May 13, 2025

3 thoughts on “Asses&Villains: Aug 7, 2020

  1. The Mirror gives you the real jobs report: Household Survey.

    Full-Time jobs are down -71,000.

    Part-Time jobs up +384,000.

    People that have Multiple Jobs in order to survive are also up +92,000.

    Don’t listen to the Administration’s lies.

    Characterizing this as “stable” instead of “freefalling” is the PR angle.

    Always a PR angle.

    Notes: we are in the midst of:

    1) the worst inflation crisis in half a century;

    2) the worst energy crisis in half a century;

    3) the worst and bloodiest crime crisis in decades;

    4) the worst and deadliest border crisis in history; and

    5) a recession (not a transition).

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    All true, none can be argued with, which brings me to this thought, that if one were sane and rational and possessed of the ability to use reason, that one would realize that of the most important ways we can effectively enhance security and reduce violence in this country would be by seeking to improve the lives of the people all over the country who see that their governments from the local level right on up to the white house and congress are not serving their needs by reforming those governments, especially the national government, because corruption such as exists in Washington. D.C. and Albany, New York fuels inequality, siphons off a nation’s resources, spreads across borders, and generates human suffering, and is nothing less than a national security threat in the 21st century, so that around the country, and especially on 6 January 2021, we are increasingly seeing citizens demonstrate their discontent seeing the wealthy and well-connected grow richer and richer, taking payoffs and bribes, operating above the law while the vast majority of the people struggle to find a job or put food on the table or to get their business off the ground or simply send their children to school.

    Just a thought, anyway.

  2. And here in this Deutsche Welle article titled “Germany braces for social unrest over energy prices” by William Noah Glucroft on 7 August 2022, we begin to see Germany’s reward for being an “ally” of the autocrat Joe Biden in his war of choice against Putin of Russia, and the price Joe Biden’s sanctions are imposing on them, as Joe destabilizes the world economy with his mindless sanctions, to wit:

    German officials have expressed fears that a worst-case winter of energy problems could prompt an extremist backlash.

    State and federal Lawmakers in Germany are exploring a sweeping set of measures to save energy, from turning off street lights to lowering building temperatures; and they are pleading with the public to cut consumption at home.

    Whether those efforts spur a call to solidarity or a call to arms won’t become clear until the cold sets in and bills come due.

    Yet Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not in a wait-and-see mood, telling public broadcaster, ARD, last month that spiraling heating costs are a “powder keg for society.”

    In explicitly naming the elephant in the room, the chancellor and his government are on the hook for nipping social unrest in the bud.

    “In using this ‘powder keg’ narrative, the chancellor is trying to make way for key decisions,” Ricardo Kaufer, a professor of political sociology at the University of Greifswald, told DW.

    “So all actors who could potentially stand in the way of measures are cajoled into compromise.”

    In other words, Scholz is signaling to his governing partners, political opposition, business leaders, and civil society that they bicker over policy responses at the country’s peril.

    The Bundestag, the German parliament, has already passed legislation that hopes to insulate society’s most vulnerable from price shocks.

    At the same time, German utilities will be allowed to pass some of their increased costs onto consumers.

    In crafting policy, officials are walking a fine line.

    They want to help secure household finances, especially for low-wage earners, but not so much that they undermine the incentive to save energy.

    The smallest of the parties in the governing coalition, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), control the finance ministry, which gives them significant power of the purse.

    Its minister, Christian Lindner, has made clear he intends to use that power sparingly, as he stands up for his party’s values of low tax, low spending, and low regulation.

    The FDP’s bigger partners, Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens, are pushing for a more generous helping hand.

    The Federal Interior Ministry told DW that protests of similar magnitude to those against pandemic restrictions are foreseeable, depending on how much the cost and supply of energy burden society.

    “We can assume that populists and extremists will again try to influence protests to their liking,” Britta Beylage-Haarmann, a ministry spokesperson, told DW in a statement.

    “Extremist actors and groups in Germany can lead to a growth in dangers if corresponding social crisis conditions allow for it.”

    Political sociologists like Greifswald University’s Kaufer say protest movements stand out more in a country like Germany, where consensus-based political culture and federal power-sharing dissuade the instrumentalization of social discontent than elsewhere in Europe.

    France, for example, has a reputation for confrontation.

    Instability in Germany often has a negative connotation, he said, linked to events like bloody street battles amid hyperinflation in Weimar-era Germany, which gave rise to the Nazis.

    “There is a fear of protest, that people will take action without the legitimacy of processes like voting.”

    Longer-term risks to social cohesion, however, don’t end with the coming of spring.

    Inflation and energy prices will disproportionately impact the country’s most vulnerable, according to economic models, as low earners have less disposable income to absorb increased costs.

    That also makes them more susceptible to anti-government rhetoric than other income groups.

    “Pandemic, war, and inflation endanger the lower middle class.”

    “If we can’t manage to stabilize them, then their fears of being permanently pushed down grow,” Pickel said, “then we may see more people take to the streets in Germany.”

    “And even more virulent, agreement with the [far-right populist] AfD and the appearance of solutions from far-right populists can change voting behavior.”

    end quotes

    Will the Germans ever rue the day they got in bed with Joe Biden?

    Stay tuned!

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