Salon: Why Americans are such easy targets for trolls and bots

We measure intelligence in lots of ways, but at the top of the list is literacy and numeracy. A study published in September 2017 by the U.S. Department of Education found that U.S. adults performed the lowest of all developed nations in numeracy. They also found that our literacy was on the low end of developed nations. Most interesting was the finding that young adults in their 20s from Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Japan who did not finish high school had the same literacy levels of U.S. high school graduates.

Study after study shows that the United States underperforms in literacy across the developed world — especially given its resources. But that isn’t even the core issue; the real problem is the way we have consistently devalued quality education across all levels for decades. Consider the fact that 14 states teach creationism in public schools.

Add to that the reality that a Pew Research Study from 2015 found that 34 percent of Americans reject evolution entirely, saying humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. [...]

Public investment in K-12 schools has fallen dramatically in a number of states over the last decade, despite post-recession economic growth. Arizona cut funding for K-12 by 36.6 percent from 2008-2015. A study of investment in education across the developed nations of the OECD found that from 2010-2014 the U.S. decreased K-12 funding by four percent. Over the same period, education spending, on average, rose five percent per student across the 35 countries in the OECD. Even more noteworthy is the fact that in some countries, spending rose at a much higher rate. Between 2008 and 2014, education spending rose 76 percent in Turkey, 36 percent in Israel, 32 percent in the United Kingdom and 27 percent in Portugal.

read the article

The Guardian: How populist uprisings could bring down liberal democracy

Some of these rules are formal. A president or prime minister allows the judiciary to investigate wrongdoing by members of his government instead of firing the prosecutor. He puts up with critical coverage in the press instead of shutting down newspapers or persecuting journalists. When he loses an election, he leaves office peacefully instead of clinging to power.

But many of these rules are informal, making it less clearcut when they are violated. The government does not rewrite electoral rules months before an election to maximise its chance of winning. Political insurgents do not glorify authoritarian rulers of the past, threaten to lock up their opponents or set out to violate the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. The losers of an election refrain from limiting the scope of an office to which an adversary has been elected in their last days in the job. The opposition confirms a competent judge whose ideology it dislikes rather than leaving a seat on the highest court in the land vacant, and strikes an imperfect compromise about the budget rather than letting the government shut down. [...]

In the US, and many other countries around the world, that is no longer how democratic politics works. As Ignatieff put the point, we are increasingly “seeing what happens when a politics of enemies supplants a politics of adversaries”. And the new crop of populists who have stormed the political stage over the past decades shoulder a lot of the blame for this. [...]

Citizens are less committed to democracy than they once were; while more than two-thirds of older Americans say that it is essential to them to live in a democracy, for example, less than a third of younger Americans do. They are also more open to authoritarian alternatives; two decades ago, for example, 25% of Britons said that they liked the idea of “a strongman ruler who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”; today, 50% of them do. And these attitudes are increasingly reflected in our politics: from Great Britain to the US, and from Germany to Hungary, respect for democratic rules and norms has precipitously declined. No longer the only game in town, democracy is now deconsolidating.  [...]

As I argue in my new book, The People vs. Democracy, we will only be able to contain the rise of populism if we ensure that the political system overcomes the very real shortcomings that have fuelled it. Ordinary people have long felt that politicians don’t listen to them when they make their decisions. They are sceptical for a reason: the rich and powerful really have had a worrying degree of influence over public policy for a very long time. The revolving door between lobbyists and legislators, the outsized role of private money in campaign finance, and the tight links between politics and industry really have undermined the degree to which the popular will steers public policy.

read the article

The Atlantic: A Bright Red Flag for Democracy

Another group is speaking out, too: people who believe the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas was staged, and that students like Gonzalez are actors, not victims. Far-right provocateurs have focused on David Hogg, a 17-year-old student who had the self-possession to interview his classmates while the shootings were taking place. Hogg’s composure in interviews, his criticism of President Donald Trump, and the fact that his father is a retired FBI agent have fueled a conspiracy theory that claims Hogg has been paid—by Hillary Clinton, George Soros, or favorite figures among conspiracy theorists—to promote an anti-gun agenda. Supported by media figures like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, the conspiracy theories have received a big boost from YouTube, with its algorithms that push videos targeting Hogg to the top of trending video lists.  [...]

