About washing machines: The legal basis of the new tariff is a finding by the United States International Trade Commission that the industry has been injured by rising imports. The definition of “injury” is a bit peculiar: The commission admitted that the domestic industry “did not suffer a significant idling of productive facilities,” and that “there has been no significant unemployment or underemployment.” Nonetheless, the commission argued that production and employment should have expanded more than it did given the economy’s growth between 2012 and 2016 (you know, the Obama-era boom Trump insisted was fake).
.. Everything we know about the Trump administration suggests that hurting renewables is actually a good thing from its point of view. As I said, this is an administration of dirty old men.
.. Over all, there are around five times as many people working, in one way or another, for the solar energy sector as there are coal miners.
.. Last fall, Rick Perry, the energy secretary, tried to impose a rule that would in effect have forced electricity grids to subsidize coal and nuclear plants. The rule was shot down, but it showed what these guys want. From their point of view, destroying solar jobs is probably a good thing.
.. what’s good for the Koch brothers may not be good for America (or the world), but it’s good for G.O.P. campaign finance. Partly it’s about blue-collar voters, who still imagine that Trump can bring back coal jobs. (In 2017 the coal industry added 500, that’s right, 500 jobs. That’s 0.0003 percent of total U.S. employment.)
.. It’s also partly about cultural nostalgia: Trump and others recall the heyday of fossil fuels as a golden age
.. But I suspect that it’s also about a kind of machismo, a sense that real men don’t soak up solar energy; they burn stuff instead.
.. You shouldn’t even call it protectionism, since its direct effect will be to destroy far more jobs than it creates. Plus it’s bad for the environment. So much winning!
Behind Iran’s protests, anger over lost life savings and tightfisted budgets
The unnamed woman is one of countless Iranians who say their savings have been wiped out by the collapse of fraudulent businesses and unlicensed credit institutions in recent years. Economists are now pointing to the abrupt closure of these poorly regulated institutions as laying the foundation for the unrest that struck Iran starting in late December.
.. “Banks are shutting down without any kind of notice, and it’s creating a huge political and economic backlash at a local level,” said Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow on Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution.
.. it seems to have tapped into a deep sense of alienation and frustration, that people aren’t just demonstrating for better working conditions or pay, but insisting on wholesale rejection of the system itself.”
.. the average budget of Iranian households declined by 15 percent from 2007 — when the U.N. Security Council adopted some of its toughest sanctions on Iran — to 2016.
.. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who was reelected to a second term in May, has carried out a program of fiscal austerity. It has brought down inflation but hurt job growth
.. Rouhani has also imposed what Salehi-Isfahani called “regressive policies,” such as raising energy prices while shrinking cash transfers that the poor use to pay for essential items.
.. Other new policies have favored businesses and the middle class, whose members predominantly reside in the capital, Tehran
.. Iran has seen a “divergence in living standards (measured by per capita expenditures) between Tehran on one side and the rest of the country on the other
.. The budget envisioned steep cuts for cash subsidies to the poor, while increasing fees for things like vehicle registration and traveling abroad.
.. Rouhani’s budget was also notable because it was the first time the government made public the funds allocated to Iran’s wealthy religious foundations — as well as its powerful military and paramilitary forces.
.. The disclosure of an $8 billion budget for the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most influential security body, prompted sharp criticism from protesters who objected to government spending on Iranian involvement in regional wars, including in Iraq and Syria.
.. Religious foundations, many of which are tax exempt, also got a boost in the new budget, including, for example, a 20 percent increase for representatives of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, posted at Iran’s universities.
.. Rouhani sold the nuclear deal to Iranians as crucial for reviving the ailing economy. Iranians have been disappointed that growth has not been faster, including 74 percent who said in July that there had been no economic improvement as a result of the deal
Bipartisan Health Bill Is Losing Support
Plan to shore up insurance markets is sponsored by Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray
The seemingly imminent repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance requirement, which could happen next week as part of the final passage of Republicans’ broad tax overhaul, has focused attention on Congress’ potential next moves on health care, including a bipartisan plan to shore up the insurance markets.
But that plan, sponsored by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D., Wash.), is losing support as more health analysts say it could raise costs for many consumers. The bill would restore payments to insurers, allowing them to cut premiums, but in doing so it would reduce the tax credits that are pegged in part to the premium costs of certain plans.
.. The Alexander-Murray legislation would temporarily restore federal “cost-sharing reduction” payments to insurers, which were halted in October by President Donald Trump.
Nolte: Want to Destroy ESPN and CNN Forever? Cut the Cord, Dummy
Without this bundle, almost every institution determined to destroy everything you hold dear — faith, family, country, individual liberty, self-reliance, prosperity, racial harmony, and moral decency — would disappear entirely or at least be much weaker than it currently is. Of course, I am talking about CNN, ESPN, Comedy Central, Disney, MTV, MSNBC, and the like — institutions you — yes YOU — are subsidizing against your will.
.. Do you honestly believe CNN could survive at the level it does with fewer than a million total viewers? No, really, CNN averages throughout the day fewer than a million TOTAL viewers, which in a country of 330 million, is a ratings point of ZERO.
.. With so many viewers, how, then, does CNN afford to make millionaires of all these
- smug serial- liars like Jake Tapper; these
- five-foot bullies like Andrew Kaczynski; these
- breathtakingly stupid crybabies like Don Lemon; all these
- left-wing panelists; these
- Trump-hating pundits; these
- bitter, little dim-witted George Costanzas like Brian Stelter?
.. If CNN or ESPN or a whole bunch of other networks dedicated to your destruction are part of your cable package, every single month, YOU are cutting them a check, empowering them with cold hard cash, funding the very superpower these super-villains have dedicated to annihilating you and yours.
.. It is called a “carriage fee,” and this hidden fee is why your cable bill is so obnoxiously expensive.
.. No, the reason your cable bill is so expensive is because — whether or not you watch these left-wing networks — the game has been rigged to the point where you are paying for them anyway.
.. this carriage fee is the aforementioned one-legged stool. And this means that YOU have the power to kick that single leg out from under this rancid institution. You have the power to bring this entire dirty world crashing to the ground. You have the power to destroy CNN and ESPN. And that power resides within a single act…
Cut your Pay TV cord.
.. Cord-cutting affects stock prices, has resulted in massive layoffs (including — tee hee — Keith Olbermann), and has forced Disney, ESPN, HBO, and a host of others to do what they said they would never do — either license their product to streaming services or launch standalone streaming services.
.. And guess what a standalone streaming service survives on and only survives on? Customers who actually want that service. In other words, MERIT, not a rigged Pay TV system that forces 87 million who do NOT watch CNN to still enrich CNN.
.. My pay TV bill went from $140 a month to just $25 (Netflix, Amazon, Acorn — which, unlike cable, do NOT oppress you with 20 minutes of ads per hour).