#tax law changes 2018

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The FTC has Big Pharma’s number

On November 27, I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

The most consistent bright spot in the dark swirl of US politics is the competence of the Biden Administration's progressive enforcers: people like Rohit Chopra, Jonathan Kanter and Lina Khan, who keep demonstrating just how far a good administrator can go. Anyone can have a vision, but knowing how to execute is the difference between hot air and real change:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

Take a minute to contrast Biden's administrators with Trump's: Trump's administrators had an ideological vision just as surely as Biden's do, and Trump himself had a much more pronounced and explicit ideology than Biden, whose governance style is much more about balancing the Democratic Party's blocs than bringing about a specific set of policies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

But whatever clarity of vision the Trump administration brought to DC was completely undermined by its incompetence (thankfully!). Apart from one gigantic tax break, Trump couldn't get stuff done. He couldn't deliver, because he'd lose his temper or speak out of turn:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/14/when-youve-lost-the-fedsoc/#anti-buster-buster

And his administrators followed his lead. Scott Pruitt was appointed to run the EPA after a career spent suing the agency. It could have been the realization of his life's dream to dismantle environmental law in America and open the floodgates for unlimited, wildly profitable corporate pollution and pillaging. But the dream died because he kept getting embroiled in absurd scandals – like the time he sent his staffers out to drive around all night looking for a good deal on a used mattress:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/epa-s-pruitt-told-aide-obtain-old-mattress-trump-hotel-n879836

Or his insistence on installing a CIA-style "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility" (SCIF) so he could play super-spy while reading memos:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/26/politics/epa-administrator-scott-pruitt-sound-proof-booth-scif/index.html

Or the time he sent his security detail to the Ritz-Carlton to demand that they supply him lots of little bottles of his favorite hand-cream:

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/7/17439044/scott-pruitt-ritz-carlton-moisturizing-lotion

There were other examples in the Trump administration, but Priutt is such a good case-study. He's like a guy who spent his whole life training to compete in the Olympics, and finally got a shot, only to be disqualified for ordering too much room-service in the Olympic Village. Priutt was wildly ambitious, but he was profoundly undisciplined – and wildly incompetent.

Compare that with Biden's progressive enforcers and agency heads, who showed up on the first day of work with an encyclopedic knowledge of their administrative powers, and detailed plans for using them to transform the lives of the American people for the better:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

The Biden administration's competence translates into action, getting stuff done. Maybe that shouldn't surprise us, given the difference between the stories that reactionaries and progressives tell about where change comes from.

In reactionary science fiction, we enter the realm of the "Competent Man" story. Think of a Heinlein hero, who is "able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly."

In Competent Man stories, a unitary hero steps into the breach and solves the problem – if not single-handedly, then as the leader of others, whose lesser competence is a base metal that the Competent Man hammers into a tempered blade:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/RobertAHeinlein

Contrast this with a progressive tale, like, say, Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry For the Future, where the Competent Man is replaced by the Competent Administration, in which people of goodwill and technical competence figure out how to join forces to create population-scale architectures of participation that allow every person to contribute their skills and perspective:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/03/ministry-for-the-future/#ksr

The right's whole ideology insists that the world can only be saved by Competent Men. As Corey Robin writes in The Reactionary Mind, the unifying factor that binds together conservative factions from monarchists to racists to Christian Dominionists is the belief that a few of us are born to rule, and the rest to be ruled over:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/25/mafia-logic/#mafia-logic

The Reaganite insistence that governments are, by their very nature, incompetent and malign ("The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I’m from the government, and I’m here to help'"), means that conservatives deny the possibility of a Competent Administration.

When conservatives take office and proceed to bungle the most basic elements of administration, they're fulfilling their own campaign narrative, which starts with "We must dismantle the government because it is bad at everything." Conservatives who govern badly prove their own point, which explains a lot about the UK Tory Party's long run of governmental failure and electoral success:

https://apnews.com/article/uk-suella-braverman-fired-cabinet-shuffle-7ea6c89306a427cc70fba75bc386be79

There's a small mercy in the fact that so many of the most ideologically odious and extreme conservative governments are so technically incompetent in governing, and thus accomplish so little of their agendas.

But the inverse – the incredible competence of the best progressive administrators – is nothing short of a delight to witness. Here's the latest example to cross my path: the FTC has intervened in a lawsuit over generic insulin pricing, on an issue that is incredibly technically specific and also fantastically important:

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/ftc-blasts-pharmas-abuse-fda-patent-system-sanofi-mylans-insulin-monopoly-lawsuit

The underlying case is before the FDA, and it concerns the dirty tricks that pharma giant Sanofi used to keep Mylan from making a generic version of Mylan's Lantus insulin after its patent expired.

There's an explicit bargain in patents: inventors can enlist the government to punish their rivals for copying their ideas, but in exchange, the government demands that the inventor has to describe how the invention works in a detailed patent filing, and when the patent expires, 20 years later, rivals can use the patent application as instructions for freely copying and selling the invention. In other words: you get 20 years of exclusive rights in return for facilitating your competitors' copying and selling your invention when the 20 years are up.

Pharma doesn't like this, naturally: not content with 20 years of exclusivity, they want the government to step in and punish their competitors forever. In service to that end, pharma companies have perfected a process called evergreening, where they dribble out ancillary patents after their initial filing, covering minor reformulations, delivery systems, or new uses.

Evergreening got a moment in the public eye earlier this year, with John Green's viral campaign to shame Johnson & Johnson out of using evergreening to restrict poor countries' access to TB medication:

https://armandalegshow.com/episode/john-green-part-1/

The story of pharma is that it commands gigantic profits, but it invests those profits into medicines that save our lives. The reality is that most of the key underlying pharma research is publicly funded (by Competent Administrators who apportion funding to promising scientific inquiry). Pharma companies' most inventive genius is devoted to inventing new evergreening tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/19/solid-tumors/#t-cell-receptors

That's where the FTC comes in, in this Sanofi-Mylan case. To facilitate the production of generic, off-patent drugs, the FDA maintains a database called the "Orange Book," where pharma companies are asked to enumerate all the ancillary patents associated with a product whose patent is expiring. That way, generics manufacturers who make their own version of these public domain drugs and therapeutics don't accidentally stumble over one of those later patents – say, by replicating a delivery system or special coating that is still in patent.

This is where the endless, satanic inventiveness of the pharma sector comes in. You see, US law provides for triple damages for "willful patent infringement." If you are a generics manufacturer eyeing up a drug whose patent is about to expire and you are notified that some other patents might be implicated in your plans, you must ensure that you don't accidentally infringe one of those patents, or face business-destroying statutory damages.

So pharma companies stuff the Orange Book full of irrelevant patent claims they say may be implicated in a generic manufacture program. Each of these claims has to be carefully evaluated, both by a scientific team and a legal team, because patents are deliberately obfuscated in the hopes of tricking an inattentive patent examiner into granting patents for unpatentable "inventions":

https://blueironip.com/patents-that-hide-the-ball/

What's more, when a pharma giant notifies the FDA that it has ancillary patents that are relevant to the Orange Book, this triggers a 30-month delay before a generic can be marketed – adding 2.5 years to the 20 year patent term. That delay is sometimes enough to cause a manufacturer to abandon plans to market a generic drug – so the delay isn't 2.5 years, it's infinite.

This is a highly technical, highly consequential form of evergreening. It's obscure as hell, and requires a deep understanding of patent obfuscation, ancillary patent filings, generic pharma industry practice, and the FDA's administrative procedures.

Sanofi's Orange Book entry for Lantus insulin listed 50 related patent claims. Of these, 48 were invalidated through "inter partes" review (basically the Patent Office decided they shouldn't have allowed these claims to be included on a patent). Neither of the remaining two claims were found to be relevant to the manufacture of generic Lantus.

This is where the FTC's filing comes in: their amicus brief doesn't take a position whether Sanofi's Orange Book entries were fraudulent, but they do ask the FDA to intervene to prevent Orange Book stuffing because "improper listings can cause significant harm to competition and consumers."

This is the kind of boring, technical, important stuff that excellent administrators can do. The FTC's brief is notice to the FDA that it should amend its procedures to ban (and punish) Orange Book abuse. That will make it possible for you, a person who needs medicine, to get that medicine more cheaply and quickly. In America's pay-for-use privatized healthcare hellscape, this could be a life-or-death matter.

