The Current Events, News, and Politics Thread
06-22-2017, 04:49 PM
#9062
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Clearly, if white people would stop saying mean things about them on the internet, ISIS fighters would stop preaching anti-gay / anti-western messages.
Or, alternately, it's ok for extremist members of a religion with inherently anti-gay / anti-woman undertones to preach hate-speech, because they claim that it is part of their religion.
Or, alternately, it's ok for extremist members of a religion with inherently anti-gay / anti-woman undertones to preach hate-speech, because they claim that it is part of their religion.
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06-23-2017, 09:43 AM
#9064
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poland is based as ****, listens to the people:
Based Polish Member of Parliament Dominik Tarczynski laid waste to a BBC host while discussing Europe’s refugee crisis.
As has been widely reported, Poland has refused to uphold its end of a 2015 deal intended to help relieve Greece and Italy of their refugee load by distributing 160,000 refugees among other EU members.
When asked why Poland wasn’t fulfilling the agreement, Tarczynski – who is a member of the ruling Law and Justice Party – told the BBC, “well, basically because people who voted for us, they said no.”
“The previous government had this agreement and now Polish people said ‘no, we don’t want to have this threat in Poland.’ We have to respect them.”
“We have to remember that this agreement was signed by the previous government and now the situation in Poland is completely changed,” he added. “We have to listen to our people.”
In response, the BBC host insisted, “except, if you look at it from the other side, this agreement was made by Poland, not by internal Polish politics.”
“You can see you can see how that is being seen from outside,” she continued.
“People will say, well look, we don’t care about bickering inside Polish politics. The country has agreed to take its fair share of asylum seekers and that’s not happening.”
“It’s not about internal politics,” Tarczynski fired back. “It’s about the situation in Poland, in Europe, in the world. How many terror attacks you had in London?”
In a move that probably made everyone at the BBC seethe with rage, Tarczynski continued, “I’m a lawyer, they are not refugees, they are immigrants. There is a legal difference between refugee and immigrant. Refugee is the person who flees to the first safe country, not flying throughout the globe looking for the social and better life, so we are not talking about refugees.”
As has been widely reported, Poland has refused to uphold its end of a 2015 deal intended to help relieve Greece and Italy of their refugee load by distributing 160,000 refugees among other EU members.
When asked why Poland wasn’t fulfilling the agreement, Tarczynski – who is a member of the ruling Law and Justice Party – told the BBC, “well, basically because people who voted for us, they said no.”
“The previous government had this agreement and now Polish people said ‘no, we don’t want to have this threat in Poland.’ We have to respect them.”
“We have to remember that this agreement was signed by the previous government and now the situation in Poland is completely changed,” he added. “We have to listen to our people.”
In response, the BBC host insisted, “except, if you look at it from the other side, this agreement was made by Poland, not by internal Polish politics.”
“You can see you can see how that is being seen from outside,” she continued.
“People will say, well look, we don’t care about bickering inside Polish politics. The country has agreed to take its fair share of asylum seekers and that’s not happening.”
“It’s not about internal politics,” Tarczynski fired back. “It’s about the situation in Poland, in Europe, in the world. How many terror attacks you had in London?”
In a move that probably made everyone at the BBC seethe with rage, Tarczynski continued, “I’m a lawyer, they are not refugees, they are immigrants. There is a legal difference between refugee and immigrant. Refugee is the person who flees to the first safe country, not flying throughout the globe looking for the social and better life, so we are not talking about refugees.”
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06-25-2017, 11:06 AM
#9068
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in germany, it's better to be ISIS than Conservative and free:
One raid targeted someone accused of making threats based on sexual orientation.
The New York Times quotes Holger Münch, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, as stating, “our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence, and violence either on the street or on the internet.”
German Police recently raided the homes of 36 mostly right-wing individuals accused of writing “hateful” posts on social media.
According to The New York Times, 33 of the raids were due to “politically motivated right-wing incitement,” while only two of the raids were due to left wing extremist content.One raid targeted someone accused of making threats based on sexual orientation.
The New York Times quotes Holger Münch, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, as stating, “our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence, and violence either on the street or on the internet.”
According to WND, social media users that are arrested and charged with “inciting racial hatred,” face up to five years imprisonment under German law, irrespective of if physical violence was committed.
