. Stefan Rousseau / PA via Associated Press

Skift Take: Party manifestos should be treated with a healthy degree of skepticism. Still it is revealing to see who what they priorities are and perhaps more importantly what they decide to leave out.

— Patrick Whyte

On June 8 voters in the United Kingdom will get the chance to decide who will form the next government. The country wasn’t supposed to have an election until 2020 but through a quirk of the electoral system current Prime Minister Theresa May was able to initiate a vote.

May is hoping her Conservative Party make big gains across the country, giving her a stronger hand when it comes to negotiating its exit from the European Union, the biggest challenge the UK has faced “since the second world war”.

Ahead of the election each of the parties releases a manifesto, detailing everything they would do if they formed a government. Current polling suggests that the Conservatives (right wing) are on course to increase their advantage over the Labour Party (left wing) with the Liberal Democrats (central) taking a small number of seats. The Scottish National Party dominate north of the border and are actually the third biggest party, but they do not contest nationally. Since the Brexit vote, right-wing populists the United Kingdom Independence Party have seen their popularity sink.

The UK tourism industry is expected to be worth more than $335 billion (£257 billion) by 2025, and account for just under 10 percent of UK gross domestic product (GDP). Uncertainty surrounding Brexit puts this under threat.

The UK’s airline industry, which helps bring millions of visitors to the country each year, is intrinsically linked to the rest of the European Union (EU). Then there is the reliance of migrant labour from the rest of the to fill tourism jobs. These and other issues relating to travel and tourism need to be addressed if the UK is going succeed on its own.

Skift took a look at each of the three main parties’ manifestos to see how seriously they were taking the subject.

Tourism

Big Ben and Palace of Westminster, London. (Phil Dolby/Flickr)

The Labour Party acknowledges that tourism is often ignored by governments.

“Labour will support tourism at the heart of government. The tourism industry represents 9.6 per cent of UK employment, 4.9 per cent of export and 9 per cent of GDP, but its importance is too often forgotten. Labour will ensure that tourism becomes a national priority again. We will reinstate the cross-Whitehall ministerial group on tourism, and ensure that government ministers across departments understand how their roles t into the national tourism agenda.”

The Liberal Democrats – the party that is campaigning for a second EU referendum – chooses to highlight some of the benefits that might be lost when the UK formally leaves in March 2019:

“Travel and tourism: Britain is an outward-looking country with commercial and leisure interests around the world, particularly in Europe. We will strive to retain traveller and tourist benefits such as the European Health Insurance Card, reduced roaming charges and pet passports, all of which are at risk by leaving the European Union.”

While Labour is focusing on inbound and the Liberal Democrats on outbound, they are at least both looking seriously at the subject.

In contrast, the Conservatives, the party most likely to form the next government, has zero mentions of tourism. Nothing. Maybe they don’t think they need to do anything because the cheap pound is doing all the work for them?

Airports

An Airbus A330-300 of Virgin Atlantic on final approach to landing skims over the rooftops of nearby houses at Heathrow Airport in London, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016. Britain’s government will reveal how it plans to expand London’s airport capacity Tuesday, more than a year after a special commission recommended a third runway at Heathrow. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

The UK debate about extra runway capacity has been going on for decades. In order to finally put the issue to bed, May’s predecessor David Cameron, created the independent Airports Commission to examine “the need for additional UK airport capacity and recommends to government how this can be met in the short, medium and long term.” It did just this and delivered its recommendation for a new runway at Heathrow in 2015. Since then nothing has really happened and the issue remains a divisive one. Under Cameron and then May a decision has been dodged. The Conservative’s manifesto makes reference to expansion but sidesteps any firm commitment:

“We are investing to reduce travel time and cost, increase capacity and attract investment here in the UK. We will continue our programme of strategic national investments, including High Speed 2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the expansion of Heathrow Airport – and we will ensure that these great projects do as much as possible to develop the skills and careers of British workers.”

The Labour document doesn’t refer to Heathrow but admits that more capacity is necessary:

“Labour recognises the need for additional airport capacity in the South East. We welcome the work done by the Airports Commission, and we will guarantee that any airport expansion adheres to our tests that require noise issues to be addressed, air quality to be protected, the UK’s climate change obligations met and growth across the country supported.”

It is hard to see, however, how the first and second sentences in the paragraph can be reconciled given the serious environmental concerns over any airport expansion. Politicians love having their cake and eating it.

The Liberal Democrat opposition to expansion is at least clear. They pledge to:

“Develop a strategic airports policy for the whole of the UK, taking full account of the impacts on climate change and local pollution. We remain opposed to any expansion of Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick and any new airport in the Thames Estuary and will focus instead on improving existing regional airports such as Birmingham and Manchester. We will ensure no net increase in runways across the UK.”

