Tom Roche

Kate Raworth, renegade economist and author of Doughnut Economics, visits the RSA to argue that’s it’s time to start thinking like a 21st century economist. Drawing on insights from emergent schools of thought – including complexity, ecological, feminist, behavioural and institutional economics – she argues that today’s economies are divisive and degenerative by default, and must become distributive and regenerative by design. It’s time for humanity’s portrait at the heart of economic theory to be drawn anew so that, instead of bringing out the worst in us, it nurtures the best of human nature.

From the stage in Calgary, Todd Ness bravely shares his innermost fears and Sterling Scott kid-themed restaurants to stop serving booze. It's hard enough to be a good father.

On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the streets of Dublin were transformed into a war zone. This edition of The Enright Files revisits highlights of a two-hour special commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.

There was probably too much made out of the slowing in payroll employment growth in the March jobs numbers reported yesterday. This was likely driven in large part by the unusually good weather in January and February that brought a lot of spring hiring forward. However, there were a couple of items that did not get the attention they deserve.

First, there is some limited evidence that wage growth is slowing. Typically, the year-over-year change in the average hourly wage is reported. While the growth in this measure slowed slightly last month, a problem with the year-over-year rate is that it reflects wage growth over the last year, not just recent months. I prefer taking the annualized rate of growth for the average of the last three months compared with the average of the prior three months. This measure can be sensitive to erratic month-to-month changes, but at least it focuses on a more recent period, rather than telling us about the wage growth from nine or ten months ago.

Here's the picture using this series since the start of 2013.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As the figure shows, there was some very modest increase in the rate of wage growth in early 2016, with a peak of 3.1 percent in May of 2016. Since then, the general direction has been downward, with the rate over the last three months being less than 2.5 percent. This matters hugely for the Fed's interest rate policy, since a main issue for those looking to raise rates is that inflation could start rising above target levels. That seems unlikely if the rate of wage growth is stable or slowing.

In this respect it is also worth noting that the Employment Cost Index (ECI), a broader measure of compensation that includes non-wage benefits like health care, shows zero evidence of acceleration over this period. Over the last twelve months the ECI has risen 2.2 percent. That is the same rate of increase as we saw in this index three years earlier.

In short, you really can't find any evidence of accelerating wage growth in the data. The evidence of deceleration is too weak to say anything conclusive, but if anything, wage growth is going in the wrong direction to make the case for the inflation hawks.

The other item that deserved more attention in the jobs report was the rise in the employment rate (EPOP) of prime-age workers. This rose by 0.2 percentage points to 78.5 percent. This number is 0.5 percentage points above its year-ago level, although still 1.8 percentage points below the pre-recession peak and almost 4.0 percentage points below the 2000 peak. This suggests that the EPOP could still rise much further before we can say that we have reached full employment.

There was also an interesting gender split to the rise in the EPOP. While the EPOP for prime-age women is up a full percentage point from its year, the EPOP for prime-age men is unchanged. This could begin to look like the widely hyped problem with men story, if the trend continues.

However, there are two important caveats. First, the monthly data are erratic. If we take three month averages, the year over year increase in EPOPs for men would be 0.2 percentage points and for women it would be 0.8 percentage points. This is still a substantial difference, but at least the rate for men is moving in the right direction.

The other issue is that, at least from the summary data, it does not appear to be an issue with less-educated men. Over the last year, the EPOP for people with college degrees is actually down by 0.3 percentage points in the first three months of 2017 compared to 2016. By contrast, the EPOP for people with just a high school degree is up by 0.3 percentage points. It is possible that a further analysis would show large gender differences, but it seems unlikely that the weakness in EPOPs could be concentrated among less educated men, given these numbers. This seems especially unlikely given that the retirement of baby boomers would be primarily affecting the EPOPs of people with just a high school degree.

The unexpected Conservative election victory of 2015 transformed British politics. Now an unprecedented Electoral Commission investigation has raised the question of whether it was even a fair fight • Read the text version here

The Pentagon has developed plans for an airstrike against Syrian government targets in response to this week’s apparent chemical attack by Syrian government forces, according to two U.S. military officials.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis will present the proposals to Donald Trump later today at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

One of the proposals drawn up is a “saturation strike” using dozens of cruise missiles designed to hit Syrian military targets — including military air fields — in an effort to limit future Syrian Air Force attacks on rebel positions, according to the two U.S. military officials.