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06-25-2017, 11:15 AM
#9069
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today in real news:
The FCC’s Chief of Staff and Ajit Pai’s policy adviser both called out The Washington Post for their terrible fake news. They messed up so bad they had to submit a correction. At least this is slightly better than the time that The Washington Post was allegedly caught stealth-editing an article after it was outed as fake news. If you’re seriously sick of watching WaPo journalists get away with spreading fake news then just watch a clip of Tucker Carlson steamrolling a Washington Post journalist.
“There is simply no precedent for an American president to spend so much time telling untruths,” the piece reads.
“Every president has shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. No other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.”
The piece goes on to declare, “we are using the word “lie” deliberately. Not every falsehood is deliberate on Trump’s part. But it would be the height of naïveté to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes. He is lying.”
Unfortunately for the sanctimonious New York Times, the article eventually had to be amended with the following:
“An earlier version of this graphic included an incorrect total for the number of days Donald Trump told a lie during his first two months as president. It was 20, not 25.”
Breitbart, describing CNN’s anonymously-sourced claim as “a demonstrably untrue allegation,” provides this excerpt from the article:
The source said the Senate intelligence committee is investigating the Russian fund in connection with its examination of discussions between White House adviser Jared Kushner and the head of a prominent Russian bank. The bank, Vnesheconombank, or VEB, oversees the fund, which has ties to several Trump advisers. Both the bank and the fund have been covered since 2014 by sanctions restricting U.S. business dealings.
The Washington Post has been forced to apologize for making up a meeting between FCC Chair Ajit Pai and President Donald Trump.
The article shares the details of an alleged meeting between FCC Chair Ajit Pai and the President, alludes to them being “too close” and even solicits comments from people on the pretext of the meeting – which apparently never happened.The FCC’s Chief of Staff and Ajit Pai’s policy adviser both called out The Washington Post for their terrible fake news. They messed up so bad they had to submit a correction. At least this is slightly better than the time that The Washington Post was allegedly caught stealth-editing an article after it was outed as fake news. If you’re seriously sick of watching WaPo journalists get away with spreading fake news then just watch a clip of Tucker Carlson steamrolling a Washington Post journalist.
The Washington Post offered this flimsy correction.
Correction: An earlier version of this story suggested that Pai was in the same room as Trump. In fact, he attended a breakout session with other meeting members in a different building.
n a twist of irony, a New York Times dedicated to listing President Donald Trump’s “lies” contained a falsehood of its own.
Left-wing outlets like Politifact, Factcheck.org, and The Washington Post Fact Checker were relied upon to create ‘factual’ for The New York Times’ piece.“There is simply no precedent for an American president to spend so much time telling untruths,” the piece reads.
“Every president has shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. No other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.”
The piece goes on to declare, “we are using the word “lie” deliberately. Not every falsehood is deliberate on Trump’s part. But it would be the height of naïveté to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes. He is lying.”
Unfortunately for the sanctimonious New York Times, the article eventually had to be amended with the following:
“An earlier version of this graphic included an incorrect total for the number of days Donald Trump told a lie during his first two months as president. It was 20, not 25.”
CNN has retracted and apologized for an article claiming senior Trump allies are connected to a Russian investment bank that is under investigation by U.S. officials.
According to Breitbart, CNN’s now-deleted article, written by “CNN investigative reporter” and “Pulitzer Prize finalist” Thomas Frank, named Anthony Scaramucci specifically as one of the Trump allies caught up in the Senate Intelligence Committee and Treasury Department’s investigation (which may not even exist).Breitbart, describing CNN’s anonymously-sourced claim as “a demonstrably untrue allegation,” provides this excerpt from the article:
The source said the Senate intelligence committee is investigating the Russian fund in connection with its examination of discussions between White House adviser Jared Kushner and the head of a prominent Russian bank. The bank, Vnesheconombank, or VEB, oversees the fund, which has ties to several Trump advisers. Both the bank and the fund have been covered since 2014 by sanctions restricting U.S. business dealings.
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06-26-2017, 09:53 AM
#9072
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inclusive gays are anti-semetic.
“I was here as a proud Jew in all of my identities,” said another according to the outlet. “The Dyke March is supposed to be intersectional. I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.”