There's plenty of things the Biden administration is getting very, very badly wrong, but we shouldn't lose sight of how its progressive wing is making real, lasting change for the better. Competent Administrations are the true peoples' champions. They beat Competent Men every time.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/23/everorangeing/#taste-the-rainbow

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 07, 2024

Today Vice President Kamala Harris named her choice for her vice presidential running mate: Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz grew up in rural Nebraska. He enlisted in the Army National Guard when he was 17 and served for 24 years, retiring in 2005 as a command sergeant major, making him the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress, according to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  

He went to college with the educational benefits afforded him by the Army, and graduated from Chadron (Nebraska) State College. From 1989 to 1990, he taught at a high school in China, then became a social studies teacher in Alliance, Nebraska, where he met fellow teacher Gwen Whipple, who became his wife. They moved to Minnesota, where they both continued teaching and had two children, Hope and Gus, through IVF. 

Walz became the faculty advisor for the school’s gay-straight alliance organization at the same time that he coached the high-school football team from a 0–27 record to a state championship. The advisor “really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married," Walz said in 2018. 

Walz ran for Congress in 2005 after some of his students were asked to leave a rally for George W. Bush because one of them had a sticker for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Walz won and served in Congress for twelve years, sitting on the House Agriculture Committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Voters elected Walz to the Minnesota state house in 2018, and in his second term they gave him a slim majority in the state legislature. With that support, Walz signed into law protections for abortion rights, supported gender-affirming care, and legalized the recreational use of marijuana. He signed into law gun safety legislation and protections for voting rights, and pushed for action to combat climate change and to promote renewable energy. 

Strong tax revenues and spending cuts gave the state a $17.6 billion surplus, and the Democrats under Walz used the money not to cut taxes, as Republicans wanted, but to invest in education, fund free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren, make tuition free at the state’s public colleges for students whose families earned less than $80,000 a year, and invest in paid family and medical leave and health insurance coverage regardless of immigration status. 

While MAGA Republicans are already trying to define Walz as “far left,” his votes in Congress put him pretty squarely in the middle.  His work with Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan to expand technology production and infrastructure funding in the state was rewarded in 2023, when Minnesota knocked Texas out of the top five states for business. The CNBC rating looked at 86 indicators in 10 categories, including the workforce, infrastructure, health, and business friendliness. 

Walz checks a number of boxes for the 2024 election, most notably that he hails from near the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and comes across as a normal, nice guy. He favors unions, workers’ rights, and a $15 minimum wage. He is also the person who coined the phrase that took away the dangerous overtones of today’s MAGA Republicans by dubbing them “weird.” As a student of his said: “In politics he’s good at calling out B.S. without getting nasty or too down in the dirt…. It’s the kind of common sense he showed as a coach: practical and kinda goofy.”

Walz is also a symbol of an important resetting of the Democratic Party. He has been unapologetic about his popular programs. On Sunday, July 28, when CNN’s Jake Tapper listed some of Walz’s policies and asked if they made Walz vulnerable to Trump calling him a “big government liberal.” Walz joked that he was, indeed, a “monster.” 

“Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness…. The fact of the matter is,” where Democratic policies are implemented, “quality of life is higher, the economies are better…educational attainment is better. So yeah, my kids are going to eat here, and you’re going to have a chance to go to college, and you’re going to have an opportunity to live where we're working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you’re going to have personal incomes that are higher, and you’re going to have health insurance. So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.” 

Right-wing reactionary politicians have claimed to represent ordinary Americans since the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act—on August 6, 1965, exactly 59 years ago today—by insisting that a government that works for communities is a “socialist” plan to elevate undeserving women and racial, ethnic, and gender minorities at the expense of hardworking white men. 

Historically, though, rural America has quite often been the heart of the country’s progressive politics, and the Midwest has had a central place in that progressivism. Walz reintegrates that history with today’s Democratic Party. 

That reintegration has left the Republicans flatfooted. Trump and J.D. Vance expected to continue their posturing as champions of the common man, but on that front the credentials of a New York real estate developer who inherited millions of dollars and of a Yale-educated venture capitalist pale next to a Nebraska-born schoolteacher. Bryan Metzger, politics reporter at Business Insider, pointed out that J.D. Vance tried to hit Walz as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” but while Vance lived in San Francisco as a venture capitalist between 2013 and 2017, Walz went to San Francisco for the first time just last month. 

Head writer and producer of A Closer Look at Late Night with Seth Meyers Sal Gentile summed up Walz’s progressive politics and community vibe when he wrote on social media: “Tim Walz will expand free school lunches, raise the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, fix your [carburetor], replace the old wiring in your basement, spray that wasp’s nest under the deck, install a new spring for your garage door and put a new chain on your lawnmower.” 

Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.” 

Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”

Pennsylvania is a crucial state, and Shapiro issued a statement offering his “enthusiastic support” to the ticket. He pledged to work to unite Pennsylvanians behind my friends Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and defeat Donald Trump.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[banannabethchase]

My mom is downstairs watching the presidential debates, and I watched 3 minutes. My heart rate spiked to 137 and I feel a panic attack threatening.

I didn't talk a lot about this during the 2018 or 2020 elections, because I was still recovering from my dad's death and a lot of different huge life changes. But in 2018, one of my students came into my classroom and I knew something was off. After the assistance of an interpreter, a phone call to his mother revealed that he had watched his father the night before be taken from his home because he was suspected of being undocumented. This child was in first grade. We didn't know what to tell him. Mom asked us for advice and we didn't have any.

During the 45 presidency, I had many students ask when "they" were coming to get their parent. I had students ask me not to speak Spanish, because they were afraid that if they were heard speaking Spanish in front of the school somebody would hurt them. I have multiple intellectually disabled students, multiple physically disabled students, and I didn't know how to tell them that the person that the president put in charge was willing and interested in pulling away their educational rights. Not to mention my students who have any variation of a palsy watching videos of 45 mocking them on television.

I don't like Biden. I think there's a lot of things he's doing wrong and a lot of things he can do better. However, there's a lot of stuff he's done right. Not enough, but some. Voting for 45 is bringing back trauma into the lives of very young children who aren't old enough to understand it. It's enforcing laws on bodies. It's enforcing laws on identity. And it's absolving those who have committed actual violent crimes, because you cannot tell me that somebody becomes a billionaire without hurting others, to the degree of reducing their taxes.

Not voting is a mistake. Not voting is a privilege. Unfortunately the reality is we have two shitty options. One is a failing grade at a 50%, and the other is a failing grade at 0%. As a teacher, I know full well that you can recover from a 50% in the grade book, but you can never recover from a 0%.

[foreverlogical]

It was a time of fear and chaos four years ago.

The death count was mounting as COVID-19 spread. Financial markets were panicked. Oil prices briefly went negative. The Federal Reserve slashed its benchmark interest rates to combat the sudden recession. And the U.S. government went on a historic borrowing spree—adding trillions to the national debt—to keep families and businesses afloat.

But as Donald Trump recalled that moment at a recent rally, the former president exuded pride.

“We had the greatest economy in history,” the Republican told his Wisconsin audience. “The 30-year mortgage rate was at a record low, the lowest ever recorded ... 2.65%, that’s what your mortgage rates were.”

The question of who can best steer the U.S. economy could be a deciding factor in who wins November’s presidential election. While an April Gallup poll found that Americans were most likely to say that immigration is the country's top problem, the economy in general and inflation were also high on the list.

Trump may have an edge over President Joe Biden on key economic concerns, according to an April poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. The survey found that Americans were more likely to say that as president, Trump helped the country with job creation and cost of living. Nearly six in 10 Americans said that Biden’s presidency hurt the country on the cost of living.

But the economic numbers expose a far more complicated reality during Trump's time in the White House. His tax cuts never delivered the promised growth. His budget deficits surged and then stayed relatively high under Biden. His tariffs and trade deals never brought back all of the lost factory jobs.

And there was the pandemic, an event that caused historic job losses for which Trump accepts no responsibility as well as low inflation—for which Trump takes full credit.

If anything, the economy during Trump's presidency never lived up to his own hype.

DECENT (NOT EXCEPTIONAL) GROWTH

Trump assured the public in 2017 that the U.S. economy with his tax cuts would grow at “3%,” but he added, “I think it could go to 4, 5, and maybe even 6%, ultimately.”

If the 2020 pandemic is excluded, growth after inflation averaged 2.67% under Trump, according to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Include the pandemic-induced recession and that average drops to an anemic 1.45%.

By contrast, growth during the second term of then-President Barack Obama averaged 2.33%. So far under Biden, annual growth is averaging 3.4%.

