Mira Rojanasakul, Christopher Flavelle, Blacki Migliozzi and Eli Murray, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan:
I have been telling you for years now that water is destiny, and that when you consider climate change always remember that whatever is predicted will be worse in actuality, and whatever time is estimated actuality will be shorter. Now here is the latest example of this. And once, again, this carefully researched report demonstrates how poorly prepared this country is for what is happening to it. This Congress, and particularly the Republican members, are neither interested nor competent to handle the challenge.
In the past decade, four of every 10 sites hit all-time lows. And last year was the worst yet. Credit: The New York Times
Global warming has focused concern on land and sky as soaring temperatures intensify hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view.
Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted. These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole.
The New York Times conducted a months-long examination of groundwater depletion, interviewing more than 100 experts, traveling the country and creating a comprehensive database using millions of readings from monitoring sites. The investigation reveals how America’s life-giving resource is being exhausted in much of the country, and in many cases it won’t come back. Huge industrial farms and sprawling cities are draining aquifers that could take centuries or millenniums to replenish themselves if they recover at all.
Today, as I listened to President Biden implement the beginning of Medicare negotiation over drug prices, I was amazed at the stupidity of Republican Congress members calling it communism, and socialism. The truth is I don’t think these Republican morons know what terms like communism or socialism even mean. It also came to light that the pharmaceutical industry spent $370 million lobbying against the Biden IRA act. Think about that for a minute. There are a total of 535 Members of Congress. 100 serve in the U.S. Senate and 435 serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. That’s $69,158.88 per Congress member. Not that that is what every member got, some got much more, some nothing, but that is the measure of corruption being perpetrated by just one industry over just one act.
Until 2003, Medicare covered most hospital and doctor visits for the elderly, but it did not cover the ever-growing costs of prescription medications. Former President George W. Bush changed that when he signed a law adding prescription drug coverage to Medicare.
But there was a catch.
At drug companies’ behest, the Republican-controlled Congress banned Medicare from using its market power to drive down drug prices. The prohibition was controversial at the time — Nancy Pelosi, then the House Minority Leader, called it “unconscionable.” Critics saw the prohibition as the government’s abandonment of the single most effective tool for restraining drug costs.
Religious authoritarianism, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish is always the same because its adherents value their fantasies more than reality. They are male dominant, sexually dysfunctional, and anti-intellectual. In the United States we are seeing the rise of a Christian Taliban, and they are doing everything in their power to dismantle the American educational systems because teaching students to think and value facts constitutes the creation of their worst enemy. And like all authoritarian religious fanatics they have become political. In this case Republican. They constitute a large part of MAGAt world and, I think, are the most dangerous group in the country.
Jayme McElvany speaks at the Milan school board meeting, Jan. 12, 2023 Credit: Screenshot
A home-schooled lawyer has spent the majority of his professional career fighting public schools to no avail. They’re harmful, he claimed, but his pleas have for years fallen on deaf ears.
But it seems that now that he has rebranded it as “parents’ rights,” the movement has taken off.
The Washington Post wrote a profile on conservative Christian Michael Farris that revealed a secret phone call showing the way that he is obtaining support from Christian millionaires. Farris made a name for himself by getting the story “Rumpelstiltskin” banned from classrooms.
Speaking on a confidential conference call, he told the group, according to one member, he sought to “take down the education system as we know it today” on the grounds that schools were indoctrinating children to be “secular.”
To him, that’s a “godless religion,” even though being secular means to not profess belief in any specific religion.
He has been using his law degree to launch lawsuits claiming schools are teaching children […]
This is significant trend in home ownership. Smaller houses, more work-at-home space. I can certainly understand why this is happening, the current mortgage rates are mind boggling, and the whole structure of employment is altering as well. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
Why it matters: People are holding onto their homes longer, and newly constructed abodes are getting smaller to compensate for rising costs, experts told Axios.
Buyers are seeking out features with multiple functions like kitchen islands with drawers and drop-leaf dining tables, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The big picture: The composition of freshly built houses changed last year. New builds got smaller and contractors started building more attached homes, according to Zillow.
Construction on homes with fewer than three bedrooms increased 9.5% in 2022 over the year before.
New construction of attached homes — with more stories but fewer bedrooms — was up 37% compared to 2019. Detached homes increased 11% over the same time period.
Between the lines: Homeowners locked into lower mortgage rates are holding onto their houses, said Richard Martin, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s real estate program. This means pre-built starter homes aren’t going on the market as often.
Rachel Siegel, Economics Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan:
Here is another major real estate trend shaping America and, I think, the story is accurate in its predictions about what is going to happen to downtown office buildings, and the economic impact that is going to have. The patterns of the American culture are undergoing major change with almost no awareness of the overall change these trends will produce.
In Indianapolis, the technology giant Salesforce is paring back a quarter of its office space in the tallest building in Indiana, where it has been a key tenant for the past six years. In Atlanta, the private investment giant Starwood Capital defaulted on a $212 million mortgage on a 29-story office tower. And in Baltimore, a landmark building sold for $24 million last month, roughly $42 million less than it fetched in 2015.
All across the country, downtowns, office spaces and shopping centers are at risk of becoming ground zero for a new economic hazard: the urban doom loop. The fear is that a commercial real estate apocalypse could spiral out and slow commerce, wrecking local tax revenue in the process. Ever since the pandemic drove a boom in remote work, hubs such as New York and San Francisco have drawn attention for their empty offices in previously bustling skyscrapers. But many […]