The Windy City Times further quotes another Dyke marcher, who said, “this is not what this community is supposed to be about. Is every nation which does not have a clean civil-rights record and also hosts a Pride parade guilty of pink washing? With all the people that so hate the LGBTQ community, for it to tear itself apart in self-hatred makes no sense at all.”
Three individuals carrying a Jewish Pride flag were reportedly ejected from a Dyke March in Chicago yesterday.
The Windy City Times quotes one of the women – Wider Bridge Midwest manager Laurel Grauer – as stating, “they were telling me to leave because my flag was a trigger to people that they found offensive. Prior to this I had never been harassed or asked to leave and I had always carried the flag with me.”“I was here as a proud Jew in all of my identities,” said another according to the outlet. “The Dyke March is supposed to be intersectional. I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.”
The Windy City Times further quotes another Dyke marcher, who said, “this is not what this community is supposed to be about. Is every nation which does not have a clean civil-rights record and also hosts a Pride parade guilty of pink washing? With all the people that so hate the LGBTQ community, for it to tear itself apart in self-hatred makes no sense at all.”
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06-26-2017, 10:58 AM
#9073
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get woke, blacks:
this one woke:
**** n/m blacks, stay sheep!
this one woke:
Outside, a black Trump supporter was completely destroying Waters. Yelling into a bullhorn, the unnamed woman said:
“People are tired with your hate and your racism! All the jobs went to illegals! You have destroyed the black community! You are a black racist! You hate blacks! All the jobs went to illegals! You gave our jobs to illegals! We want you out!”
“Maxine Waters destroyed the black community. ... She’s gotta' go! She’s paid taxpayer money to discriminate against American citizens, and we’re not going to have it! She’s been in office too long doing NOTHING! She lied to the black community saying she was going to bring us jobs. She gave those jobs to illegal criminals! We want her out! She’s been in office for too long! She’s already showing signs of dementia! She’s a hater!”
https://youtu.be/H96_efOflFE
“People are tired with your hate and your racism! All the jobs went to illegals! You have destroyed the black community! You are a black racist! You hate blacks! All the jobs went to illegals! You gave our jobs to illegals! We want you out!”
“Maxine Waters destroyed the black community. ... She’s gotta' go! She’s paid taxpayer money to discriminate against American citizens, and we’re not going to have it! She’s been in office too long doing NOTHING! She lied to the black community saying she was going to bring us jobs. She gave those jobs to illegal criminals! We want her out! She’s been in office for too long! She’s already showing signs of dementia! She’s a hater!”
https://youtu.be/H96_efOflFE
**** n/m blacks, stay sheep!
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06-26-2017, 01:37 PM
#9074
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Speaking of money and jobs...
A 'very credible' new study on the $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals
BY MAX EHRENFREUND, The Washington Post
JUNE 26, 2017
When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the city's minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they'd hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.
The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They've cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.
The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed.
On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.
The paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage. Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment -- often by a factor of four or five to one.
"This strikes me as a study that is likely to influence people," said David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the research. He called the work "very credible" and "sufficiently compelling in its design and statistical power that it can change minds."
Yet the study will not put an end to the dispute. Experts cautioned that the effects of the minimum wage may vary according to the industries dominant in the cities where they are implemented along with overall economic conditions in the country as a whole.
And critics of the research pointed out what they saw as serious shortcomings. In particular, to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations. Skeptics argued that omission could explain the unusual results.
"Like, whoa, what? Where did you get this?" asked Ben Zipperer, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington.
"My view of the research is that it seems to work," he said. "The minimum wage in general seems to do exactly what it's intended to do, and that's to raise wages for low-wage workers, with little negative consequence in terms of job loss."
Economists might not readily dismiss the new study as an outlier, however. The paper published Monday makes use of more detailed data than have been available in past research, drawing on state records of wages and hours for individual employees.
As a result, the paper is likely to upend a debate that has continued among economists, politicians, businesses and labor organizers for decades. In particular, the results could exacerbate divisions among Democrats, who are seeking an economic agenda to counter President Trump's pitches for protectionism, reduced taxes and restrictions on immigration.