MORE GOVERNMENT DEBT

Trump also assured the public that his tax cuts would pay for themselves because of stronger growth. The cuts were broad but disproportionately favored corporations and those with extreme wealth.

The tax cuts signed into law in 2017 never fulfilled Trump's promises on deficit reduction.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, the deficit worsened to $779 billion in 2018. The Congressional Budget Office had forecasted a deficit of $563 billion before the tax cuts, meaning the tax cuts increased borrowing by $216 billion that first year. In 2019, the deficit rose to $984 billion, nearly $300 billion more than what the CBO had forecast.

Then the pandemic happened and with a flurry of government aid, the resulting deficit topped $3.1 trillion. That borrowing enabled the government to make direct payments to individuals and small businesses as the economy was in lockdown, often increasing bank accounts and making many feel better off even though the economy was in a recession.

Deficits have also run high under Biden, as he signed into law a third round of pandemic aid and other initiatives to address climate change, build infrastructure and invest in U.S. manufacturing. His budget deficits: $2.8 trillion (2021), $1.38 trillion (2022), and $1.7 trillion (2023).

The CBO estimated in a report issued Wednesday that the extension of parts of Trump’s tax cuts set to expire after 2025 would add another $4.6 trillion to the national debt through the year 2034.

LOW INFLATION (BUT NOT ALWAYS FOR GOOD REASONS)

Inflation was much lower under Trump, never topping an annual rate of 2.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual rate reached as high as 8% in 2022 under Biden and is currently at 3.4%.

There were three big reasons why inflation was low during Trump's presidency: the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, Federal Reserve actions, and the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump entered the White House with inflation already low, largely because of the slow recovery from the Great Recession, when financial markets collapsed and millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure.

The inflation rate barely averaged more than 1% during Obama's second term as the Fed struggled to push up growth. Still, the economy was expanding without overheating.

But in the first three years of Trump's presidency, inflation averaged 2.1%, roughly close to the Fed's target. Still, the Fed began to hike its own benchmark rate to keep inflation low at the central bank's own 2% target. Trump repeatedly criticized the Fed because he wanted to juice growth despite the risks of higher prices.

Then the pandemic hit.

Inflation sank and the Fed slashed rates to sustain the economy during lockdowns.

When Trump celebrates historically low mortgage rates, he's doing so because the economy was weakened by the pandemic. Similarly, gasoline prices fell below an average of $2 a gallon because no one was driving in April 2020 as the pandemic spread.

FEWER JOBS

The United States lost 2.7 million jobs during Trump's presidency, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the pandemic months are excluded, he added 6.7 million jobs.

By contrast, 15.4 million jobs were added during Biden's presidency. That's 5.1 million more jobs than what the CBO forecasted he would add before his coronavirus relief and other policies became law—a sign of how much he boosted the labor market.

Both candidates have repeatedly promised to bring back factory jobs. Between 2017 and the middle of 2019, Trump added 461,000 manufacturing jobs. But the gains began to stall and then turned into layoffs during the pandemic, with the Republican posting a loss of 178,000 jobs.

So far, the U.S. economy has added 773,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden's presidency.

Campaign Action

[vren-diagram]

The Nordic model has been characterized as follows:[16]

An elaborate social safety net, in addition to public services such as free education and universal healthcare[16] in a largely tax-funded system.[17]

Strong property rights, contract enforcement and overall ease of doing business.[18]

Public pension plans.[16]

High levels of democracy as seen in the Freedom in the World survey and Democracy Index.[19][20]

Free trade combined with collective risk sharing (welfare social programmes and labour market institutions) which has provided a form of protection against the risks associated with economic openness.[16]

Little product market regulation. Nordic countries rank very high in product market freedom according to OECD rankings.[16]

Low levels of corruption.[19][16] In Transparency International's 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden were ranked among the top 10 least corrupt of the 179 countries evaluated.[21]

A partnership between employers, trade unions and the government, whereby these social partners negotiate the terms to regulating the workplace amongst themselves, rather than the terms being imposed by law.[22][23] Sweden has decentralised wage co-ordination while Finland is ranked the least flexible.[16] The changing economic conditions have given rise to fear among workers as well as resistance by trade unions in regards to reforms.[16]

High trade union density and collective bargaining coverage.[24] In 2019, trade union density was 90.7% in Iceland, 67.0% in Denmark, 65.2% in Sweden, 58.8% in Finland, and 50.4% in Norway; in comparison, trade union density was 16.3% in Germany and 9.9% in the United States.[25] Additionally, in 2018, collective bargaining coverage was 90% in Iceland, 88.8% in Finland (2017), 88% in Sweden, 82% in Denmark, and 69% in Norway; in comparison collective bargaining coverage was 54% in Germany and 11.7% in the United States.[26] The lower union density in Norway is mainly explained by the absence of a Ghent system since 1938. In contrast, Denmark, Finland and Sweden all have union-run unemployment funds.[27]

The Nordic countries received the highest ranking for protecting workers rights on the International Trade Union Confederation 2014 Global Rights Index, with Denmark being the only nation to receive a perfect score.[28]

Sweden at 56.6% of GDP, Denmark at 51.7%, and Finland at 48.6% reflect very high public spending.[29] Public expenditure for health and education is significantly higher in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in comparison to the OECD average.[30]

Overall tax burdens as a percentage of GDP are high, with Denmark at 45.9% and both Finland and Sweden at 44.1%.[31] The Nordic countries have relatively flat tax rates, meaning that even those with medium and low incomes are taxed at relatively high levels.[32][33]

The United Nations World Happiness Reports show that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe. The Nordics ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.[34] The Nordic countries place in the top 10 of the World Happiness Report 2018, with Finland and Norway taking the top spots.[35]

x

I think a lot of people are missing that the Nordic model is:

generally very friendly to businesses

composed of largely organically set standards (workers rights secured by collective bargaining and trade-unions, not by a centralized authority) (as opposed to a centralized bureaucracy)

Largely structured to provide citizens with benefits that make workforce participation easier. The ordering of the social safety net and welfare state make it relatively easy to upskill and hold a job.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

A jury in Delaware has found the president’s son guilty of illegally owning a gun in 2018. The government said Hunter Biden was addicted to drugs when he bought a pistol that October, and that he lied on a federal form when he checked a box saying he wasn’t an addict. Jurors agreed, and Biden now faces time behind bars. The case has major political significance, coming as former President Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party mount an all-out assault on the U.S. justice system over its supposed “weaponization” by President Joe Biden against Trump, who faces federal charges for hoarding classified documents and trying to steal the 2020 election. The Department of Justice has thrown the book at Hunter Biden, hitting him with illegal gun ownership charges that are rarely prosecuted as a standalone case without some other misconduct related to the firearm. The weeklong trial humiliated the first family, the guilty verdict could send the president’s son to prison, and he still faces another trial this fall for allegedly failing to pay his taxes on time.

During closing arguments on Monday, prosecutor Leo Wise reportedly gestured toward first lady Jill Biden and other members of the Biden family in the court gallery, saying: “Respectfully, none of that matters.” Hunter Biden had originally struck a plea deal with prosecutors last year, but the agreement fell apart under questioning by District Judge Maryellen Noreika, which revealed a disagreement between Biden’s legal team and prosecutors about whether the government would still pursue other charges against Biden related to his international business deals. So Biden pleaded not guilty, even though he didn’t deny buying the gun and he admitted in his 2021 memoir that he was constantly smoking crack cocaine around the time of the purchase. The government used the memoir to make its case, and also called to the stand Biden’s ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend, and his late brother’s widow, Hallie Biden, with whom he had a disastrous affair.

[...] The jury found Biden guilty on three counts: lying about his drug use on a federal form used in firearm sales that he was not addicted to a controlled substance, making that same lie to a federally licensed gun dealer, and illegally possessing a firearm even though he was an addict. Biden faces a maximum possible sentence of 25 years in prison, though it’s likely he would receive a lighter sentence, and he could appeal the case.

Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that they would “continue to vigorously pursue all the legal challenges available to Hunter.” In a statement, Joe Biden said he loved his son and would respect the judicial process. “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,” he said. “Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.” Hunter Biden thanked his family and friends in a statement after the verdict. “I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends, and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome,” he said. “Recovery is possible by the grace of God, and I am blessed to experience that gift one day at a time.”

Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, has been found guilty on all three counts of illegally owning a gun.

President Biden has said that he won't pardon him.

