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Champagne is a drink most people reserve for good times. And the good times should be definitely designated weekly, if not every night on good company.

Your assessment is contrary to the sales projections and therefore limited purchases of grapes by the prominent champagne houses.
 

But who or what is forcing us to work remotely?

I should have been in Sao Paulo, Richmond, Minneapolis, London, Munich for work by now. Unfortunately I am grounded so I can't spend at the lounges and hotels.

I have depleted this office's Starbucks coffee packets and moved on to green tea. Normally I'd be out getting a proper espresso but I was told I need to be safe and avoid contact unless necessary.
 
But who or what is forcing us to work remotely?

I should have been in Sao Paulo, Richmond, Minneapolis, London, Munich for work by now. Unfortunately I am grounded so I can't spend at the lounges and hotels.

I have depleted this office's Starbucks coffee packets and moved on to green tea. Normally I'd be out getting a proper espresso but I was told I need to be safe and avoid contact unless necessary.
the article was just focusing on the effect not the cause.
 
the article was just focusing on the effect not the cause.


Been using that entire underground path since my days in uni and I couldn't afford the subway. I can walk across the street and snake inside 2 1/2km or 3 subway stops north without seeing the light of day. I know every sq. cm of the photographs there. But yeah my barber, watch repairman, and alterations lady are all suffering.
 

One more quarter and it's kaput.
 

"Oracle and Walmart are expected to take significant stakes in the company, and ByteDance has agreed to security safeguards on the data of US users. TikTok's data would be stored by Oracle, which would have the right to inspect its source code.

However, Mr Trump did say the deal would provide new jobs and tax revenue for the country.

In their statement, Oracle and Walmart said TikTok Global would create more than 25,000 new jobs and pay more than $5bn (£3.8bn) in tax in the US."

New jobs? How? Because you inserted a layer of people to review what ByteDance did?

Also no idea how Wal-Mart is involved.

The President expects his commission.
 

"It's really a digital version of China's official currency, the yuan, and Mr Guo feels DCEP will become the dominant global currency."

They'll have to pry my money from my cold lifeless hands. Greenbacks forever.
 


I think the virus has accelerated the ongoing trend for flatter organisations. This has been ongoing for sometime in my sector. The future is small business units that are nimble and can react lightening fast. It means broader scope of responsibilities and duties, but with the added benefit of more authority. It suits certain characters and others not. And a lot of people are finding they're returning to a work environment changed forever.
 
I think the virus has accelerated the ongoing trend for flatter organisations. This has been ongoing for sometime in my sector. The future is small business units that are nimble and can react lightening fast. It means broader scope of responsibilities and duties, but with the added benefit of more authority. It suits certain characters and others not. And a lot of people are finding they're returning to a work environment changed forever.
well of course bosses love it because you left out the most important thing for workers - higher wages. they can continually depress wages in a stagnant job market because they'll never run out of potential employees.

also, your prospective future doesn't really work in the education field. in fact, the most successful education organizations have stability and very little turn over.
 
well of course bosses love it because you left out the most important thing for workers - higher wages. they can continually depress wages in a stagnant job market because they'll never run out of potential employees.

also, your prospective future doesn't really work in the education field. in fact, the most successful education organizations have stability and very little turn over.

It's not a one size fits all, but true in several sectors.

Is higher wages the most important thing for workers? How about a decent work environment and getting home every night, not being stuck on an oil rig or ship? Or having status...

Wages are important, but it's not the all consuming factor.
 
Is higher wages the most important thing for workers? How about a decent work environment and getting home every night, not being stuck on an oil rig or ship? Or having status...
these are all good things as well. and some positions are receiving these things. but they're also not coming along with higher wages. wages have been stagnant in this country for decades now while productivity keeps increasing. employers are doing everything in their power to maximize this while not increasing their expenses. its a recipe for disaster.
 
these are all good things as well. and some positions are receiving these things. but they're also not coming along with higher wages. wages have been stagnant in this country for decades now while productivity keeps increasing. employers are doing everything in their power to maximize this while not increasing their expenses. its a recipe for disaster.