The officials asked for anonymity to discuss classified plans.

The proposed strike would involve launching Tomahawk cruise missiles to overwhelm Russian air defense systems used by the Syrian military. The Russian government currently helps maintain the air defense sites and advises the Syrian military.

According to both U.S. military officials, the current proposal would likely result in Russian military deaths and mark a drastic escalation of U.S. force in Syria.

One U.S. military official said the decision to allow the strikes, which would kill Russians, signals a significant change in policy by the Trump administration. A decision by Trump to go forward with the plan would be a reversal from the Obama administration, which denied multiple airstrike proposals that would likely cause Russian personnel casualties in Syria.

The Bashar al-Assad government placed many of its air defense systems in civilian areas, putting Syrian civilians at risk, according to the U.S. military and intelligence sources.

President Trump said yesterday that the Syrian government “crossed many, many lines” by conducting an apparent chemical weapons attack in Idlib on Tuesday. The attack has killed as many as 100 Syrians.

The proposed airstrike was prepared by U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in Syria, where a civil war has resulted in an estimated 500,000 Syrians killed, millions displaced, and an ongoing refugee crisis.

Neither the Pentagon nor CENTCOM responded to requests for comment.

Top photo: Children being treated at a hospital after a suspected chemical gas attack by Assad regime forces on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib, Syria, April 4, 2017.

The post U.S. Weighs “Saturation Strike” Against Syrian Government in Response to Chemical Attack appeared first on The Intercept.

Behind the News, 4/6/17 - guests: Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams - Doug Henwood

Author (Photo: Hattusa ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric H. Cline. PART 2 of 2 https://www.amazon.com/1177-B-C-Civilization-Collapsed-Turning/dp/0691168385/ref=la_B001HCVOR8_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491195545&sr=1-2

Can more empathy really break down barriers and solve conflicts? Or is it possible that it actually reinforces existing biases to those we are most familiar with?

Why did Hillary Clinton lose the election?

This is my review of Leornardo DiCaprio’s film Before the Flood

February 2017
Twitter @KevinClimate

There is much to commend this film – not least Leonardo DiCaprio’s natural propensity to see through unsubstantiated optimism along with his evident appreciation of the science of climate change and the beauty & fragility of our time on this planet. Ok, he’s an actor with an elaborate film crew – but nevertheless something genuine and important shines through. He deserves credit for what he has been part of – and that is not something I find easy to say. Celebrities, including DiCaprio, both epitomise and fuel our greed for evermore consumption. They are the metaphorical Jones family next door with the bigger car, larger house, private jet and obscene carbon footprint – the pinnacle of the increasingly ubiquitous American dream. And in my judgement it is here that the film is weakest – and to an extent disingenuous.

The solutions touched on are far too seductive and make no reference to the carbon budget concept that translates the Paris Agreement’s temperature commitments into the scale and timeframe for reducing emissions. Carbon budgets are simple to understand, but their repercussions are profound, evidently too profound for this film.

So instead we have Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economics professor, and technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, asserting the only way forward is though a carbon tax gently “nudging” us towards a technical utopia. Just one hundred of Musk’s “gigafactories” will see the world’s energy supply magically transformed away from fossil fuels. Certainly,  if a significant upstream price is put on carbon, investors will begin to shift away from fossil-fuel energy. Moreover, the Musks of this world indeed have a role to play. But they are not our silver-bullet saviours – they’re one part of complex and dynamic puzzle.

Only Sunita Narain, from Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment is prepared to point to the elephant in the room, the carbon-profligate lifestyle to which DiCaprio, the Koch Brothers, climate elites and professors have grown all too accustomed. Combine this with Johan Rockström’s fear that we are making the transition to a sustainable future all “too slowly” and the plot for a follow-up film begins to emerge.

Certainly huge strides towards low carbon energy could be achieved now with existing energy supply and demand technologies. The research, development and deployment of promising new technologies, including Musk’s solar-battery future, could be accelerated. But Paris and carbon budgets frame an urgent problem far beyond the multi-decadal timeframe of deploying sufficient new energy technologies to displace fossil fuels. Deep and early mitigation through reduced fossil-fuel use by high emitters is key to both extending the window for this technology-transition and for leaving sufficient emission space for those in poverty to have near-term access to fossil fuel energy.