While expanding airports elsewhere in the country is commendable, the problem area is the south-east of the country in and around London.

Leaving the EU

Photos taken at the BoatLeave protest on Wednesday 15 June 2016. (Garry Knight/Flickr)

Delivering Brexit will be a fiendishly complicated process for whoever wins in June. In less than two years, the UK has to extricate itself from 40-plus years of union and then negotiate a separate trading deal with a bloc that accounts for 44 percent of all UK exports in goods and services.

It presents a particular challenge for tourism given how closely linked we are with our neighbors.

Theresa May has been treating the campaign as if it were a presidential race with her name often superseding that of the Conservatives.

“Now more than ever, Britain needs a strong and stable government to get the best deal for our country. Now more than ever, Britain needs strong and stable leadership to make the most of the opportunities Brexit brings,” May writes in the forward to the manifesto. (May has been repeatedly mocked for robotically chanting the phrase “strong and stable” on numerous occasions during the campaign.)

The ability to move freely between the UK and the rest of the EU is coming to an end, something that will present a huge challenge to the leisure and hospitality industry.

“As we set out in chapter three, the next Conservative government will give Britain the technical education it has lacked for decades. This will take time but we must also address the immediate needs of those sectors of the economy suffering shortages in skills. We will make the immigration system work for these sectors, whilst ensuring that we develop the skills we need for the future.

“We will therefore ask the independent Migration Advisory Committee to make recommendations to the government about how the visa system can become better aligned with our modern industrial strategy. We envisage that the committee’s advice will allow us to set aside significant numbers of visas for workers in strategically-important sectors, such as digital technology, without adding to net migration as a whole.”

The manifesto at least makes clear that ending free movement is going to cause problems for businesses and gives the Conservatives wriggle room if they need to relax immigration rules in order to keep the country functioning.

Labour’s position is closer to the Conservatives than many people would have expected:

“Freedom of movement will end when we leave the European Union. Britain’s immigration system will change, but Labour will not scapegoat migrants nor blame them for economic failures.”

The Liberal Democrats define the Conservative’s plans as “hard Brexit” and say that this “means leaving the single market, ending freedom of movement and abandoning the customs union – even though these choices will make the UK poorer and disappoint many leave voters who wanted a different outcome.”

They want a second referendum on the outcome of negotiations between the UK and EU.

[courtneytincher]