Meanwhile, states and cities around the country are continuing to implement increases in the minimum wage. In November, voters in Washington approved an increase in the statewide minimum to $13.50 an hour by 2020. The idea is popular in conservative states as well. In Arizona, for instance, the minimum wage will be $12 an hour in 2020 after voters there cast ballots in favor of a hike.
"If I were a Seattle lawmaker, I would be thinking hard about the $15 an hour phase-in," Autor said.
Economists have long argued that increasing the minimum wage will force some employers to let workers go. In 1994, however, economists David Card and Alan Krueger published research on minimum wages in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that contradicted this theory, motivating dozens of studies into the issue over the coming years.
Card and Krueger conducted a survey of fast-food restaurants in the two states while New Jersey was implementing an increase in the minimum wage. They found that restaurants in New Jersey had, in fact, added more workers to their payrolls more than restaurants in neighboring Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage remained constant.
Since then, economists have brought better data and more sophisticated statistical methods to bear on the question of the minimum wage, but without resolving the debate.
Their studies examined the overall numbers of workers or their annual incomes, but lacked precise information on how much workers were being paid by the hour. As a result, past research might be less reliable because the results might reflect many workers who are not paid low wages, said Jacob Vigdor, an economist at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the new study.
Their research, using detailed records from the state of Washington, addresses that problem.
"That's really a step beyond what essentially any past studies of the minimum wage have been able to use," said Jeffrey Clemens, an economist at the University of California, San Diego who was not involved in the research.
When the authors of the study took the same approach as Card and Krueger, measuring overall employment in the restaurant industry, they found similar results. The minimum wage did not substantially affect how many people were working in the industry or how many hours they were working.
The data, however, shows that about seven in 10 workers in Seattle restaurants make more than $13 an hour, suggesting that the overall level of employment in the industry might not be a reliable guide to how the minimum wage affects workers with low pay.
Indeed, while employment overall did not change, that was because employers replaced low-paying jobs with high-paying jobs. The number of workers making over $19 an hour increased abruptly, while the number making less than that amount declined, Vigdor and his colleagues found.
Vigdor said that restaurateurs in Seattle -- along with other employers -- responded to the minimum wage by hiring more skilled and experienced workers, who might be able to produce more revenue for their firms in the same amount of time.
That hypothesis has worrisome implications for less skilled workers. While there those with more ability might be paid more, junior workers might be losing an opportunity to work their way up. "Basically, what we're doing is we're removing the bottom rung of the ladder," Vigdor said.
There could be another explanation for the results, however: the fact that large employers are not included. It could be that even if employers with only a single location cut payrolls, large firms expanded at the same time, giving low-wage workers other opportunities to earn money.
Other researchers have found that large employers are better able to raise wages in response to changes in the minimum. Liberal economists often argue workers have less bargaining power when negotiating their contracts at larger firms, and that as a result, employees at those companies are often underpaid in the absence of a wage floor.
"I think they underestimate hugely the wage gains, and they overestimate hugely the employment loss," said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who was part of a group that published its own study of the minimum wage in Seattle last week.
Reich's study uses more conventional methods in research on the minimum wage, relying on a publicly available federal survey. His group's data did not allow the researchers to distinguish between high- and low-wage workers at a given firm, but they were able to separate large firms' locations in Seattle from those outside the city.
Their results from the University of California accorded with past research. The minimum wage increased wages for workers in the restaurant industry, without reducing employment overall -- in contrast to the findings from the University of Washington.
"Their results are so out of the range," Reich said.
One way of explaining the disagreement could be that small businesses in Seattle have been forced to downsize in response to the increased minimum wage, while larger firms have expanded.
Yet when Vigdor and his colleagues examined the overall number of workers at small firms with a single location, they did not find that employment had decreased. That fact could could suggest that small businesses have responded to the increase not by downsizing but instead by hiring more experienced workers.
There's another explanation for the growth in high-paid jobs and the decrease in lower-paid ones. The authors of the study argue that that's occurring because employers are focusing on high-paid workers and leaving low-paid workers out, but it's possible that something far more positive is happening.
Seattle's economy is booming, and in a booming economy, more workers are likely to get raises or find jobs that pay better, and it may be that phenomenon -- of workers getting raises, promotions or better paying jobs -- that explains the shifts in the labor market the researchers see in Seattle.