In Europe, including Germany, they've been stagnant since at least 2010.

Across the board, my rates are the same, or lower than they were in 2009.

As regards evil capitalists, the manpower agencies in the oil & gas sector - not a business I am in - many of the contracts now have a mark-up of 3%. That covers: insurances, costs of payroll services, etc., and your profits.

3% that's hardly an exploitative evil capitalist industry.
 

Does anyone know what RCEP is? I thought these nations less China wanted to make TPP to hedge against being alternately abused by the Chinese for low priced raw materials and then sold Chinese made finished goods at marked up prices.

Fitting they use that dodgy Chinese video conference software.
 
From today's Times

Janet Yellen’s career is one of firsts. She was the first woman to lead the US Federal Reserve and now she is expected to be the first woman to lead the US Treasury. In doing so, she would also be the first person to complete the hat-trick of leading both institutions and serving as chief economist of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers.

With a CV this impressive, and mainstream popularity to boot, Ms Yellen. 74, could prove to be a power player on the world stage and as Britain and the United States seek to strengthen their “special relationship”.

“She’s an incredibly capable person who knows everybody, and you underestimate her at your peril,” David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said. “If Janet Yellen calls Boris Johnson, he’s going to take that call and he’s going to pay attention.”


Mr Blanchflower, now a professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, described Ms Yellen as a “tiger” but also a compromiser who “everybody likes”. He predicted that she will usher in a period of “serious and calm economics”. “Boring, experienced, calm people are taking over after four years of complete chaos,” Mr Blanchflower said. “Is Janet Yellen going to do something stupid? Absolutely not.”
Pandemic relief will be at the top of her inbox. Republicans and Democrats in Congress continue to bicker over the scale of a new round of fiscal stimulus, with Democrats proposing a $2.2 trillion package while Republicans favour $650 billion of spending. Meanwhile, the US recovery from the pandemic is stalling, with some economists pencilling in a first-quarter contraction for next year.

Ms Yellen believes that spending is essential to counter the damage being done by the pandemic. “We need to continue extraordinary fiscal support,” she said last month. And in September: “There is a huge amount of suffering out there. The economy needs the spending.”
She has warned that cutting spending too soon could lead to a sluggish recovery of the like seen after the 2008 financial crisis. More broadly, through her career, in keeping with her Keynesian bent, she has supported generous government spending, financed by tax increases, to spur economic growth when required. She believes that when inflation and interest rates are low, as they are now, borrowing presents little risk if it is needed to stimulate a damaged economy.
She will need to work closely with Jerome Powell, 67, chairman of the Federal Reserve. Ms Yellen, who once worked with Mr Powell at the Fed, has praised his response to the pandemic while criticising comparative inaction from the White House and Capitol Hill. With monetary and fiscal policy becoming increasingly intertwined, the strength of their relationship will be crucial.
One of her first actions could be to reverse a decision made last week by Steven Mnuchin, the present Treasury secretary, to allow five of the Fed’s nine emergency lending schemes to expire at the end of the year. Mr Powell had recommended that the schemes, which were designed to support small and medium-sized businesses, municipalities and corporate credit markets, should be extended. Ms Yellen praised the schemes shortly after they were unveiled in March.
As the US economy pulls away from the pandemic Ms Yellen will be able to turn to manifesto promises made by Joe Biden, the president-elect. A central pledge is to raise taxes on companies and wealthy Americans.
This is where she will encounter greater resistance, and a test of her political prowess, should Republicans retain the Senate. President Trump’s deep cuts to corporate and income taxes in 2017 were a signature achievement, much like Obamacare was for his predecessor. The Democrats need to win two Senate run-off elections in Georgia in January next year to take control of the chamber, an outcome that is regarded as unlikely.
Ms Yellen has expressed concern about cuts to financial regulation made by Mr Trump and could attempt to begin reversing them. “The regulatory work needed to address financial stability risk has stalled,” she said last year.
There is also America’s relationship with China. Mr Trump spent the best part of his presidency doing battle with Beijing on trade, slapping hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on Chinese goods. However, Ms Yellen has said: “I do not see unfair trade practices in China or anywhere else in the world as what is responsible for the US trade deficit. The US trade deficit reflects the fact that Americans spend more than we produce, and we import excess goods and services from the rest of the world to satisfy that demand.”
As Fed chair, Ms Yellen often spoke forcefully of the dangers of uneven wealth distribution and the participation of women in the workforce, leading to accusations by some Republicans that she was speaking out of turn. Her powers to influence policy on matters such as these would not be so limited as Treasury secretary.
Profile
Janet Yellen was born in 1946 in a well-to-do suburb of Brooklyn, New York, to a teacher mother and doctor father (James Dean writes).
She attended Brown University, the private Ivy League university in Rhode Island, where she switched her undergraduate degree from philosophy to economics — a decison of which she said later: “I discovered that economics was of enormous relevance to our lives and had the potential to make the world a better place.” She went on to receive a doctorate from Yale.
Ms Yellen was appointed as a Fed governor in 1994, serving until 1997, when she left to chair the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Bill Clinton. She served as president of the San Francisco Fed for seven years from 2004. In 2010, she was appointed as vice-chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, and in 2014, President Obama appointed her to lead the central bank, which she did for four years. She has since worked at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

