The numbers on the #economy are a damn illusion mostly due to defense spending and backfill orders from multiple countries supplying #ukraine
This doesn’t help most people a damn bit
Damn it #dems buy a clue
People getting kicked off Medicaid
People having to pay student loans
Commercial real estate tanking
Hedge funds buying up homes air bnb etc driving up home prices
Lots of lay offs
Hidden unemployment due to restrictions on applying due to work restrictions and gig work
Stop talking up the #economy#dems you are going to get slapped businesses will crank up inflation again because they can
They call it a housing crisis. I call this Great Depression level stuff. People cannot afford housing because the inflation rate has been high for decades. This is all because of failed economic theory and policy and they measure the wrong things.
China cannot disengage fully from global supply chains – at least not without paying a heavy price. But the same is true of the West: just as Chinese industry would suffer massively from the economy’s isolation, so would Western businesses.
People’s Republic was working to establish a self-sufficient economy. But after decades of integration into the global economy, autarky certainly is no longer an option.
Washington state will get more than $1.2 billion from the federal government to deliver high-speed internet to communities with slow, unreliable or nonexistent service, the Biden administration announced Monday.
I know this might startle you, but I'm actually going to post a hopeful article. And for once, I'm not being ironic.
This really is very cool...
Scientists have found microplastics everywhere: in deep ocean trenches, near the tops of remote mountains. In 2019, researchers in Australia estimated that we ingest a credit card’s worth of microplastics every week, with unknown health effects. Other reports document the ballooning impact of plastic pollution on marine life, as well as plastic production’s growing carbon footprint and disproportionate harms against poor communities of color.
Sarah Paiji Yoo was determined to do something about this, and co-founded Blueland in 2019. The company’s mission is to eliminate unnecessary plastics from familiar cleaning and personal care products like dish soap, toilet bowl cleaner, and body wash — all of which they sell in concentrated tablet form, shipped directly to customers in recyclable paper packaging.
The tablets dissolve in water and can be used to refill Blueland’s durable glass or ceramic bottles. Yoo said the bottles are intended to be “the last set” of cleaning containers her customers ever buy: No more disposable plastic, no more pollution, no more hazardous tap water. “We don’t take that lightly,” she told Grist.
Yoo is among a growing number of business owners who have aligned themselves with activists and policymakers who want to move the global economy away from plastics, which are rarely recycled and are laden with toxic chemicals. The broader movement seeks to reduce plastic production, an urgent priority considering petrochemical companies’ plans to triple the amount of plastic they make by 2060. That scenario could cause more than 44 million metric tons of aquatic plastic pollution every year.
But these advocates and entrepreneurs are also envisioning a future free from single-use items altogether. By promoting a “circular economy” — patterns of consumption that reduce waste generation of any kind — they hope to eliminate not only single-use plastics, but also disposable products made from paper and metal. Their vision will require whole new business models and supply chains that prioritize reuse — containers and dishware and shipping packages that can be used again and again rather than discarded after just a few minutes.
American culture needs to “dispose of that disposable mindset, where everything is to be used and thrown away,” said Linda Corrado, a board member for the reuse nonprofit Upstream and an independent consultant in sustainable business strategies. She said she dreams of a day when plastic-free shopping is the default, where customers shop in stores that are “just one bulk bin after another.”
Therefore, technically including ecologically, a free market economy can operate in a way where the regulatory system promotes ecological #symbiosis (AKA commensalism or mutualism. i.e., not parasitism. AKA crony #capitalism )
If the demand (consumers. AKA people) were dedicated to resolving ecological degradation. But, due to ignorance, greenwash, apathy, narcissism et al. that's a big IF
Railways, wind farms, bridges, and even a #cycling route: there is too much to say about the first thirty years of the Cohesion Fund.
Our fund has helped #EU countries with a lower income per person, enabling faster connections between people while boosting a greener, low-carbon, and circular #economy.
In doing so, it has opened uncountable #education, employment, and social inclusion opportunities for millions.
In 2022, nine EU countries recorded AIC per capita above the EU average. The highest levels were recorded in Luxembourg (38% above the EU average), Germany (19%) and Austria (18%).
Meanwhile, 18 EU countries recorded AIC per capita below the EU average, with the lowest levels recorded in Bulgaria (33% below the EU average), Hungary (28%) and Slovakia (27%).
Europe’s Inflation Outlook Depends on How Corporate Profits Absorb Wage Gains (www.imf.org)
Higher prices so far mostly reflect increases in profits and import costs, but labor costs are picking up
Safeguarding Asia’s prosperity set to be complex: WEF panellists (www.straitstimes.com)
Geopolitical tensions aside, China’s economy, climate change and technology could disrupt Asia's growth potential. Read more at straitstimes.com.
WA gets $1.2B in Federal Funds to expand High-Speed Internet (archive.ph)
Washington state will get more than $1.2 billion from the federal government to deliver high-speed internet to communities with slow, unreliable or nonexistent service, the Biden administration announced Monday.
WA working residents to start paying into long-term care tax (mynorthwest.com)
Starting Saturday, Washington state's new long-term care tax will be funded, using about 58 cents from every $100 of a paycheck.