Vigdor and his colleagues sought to address this problem, in essence, by constructing an index based on data from other parts of the state of Washington where local economies performed similarly to Seattle's before the increases in the hourly minimum.
Low-wage employment declined in Seattle relative to this benchmark. Even compared to parts of the state with similar economies, there was less low-wage work in Seattle, suggesting that the minimum wage might have forced employers to cut some of those positions.
The method Vigdor's group used to develop this index is on the cutting edge of economic research, but it is not perfect. It is possible that Seattle's economy simply took a different direction at the same time as the minimum wage began to increase -- even compared to economies in other places that seemed similar to Seattle's before the vote.
EPI's Zipperer argued that was the best explanation, given how pronounced the gains were for workers making more than $19 an hour.
"You're just seeing an independent shift in the Seattle labor market toward higher wage employment," he said, calling the figures for better-paid workers "a red flag."
The broader national economy could have an effect on the results as well. In the past, noted San Diego's Clemens, increases in the minimum wage have occurred when the economy was expanding rapidly and prices are going up. Employers could expect to ask consumers to pay more and to give their workers wages anyway. Increases in the minimum wage might just have been part of the cost of doing business.
Currently, though, inflation is at historically low levels, and the minimum wage in Seattle will be indexed to inflation after it reaches $15 an hour, forcing firms to plan for the long term.
Vigdor agreed that the effects of increasing the minimum wage could differ by time and place.
"The effect of the minimum wage depends on a lot of things. It depends on where you're starting form. It depends on what kind of economy you're raising it in," Vigdor said. "There is no one 'the effect of the minimum wage.' "
That means that future research on the question could come to different conclusions. Vigdor said he looks forward to receiving criticisms of his group's paper and suggestions for improving their approach.
"It's really important to emphasize it's a work in progress," he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...helps-workers/
A 'very credible' new study on the $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals
BY MAX EHRENFREUND, The Washington Post
JUNE 26, 2017
When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the city's minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they'd hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.
The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They've cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.
The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed.
On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.
The paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage. Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment -- often by a factor of four or five to one.
"This strikes me as a study that is likely to influence people," said David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the research. He called the work "very credible" and "sufficiently compelling in its design and statistical power that it can change minds."
Yet the study will not put an end to the dispute. Experts cautioned that the effects of the minimum wage may vary according to the industries dominant in the cities where they are implemented along with overall economic conditions in the country as a whole.
And critics of the research pointed out what they saw as serious shortcomings. In particular, to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations. Skeptics argued that omission could explain the unusual results.
"Like, whoa, what? Where did you get this?" asked Ben Zipperer, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington.
"My view of the research is that it seems to work," he said. "The minimum wage in general seems to do exactly what it's intended to do, and that's to raise wages for low-wage workers, with little negative consequence in terms of job loss."
Economists might not readily dismiss the new study as an outlier, however. The paper published Monday makes use of more detailed data than have been available in past research, drawing on state records of wages and hours for individual employees.
As a result, the paper is likely to upend a debate that has continued among economists, politicians, businesses and labor organizers for decades. In particular, the results could exacerbate divisions among Democrats, who are seeking an economic agenda to counter President Trump's pitches for protectionism, reduced taxes and restrictions on immigration.
Meanwhile, states and cities around the country are continuing to implement increases in the minimum wage. In November, voters in Washington approved an increase in the statewide minimum to $13.50 an hour by 2020. The idea is popular in conservative states as well. In Arizona, for instance, the minimum wage will be $12 an hour in 2020 after voters there cast ballots in favor of a hike.
"If I were a Seattle lawmaker, I would be thinking hard about the $15 an hour phase-in," Autor said.
Economists have long argued that increasing the minimum wage will force some employers to let workers go. In 1994, however, economists David Card and Alan Krueger published research on minimum wages in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that contradicted this theory, motivating dozens of studies into the issue over the coming years.
Card and Krueger conducted a survey of fast-food restaurants in the two states while New Jersey was implementing an increase in the minimum wage. They found that restaurants in New Jersey had, in fact, added more workers to their payrolls more than restaurants in neighboring Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage remained constant.
Since then, economists have brought better data and more sophisticated statistical methods to bear on the question of the minimum wage, but without resolving the debate.