A big difference between Democrats and the MAGA cult is that we accept the fact Hunter Biden has been charged in a court of law by a jury of his peers, while the MAGA cult (and the GOP at large) whine about Donald Trump being held accountable in a court of law. Another big difference is that President Biden didn't interfere with the Hunter Biden trial process, unlike Trump, who did everything he could to obstruct his trial.

See Also:

MMFA: MAGA propagandists juggle conspiracy theories following Hunter Biden verdict

The Guardian: Hunter Biden found guilty on all three charges in federal gun case

Daily Kos: Hunter Biden is convicted, but the GOP is still big mad

[eaglesnick]

“A generous basic state pension is the least a civilized society should offer those who have worked hard and saved through their whole lives."  George Osborne

It was Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke in 1993 who first announced plans to raise the pension age of women from 60 to 65 years of age.  The Tories 1995 Pension Act enshrined this in law but the changes were to be phased in between 2010 and 2020. So far so good – lots of warning, giving women plenty of time to financially prepared for the fact the OAP would not be available until they were 65.

Enter David Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg and the Coalition Government of Austerity. In 2011 they decided to accelerate the changes and bring forward the state pension age for women to 65  by November 2018 and then to 66 by 2020.

Displaying typical Tory disregard for the detrimental financial effects this might have on ordinary working women, and displaying a total lack of common decency, some women claimed “they only received 12 months notice of the six-year delay to their pensions." (Guardian: 21/03/24), giving them no time to prepare for their unexpected loss of pension.

What is more The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found the Department of Work and Pensions “guilty of misadministration in its handling of the changes.”

Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt, in his latest budget has given millions away to the wealthy in pension tax breaks.

“Financial firms have said the changes to pension allowances could let high earners who can afford it build up pension pots worth as much as £9m while enjoying the full tax benefits.”  (Guardian: 16/03/24)

We deserve better.

[mariacallous]

Many parts of former President Trump’s signature tax cuts will expire in 2025. This leaves limited time for policymakers to decide what to keep, what to let lapse, and how to deal with the other provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). Whatever course of action they take will affect the federal deficit and how millions of households and businesses do their taxes.

To make those decisions, Congress needs to look past party lines and talking points to see the law’s actual impact. In a new paper, Jeff Hoopes (University of North Carolina), Kyle Pomerleau (American Enterprise Institute), and I did just that.

The TCJA introduced sweeping changes to individual and corporate taxation, cutting individual income tax rates, increasing the standard deduction and Child Tax Credit, slashing the corporate tax rate and the tax rate for certain unincorporated businesses, and other changes.

Here’s my take. Several effects of the law are clear. First, the good news. It simplified taxes for many households by reducing their dependence on itemized deductions and their use of the alternative minimum tax (AMT), although these gains were offset to some extent by more complicated taxes for businesses.

The bad news is that it was expensive: The TCJA will have raised federal deficits and debt by more than $2 trillion over its first 10 years according to the Congressional Budget Office. Forget the idea that the tax cut will pay for itself—that is nonsense.

More bad news: The TCJA exacerbated the already massive differences in the distribution of income. It made the rich richer and barely helped the poor. Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center analysis shows that households in the lowest 20% of income distribution gained an average of about $60 per year. Annual tax cuts for the top 1% averaged over $50,000.

These are justifiable costs, say TCJA advocates, who believe the law spurred economic growth. But there does not appear to have been a growth effect. Patterns in aggregate economic data for 2018 and 2019 tell a fairly simple story: The basic underlying path of the economy—in terms of GDP, investment, and wages—was essentially unchanged after TCJA relative to before TCJA.

For example, a boom in investment never materialized. Investment was about the same share of GDP in 2019 as it was in 2015. Investment in intellectual property continued to grow at about the same rate that it had before the tax cut. Investment in equipment and structures, both of which received big tax cuts through the TCJA, essentially stagnated as a share of GDP.

U.S. investment performance compared to other countries was lackluster, too. Before TCJA, our investment-GDP ratio grew at the second fastest rate in the Group of Seven (G7). After TCJA? The fourth fastest. Lagging behind Europe is not the best look for the “biggest business tax cut in history.”

In particular, the historic cut in the corporate tax rate, down to 21% from 35%, was much less of an investment incentive than many TCJA advocates expected. The reduction mainly provides a windfall gain to investments made in the past—an inefficient way to stimulate new investment.

Hopefully in 2025, rather than continued partisan politicking, policymakers will seriously study the actual effects of TCJA policies when considering whether to extend them or let them lapse. Extending the expiring provisions would cost more than $4 trillion over the next decade according to CBO and would be extremely regressive. If the provisions expire, the economy is unlikely to fall into a tailspin. If TCJA provisions didn’t contribute to growth, their absence is unlikely to hurt growth, and it would help reduce the deficit and make the distribution of after-tax income more equal.

How to deal with TCJA is part of a larger discussion: How will the U.S. generate sufficient revenue to cover its expenses? Budgetary challenges are only getting worse, given slowly growing revenues and looming shortfalls in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. If policymakers limit their debate in 2025 to the expiring TCJA provisions, they will miss a huge opportunity to reform the tax system and reduce fiscal deficits. Congress has many options, and many better ones, than simply extending TCJA.  

[learnwithmearticles]

France Election

The French 2024 election saw an amazing turnout from voters who ended up keeping the far-right out of the majority in the National Assembly.

This is not a landslide victory, but it does prove promising for the future if we can maintain this success.

French Parties

France has three main parties, here referred to as the ‘left’, ‘centrist’, and ‘right’ for convenience.

The left is primarily the New Popular Front (NFP). Their goals include limiting inflation on staple food items, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing public sector salaries and welfare benefits. They also aim to end the 2023 French pension reform law, which raised the retirement age to 64 and required someone to have worked at least 43 years. 

The center, or Les Centristes, is that which President Emmanuel Macron considers himself part of. Their goal is finding a compromise between socialism and capitalism, supporting a competitive economy as well as social welfare, and developing public transit and cleaner energy. Macron has praised the pursuit of decarbonized energy and vied for incentive policies supporting electric energy. He is harshly criticized for economic-related policies, such as heavy tax breaks for the richest citizens, the pension reform law, and putting his personal success above the French people.

The right are called the National Rally or, until 2018, the National Front. It is the most strongly xenophobic, and its goals include vilifying the European Union, increasing control and regulation of immigration, and feigning support for queer people while opposing same-sex marriage.

Election Results

The election saw the left win 182 seats in the National Assembly, while centrists won 163 and the right won 143, with smaller political factions making up the remainder. An absolute majority would be at 289 seats, so in the years to come we will likely see a lot of contention around the proposals, debating, and passing of laws.

This does mean the next Prime Minister will likely be elected -by Macron- from the politically left. This will be difficult, as many of Macron’s affiliates view leaders from the left as too extreme.

Popular veteran of left-wing politics, Jean-Luc Mélanchon, is an unlikely candidate due to how divisive he has been considered, despite coming in third in the 2022 presidential election. Marine Tondelier is another possible candidate, and currently the National Secretary of the Green Party. There is also François Ruffin, particularly known for disagreeing with Mélanchon based on views of what democracy should be. These are only a few of the people Macron has to consider to eventually fill the position.

Another important change is illuminated by the events surrounding the Pension Reform Bill. When Macron pushed it through, two no-confidence motions came from the National Assembly. If either had passed, Macron would have been forced to make major changes to the government, such as completely replacing his government appointments. While neither passed, one was only nine votes from the majority. With even more seats held by those who don’t align with Macron, we can expect potential future motions like this to be more successful. 

In other sectors, we might see large change with the left now rising in numbers in the National Assembly. Before the election, an interview with Sarah Legrain from the NPF indicated a belief in the National Assembly’s responsibility towards arts and culture. This responsibility includes not only improving access to the arts, but working towards an economy in which arts and culture can thrive.

Will conditions improve for people in France due to this election? With how recent it is, we can’t be sure. The fallout of this hectic decision from Macron to hold the reelection is yet to be fully realized. However, we can see specific examples of how the left might focus their attention in places like the economy, culture, and welfare.

Macron’s second and final term will end in 2027. With the hopeful turnout of this election, we can hope that French voters remain united and able to push their country further towards progress when the next election comes.

What Can This Mean for US elections?

Key information we can take from this is in the example of the French politicians. Between the first and second round of voting, more than 200 left-leaning candidates withdrew to avoid risking a split vote.