Finally, having suspended my antipathy towards individuals with carbon footprints greater than that of many African towns, I was brought rudely back to reality with the film’s closing statement – reiterated on its accompanying website. “The carbon emissions from Before The Flood were offset through a voluntary carbon tax.”  Worse still it then extols the virtues of offsetting by encouraging other high emitters to “Learn how you can offset your own carbon emissions by going to [link omitted]”

I really doubt that the Pope, whose Encyclical makes more systems-level sense than the plethora of glossy reports dispensed by green-growth ‘think’ tanks (and who was interviewed for the film), would sanction the ongoing “buying of indulgences”. For that’s what it is. The emissions from first-class flights, grand hotel rooms and travelling film crews are changing the climate now – and will for the next ten thousand years. The deed’s been done – and no amount of conscience-salving finance can assuage the climate impact. Ok, the projects funded may have real and important value – but asking someone else to diet whilst we binge on high-carbon fun is simply fraudulent. 

The Paris commitments cannot be delivered through well meant technocratic tweaks – even large ones. Technology and new economic rules are certainly prerequisites for delivering on “well below 2°C” – and DiCaprio does an adequate job of making this case. But they fall far short, in both delivery and scale, of what’s needed to stay within the rapidly dwindling carbon budgets accompanying Paris. Here, DiCaprio’s film serves to reinforce the misguided view that clever scientists, engineers and economists have the solutions to hand – just the evil oil companies are in the way. 

Despite my entrenched prejudice against our celebrity culture, I nevertheless recommend DiCaprio’s Before the Flood. If seen in conjunction with Robert Kenner’s wonderful and engaging film of Conway & Oreskes’ superb book, Merchants of Doubt, then a real sense of just what we’re up against emerges. But for a complete picture there needs to be a trilogy, with the final film focusing in on its audience. Unfortunately, as self-portraits are always the most revealing of art forms, this final film will be the most challenging to fund and difficult to produce.
__________

• Naomi Oreskes’ seminar on Merchants of Doubt
• For an account of why I object to offsetting, see: The inconvenient truth of carbon offsets and Offsetting under pressure (a pre-edit of both of these is also available)

Author (Photo: Mycenae Lion Gate) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric H. Cline. PART 1 of 2. n 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen? In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries. A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age--and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece. https://www.amazon.com/1177-B-C-Civilization-Collapsed-Turning/dp/0691168385/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491177940&sr=1-1&keywords=eric+cline+1177+b.c.+the+year+civilization+collapsed

Jess Solomon and Todd Graham share their very different marriage tales. From the Icebreakers Comedy Festival.

Now that climate change has arrived, why don’t we act? UK philosopher and Green politician Rupert Read. Then Safa Motesharrei from the University of Maryland shows how humans tilt the climate picture toward collapse, including via wealth inequality.  Radio Ecoshock 170308 Download or  …

Former British Conservative MP Louise Mensch has become something of a celebrity of late in anti-Trump media. In the past two weeks, Mensch has been touted by former head of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile and prominent Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, and appeared on MSNBC (3/11/17), the New York Times op-ed page (3/17/17) and HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher (3/24/17). All this despite the fact that she routinely traffics in the most bizarre and unfounded conspiracy theories.

With her rise to prominence as a commentator on the Trump/Russia story, and seemingly dozens of editors and producers giving her their tacit approval, one is compelled to ask: What exactly would Louise Mensch have to say to be discredited?

Here is an incomplete list of outlandish claims made by Mensch over the past six months, mostly on Twitter, that have thus far not removed her from polite society:

• ProPublica and Democracy Now! “ARE [Steve] BANNON” and are “Russian shills” (1/28/17).
• Putin may have killed Andrew Breitbart (2/24/17).
• Russia is secretly operating the public wifi networks in her neighborhood (3/3/17).
• Anthony Weiner wasn’t sexting with a 15-year-old but was set up by a Russian hacker (Patribotics, 2/24/17).
• It was probably a Russian Twitter account that sent a strobe gif to Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald, causing a seizure (12/16/16).
• Putin had his own ambassador killed in Turkey in a false-flag operation (3/23/17).
• Putin played a role in the March 22 London attack (3/23/17).
• “Russian partisans were out in the street” after London attack blaming illegal immigrants (Real Time, 3/24/17).