Their studies examined the overall numbers of workers or their annual incomes, but lacked precise information on how much workers were being paid by the hour. As a result, past research might be less reliable because the results might reflect many workers who are not paid low wages, said Jacob Vigdor, an economist at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the new study.
Their research, using detailed records from the state of Washington, addresses that problem.
"That's really a step beyond what essentially any past studies of the minimum wage have been able to use," said Jeffrey Clemens, an economist at the University of California, San Diego who was not involved in the research.
When the authors of the study took the same approach as Card and Krueger, measuring overall employment in the restaurant industry, they found similar results. The minimum wage did not substantially affect how many people were working in the industry or how many hours they were working.
The data, however, shows that about seven in 10 workers in Seattle restaurants make more than $13 an hour, suggesting that the overall level of employment in the industry might not be a reliable guide to how the minimum wage affects workers with low pay.
Indeed, while employment overall did not change, that was because employers replaced low-paying jobs with high-paying jobs. The number of workers making over $19 an hour increased abruptly, while the number making less than that amount declined, Vigdor and his colleagues found.
Vigdor said that restaurateurs in Seattle -- along with other employers -- responded to the minimum wage by hiring more skilled and experienced workers, who might be able to produce more revenue for their firms in the same amount of time.
That hypothesis has worrisome implications for less skilled workers. While there those with more ability might be paid more, junior workers might be losing an opportunity to work their way up. "Basically, what we're doing is we're removing the bottom rung of the ladder," Vigdor said.
There could be another explanation for the results, however: the fact that large employers are not included. It could be that even if employers with only a single location cut payrolls, large firms expanded at the same time, giving low-wage workers other opportunities to earn money.
Other researchers have found that large employers are better able to raise wages in response to changes in the minimum. Liberal economists often argue workers have less bargaining power when negotiating their contracts at larger firms, and that as a result, employees at those companies are often underpaid in the absence of a wage floor.
"I think they underestimate hugely the wage gains, and they overestimate hugely the employment loss," said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who was part of a group that published its own study of the minimum wage in Seattle last week.
Reich's study uses more conventional methods in research on the minimum wage, relying on a publicly available federal survey. His group's data did not allow the researchers to distinguish between high- and low-wage workers at a given firm, but they were able to separate large firms' locations in Seattle from those outside the city.
Their results from the University of California accorded with past research. The minimum wage increased wages for workers in the restaurant industry, without reducing employment overall -- in contrast to the findings from the University of Washington.
"Their results are so out of the range," Reich said.
One way of explaining the disagreement could be that small businesses in Seattle have been forced to downsize in response to the increased minimum wage, while larger firms have expanded.
Yet when Vigdor and his colleagues examined the overall number of workers at small firms with a single location, they did not find that employment had decreased. That fact could could suggest that small businesses have responded to the increase not by downsizing but instead by hiring more experienced workers.
There's another explanation for the growth in high-paid jobs and the decrease in lower-paid ones. The authors of the study argue that that's occurring because employers are focusing on high-paid workers and leaving low-paid workers out, but it's possible that something far more positive is happening.
Seattle's economy is booming, and in a booming economy, more workers are likely to get raises or find jobs that pay better, and it may be that phenomenon -- of workers getting raises, promotions or better paying jobs -- that explains the shifts in the labor market the researchers see in Seattle.
Vigdor and his colleagues sought to address this problem, in essence, by constructing an index based on data from other parts of the state of Washington where local economies performed similarly to Seattle's before the increases in the hourly minimum.
Low-wage employment declined in Seattle relative to this benchmark. Even compared to parts of the state with similar economies, there was less low-wage work in Seattle, suggesting that the minimum wage might have forced employers to cut some of those positions.
The method Vigdor's group used to develop this index is on the cutting edge of economic research, but it is not perfect. It is possible that Seattle's economy simply took a different direction at the same time as the minimum wage began to increase -- even compared to economies in other places that seemed similar to Seattle's before the vote.
EPI's Zipperer argued that was the best explanation, given how pronounced the gains were for workers making more than $19 an hour.
"You're just seeing an independent shift in the Seattle labor market toward higher wage employment," he said, calling the figures for better-paid workers "a red flag."