Similarly, many voters in the U.S. are having to deal with the dilemma of voting for the “least bad” options over voting for the “best” option. Third-party candidates, as discussed before on this page, are extremely unlikely to win a primary presidential election. Their popularity is in a middle ground because they are known enough to raise hopes of big changes, but not enough to stand against the two disproportionately powerful U.S. parties.

Additional Resources

1. Macron Energy Views

2. National Rally Views

3. Election Results

4. Events of the Pension Reform Bill

5. Potential Prime Ministers

6. Sarah Legrain Interview

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Tomorrow (November 29), I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

#15yrsago Peak Population: when will population growth stop, why, and how? https://www.alexsteffen.com/peak_population_and_sustainability

#15yrsago James Boyle’s “The Public Domain” — a brilliant copyfighter’s latest book, from a law prof who writes like a comedian https://memex.craphound.com/2008/11/29/james-boyles-the-public-domain-a-brilliant-copyfighters-latest-book-from-a-law-prof-who-writes-like-a-comedian/

#10yrsago NSA and Canadian spooks illegally spied on diplomats at Toronto G20 summit https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/new-snowden-docs-show-u-s-spied-during-g20-in-toronto-1.2442448

#10yrsago New CC licenses: tighter, shorter, more readable, more global https://creativecommons.org/Version4/

#10yrsago Berlusconi kicked out of Italian senate https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/silvio-berlusconi-ousted-italian-parliament-tax-fraud-conviction

#5yrsago Sennheiser’s headphone drivers covertly changed your computer’s root of trust, leaving you vulnerable to undetectable attacks https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/sennheiser-headset-software-could-allow-man-in-the-middle-ssl-attacks/

#5yrsago New York City’s municipal debt collectors have forged an unholy alliance with sleazy subprime lenders https://www.bloomberg.com/confessions-of-judgment

#5yrsago Here’s how the Pentagon swindled Congress with $21 trillion worth of undocumented, untraceable, unaccounted for expenditures https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/

#5yrsago The prosecutor who helped Jeffrey Epstein escape justice is now a Trump Cabinet member https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html

#5yrsago Reddit takes a stand against the EU’s plan to break the internet https://www.redditinc.com/blog/the-eu-copyright-directive-what-redditors-in-europe-need-to-know/

#5yrsago The secret history of science fiction’s women writers: The Future is Female! https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/29/the-secret-history-of-science-fictions-women-writers-the-future-is-female/

#5yrsago Redaction ineptitude reveals names of Proud Boys’ self-styled new leaders https://splinternews.com/proud-boys-failed-to-redact-their-new-dumb-bylaws-and-a-1830700905

#5yrsago Redaction ineptitude reveals Facebook’s 2012 plan to sell Graph API access to user data for $250,000 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/facebook-pondered-for-a-time-selling-access-to-user-data/

#5yrsago Google engineer calls for a walkout over China censorship and raises $200K strike fund in hours https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1068208484053856256

#5yrsago Correlates of Trump voting: searches for erectile dysfunction, hair loss, how to get girls, penis enlargement, penis size, steroids, testosterone and Viagra https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/11/29/how-donald-trump-appeals-to-men-secretly-insecure-about-their-manhood/

#5yrsago Google’s secret project to build a censored Chinese search engine bypassed the company’s own security and privacy teams https://theintercept.com/2018/11/29/google-china-censored-search/

#5yrsago Mozilla pulls a popular paywall circumvention tool from Firefox add-ons store https://web.archive.org/web/20181130141509/https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/issues/82

#1yrago The Big Four accounting firms are one (more) scandal away from collapse https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/29/great-andersens-ghost/#mene-mene-bezzle

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Zack K. De Piero

Published: Dec 23, 2023

Looking for a job in today’s politicized job market?

Prepare to submit a résumé, cover letter, references — and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement: A page-long explanation of how you intend to bring those three seemingly benign principles into the workplace.

DEI statements have become standard practice in academia, but a tide might be turning: UNC and UMass Boston recently un-required mandatory DEI statements for student admission, employee recruitment and faculty promotion. 

Here’s hoping this sets an industry precedent — a step towards reining in DEI in every sector. 

When I taught at Penn State Abington from 2018-2022 as an English professor, their obsession with DEI created a hostile work environment teeming with discrimination.

Case in point: writing faculty were subjected to a video called “White Teachers are a Problem.”

After making my opposition known, I was retaliated against.

My perceived insubordination was branded on Affirmative Action Office notices, and I was sanctioned by HR as well as on my annual performance review. 

Penn State’s stance was clear: Blind loyalty is required by the DEI machine. 

The premier job board across academia, HigherEdJobs, shows how deeply entrenched compulsory left-think has become.

Whether you want to teach French at SUNY Oswego, Dance at Chapman, Soil Science and Nutrient Management at Colorado State, or Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse, your prospective employer will expect a DEI statement, so prepare to bend the knee. 

Even if you aspire to become the Beef Center Assistant Manager at Washington State University: Yep: DEI statement.

And these are just a few random examples posted since Thanksgiving.

It’s an epidemic. 

Make no mistake, the DEI machine has always been about toeing an ideological line — never any meaningful change.

Consider the case of Dr. Tabia Lee — a former faculty member of De Anza Community College in California.

While facilitating a “Decentering Whiteness” event featuring a BLM co-founder, Lee (who’s Black) made waves by allowing students to ask unscripted follow-up questions. For doing so, her tenure was sabotaged.

Despite being “diverse,” it turns out that Lee’s actual diversity didn’t gel with De Anza’s agenda.

A commitment to actual diversity requires respecting diverse viewpoints.

But wrong-think isn’t tolerated by the DEI Industrial Complex. 

Fortunately, federal law has something to say about that: neither De Anza nor Penn State has the authority to suppress Dr. Lee or my speech, nor can they discriminate on the basis of race.

That’s why she and I — supported by the nonpartisan group, the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism — are bringing lawsuits against our former employers. 

Pull back this sacred academic curtain, and see the emperor’s new clothes for yourself.

In 2021, Pennsylvanian’s taxes and students’ tuition went towards workshops on microaggressions, intersectional feminism, anti-racism, and white privilege led by the Penn State Abington DEI grifters.

Its leader’s Juneteenth email directed white faculty and staff to “stop talking,” “find an accountability partner,” and “stop being afraid of your own internalized white supremacy.” 

Such DEI efforts ooze with divisiveness, so yes, DEI statements are clearly a form of compelled speech, and thus, a violation of First Amendment free speech protections.

[ Dr. Tabia Lee says her tenure-track position at De Anza College in California was derailed after she failed to conform to DEI orthodoxy. ]

What’s worse, though, is the type of educational environment that DEI-ified initiatives create for students — and the culprit is the “E”: Equity. 

Here’s how “equity” played out in the misguided minds of my DEI-obsessed former colleagues. A former supervisor, who endorsed the view that “reverse racism isn’t racism,” also announced that “racist structures” exist “regardless of [anybody’s] good intentions” and that “racism is in the results if the results draw a color line.”

The apparent guiding subtext here: students should be graded on the basis of race so all achieve similar outcomes.

Suppose you deflated the grades of Asian-Americans — a group that often disproportionately excels — much like Harvard deflated their acceptance rates until the Supreme Court put a stop to race-based admissions.

That’s somehow acceptable in the name of “equity?” Of course not, but disagree with enforced equity in education and in the eyes of antiracist activists, that makes you – you guessed it — a “racist.” 

Alternatively, performative equity could be achieved by inflating everybody’s grades — straight A’s all around! 

Harvard’s almost there: in 2020-2021, 80% of all grades were A’s, according to an October article in the Harvard Crimson. 

The road to equity is paved by the soft bigotry of low expectations.

And in a world where grit, labor, and integrity win the day, academia’s obsession with “equity” breeds a “survival of the weakest” mindset. 

Nevertheless, the DEI machine continues to reign supreme.

Over a five-year span, Ohio State’s DEI annual budget bloated to $20 million with nearly 200 DEI bureaucrats who cite the leftist scripture of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

But before we can enter their church, us natural-born sinners must repent by issuing performative DEI statements?

Yeah. No thanks.

Paradoxically, the more elite institutions obnoxiously virtue-signal their allegiance to DEI, the less committed they are to actual diversity and inclusion — and the more they obscure actual equality in the process. 

These institutions aren’t hiding what they’re doing.

Even in the throes of my lawsuit, Penn State Abington has doubled down on DEI: there’s now a sister office — the Office of Inclusive Excellence — complete with its own cabinet-level director. 

