Day: March 29, 2019

Closing Thought–29Mar19

I recall my first job as a teenager…..65 cents an hour at McDonalds….and after a month or so it went up to 75 cents…..

I walk down that memory lane because of something I read the other day…..

It seems that if minimum wage had kept pace with Wall Street bonuses then the minimum would be over $30 an hour…..read the story and listen to the video……

Wall Street employees saw their typical annual bonus slip by 17 percent last year to $153,700, according to new data from the New York State Comptroller. But don’t feel sorry for the banking set just yet — even including down years like 2018, bankers’ bonuses have jumped by 1,000 percent since 1985.

By comparison, the federal minimum wage has increased about 116 percent during the same period, according to an analysis from the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning research center that used the comptroller’s latest data. If the minimum wage had grown at the same pace as Wall Street bonuses, fast-food workers and other low-wage workers would earn a baseline wage of $33.51 an hour, the group said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-would-be-33-today-if-it-grew-like-wall-street-bonuses-have/

If it had kept pace with the bonuses then the Middle Class would be in better shape than they are today.

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Shades Of S.D.I. (Star Wars)

I read something the other day that made me think of the old Reagan Star Wars plan (the S.D.I.)…….but what was it?

In case you are too young to remember the plan……

https://youtu.be/XI-YkEIiUXY

Now that I have explained what I was thinking….how about the article that promoted all this contemplation….

India on Wednesday destroyed a low-orbiting satellite in a missile test that puts the country in the space “super league”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

He said India would be the fourth country to have used such an anti-satellite missile after the United States, Russia and China.

“A while ago, our scientists shot down a live satellite at a low-earth orbit. I congratulate all scientists who have made this possible and made India a much stronger nation,” Modi said in a rare televised address to the nation weeks before the national elections scheduled to be held in April and May.

“This is a big moment for India. Something that all of us should be proud of. We are not just capable to defend on land, water and air, but now also in space,” he was quoted as saying by NDTV website.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/india-shoots-satellite-joining-space-super-league-modi-190327071419578.html

There is history behind these attempts….

The United States performed the first anti-satellite tests in 1959, when satellites themselves were rare and new.

Bold Orion, designed as a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile re-purposed to attack satellites, was launched from a bomber and passed close enough to the Explorer 6 satellite for it to have been destroyed if the missile had been armed.

The Soviet Union performed similar tests around the same time. In the 1960s and early 1970s, it tested a weapon that could be launched in orbit, approach enemy satellites and destroy them with an explosive charge, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit research and advocacy organization.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-satellite-tests-factbox-idUSKCN1R80UW

And all those people that protested against the Reagan program, the SDI, only thought we had won a decisive victory when the program was abandoned (or so we thought)…..

It is time for a renewed push to make some things in space illegal…..maybe not this but then there is a plan for a Space Force for the US……there should be guidelines and laws governing and practice.

Trade War Consequences

Trump has declared a trade war on China (among others) and outcome is benefiting a country that he has used in the past…..Mexico.

Remember Mexico…that country that would pay for his damn silly border wall? They will not!

But since he has seen fit to declare this trade war Mexico will benefit the most.

The Trump Administration’s trade war with China has turned out to be a windfall for another country the president frequently berates: Mexico.

Consider Fuling Global Inc., a Chinese maker of plastic utensils that developed a lucrative business making paper cups and straws for U.S. restaurants. But President Trump upended all that with tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, including paper products. So the company found an alternative, opening a $4 million factory in Monterrey, Mexico, that will soon begin shipping millions of paper straws across the border.

“We had to look for other ways to do business,’” said Fuling Chief Financial Officer Gilbert Lee. The move means the Wenling, China-based company will avoid the tariffs and make up for pricier Mexican labor with lower shipping costs. “Mexico is a very logical and advantageous location for us.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-27/who-is-winning-trump-s-trade-war-with-china-so-far-it-s-mexico

We keep waiting for the return of our manufacturing jobs (that will never return but we were promised) to all that cash that would return from offshore (to be fair some of the cash has come home but not enough)….

Trump’s trade war is not helping Americans in the least…..but Mexico will make out like the bandits they are accused of being (that is sarcasm not a pronouncement).