Lurker > Metro2

"Too many corporations have put the pursuit of profit before the well-being of their workers but that approach won't cut it any more," Mr. Trudeau told the elite gathering at the chic ski resort of Davos. "We are in a new age of doing business you need to give back."

"People have been taken advantage of, losing their jobs and their livelihoods," he said. "All the while, companies avoid taxes and boost record profits with one hand, while slashing benefits with the other."

"We should ask ourselves do we want to live in a world where the wealthy hide in their gated enclaves, while those around them struggle?"

"Asking the wealthy to pay a little more and giving more benefits to those who really need it has resulted in growth that has benefited everyone, that is truly lifting all boats,"

just give it to pixar by default.

Nostradumbass posted...

So whats happening with our gun violence?

This isn't the time the talk about guns!

Peter Hoekstra, the newly minted U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, held his first news conference with the Dutch media at his new residence in The Hague on Wednesday.

It did not go well.

Dutch journalists peppered Hoekstra with questions on unsubstantiated claims he made in 2015 about chaos that the Islamic movement had allegedly brought to the Netherlands.

There are cars being burned. There are politicians that are being burned, he said then, at a conference hosted by a conservative group. And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.

The comments have widely been described as inaccurate, and seem to reflect certain conspiracy theories about sharia law that crop up in some circles of the far-right in the West. When pressed by the Dutch reporters, Hoekstra declined to retract the comments or give specific examples to back them up.

In fact, after saying that he would not be revisiting the issue, he simply refused to answer the question at all.

After at least one person had already asked the question, Geeraedts followed up to ask Hoekstra about a John Adams quote Adams was America's first ambassador to Holland that was mounted right behind the new ambassador.

Hoekstra said he had read the quote, which expresses Adams's hope that only honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.

If youre truly an honest and wise man, could you please take back the remark about burned politicians or name the politician that was burned in the Netherlands? Geeraedts asked.

An uncomfortable silence followed the question.

Thank you, Hoekstra said, before trying to call on someone else over the clamor of the reporters in the room.

Excuse me, I asked you a question, Geeraedts said.

Another journalist jumped in.

Mr. Ambassador, can you mention any example of a Dutch politician who was burned in recent years?

Again, silence, as Hoekstra stared around the room.

This is the Netherlands you have to answer questions, another reporter said.

Sherry Keneson-Hall, an embassy counselor who was helping to run the news conference, pushed back, asserting that Hoekstra was answering the questions.

At least one more journalist repeated the question. Reporters asked it at least five times.

We were all astonished that he didnt want to take back the comment. It was simply untrue, so why not take it back? Geeraedts said. It was awkward, to be honest.

The Norwegian Centre Against Racism has criticised Prime Minister Erna Solberg's newly-formed cabinet for failing to 'reflect the population'.
Rune Berglund Steen, who is head of the NGO, also said the lack of diversity represented a "democratic problem".

"Even Trump's government has more people with minority ethnic backgrounds than the Norwegian [government]," Steen, who was speaking to broadcaster NRK, said.

Among the 68 ministers and secretaries presented by Solberg as she unveiled the new government on Wednesday, only two appear to be of minority background, according to NRK -- State Secretary Anne Karin Olli, who is of indigenous Sami heritage, and German-born Rebekka Borsch.

"This is a democratic problem. Those in power must reflect the general population and it is very serious that this is not the case in the extended government," Steen told NRK.

According to Statistics Norway, over 800,000 foreign or Norwegian-born people in Norway, which has a total population of around 5.2 million, have foreign-born parents.

"I am disappointed with the composition of the government. It is important for minorities to be represented, including amongst those who lead the country. This is connected to identity and confidence in the system. This sends an unfortunate signal," Sylo Taraku of Norwegian thinktank Agenda told NRK.

Minister of Education and Integration Jan Tore Sanner said the criticism was unjustified.

"Many things must be taken into consideration when a new government is formed. The most important is the policies that will be followed, regardless of which background one has," Sanner told NRK.

Steen said to the broadcaster that diversity was healthy in politics.

"Political outcomes are also affected by which people are involved and what backgrounds they have. It is clear that people with minority ethnic backgrounds have different experience when it comes to, for example, creating inclusive policies," he said.

Overused Youtube Phrases:

"Hey, what's going on, guys? It's _____...."

Chicken posted...

Relatives raped him because he was gay?

It's a lot more common than you think it is.

DeanAuryn posted...

Look at Venezuela ffs

I know plenty of venezuelans and while they're stressed about what is going on, they are a very happy people

She also has this thing about a man should not be making less than her at all

The bottom line, then, is that Americans feel far less secure economically, and in relation to their health and well-being, than would be expected given the overall wealth of the country in terms of GDP per capita. This existential insecurity provides a fertile ground for religion. Scholars might appeal to historical factors such as the Puritan founders but history counts for little in these matters given that virtually every country has a devout past.

It has often been pointed out that poor people in America tend to vote against their economic interests by voting for Republican politicians who are interested in further concentrating wealth in the hands of the affluent. They do so, in part, because the Republicans appeal to their religious propensity. That propensity is further fed by the increasing insecurity in the lives of the poor. Yet another reason for separating Church and State.

Religion declines with economic development. In a previous post that rattled around the Internet, I presented a scholarly explanation for this pattern: people who feel secure in this world have less interest in another one.

The basic idea is that wealth allows people to feel more secure in the sense that they are confident of having their basic needs met and expect to lead a long healthy life. In such environments, there is less of a market for religion, the primary function of which is to help people cope with stress and uncertainty.

Some readers of the previous post pointed out that the U.S. is something of an anomaly because this is a wealthy country in which religion prospers. Perhaps taking the view that one swallow makes a summer, the commentators concluded that the survival of religion here invalidates the security hypothesis. I do not agree.

The first point to make is that the connection between affluence and the decline of religious belief is as well-established as any such finding in the social sciences. In research of this kind, the preferred analysis strategy is some sort of line-fitting exercise. No researcher ever expects every case to fit exactly on the line, and if they did, something would be seriously wrong.

Researchers do not incur any particular obligation to explain why one point is farther from the line than some others. We generally wash our hands of such minutiae and attribute them simply to statistical noise. While we strive to explain as much of the variation as we can, we never expect to account for it all.

What matters is the overall pattern. Many different studies have shown that as affluence increases, the religiosity in a country declines (1). The probability that all might be wrong is so small that it can be dismissed as a practical impossibility.

The fact remains that in the U.S. the vast majority of the population claims to be religious in surveys, although far fewer show up in church on Sundays. This is very different from the picture in Europe where the majority do not believe in God (2).

Instead of jumping to the conclusion that the U.S .as a single data point invalidates the relationship between affluence and religion, it is interesting to ask what it is about life in this country that fans the flames of religious belief.

In my own (as yet unpublished) research on this question, I have looked at several other facets of the security hypothesis that go some way toward explaining why Americans remain more religious than their European cousins.

The conclusions are not very flattering so far as the quality of life in this country is concerned. In her recent book, Third World America, Arianna Huffington made the case that this country is regressing to the inequitable conditions more typically found in a far poorer country.

Despite having great wealth, the riches are unevenly distributed. Such income inequality is typical of developing countries and it has worsened considerably in recent decades. Moreover, we lack the well-developed welfare state found in Europe that serves to redistribute wealth and provides a safety net for the poor.

Health is nothing to brag about either with a life expectancy similar to that in Costa Rico. Education, a powerful leveling agent, is also in decline according to international comparisons.