Folks: this isn’t going away unless you take action.

Here’s a start: if you’re ever asked to submit a DEI statement, don’t bend the knee to their “E” — Equity.

Reframe their game, and tell them how and why you stand up for the honorable “E”: Equality. 

Zack K. DePiero (Ph.D, M.Ed) teaches writing at Northampton Community College. 

[plomanie]

VAT Certificate in the UAE: A Comprehensive Guide [2024]

In the UAE, a VAT (Value Added Tax) certificate is an essential document for businesses operating within the region. Introduced in January 2018, the VAT system mandates that companies with an annual turnover exceeding AED 375,000 register for VAT. The VAT certificate serves as proof of this registration and includes crucial details such as the Tax Registration Number (TRN), the company's name, and the effective date of VAT registration.

Obtaining a VAT certificate involves several steps. Businesses must first create an account on the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) portal and provide necessary details, including business activities, financial statements, and identification documents. After submission and review by the FTA, the VAT certificate is issued electronically, typically within 20 working days.

The VAT certificate is not only a compliance requirement but also enhances the credibility of a business. It allows for the collection and remittance of VAT, facilitating lawful operations and fostering trust with clients and suppliers. Moreover, the certificate is required for certain transactions, such as applying for government tenders or opening corporate bank accounts.

Renewal and updates to the VAT certificate are essential, particularly if there are changes in business activities or contact details. Failure to maintain an up-to-date certificate can result in penalties and operational disruptions.

In summary, securing and maintaining a VAT certificate is a critical aspect of business operations in the UAE. It ensures compliance with local tax laws, supports transparent business practices, and bolsters the overall legitimacy and operational efficiency of a business.

[ausetkmt]

Black nurses have shared their experiences of racism in the workplace, as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) commemorates the 75th anniversary of Windrush at its annual conference this week.

In June 2018, the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, commissioned the Windrush Lessons Learned review – a report reflecting on the causes of the Windrush injustices. The independent review was in response to mounting evidence that members of the Windrush generation were losing jobs, homes and access to benefits, as well as being denied NHS treatment, detained, and forcibly deported to countries they left as children.

The findings, alongside the testimonies of black British citizens affected by the hostile environment, are truly anguishing.

Wendy Williams, the HM inspector of constabularyappointed as the independent reviewer, has examined the key legislative, policy and operational decisions that led to the Windrush injustices, and spoken to those who suffered grave and catastrophic consequences from becoming entangled in the government’s hostile immigration policies.

Williams’ review draws a stark conclusion: the UK’s treatment of the Windrush generation, and approach to immigration more broadly, was caused by institutional failures to understand race and racism. Their failures conform to certain aspects of Lord Macpherson’s definition of institutional racism, enshrined in the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, published in 1999.

Macpherson defined institutional racism as: “The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.”

The Windrush Lessons Learned review pulls no punches in describing the failure of ministers and officials to understand the nature of racism in Britain. It shows how the government’s hostile environment immigration policies had devastating impacts on the lives and families of black citizens within the UK.

The fact that black British people who had spent much of their lives in Britain, working and paying taxes, were accidental victims of the government’s immigration policies, perfectly illustrates how the coalition and Conservative governments not only failed to adhere to existing race relations legislation, but also showed a complete lack of understanding about “indirect discrimination” – a concept accepted in legislation as far back as the 1976 Race Relations Act.

Neither that lesson of “unintended discrimination”, nor the definition of “institutional racism” from the Macpherson report, seem to have been learned by Britain’s policymakers and politicians. Not only is intent irrelevant for assessing whether policies are racially discriminatory, but race equality laws (including the 2000 Race Relations Amendment Act and the public sector equality duty) appear to have made little difference to immigration and citizenship policies affecting people from different ethnic groups.

This reveals a shocking lack of understanding of what racism is – namely that it’s not solely about intent. In April 2018, the dramatic apology by the then prime minister, Theresa May, showed a failure to understand this lesson, when she insisted it wasn’t her government’s intent to disproportionately affect people from the Caribbean in the operation of hostile environment immigration policy.

For policymakers and politicians to learn the profound lessons of the Windrush review, they must not only “right the wrongs” suffered by the Windrush generation (as well as those from other ethnic minority groups), but they must also understand how and why immigration and citizenship policies, and Home Office culture, have repeatedly discriminated against black and ethnic minority citizens over the decades.

The Windrush generation are owed a full apology – an apology that is based on understanding that their treatment wasn’t an accidental misfortune, but the result of institutional failure to understand the role of race and racism in Britain.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson

* * * *

America today is caught in a plague of gun violence.

It wasn’t always this way. Americans used to own guns without engaging in daily massacres. Indeed, it always jumps out at me that the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, when members of one Chicago gang set up and killed seven members of a rival gang, was so shocking it led to legislation that prohibits automatic weapons in the U.S.

Eighty-nine years later, though, in 2018, another Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 children and wounded 17 others. In response, then-President Donald Trump called for arming teachers, and the Republican-dominated Florida legislature rejected a bill that would have limited some high-capacity guns.

Our acceptance of violence today stands in striking contrast to Americans’ horror at the 1929 Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Today’s promotion of a certain kind of gun ownership has roots in the politics of the country since the Supreme Court handed down the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Since Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted a government that actively shaped the economy, businessmen who hated government regulation tried to rally opposition to get rid of that government. But Americans of the post-World War II years actually liked regulation of the runaway capitalism they blamed for the Great Depression.

The Brown v. Board decision changed the equation. It enabled those who opposed business regulation to reach back to a racist trope from the nation’s Reconstruction years after the Civil War. They argued that the active government after World War II was not simply regulating business. More important, they said, it was using tax dollars levied on hardworking white men to promote civil rights for undeserving Black people. The troops President Dwight Eisenhower sent to Little Rock Central High School in 1957, for example, didn’t come cheap. Civil Rights, then, promoted by the newly active federal government, were virtually socialism.

This argument had sharp teeth in the 1950s, as Americans recoiled from the growing influence of the U.S.S.R., but it came originally from the Reconstruction era. Then, white supremacist southerners who were determined to stop the federal government from enforcing Black rights argued that they were upset about Black participation in society not because of race—although of course they were—but rather because poor Black voters were electing lawmakers who were using white people’s tax dollars to lay roads, for example, or build schools.

In contrast to this apparent socialism, southern Democrats after the Civil War lionized the American cowboy, whom they mythologized as a white man (in fact, a third of the cowboys were men of color) who wanted nothing of the government but to be left alone (in reality, the cattle industry depended on the government). Out there on the western plains, the mythological cowboy worked hard for a day’s pay for moving cattle to a railhead, all the while fighting off Indigenous Americans, Mexicans, and rustlers who were trying to stop him.

That same mythological cowboy appeared in the 1950s to stand against what those opposed to business regulation and civil rights saw as the creeping socialism of their era. By 1959, there were 26 Westerns on TV, and in March 1959, eight of one week’s top shows were Westerns. They showed hardworking cowboys protecting their land from evildoers. The cowboys didn’t need help from their government; they made their own law with a gun.

In 1958, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona rocketed to prominence after he accused the president from his own party, Dwight Eisenhower, of embracing “the siren song of socialism.” Goldwater had come from a wealthy background after his family cashed in on the boom of federal money flowing to Arizona dam construction, but he presented himself to the media as a cowboy, telling stories of how his family had come to Arizona when “[t]here was no federal welfare system, no federally mandated employment insurance, no federal agency to monitor the purity of the air, the food we ate, or the water we drank,” and that “[e]verything that was done, we did it ourselves.” Goldwater opposed the Brown v. Board decision and Eisenhower’s decision to use troops to desegregate Little Rock Central High School.

Increasingly, those determined to destroy the postwar government emphasized the hardworking individual under siege by a large, grasping government that redistributed wealth to the undeserving, usually people of color. A big fan of Goldwater, Ronald Reagan famously developed a cowboy image even as he repeatedly warned of the “welfare queen” who lived large on government benefits she stole.

As late as 1968, the National Rifle Association supported some forms of gun control, but that changed in the 1980s as the organization affiliated itself with Reagan’s Republican Party. In 1981, an assassin attempted to kill the president and succeeded in badly wounding him, as well as injuring the president’s press secretary, James Brady, and two others. Despite pressure to limit gun ownership, in 1986, under pressure from the NRA, the Republican Congress did the opposite: it passed the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, which erased many of the earlier controls on gun ownership, making it easier to buy, sell, and transport guns across state lines.