South Korea and Japan Must Resolve Their Trade Spat

Some foreign-policy disagreements are necessary and some are a matter of choice. The current low ebb of relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) is more the latter rather than the former. U.S. interests not only dictate doing more to restore allied harmony, but also advise strongly against compounding tensions.Yet President Donald Trump is demanding a rapid and steep increase in host-nation support from Japan and the ROK at a time when those Northeast Asian allies are engaged in a dangerous intra-alliance squabble. Trump is right to want prosperous allies to shoulder greater burdens. He is especially justified in desiring the redistribution of allied costs when the chief security challenge is mutual defense against the neighbors of U.S. allies.  However, just as the protection of the homeland is an overriding responsibility of the commander in chief, so, too, should national security concerns take precedence over financial ones. America can live with less than perfectly reciprocal and equitable alliances—they’ve always been that way anyway. But the United States really should not risk trying to go it alone in a dangerous world. Deterring North Korea, managing China, building a region of networked security partners to stand up to revisionist powers, and signaling the durability of U.S. leadership are all vital. They are more important than trying to extract more financial support from allied countries that host American forces at this tenuous moment. Moreover, on top of the recent sharp deterioration in relations between Tokyo and Seoul, there is already excessive doubt in the region about U.S. reliability and staying power. The Trump administration’s stated vision of a free-and-open Indo-Pacific region is rightly predicated on leveraging effective alliances. Allies and partners are critical to reinforcing Washington’s postwar system, which is under siege from rival powers. As the Department of Defense regional strategy report declares, the “U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific” and the “U.S.-ROK Alliance is the linchpin of peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia, as well as the Korean Peninsula.”If America’s cornerstone and linchpin are damaged, then it follows that Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy is also badly encumbered. First, the fraying ties between Seoul and Tokyo hamper America’s North Korea policy. Specifically, Washington’s diverted attention helps Kim Jong-un with his divide-and-rule tactics and could undermine deterrence in a crisis. America enjoys maximum leverage on North Korea when policies are tightly aligned among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo. Washington should have learned this during the Perry process—when former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry engaged in concerted trilateral diplomacy to repair cracks in alliance solidarity—at the end of the 1990s. Certainly, the Kim regime works hard to keep all outside powers at odds, and recent missile launches are in part a test of alliance solidarity. If America’s attempt at negotiating with North Korea is to have any chance of success, then U.S. allies need to be aligned. The United States has been able to engage in experimental diplomacy for two reasons. First, Kim is boxed in because he cannot actually use his weapons without unacceptable risk. Second, he cannot develop his economy without substantive steps toward denuclearization. Whether U.S. diplomacy with North Korea ultimately succeeds or fails, and whether Washington is in need of help with North Korean infrastructure or alliance missile defenses, the ROK, the United States and Japan will all need each other.A second, related problem is that crisis among U.S. allies hinders dealing with a world in which there is resurgent major power competition. The alliance drift—suggested by a failure to stem the falling out of Japan and South Korea—impedes cooperation for managing an increasingly assertive China and a Russia desperate to remain relevant. Current alliance troubles especially play into Beijing’s unrelenting narrative that U.S. alliances are relics of the past. That propaganda line argues that the whole postwar system failed to account for PRC ambitions and the future of the “China dream.”One of the unintended effects of Japan’s recent decision to enforce tighter control over the export of chemicals critical to South Korean manufacturing of semiconductors and display panels is that Seoul could become more dependent on China for those imports. This is advantageous for Beijing because it is in the midst of pushing national champion companies beholden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to dominate cutting-edge technologies.Although few countries are signing up to the CCP slogan of a “community of common destiny,” the pushback against U.S. leadership and power is prevalent in parts of Asia, even in some allied governments. If responding to the China challenge to rewrite the rules and dominate critical technologies that are key to commanding the twenty-first-century economy is indeed an overriding strategic objective, the United States will need to do a better job of mobilizing others, beginning with its cornerstone and linchpin allies.Finally, the dispute between Japan and South Korea perpetuates rising nationalism, protectionism, and unilateralism. The (not completely) unintended impact of an “America First” slogan is that any domestic appeal and support is more important than any overseas revulsion. But it is not enough to criticize the administration. After all, other countries in Asia put their country first, time and again. They all have national industrial policies and more closed economic systems. Even America’s closest allies enjoy an element of free riding—especially as the challenges mount and allies and partners fail to pick up the rising tab for security public goods.But these realities do not alter what is essential for U.S. national security and what is simply desirable. The Trump administration is simultaneously attempting to arrest China’s bad behavior and most-threatening power gains, while seeking a serious adjustment on power and burden-sharing with effective allies. This includes pressure to correct trade imbalances, as well as demands for the allies to shoulder greater burdens for regional security.The United States cannot afford the extravagance an unnecessary argument among its closest allies. Instead of managing a proliferating North Korea and an assertive, rising China, Washington must now manage the perception of America as a declining superpower with weakening regional security architecture. That means Trump needs to lengthen the timelines for improving burden-sharing.If peace is generally best maintained through strength defined as capability plus will, then new questions about U.S. alliances are occurring precisely at the time when solidarity among like-minded powers is needed to check revisionism and aggression.U.S. pressure and leadership are needed to help the Japanese and South Koreans find a path back to cooperation and away from hostility that puts at risk all that the United States has worked to establish in the region and internationally. But the quarrel between important allies should redouble America’ focus on why these alliances matter in the first place. The United States needs to arrest doubts about its leadership and political will, even as Washington asks its prosperous allies to shoulder greater burdens than in the past.Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is senior fellow and the Asia-Pacific Security Chair at Hudson Institute.Image: Reuters

