It’s true. We’re all just a bunch of babies. Here are reasons to fear for humanity’s future from this past week’s headlines:
State Pension Crisis Hitting America
The United States faces a pension crisis at the state level.
According to a Pew Charitable Trusts study, the funding deficit for American state public pension system surged $300 billion to an all-time high of $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2016. Pew says that the public worker retirement funds maintained $2.6 trillion in assets, but there were $4 trillion in total pension liabilities.
This should be deeply concerning for government workers.
“Many state retirement systems are on an unsustainable course, coming up short on their investment targets and having failed to set aside enough money to fund the pension promises made to public employees,” the report said.
Moreover, Wisconsin maintained the highest funding of government pensions at 99 percent. the states that reported retirement systems with at least 90 percent funding in 2016 were New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. States with at least 50 percent funding were Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, and New Jersey. The lowest funded were Kentucky and New Jersey.
There 17 other states that reported only 66 percent funding.
One other interesting trend is the decrease in the rate of investment returns for a diverse array of state retirement plans. The reduction actually increased the overall unfunded liability total by an extra $138 billion.
Sanders & Warren Want to Shut Down Sinclair
Ostensibly, leftists in Washington are still upset by Sinclar Broadcast Group’s recent stunt of slamming fake news. For whatever reason, statists are angry because somehow it was propaganda.
Some Democrats are so upset that they want the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to probe the company’s news activities, and if anything is found to be in contradiction to public interest, then the government should “disqualify Sinclair from holdings its existing licenses.
Washing Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell authored the letter, which was supported by Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker.
Here is the ironic and comical letter (they say they are “strong defenders of the First Amendment”):
“Multiple news outlets report that Sinclair has been forcing local news anchors to read Sinclair-mandated scripts warning of the dangers of ‘one-sided news stories plaguing our country,’ over the protests from local news teams. As strong defenders of the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and freedom of the press, we are alarmed by such practices….Must-run dictates from Sinclair harm the freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment by turning local journalists into mouthpieces for a corporate and political agenda.”
FCC chair Ajit Pai thankfully dismissed the pleas.
President Donald Trump Goes Neocon in Scooter Pardon
Well, President Donald Trump continues to go full neocon in his pardon of “Scooter” Lewis Libby. The White House confirmed on Friday that the president did pardon Libby, and some say it was done as a jab against former FBI director James Comey.
Here is the statement from the Press Secretary:
Today, President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Grant of Clemency (Full Pardon) to I. “Scooter Lewis Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Richard Cheney, for convictions stemming from a 2007 trial. President George W. Bush commuted Mr. Libby’s sentence shortly after his conviction. Mr. Libby, nevertheless, paid a $250,000 fine, performed 400 hours of community service, and served two years of probation.
In 2015, one of the key witnesses against Mr. Libby recanted her testimony, stating publicly that she believes the prosecutor withheld relevant information from her during interviews that would have altered significantly what she said. The next year, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals unanimously reinstated Mr. Libby to the bar, reauthorizing him to practice law. The Court agreed with the District of Columbia Disciplinary Counsel, who stated that Mr. Libby had presented “credible evidence” in support of his innocence, including evidence that a key prosecution witness had “changed her recollection of the events in question.”
Before his conviction, Mr. Libby had rendered more than a decade of honorable service to the Nation as a public servant at the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the White House. His record since his conviction is similarly unblemished, and he continues to be held in high regard by his colleagues and peers.
In light of these facts, the President believes Mr. Libby is fully worthy of this pardon. “I don’t know Mr. Libby,” said President Trump, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”
In 2007, Libby was convicted on four felony counts of perjury before a grand jury, lying to the FBI, and obstruction of justice. Former President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence.
Robert Shiller: Bitcoin is a ‘Fad’
There has been all sorts of analysis and commentary on the peer-to-peer decentralized virtual currency bitcoin. A lot has been said; some of it good, some of it bad. Typically, if it is in the negative then the bitcoin community places a bullseye on that person or company’s back.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller, who has lamented on the cryptocurrency in the past, is at it again.
Speaking in an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Shiller dismissed bitcoin as a “fad.” Although he thinks it a bubble that it will eventually burst, Shiller does think it could be around for a long time.
“I’m interested in bitcoin as a sort of bubble. It doesn’t mean that it will disappear, that it’ll burst forever. It may be with us for a while,” he said. “To me, it’s interesting as another example of faddish human behavior. It’s glamorous.”
At the time of this writing, bitcoin is trading at around $8,000.
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