In the mid-1960s, 77 percent of Americans reported trust in the U.S. government to do the right thing all or most of the time, according to surveys from Gallup and the National Elections Survey. Asked the same question in a Gallup poll late last year, only 18 percent reported trusting the government. This isn’t a Trump-specific phenomenon. Trust has been falling in the United States for decades, and it hit comparably low points during the Clinton and Obama presidencies. [...]

Despite having good reason not to trust the political process, the students are doing what we’ve been taught to do as citizens: tell our legislators what we think, and if they don’t listen, demand to be heard. So far, that’s not gone especially well. One group of students traveled to Tallahassee to meet with legislators and instead watched 71 Republican legislators block debate on bills to limit high-capacity magazines. A town meeting with legislators, televised by CNN, went little better, as politicians squirmed uncomfortably and failed to answer the blunt questions put forward by students. [...]

Mistrust is expensive. When people worry that the media is being manipulated, it takes work to get to a set of facts we trust, and more work to get to a common set of facts we can discuss or debate. When people worry legislators aren’t listening to citizens, but to corporations and lobby groups, they move beyond letters and phone calls to protests and rallies. Two decades ago, the author Frank Fukayama posited that high-trust societies were wealthier than low-trust ones because fiscal transaction costs were lower. As Americans experience an increasingly paralyzed and dysfunctional federal government, it’s clear that mistrust is raising the costs of representative democracy.

read the article

The Alternatives: German town takes power back from energy giants – podcast

In Britain, rip-off energy prices have become politically toxic, with the major parties vying to offer price caps, heating allowances and a transition to lower-carbon technologies. But truly radical plans – such as taking the supply of energy back into the hands of local communities – have never been given serious consideration. It is a model that has been trialled in the German town of Wolfhagen and is now a source of local pride. Aditya Chakrabortty hears from Iris Degenhardt-Meister, who sits on the board of the local energy cooperative, which not only replaced a major multinational in running the town’s energy supply but is now aiming to make it 100% renewable.

listen to the podcast

Business Insider: Theresa May only has two Brexit options left: Capitulation to the EU or a second referendum

His position — that Britain will eventually win a soft Brexit package from the EU — is a common one among analysts and economists in The City's investment banks. They believe no government could survive the economic damage of a hard Brexit. [...]

"So how will the current deadlock be broken? The chances of the EU conceding ground remain ultra-slim. Its economy is motoring, while cutting the U.K. a good deal would risk fuelling separatist movements elsewhere. It can run down the clock, waiting for the U.K. to capitulate as the cliff-edge draws nearer." [...]

"The PM, meanwhile, will stick to her unworkable proposals for as long as she can. Later this year, however, Mrs. May must decide, and we expect her to opt to keep Britain tied to the EU with a customs union. This would solve the Irish question and minimise the administrative and economic disruption. It is also the only plan that can command a majority in parliament." [...]

It's an extraordinary scenario, and it is essentially speculation on Tombs' part. What makes it significant is that, outside parliament and the Westminster media echo chamber, this is how the smart money sees Brexit playing out.

read the article

The Guardian: Has the time come for a wealth tax in the UK?

The latest politician to push for a change of tone may raise a few eyebrows. It isn’t John McDonnell or Jeremy Corbyn, but David Willetts, the Conservative peer who was a universities minister under David Cameron. Lord Willetts will attempt to make the case for greater wealth taxes in a speech on Monday.