In 1987, Congress began to consider the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, otherwise known as the Brady Bill, to require background checks before gun purchases and to prevent certain transfer of guns across state lines. As soon as the measure was proposed, the NRA shifted into high gear to prevent its passage. The bill did not pass until 1993, under President Bill Clinton’s administration. The NRA set out to challenge the law in the courts.

While the challenges wound their way upward, the idea of individuals standing against a dangerous government became central to the Republican Party. By the 1990s, men increasingly vowed to take up arms against the government that talk radio hosts told them was bringing socialism to America. After April 19, 1993, when federal officers stormed the compound of a religious cult whose former members reported that their leader, David Koresh, was stockpiling weapons, talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones warned that the government was about to impose martial law. Angry opponents of the government began to organize as well-armed “militias.”

In 1997, the NRA’s challenges to the Brady Bill had made their way to the United States Supreme Court. Printz v. United States brought together the idea of unfettered gun ownership and Republican government. The court held that it was unconstitutional for the federal government to require states to perform background checks. This both freed up gun purchases and endorsed states’ rights, the principle at the heart of the Republican policy of dismantling the active government that regulates business and protects civil rights.

We are in a bizarre moment, as Republican lawmakers defend largely unlimited gun ownership even as recent polls show that 84% of voters, including 77% of Republicans, support background checks. The link between guns, cowboys, race, and government in America during Reconstruction, and again after the Brown v. Board decision, helps to explain why.

[Heather Cox Richardson :: Letters From An American]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is making another run for the presidency, announcing that he is seeking the 2024 Republican nomination.

Christie—a former U.S. attorney who also served as chairman of an opioid commission under the Trump administration—has long criticized marijuana reform efforts. During his 2016 presidential bid, for example, he made headlines for pledging to enforce federal prohibition in states that have enacted legalization and making disparaging remarks about cannabis consumers.

While he did allow medical marijuana legalization to take effect in New Jersey as Governor, he faced criticism for slow-walking the implementation of the law enacted by his predecessor. And although he said in 2018 that he’s come to view cannabis policy as a states’ rights issue, his overall position on legalization doesn’t appear to have meaningfully changed—even with the vast majority of states now having enacted reform in some manner, including the end of prohibition in his home state under his successor’s administration.

Christie has expressed his belief that cannabis is a gateway drug, that tax revenue from regulated sales amounts to “blood money” and that marijuana use inhibits productivity and endangers children.

It remains to be seen if he will maintain a states’ right attitude toward cannabis this election cycle, or double down on his earlier commitment to upending state legal markets. But in general, Christie’s record could alienate advocates on both sides of the aisle as public opinion continues to grow in favor of reform on an increasingly bipartisan basis. It should be noted, however, that the presidential hopeful has criticized the broader war on drugs on a number of occasions.

Christie’s competitors for the GOP nomination include former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R).

Here’s where Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie stands on marijuana:

LEGISLATION AND POLICY ACTIONS

New Jersey Governor (January 2010-January 2018)

Christie took office as Governor of New Jersey just one day after his Democratic predecessor signed a medical cannabis legalization bill into law. Despite his personal views on the issue, he did ultimately allow the law to be implemented—though the protracted rollout elicited criticism from patient groups.

He announced in December 2010 that his administration had reached an agreement with the sponsor of the medical cannabis legislation on the best path forward for regulating the program.

The agreement was “an example of how reasonable minds can come together and craft solutions that are in the best interests of our state,’’ he said. “Working together, we have come to an agreement that will prevent further delay to patients who need relief from the symptoms of debilitating illnesses. At the same time, we are protecting the interests of all residents of the state of New Jersey by preventing some of the abuses that we have seen in other states.”

Christie held a press conference in July 2011 where he said that his administration was “left with very little instruction about how to implement this [medical cannabis] law and how to do it in a very complex legal environment with conflicting and intersecting federal and state legal requirements and opportunities.”

“I made clear during the campaign that this is not a law that I would have signed if I were Governor at the time,” he said. “But I also, on January 19th, took an oath to enforce and uphold the laws of the state of New Jersey as Governor.”

Christie had his state attorney general write a letter to then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to “try to seek some clarification for a state like ours that already had passed a medical marijuana law and had already promulgated regulations and awarded dispensaries to deal with the implementation of the program,” he said.

“Despite all the hyperbole over time from others, I have been struggling, as has my administration, to find a way to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, which is to provide compassionate treatment to people who are suffering in a way that will not expose them, the operators of our dispensaries or the employees of the state of New Jersey to criminal liability,” he said. “That is a lot easier said than done.”

In 2015, the Governor signed legislation that allowed students to receive medical cannabis treatment at schools.

Christie also championed expanding drug treatment resources in the state, stating that his administration would make such treatment options “available to as many of our non-violent offenders as we can, and we will partner with our citizens to create a society that understands that every life has value and no life is disposable.”

In 2017, Christie was at the center of a U.S. Supreme Court case that looked at whether the Constitution’s anti-commandeering doctrine prevents the federal government from forcing states to keep prohibitions of certain federally- proscribed activities on their own lawbooks. While the Governor was primarily defending the state’s sports gambling laws, some legal experts said the court’s ruling that struck down the federal law prohibiting such betting could have implications for cannabis policy.

He also drew a contrast in the federal government’s approach to state-level legalization of cannabis and gambling in describing why he filed the case.

White House Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission (March 2017-September 2017)

During his time in the Trump administration, Christie oversaw an opioid-focused commission—and at one point in 2017, he sent a letter to the President arguing that the spread of medical cannabis legalization is a concern on par with the opioid addiction crisis.

“There is a lack of sophisticated outcome data on dose, potency and abuse potential for marijuana,” he wrote. “This mirrors the lack of data in the 1990’s and early 2000’s when opioid prescribing multiplied across health care settings and led to the current epidemic of abuse, misuse and addiction.”

“The Commission urges that the same mistake is not made with the uninformed rush to put another drug legally on the market in the midst of an overdose epidemic,” he added.

“Apply the lessons learned to current movements to medicalize and legalize other Schedule 1 drugs,” the report recommended, alluding to marijuana. “The catalyst of the opioid crisis was a denial of its addictive potential.”

Christie’s commission released a report that largely ignored public comments supporting federal cannabis reform and instead focused on promoting the expansion of drug courts and anti-drug advertising campaigns.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

It does not appear that Christie has discussed marijuana policy issues since entering the race for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

PREVIOUS QUOTES AND SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Some of the most memorable comments that Christie has made with respect to cannabis occurred during his 2016 presidential run.

He quickly distinguished himself among his GOP competitors as especially hostile to reform by asserting that he would seek to overturn state-level legalization if elected.

In an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show in April 2015, for example, he said he would “crack down and not permit it.”

“Marijuana is a gateway drug,” he said. “We have an enormous addiction problem in this country. And we need to send very clear leadership from the White House on down through the federal law enforcement. Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law. And the states should not be permitted to sell it and profit from it.”

Asked in 2014 how he’d treat states that have implemented marijuana legalization, he responded simply: “Probably not well. Not well, but we’ll see. We’ll have to see what happens.”

Christie didn’t even seem especially concerned about potentially offending voters in the then-critical swing state of Colorado two years after a historic cannabis legalization ballot initiative was approved, saying in a 2014 interview that “for people who are enamored with the idea of the income, the tax revenue from this, go to Colorado and see if you want to live there.”

“See if you want to live in a major city in Colorado where there’s head shops popping up on every corner and people flying into your airport just to come and get high,” he said. “To me, it’s just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey and there’s no tax revenue that’s worth that.”

He also made an unambiguous threat during a town hall event in New Hampshire: “If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it until January 2017, because I will enforce the federal laws against marijuana as President of the United States.”

Christie also sharply criticized then-President Barack Obama over the federal government’s generally permissive attitude toward state legalization efforts, at one point suggesting that the discretionary enforcement could be related to “guilt” that he said Obama might have felt over criminalization, “since he got high when he was a kid.”

If Obama wanted to end federal marijuana prohibition, he should “go to Congress, stand in the well of the House in your State of the Union address and say, ‘I believe it’s time to legalize marijuana,'” Christie advised. “This child of the ’60s who is in the White House is unable to absent himself from his own past use, and is unable to say no.”

Interestingly, Christie did seem to somewhat pivot on the issue, saying in 2018 that he believes “states have the right to do what they want to do on” marijuana policy, even if he disagrees with it.