When confronted by BBC host Andrew Neil (3/12/17) about her more outlandish claims, Mensch insists that what she tweets is simply a “belief” and not a “report” of the sort which appear on her website—the Dow Jones-owned Heat Street.

“Just to be clear,” Neil asked incredulously. “If it’s Twitter we don’t believe, but if it’s on your website, we should.” He then insisted that claims “should be backed up by evidence,” to which Mensch replied: “Really? Do you have a faith?”

Avoidance of unsubstantiated conspiratorial speculation is seen as a requirement for respectable news outlets. When Russia Today critics want to distinguish RT from other government-funded networks, for example, they insist that the others don’t give credence to conspiracy theorists. “Russia Today’s second mission is to spread conspiracy theories,” lamented the Guardian’s Nick Cohen in 2014, “that help Russian power and provide sensational audience-grabbing stories.”

As an example, Cohen offers the claim that “Ukrainians who oppose Putin are fascists.” Despite the fact that this is partly based on a truth—there were, in fact, fascists involved in the 2014 overthrow of the Ukrainian government (FAIR.org, 3/7/14)—this is a drop in the ocean compared to Mensch’s increasingly sprawling web of Putin’s global puppeteering. What does her rise as a credible source on all things Trump/Russia say about US media?

On Real Time, Mensch insisted, without an ounce of evidence or follow-up from the host, that “Russian partisans were out in the streets” blaming immigrants for the London attack, and hardly anyone in the media batted an eye.

The reality is the acceptability of conspiracy theories depends on whom the theory is directed at. The greatest, most consequential conspiracy theory of our generation was that Saddam Hussein had a secret Weapons of Mass Destruction program and was plotting to attack the US. The narrative met all the criteria for a good conspiracy theory—cherry-picked evidence, spurious dot-connecting, the rejection of inconvenient facts—but was widely embraced by most of the Western pundit class. Indeed, those who peddled it the hardest were not only allowed to remain in polite society, they were elevated to the highest positions in US media.

And someone who operated on the most radical fringes of this conspiracy—arguing that Saddam Hussein was secretly in league with Al Qaeda—is today held up by the New York Times (3/26/17; FAIR.org, 3/28/17) as a clear champion of truth in the age of “fake news.”

Which brings us back to Louise Mensch, who often appears to be openly hucksterish. As Current Affairs‘ Nate Robinson and Alex Nichols (3/22/17) note in their excellent breakdown of her grift, Mensch is somewhat self-aware at how unhinged she has become, telling the Times of London the following anecdote earlier this month:

These days when anything goes wrong in our house, one of my kids will say: “Is it the Russians?” It’s a standing joke. “Pizza went cold. Is it the Russians?”

When asked on Twitter to list things Russia isn’t responsible for, Mensch responded, “The designated hitter.”

Like Trump, Mensch occasionally lets out a wink and a nod that she’s in on the scam, and, also like Trump, she knows her loyal, hyper-partisan followers don’t really care. She tells them what they want to hear, and they in turn feed off her increasingly tantalizing dot-connecting, each legitimizing the other.

Which would be relatively harmless if she remained in the confines of her Twitter echo chamber, but Mensch is increasingly being legitimized by mainstream centrist and liberal media, whose standards for claims of Russian skullduggery have sunk to tabloid levels. The question is: How far down the speculative rabbit hole does Mensch have to go, how extreme a conspiracy does she have to peddle, to once and for all be discredited?

---

Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. He can be found on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.

Military historian Lloyd Clark challenges a number of myths about the 1940 German invasion of France, in a lecture he delivered at our World War Two day in Bristol’s M Shed last month

To its critics, it is dangerous pseudoscience. To its supporters, it offers unique insights. What is the future of this controversial psychological test? Read the text version

Mayce Galoni wonders if public breastfeeding is NOT a good idea, and Laurie Elliott shares her struggles going from Vegetarian to Vegan. It's an episode of opinions - all in the name of comedy.