The reasons are clear. The public purse will be out of pocket by roughly £160bn by the mid-2060s as the number of people over 65 grows by almost a third, while the working age population is expected to only increase by about 2%. The government’s own forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, reckons healthcare spending will need to almost double from 6.9% of GDP in the early 2020s to 12.6% by the mid-2060s because of demographic shift alone. [...]

|The divide between rich and poor is growing and it’s proving increasingly difficult to earn your way to riches. Wealth taxes are being considered as a result, with work also being done by the Institute for Public Policy and Research expected to be published next month. [...]

The trouble would be implementing the changes required. Polling shows wealth taxes are viewed as the most unfair way for the government to raise money, even though the accumulation of wealth is often passive – particularly for property owners. [...]

The French economist Thomas Pikketty has argued that without change, inheritance will eventually matter a lot more when determining a person’s life chances, as it did in ancient societies. Past wealth, he says, will tend to dominate new wealth – and successors will tend to dominate labour earners.

read the article

The Observer view on Theresa May’s Brexit speech

May’s speech, signalling a fundamental parting of the ways, was a defeat for the business people, trade unionists and community leaders who rightly fear for the country’s future prosperity, cohesion and jobs. It was a defeat for young people, British and European, who, more so than older generations, will perforce inhabit an ugly new world of harder borders, work permits, bureaucracy and pervasive state intrusion. [...]

Bad because, in overall terms, the proposed settlement is neither one thing nor the other. Britain will not have its cake and eat it, in Boris Johnson’s preposterous parlance. It will simply have less cake. May rejected the single market largely because of its freedom-of-movement provisions. Even though employers have been telling her for months that Britain relies on EU workers, the prime minister remains foolishly frit of Daily Mail spectres of invading foreign hordes.

Yet even as she rejected it, May recognised the benefits of the single market, sought continued, frictionless, access to it, and lamely admitted that we will all be the poorer for being outside it. What kind of leadership is this? Such self-contradictory thinking would give Descartes a headache. The same applies to her Through the Looking Glass “customs partnership” wheeze that, she said, would “mirror EU requirements”. If she means future customs arrangements will be reversed, back to front and inside out, she may well be right. What a nightmare of red tape is now in prospect from those who promised a liberating bonfire on the cliffs of Dover and will create, instead, a giant lorry-park.

read the article

Deutsche Welle: EU moves toward wage equality for foreign workers

It is not yet law, but the principles are now clear: Posted workers sent from their home country to another in the European Union should, in future, receive higher wages and have the same rights as local workers. "This is very good news," said Marianne Thyssen, the European Commissioner for Social Affairs and Labor Mobility. "We don't want wage dumping." [...]

Social security contributions and income tax will continue to be payable in the home country of a posted employee. This means that a Polish company that sends its workers to Frankfurt can continue to pay the lower social security contributions in Poland. This will enable them to compete with domestic German companies. [...]

Until now, Poland in particular has been against any reform. With 500,000 posted workers it has the highest number among EU member states. However, EU Commissioner Thyssen has the impression that the Polish side will accept the compromises. "We can also pass the new law with a qualified majority," Thyssen said, which means that it can happen, if necessary, without Poland.

read the article

Politico: Exiled Puigdemont endorses jailed Sànchez as next Catalan president

The potential election of Sànchez will also depend on a court decision. He’s been in pre-trial detention since October and will need a judge’s permission to attend the parliamentary session at which he would be named regional president. [...]

He also announced the creation in Belgium of what he called the “Council of the Republic,” an unofficial group that is expected to promote the Catalan independence project — as well as safeguard a position for himself.

Earlier in the day, the pro-independence majority of the Catalan regional parliament paid tribute to Puigdemont. In their symbolic declaration, the secessionist lawmakers stated that Puigdemont is the “legitimate” candidate for the presidency, condemned Madrid’s “authoritarianism” and defended October’s referendum.

Yet they fell short of ratifying last year’s declaration of independence or pushing forward with reelecting their former leader — a move that could have triggered further judicial action against the separatists. [...]

Enric Hernández, the editor of Catalan newspaper El Periódico, said pro-independence forces are trying to combine a “government of a republic that doesn’t exist” with “the limitations of the actual [Catalan] autonomous government.”

read the article