I just watched an Adam Ragusea video with my son, where he talks with his guest Sarah Taber about agriculture. They touched on the H-2A visa program for guest workers. Sarah told us that the brokers who bring the workers are essentially human traffickers. The workers have to work for the employer who hired them, no matter how bad the conditions, or else they lose their visa. The brokers have ties to the cartels and gangs in the home countries and have been known to threaten family members of the guest workers to keep them in line for the farmers. Interestingly, Adam and Sarah concluded that undocumented workers were in a better place because they could move on if conditions were bad.
I don't think people are realizing what may be coming to a gas station near them. Countries with strategic petroleum reserves have been drawing down to cushion the Hormuz blockage. That flexibility is almost gone - some of my newsletters suggest two to three weeks. Then the shortage will hit and demand will have to be reduced, probably not by the full 20% but by some relatively large number. Paul Krugman has estimated the short term elasticity of gasoline demand at about 0.15, i.e. not very elastic; this means that to achieve say a 10% drop in demand the price increase is going to be eye-watering.
and people - fewer in the US than elsewhere, but still - who depend on diesel-fueled trucks to bring them their food will start to starve. Forget 'gas is 30 cents a gallon more expensive'. They will die because they have no food at all.
The people of Albania are more outraged by their government’s tyranny and corruption than we are about ours. Why is that? Do most Americans not care, or hope it somehow will pass, or calculate it won’t harm them, or just prefer deception and delusion to reality?
I recognize the numbing effect of this regime and the antics of the sadistic showman at its helm - but that doesn’t explain the extent of complicity and avoidance that permeates our society and institutions.
And as an outsider….🇨🇦….this is the part we struggle with. In particular we wonder at the level of complicity in congress.
How is ANY of Trmp’s agenda making it into law?
Are there truly that many republicans who have either drank the Koolaid or are beholden to Trmp? And honestly, if the latter is true and they are living under his thumb simply in order to hang on to power, that would be the more tragic of the two. That would mean that power ‘trumps’ morality.
Custer Farms here in Wisconsin is not the storybook farm many of us remember from childhood. The three owners are a family— father and two adult sons—but they “farm” thousands of acres using plenty of pesticides and machinery programmed by gps to be virtually robotic. They have cashed in on millions in government subsidies. They are represented by one of our most conservative congressmen and have probably contributed heavily to his campaigns. This won’t be a cozy farmhouse chat.
I just watched an Adam Ragusea video with my son, where he talks with his guest Sarah Taber about agriculture. They touched on the H-2A visa program for guest workers. Sarah told us that the brokers who bring the workers are essentially human traffickers. The workers have to work for the employer who hired them, no matter how bad the conditions, or else they lose their visa. The brokers have ties to the cartels and gangs in the home countries and have been known to threaten family members of the guest workers to keep them in line for the farmers. Interestingly, Adam and Sarah concluded that undocumented workers were in a better place because they could move on if conditions were bad.
I don't think people are realizing what may be coming to a gas station near them. Countries with strategic petroleum reserves have been drawing down to cushion the Hormuz blockage. That flexibility is almost gone - some of my newsletters suggest two to three weeks. Then the shortage will hit and demand will have to be reduced, probably not by the full 20% but by some relatively large number. Paul Krugman has estimated the short term elasticity of gasoline demand at about 0.15, i.e. not very elastic; this means that to achieve say a 10% drop in demand the price increase is going to be eye-watering.
and people - fewer in the US than elsewhere, but still - who depend on diesel-fueled trucks to bring them their food will start to starve. Forget 'gas is 30 cents a gallon more expensive'. They will die because they have no food at all.
The people of Albania are more outraged by their government’s tyranny and corruption than we are about ours. Why is that? Do most Americans not care, or hope it somehow will pass, or calculate it won’t harm them, or just prefer deception and delusion to reality?
I recognize the numbing effect of this regime and the antics of the sadistic showman at its helm - but that doesn’t explain the extent of complicity and avoidance that permeates our society and institutions.
And as an outsider….🇨🇦….this is the part we struggle with. In particular we wonder at the level of complicity in congress.
How is ANY of Trmp’s agenda making it into law?
Are there truly that many republicans who have either drank the Koolaid or are beholden to Trmp? And honestly, if the latter is true and they are living under his thumb simply in order to hang on to power, that would be the more tragic of the two. That would mean that power ‘trumps’ morality.
Custer Farms here in Wisconsin is not the storybook farm many of us remember from childhood. The three owners are a family— father and two adult sons—but they “farm” thousands of acres using plenty of pesticides and machinery programmed by gps to be virtually robotic. They have cashed in on millions in government subsidies. They are represented by one of our most conservative congressmen and have probably contributed heavily to his campaigns. This won’t be a cozy farmhouse chat.