The broader national economy could have an effect on the results as well. In the past, noted San Diego's Clemens, increases in the minimum wage have occurred when the economy was expanding rapidly and prices are going up. Employers could expect to ask consumers to pay more and to give their workers wages anyway. Increases in the minimum wage might just have been part of the cost of doing business.
Currently, though, inflation is at historically low levels, and the minimum wage in Seattle will be indexed to inflation after it reaches $15 an hour, forcing firms to plan for the long term.
Vigdor agreed that the effects of increasing the minimum wage could differ by time and place.
"The effect of the minimum wage depends on a lot of things. It depends on where you're starting form. It depends on what kind of economy you're raising it in," Vigdor said. "There is no one 'the effect of the minimum wage.' "
That means that future research on the question could come to different conclusions. Vigdor said he looks forward to receiving criticisms of his group's paper and suggestions for improving their approach.
"It's really important to emphasize it's a work in progress," he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...helps-workers/
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06-26-2017, 09:07 PM
#9075
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if you're pro-min wage, you're pro-poverty and anti-worker.
also in real news:
also in real news:
Three fake news journalists are reportedly resigning from CNN following the network’s embarrassingly dubious claim that a senior ally of President Donald Trump was under investigation for ties to a Russian investment bank.
According to an article by CNN’s Brian Stelter, those leaving are “Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit.”
“In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story’s publication,” Stelter quotes a CNN spokesman as stating.
Stelter adds that “an internal investigation by CNN management found that some standard editorial processes were not followed when the article was published.”
“Te story,” he continues, “which reported that Congress was investigating a ‘Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials,’ cited a single anonymous source.”
“These types of stories are typically reviewed by several departments within CNN — including fact-checkers, journalism standards experts and lawyers — before publication.”
Stelter adds that, during a Monday afternoon meeting, journalists in the investigative unit were told “the retraction did not mean the facts of the story were necessarily wrong. Rather it meant that ‘the story wasn’t solid enough to publish as-is,’ one of the people briefed on the investigation said.”
According to an article by CNN’s Brian Stelter, those leaving are “Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit.”
“In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story’s publication,” Stelter quotes a CNN spokesman as stating.
Stelter adds that “an internal investigation by CNN management found that some standard editorial processes were not followed when the article was published.”
“Te story,” he continues, “which reported that Congress was investigating a ‘Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials,’ cited a single anonymous source.”
“These types of stories are typically reviewed by several departments within CNN — including fact-checkers, journalism standards experts and lawyers — before publication.”
Stelter adds that, during a Monday afternoon meeting, journalists in the investigative unit were told “the retraction did not mean the facts of the story were necessarily wrong. Rather it meant that ‘the story wasn’t solid enough to publish as-is,’ one of the people briefed on the investigation said.”
During an interview with Bernie Sanders on Meet the Press yesterday, NBC’s Chuck Todd failed to ask the senator about the widely-reported bank fraud investigation he and his wife are currently caught up in.
According to CBS News, Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane have hired prominent defense attorneys as the FBI looks into allegations of bank fraud committed by Jane when she was president of the now-defunct Burlington College.
As POLITICO reports, Bernie is under investigation over allegations that he used his office to pressure a bank into approving the loan his wife Jane filed for under fraudulent pretences.
In light of how serious these allegations are, The Daily Caller’s Peter Hasson points out that NBC’s Chuck Todd was expected to bring the topic up during yesterday’s interview with Bernie Sanders.
Hasson links to this tweet from Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel, who stated that Bernie better have answers ready.
According to CBS News, Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane have hired prominent defense attorneys as the FBI looks into allegations of bank fraud committed by Jane when she was president of the now-defunct Burlington College.
As POLITICO reports, Bernie is under investigation over allegations that he used his office to pressure a bank into approving the loan his wife Jane filed for under fraudulent pretences.
In light of how serious these allegations are, The Daily Caller’s Peter Hasson points out that NBC’s Chuck Todd was expected to bring the topic up during yesterday’s interview with Bernie Sanders.
Hasson links to this tweet from Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel, who stated that Bernie better have answers ready.
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06-27-2017, 08:47 AM
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real politics:
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-M0) has reportedly admitted to attending a reception at Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov’s home, despite a March tweet suggesting otherwise.