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Some foreign-policy disagreements are necessary and some are a matter of choice. The current low ebb of relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) is more the latter rather than the former. U.S. interests not only dictate doing more to restore allied harmony, but also advise strongly against compounding tensions.Yet President Donald Trump is demanding a rapid and steep increase in host-nation support from Japan and the ROK at a time when those Northeast Asian allies are engaged in a dangerous intra-alliance squabble. Trump is right to want prosperous allies to shoulder greater burdens. He is especially justified in desiring the redistribution of allied costs when the chief security challenge is mutual defense against the neighbors of U.S. allies.  However, just as the protection of the homeland is an overriding responsibility of the commander in chief, so, too, should national security concerns take precedence over financial ones. America can live with less than perfectly reciprocal and equitable alliances—they’ve always been that way anyway. But the United States really should not risk trying to go it alone in a dangerous world. Deterring North Korea, managing China, building a region of networked security partners to stand up to revisionist powers, and signaling the durability of U.S. leadership are all vital. They are more important than trying to extract more financial support from allied countries that host American forces at this tenuous moment. Moreover, on top of the recent sharp deterioration in relations between Tokyo and Seoul, there is already excessive doubt in the region about U.S. reliability and staying power. The Trump administration’s stated vision of a free-and-open Indo-Pacific region is rightly predicated on leveraging effective alliances. Allies and partners are critical to reinforcing Washington’s postwar system, which is under siege from rival powers. As the Department of Defense regional strategy report declares, the “U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific” and the “U.S.-ROK Alliance is the linchpin of peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia, as well as the Korean Peninsula.”If America’s cornerstone and linchpin are damaged, then it follows that Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy is also badly encumbered. First, the fraying ties between Seoul and Tokyo hamper America’s North Korea policy. Specifically, Washington’s diverted attention helps Kim Jong-un with his divide-and-rule tactics and could undermine deterrence in a crisis. America enjoys maximum leverage on North Korea when policies are tightly aligned among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo. Washington should have learned this during the Perry process—when former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry engaged in concerted trilateral diplomacy to repair cracks in alliance solidarity—at the end of the 1990s. Certainly, the Kim regime works hard to keep all outside powers at odds, and recent missile launches are in part a test of alliance solidarity. If America’s attempt at negotiating with North Korea is to have any chance of success, then U.S. allies need to be aligned. The United States has been able to engage in experimental diplomacy for two reasons. First, Kim is boxed in because he cannot actually use his weapons without unacceptable risk. Second, he cannot develop his economy without substantive steps toward denuclearization. Whether U.S. diplomacy with North Korea ultimately succeeds or fails, and whether Washington is in need of help with North Korean infrastructure or alliance missile defenses, the ROK, the United States and Japan will all need each other.A second, related problem is that crisis among U.S. allies hinders dealing with a world in which there is resurgent major power competition. The alliance drift—suggested by a failure to stem the falling out of Japan and South Korea—impedes cooperation for managing an increasingly assertive China and a Russia desperate to remain relevant. Current alliance troubles especially play into Beijing’s unrelenting narrative that U.S. alliances are relics of the past. That propaganda line argues that the whole postwar system failed to account for PRC ambitions and the future of the “China dream.”One of the unintended effects of Japan’s recent decision to enforce tighter control over the export of chemicals critical to South Korean manufacturing of semiconductors and display panels is that Seoul could become more dependent on China for those imports. This is advantageous for Beijing because it is in the midst of pushing national champion companies beholden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to dominate cutting-edge technologies.Although few countries are signing up to the CCP slogan of a “community of common destiny,” the pushback against U.S. leadership and power is prevalent in parts of Asia, even in some allied governments. If responding to the China challenge to rewrite the rules and dominate critical technologies that are key to commanding the twenty-first-century economy is indeed an overriding strategic objective, the United States will need to do a better job of mobilizing others, beginning with its cornerstone and linchpin allies.Finally, the dispute between Japan and South Korea perpetuates rising nationalism, protectionism, and unilateralism. The (not completely) unintended impact of an “America First” slogan is that any domestic appeal and support is more important than any overseas revulsion. But it is not enough to criticize the administration. After all, other countries in Asia put their country first, time and again. They all have national industrial policies and more closed economic systems. Even America’s closest allies enjoy an element of free riding—especially as the challenges mount and allies and partners fail to pick up the rising tab for security public goods.But these realities do not alter what is essential for U.S. national security and what is simply desirable. The Trump administration is simultaneously attempting to arrest China’s bad behavior and most-threatening power gains, while seeking a serious adjustment on power and burden-sharing with effective allies. This includes pressure to correct trade imbalances, as well as demands for the allies to shoulder greater burdens for regional security.The United States cannot afford the extravagance an unnecessary argument among its closest allies. Instead of managing a proliferating North Korea and an assertive, rising China, Washington must now manage the perception of America as a declining superpower with weakening regional security architecture. That means Trump needs to lengthen the timelines for improving burden-sharing.If peace is generally best maintained through strength defined as capability plus will, then new questions about U.S. alliances are occurring precisely at the time when solidarity among like-minded powers is needed to check revisionism and aggression.U.S. pressure and leadership are needed to help the Japanese and South Koreans find a path back to cooperation and away from hostility that puts at risk all that the United States has worked to establish in the region and internationally. But the quarrel between important allies should redouble America’ focus on why these alliances matter in the first place. The United States needs to arrest doubts about its leadership and political will, even as Washington asks its prosperous allies to shoulder greater burdens than in the past.Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is senior fellow and the Asia-Pacific Security Chair at Hudson Institute.Image: Reuters

August 18, 2019 at 09:10AM via IFTTT