A crucial quote.

The US trade deficit reflects the fact that Americans spend more than we produce, and we import excess goods and services from the rest of the world to satisfy that demand.”
 
...and to think that the US used to accuse the old Soviet Union of being a gerontocracy.
 
...and to think that the US used to accuse the old Soviet Union of being a gerontocracy.

It takes one to know one, or something something....

It does boggle the mind how antique the leadership has gotten. Thankfully it looks like Feinstein is at least bowing out. And I don't think it's tenable for Pelosi to lead much longer.
 
It takes one to know one, or something something....

It does boggle the mind how antique the leadership has gotten. Thankfully it looks like Feinstein is at least bowing out. And I don't think it's tenable for Pelosi to lead much longer.

No, we don't have a gerontocracy....cos...we've upped da game...pulled da trigger, gone large... we now have buffoon-ocracy !!!!!!

Beat dat...!!!!!!
 
does it though?

she is???

i'm not exactly sure how you can square this with the first part of the post.

Yes, she has asked to be off her committees, which is a prelude to retirement.

Pretty easy to square, at some point they die or get moved to the side as their position becomes untenable.
 

“‘2020 is the year that China, not the US, became the world's biggest movie market,’ Asian film critic Stevie Wong says. ’It's surpassed $1.9bn (£1.4bn) this year.’”

But they own all the streaming services...all of them.
 

"The modest tax is making a small but meaningful contribution. The tax raised $3.5 million in 2017 and $4 million in 2018. The city expects to collect a comparable amount for tax year 2019. The funds pay the equivalent of 60 first-year police officers' annual salaries.

But some academics said that the tax has little to no impact on paying the city's bills and that it fails to address the broader wealth gap."

Tax them even more. Forcibly move the wealth around.

This reminds me a bit of the experiment where they made mice eat X percent fewer calories than they should and mild starvation actually increased the health of the mice. Of course as the experiment went on and they continued decreasing the percentage, at some point the mice died.

Or in this case the CEO is then domiciled in the Caymans, Malta, or some other tax haven. Or he or she renames their title to Janitor.
 
when did you radicalize?

I'm not radical. I believe in achievement and accomplishes by merit. Capitalism is the vehicle for it.

However I understand most of this forum like to sh@t on rich people for being rich.
 
I'm not radical. I believe in achievement and accomplishes by merit. Capitalism is the vehicle for it.

However I understand most of this forum like to sh@t on rich people for being rich.
no its not about that at all. being rich is a relative thing. hoarding wealth to the detriment of society is an entirely separate issue.
 
no its not about that at all. being rich is a relative thing. hoarding wealth to the detriment of society is an entirely separate issue.

You're faulting people for being rich? What about people who inherit their wealth?
 

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