CNN, apparently in a rush to distance itself from the bollocks Trump/Russia narrative after this weekend’s gaffe, claims to have spoken with McCaskill, who admitted that she “spent an evening at a black-tie reception at the ambassador’s Washington residence in November 2015.”
This despite a tweet McCaskill posted on March 2 – amid the JeffSessions/Lavrov hysteria – which read, “I’ve been on the Armed Services Com for 10 years. No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Rel Com.”
...
According to CNN, which appears to be the first outlet to report on the new revelation that McCaskill – in addition to speaking with the Russian ambassador at least twice, of her own admission – also attended a reception at his home, the Democratic Senator is still standing by her initial tweet.
CNN, apparently in a rush to distance itself from the bollocks Trump/Russia narrative after this weekend’s gaffe, claims to have spoken with McCaskill, who admitted that she “spent an evening at a black-tie reception at the ambassador’s Washington residence in November 2015.”
This despite a tweet McCaskill posted on March 2 – amid the JeffSessions/Lavrov hysteria – which read, “I’ve been on the Armed Services Com for 10 years. No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Rel Com.”
...
According to CNN, which appears to be the first outlet to report on the new revelation that McCaskill – in addition to speaking with the Russian ambassador at least twice, of her own admission – also attended a reception at his home, the Democratic Senator is still standing by her initial tweet.
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06-27-2017, 08:58 AM
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today in REAL news:
Undercover Vid: CNN Producer Admits Russia Narrative 'Mostly Bullshit,' Pushed For Ratings
[/QUOTE]
Undercover Vid: CNN Producer Admits Russia Narrative 'Mostly Bullshit,' Pushed For Ratings
He confirms that the driving factor at CNN is ratings:
"It's a business, people are like the media has an ethical phssssss... All the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school you're just like, that's adorable. That's adorable. This is a business."
According to the CNN Producer, business is booming.
"Trump is good for business right now," he concluded.
Bonifield further goes on to explain that the instructions come straight from the top, citing the CEO, Jeff Zucker:
"Just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the climate accords and for a day and a half we covered the climate accords. And the CEO of CNN (Jeff Zucker) said in our internal meeting, he said good job everybody covering the climate accords, but we're done with that, let's get back to Russia."
Bonifield also acknowledged:
"I haven't seen any good enough evidence to show that the President committed a crime." He continues: "I just feel like they don't really have it but they want to keep digging. And so I think the President is probably right to say, like, look you are witch hunting me. You have no smoking gun, you have no real proof."
"It's a business, people are like the media has an ethical phssssss... All the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school you're just like, that's adorable. That's adorable. This is a business."
According to the CNN Producer, business is booming.
"Trump is good for business right now," he concluded.
Bonifield further goes on to explain that the instructions come straight from the top, citing the CEO, Jeff Zucker:
"Just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the climate accords and for a day and a half we covered the climate accords. And the CEO of CNN (Jeff Zucker) said in our internal meeting, he said good job everybody covering the climate accords, but we're done with that, let's get back to Russia."
Bonifield also acknowledged:
"I haven't seen any good enough evidence to show that the President committed a crime." He continues: "I just feel like they don't really have it but they want to keep digging. And so I think the President is probably right to say, like, look you are witch hunting me. You have no smoking gun, you have no real proof."
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06-27-2017, 10:50 AM
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today in real news:
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” Tapper tweeted on Sunday, which would have been Orwell’s 114th birthday.
“It seems that Tapper’s tweet may have been a knock on President Trump, as well as a pat on the back for CNN, which has shown itself to have something of a martyrdom complex during the early days of the Trump administration,” writes Breitbart’s Adam Shaw.
Unfortunately for Tapper, George Orwell never said those words.
As alarming as CNN’s falsifying of major news stories is, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, considering the outlet’s personnel can’t even attribute quotes properly.
As Breitbart reports, CNN anchor Jake Tapper was forced on Sunday to correct his sharing of a fake George Orwell quote meant to celebrate the ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’ author’s birthday.“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” Tapper tweeted on Sunday, which would have been Orwell’s 114th birthday.
“It seems that Tapper’s tweet may have been a knock on President Trump, as well as a pat on the back for CNN, which has shown itself to have something of a martyrdom complex during the early days of the Trump administration,” writes Breitbart’s Adam Shaw.
Unfortunately for Tapper, George Orwell never said those words.
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