The 2017 Six Nations rugby tournament concluded this weekend. England successfully defended its championship, despite losing the last match against a strong Ireland side in Dublin–England’s only loss of the competition. Meanwhile, the new Super Rugby season just began, with…

Author (Photo Ruins of an ancient theater sit near the modern city of Sparta, Greece.: ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Song of Wrath: The Peloponnesian War Begins by J. E. Lendon Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University “J.E. Lendon’s polemology of ancient Greece recognizes no bounds—or equals. Honor is a major theme of his new finely researched and inimitably styled analysis of the Ten Years’ War (431-421 BCE) fought between Sparta and Athens and their respective allies, and honor is due to its never less than engaging author.”\ Barry Strauss, author of The Spartacus War and Professor of History at Cornell University Dennis Showalter, Professor of History at Colorado College “This provocative and persuasive analysis of the Peloponnesian War’s first ten years shifts focus from the ‘realist’ aspects of the conflict’s causes and conduct. Lendon stresses instead the centrality of honor, time, manifested by reciprocal acts of destruction and revenge. Humiliation, not conquest, was the primary war aim—an aim so vague it made expanding the war easier than making peace.” Publishers Weekly “In an exceptionally well-written account of the first 10 years of the Peloponnesian War (431–421 B.C.E.), University of Virginia historian Lendon brings the Greek city-states to life. Crediting Thucydides with the humanizing of military history, Lendon emphasizes the extraordinary importance of worth or glory to the typical Greek and casts the long, bloody conflict between Athens and Sparta in the light of the concepts of honor and hubris.” Library Journal “Weaving together cultural and military history, Lendon details the events of the Peloponnesian War’s first decade (431-421 B.C.E.) with language that is (as was his intention) more evocative of Herodotus’s epic-poetical style than the dryer intellectual approach of Thucydides.” The Greek Star “A fast-paced military history that places readers in the heart of battle, Song of Wrath is essential reading for anyone interested in one of the momentous wars in world history.” The Hellenic Voice “Historian J.E. Lendon presents a tale of pitched battles by land and sea, sieges, sacks, raids, and deeds of cruelty and guile – along with courageous acts of mercy, surprising charity, austere restraint, and arrogant resistance. Recounting the rise of democratic Athens to great-power status, and the resulting fury of authoritarian Sparta, Greece’s traditional leader, Lendon portrays the causes and strategy of the war as a duel over national honor, a series of acts of revenge.”

Trying to figure out what Hitler “really” thought about anything is difficult because he was–among many other things–a clever, opportunistic politician and a very prolix one at that. Over the course of his 20+ career he gave thousands of speeches,…

03-15-2017 (Photo cuban missile crisis blockade 1962 Col War: ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Russian spies are the new new. @LarryCJohnson Noquarterusa.net “…Wow. Those Russians are busy creatures. But then I took a look at the actual indictment. Let me share a key passage with you and you tell me what is wrong? DMITRY ALEKSANDROVICH DOKUCHAEV, also known as “Patrick Nagel,” was a Russian national and resident. DOKUCHAEV was an FSB officer assigned to Second Division ofFSB Center 18, also known as the FSB Center for Information Security. He was an associate of FSB officer IGOR SUSHCHIN; another, supervisory FSB officer known to the Grand Jury (“FSB Officer 3”), who was the senior FSB official assigned to Center 18; and other FSB officers known and DOKUCHAEV’s photograph is attached as Exhibit A. What does the word, “was” mean? Last I checked that means something in the past, not the present. Looks to me like Dokuchaev and Sustain left the FSB and got into business with some computer hackers. If you read thru the indictment you will discover they also targeted high level Russian officials (see page 14 of the indictment): DOKUCHAEV and SUSHCHIN were directing BARATOV to access individual accounts provided by Google, the Russian Webmail Provider, and other webmail providers. For example, the conspirators sought unauthorized access to the accounts of: • An assistant to the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation; • A managing director, a former sales officer, and a researcher, all of whom worked for a major Russian cyber security firm; • An officer of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs assigned to that Ministry’s “Department K,” its “Bureau of Special Technical Projects,” which investigates cyber, high technology, and child pornography crimes; • A physical training expert working in the Ministry of Sports of a Russian republic; and • A Russian official who was both Chairman of a Russian Federation Council committee and a senior official at a major Russian transport Perhaps these guys really were active FSB officers. But the language in this suggests that they were engaged in their own capitalist, albeit nefarious, scheme. Why portray this as something carried out at the direction of the Russian Government?...” https://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/79647/anti-russian-disinformation/