“You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, and that’s a big, important argument about marijuana because once you legalize this, that toothpaste never goes back in the tube,” he said.

In September 2015, Christie took part in a presidential debate hosted by CNN and argued that cannabis use isn’t a victimless crime.

“Look at the decrease in productivity—look at the way people get used and move on to other drugs when they use marijuana as a gateway drug,” he said. “It is not them that are the only victims. Their families are the victims, too. Their children are the victims, too. And their employers are the victims also.”

“That’s why I’ll enforce the federal law, while you can still put an emphasis on rehabilitation, which we’ve done in New Jersey,” he said.

In January 2016 he said that efforts to enact state-level legalization “sends an awful message to our children, and an awful message of a lack of productivity in our economy when people can go to work in Colorado high.” He added that “kids are getting high in the Colorado schools as we speak,” saying that if he was consuming cannabis while taking math and physics classes as a student, “there’d be no chance I’d be able to do it.”

At a ribbon cutting ceremony for a drug rehabilitation center in 2015, Christie remarked that he considered tax revenue collected from regulated marijuana sales to be “blood money,” saying that he’s “not going to put the lives of children and citizens at risk to put a little more money into the state coffers, at least not on my watch.”

He also suggested that his stance on cannabis will not be influenced by public opinion, regardless of the popularity of legalization.

“I don’t care quite frankly that people think it’s inevitable,” Christie said in 2014.

“It’s not inevitable here. I’m not going to permit it. Never, as long as I’m Governor,” he said, six years before voters approved an adult-use legalization referendum. “You want to elect somebody else who’s willing to legalize marijuana and expose our children to that gateway drug and the effects it has on their brain? You’ll have to live with yourself if you do that. But it’s not going to be this Governor who does it.”

He also questioned the idea that there was significant demand for medical cannabis under the state’s program and described the reform as “a front for legalization.”

In 2016, he dismissed criticism about restrictions in the state’s medical marijuana law after being asked about a family that moved to Colorado because of that state’s more flexible policies.

“The fact is we signed into law the ability for children to get medical marijuana under very strict guidelines. This is a medical program, not a recreational program,” he said, adding, “I am an anti-marijuana guy.”

That said, Christie has recognized the therapeutic benefits of cannabis for some people and said that laws around medical marijuana should “be made state-by-state.”

“I don’t want it used recreationally, but for medical purposes, it’s helpful for certain adult illness and certain pediatric illness,” he said. “So where it’s helpful and when a doctor prescribes it, I have no problem with it.”

Despite believing that marijuana can be an effective therapeutic tool for some people, he said in 2015 that he wouldn’t move to reschedule cannabis under federal law, asserting that he “cannot administratively fix that and I will not administratively fix it.”

“I am for limited medical use, not mandated by the federal government, but permissive by the federal government,” he said. “And each state has a different point of view because each state is permitted to have a different point of view on this issue.”

Although Christie has strongly opposed cannabis legalization, he has also sharply criticized the war on drugs as a failed policy.

“We will end the failed war on drugs that believes that incarceration is the cure of every ill caused by drug abuse,” he said during his second inaugural address as Governor in 2014. “We will make drug treatment available to as many of our non-violent offenders as we can and we will partner with our citizens to create a society that understands that every life has value and no life is disposable.”

The Governor said during his 2016 State of the State address that, “Instead of prosecuting a failed war on drugs—a war on our own citizens—we’ve classified drug addiction as the illness it truly is, and worked to treat and rehabilitate some of the most vulnerable members of our society.”

More recently, during an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” in 2022, Christie defended his opposition to marijuana legalization while he was serving as Governor, but acknowledged that his successor had the right to change course.

“I was not going to permit it to be a recreational legal drug in New Jersey. I didn’t permit it to be. And now we have a new guy [that] came after me and he permitted it,” he said, referring to Gov. Phil Murphy (D). “Am I like standing in the corner holding my breath saying, ‘I can’t believe you did that?’ No. He gets to make the judgments now. He made the call.”

He said in a 2021 interview that he’s “not somebody who’s in favor” of federal marijuana reform, explaining that data on overdose deaths from other drugs partly informs his position.

“In my experience, truly, marijuana for so many people has become, and that always has been, a gateway drug,” he said. “I think we have serious drug addiction problems in this country. And I think until we begin to get those under control, it’s not the right time to be adding another drug to the list of legal drugs in this country.”

Pressed on how to resolve the tension between conflicting state and federal marijuana policy, he noted that the country was “nowhere near a majority of states to truly legalize it,” and “we’re still a Republic that depends upon states” and limited federal government.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH MARIJUANA

Asked in 2012 whether he’d ever used marijuana, Christie said that “the answer is no.”

MARIJUANA UNDER A CHRISTIE PRESIDENCY

In some respects, it does seem that Christie has evolved since declaring his intent to crack down on local marijuana markets during his 2016 bid by more recently signaling a greater willingness to respect states’ rights to enact their own policies.

That said, the candidate has given little reason to believe that he’d seek to proactively reform federal marijuana laws in a way that aligns with the will of the majority of voters who back legalization.

While his record is marked by criticism of people who consume cannabis—as well as state-level recreational legalization—his more recent comments leave an open question as to how he would navigate the issue under the current policy landscape.

[vren-diagram]

The Nordic model has been characterized as follows:[16]

An elaborate social safety net, in addition to public services such as free education and universal healthcare[16] in a largely tax-funded system.[17]

Strong property rights, contract enforcement and overall ease of doing business.[18]

Public pension plans.[16]

High levels of democracy as seen in the Freedom in the World survey and Democracy Index.[19][20]

Free trade combined with collective risk sharing (welfare social programmes and labour market institutions) which has provided a form of protection against the risks associated with economic openness.[16]

Little product market regulation. Nordic countries rank very high in product market freedom according to OECD rankings.[16]

Low levels of corruption.[19][16] In Transparency International's 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden were ranked among the top 10 least corrupt of the 179 countries evaluated.[21]

A partnership between employers, trade unions and the government, whereby these social partners negotiate the terms to regulating the workplace amongst themselves, rather than the terms being imposed by law.[22][23] Sweden has decentralised wage co-ordination while Finland is ranked the least flexible.[16] The changing economic conditions have given rise to fear among workers as well as resistance by trade unions in regards to reforms.[16]

High trade union density and collective bargaining coverage.[24] In 2019, trade union density was 90.7% in Iceland, 67.0% in Denmark, 65.2% in Sweden, 58.8% in Finland, and 50.4% in Norway; in comparison, trade union density was 16.3% in Germany and 9.9% in the United States.[25] Additionally, in 2018, collective bargaining coverage was 90% in Iceland, 88.8% in Finland (2017), 88% in Sweden, 82% in Denmark, and 69% in Norway; in comparison collective bargaining coverage was 54% in Germany and 11.7% in the United States.[26] The lower union density in Norway is mainly explained by the absence of a Ghent system since 1938. In contrast, Denmark, Finland and Sweden all have union-run unemployment funds.[27]

The Nordic countries received the highest ranking for protecting workers rights on the International Trade Union Confederation 2014 Global Rights Index, with Denmark being the only nation to receive a perfect score.[28]

Sweden at 56.6% of GDP, Denmark at 51.7%, and Finland at 48.6% reflect very high public spending.[29] Public expenditure for health and education is significantly higher in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in comparison to the OECD average.[30]

Overall tax burdens as a percentage of GDP are high, with Denmark at 45.9% and both Finland and Sweden at 44.1%.[31] The Nordic countries have relatively flat tax rates, meaning that even those with medium and low incomes are taxed at relatively high levels.[32][33]

The United Nations World Happiness Reports show that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe. The Nordics ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.[34] The Nordic countries place in the top 10 of the World Happiness Report 2018, with Finland and Norway taking the top spots.[35]

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I think a lot of people are missing that the Nordic model is:

generally very friendly to businesses (low product market regulation, strong enforcement of property rights and contracts, non-corrupt, incentivizes population to upskill and participate)

composed of largely organically set standards (workers rights secured by collective bargaining and trade-unions) (as opposed to a centralized bureaucracy)

Largely structured to provide citizens with benefits that make workforce participation easier. The ordering of the social safety net and welfare state make it relatively easy to obtain skills and hold a job. Child care is subsidized. Elder care is subsidized. Healthcare and Education are subsidized. Unemployment benefits make it harder to fall out of the workforce participation loop.

re: that last point. The Nordic model is not about setting the tax rate really high and then doing redistribution! It actually really really matters how the government spends that money!