Uncategorized Archives - Page 20 of 1287

DOGE, AI And Tariffs

labor force is shrinking

An article in Forbes from mid-August notes that in 2025, Job Cuts Have Already Surpassed All Of 2024—DOGE, AI, And Tariffs Are the Biggest Causes.

According to a career services firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, “private and public employers cut 62,000 jobs in July, an almost 30% increase from the previous month and a 140% spike over the same month last year.

“More than 806,000 jobs have been cut to date in 2025, already above the 761,358 eliminated in all of 2024.

“The Challenger report says so-called ‘DOGE impact’ is the leading reason for job cut announcements so far in 2025… ” Check out layoffs. FYI, which notes that nearly a quarter of the jobs are in health and Human Services.

“In addition to the direct cuts to the federal workforce, DOGE cuts to grant funding have also led to 17,826 cuts in the non-profit sector this year, up 413% from this time in 2024, Challenger said. Non-profit organizations have cited mounting challenges from reductions in federal funding, rising operational costs, and persistent economic uncertainty.”

Tech

“Technology is the leading private sector in job cuts, with 89,251 eliminated in 2025 so far. Challenger says the advancement of artificial intelligence and ongoing uncertainty surrounding work visas have contributed to workforce reductions, which are up 36% in the sector over the same time period last year.

“The retail and automotive sectors have seen an increase in layoffs as the result of global tariffs implemented… Retail announced 80,487 job cuts in July, up 249% through this time in 2024, citing tariffs, inflation, and ongoing economic uncertainty. “

This video touches on some of these numbers, including the regional impact variations.

An example from Daily Kos and Common Dreams: John Deere has axed more than 200 employees to cut higher costs caused by tariffs. “As stated on our most recent earnings call, the struggling ag economy continues to impact orders for John Deere equipment,” the company said in a statement obtained by Illinois Public Media.

But what does it mean?

Callie Cox, the chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, worries in Business Insider about an under-the-radar number that raises a huge red flag for America’s job market.

“Wall Street bigwigs, major investors, stock analysts, and economists [all] agree on… the fundamental importance of the job market….

“This is why many economists and analysts focus on the unemployment rate… The headline jobless rate is 4.2%, up from record lows set in 2023, but hardly at a catastrophic level…

“Still, there is one number… that represents a serious cause for concern. The official US labor force, which measures the number of working-age Americans actively working or looking for work, is shrinking at a rate normally seen during the depths of economic crises. The pool of available workers has stalled for three straight months, the first such streak since 2011…

“The reasons for this shrinkage point to worrying shifts in America’s job market, and the consequences could be perilous. Over time, a smaller labor force presents pernicious challenges: lower growth, tax revenue, and productivity…

“The immigration crackdown and a rough hiring environment are only part of the story. Other long-term trends could be depressing the number of people willing to jump into the workforce. Labor force participation among women has yet to recover from pre-COVID levels, given steep childcare costs, return-to-office mandates, and the cost of childcare. The participation rate among teenagers 16 to 19 years old has also plummeted over the past few months, likely a product of fewer entry-level opportunities.”

Data

Vincent Geloso, senior fellow at AIER, is an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University, who obtained a PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics. He shows the bogus suggestion that the BLS produced “low-quality” data or displayed “partisanship.” He adds, “Bureaucracies are usually too self-serving to get partisan. The consequences of bad data are high, and error rates are pretty low – no matter who is president.”

Also: Impact of Immigrants on Labor History

The Role of Undocumented Workers in High-Growth Occupations and Industries Across the United States

Sunday Stealing: F.A.B. Again

Run On For A Long Time

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Since it’s Labor Day weekend, we’re going to keep this simple. We stole this from a blogger named Idzie, who called this the F.A.B. (film, audio, book) meme.

F.A.B. Again

F. Film: What movie or TV show are you watching?

My daughter got me to buy a Roku at the local Best Buy . I must admit that if I allowed myself to be captivated by it, I could wallow in it. I watched the first episodes of Hogan’s Heroes (1965), the only one in black and white; and Northern Exposure (1990), What’s My Line (1950), and Shrinking (2023). I’d seen the former two when they were brand new.

But the thing I’ve watched the most is something called Pop Culture Jeopardy (2024). It starts with 27 games with three three-person teams. I discovered that there’s a whole heck of a lot of 21st century pop culture I don’t know, so I get joy when I get a question right that they muff.

Tunes

A. Audio: What are you listening to?

September is the birthdays of Bruce Springsteen and Ray Charles who I’ve already started listened to a lot. My father’s birthday was in September and he was a singer of folk songs, so I have been playing a lot of folk/roots/blues music. Among my favorites: Roots ‘n Blues: The Retrospective 1925–1950. Two of my favorite tracks: I’m Going to Take the Train to Charlotte, which reminds me of my last trip to see my mother before she died in 2011, and Run On For A Long Time by Bill Landford And The Landfordaires, which inspired a whole post.

I met the the folk duo Magpie a couple of years ago. I’m listening to one of their CDsS right this minute. They’re very nice people and and talented, too.

B. Book: What are you reading?

I haven’t been reading a book. We have been working on getting the daughter back to college this very weekend. I did buy John Green’s book Everything is Tuberculosis last month, and will probably be the next tome I read. The Open Door bookstore in Schenectady, a retailer I used to frequent when I was residing in the city many, many years ago, is where I purchased it. I love supporting independent bookstores.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

#1 pop but not on Billboard in 1975

“I learned the truth…”

Here are the songs that were #1 pop but not on Billboard in 1975. This means they were #1 on Record World, Cash Box, or both. Some of the songs are great, and at least one is awful.

The number after the RW and CB designation is the number of weeks at #1. The * indicates the songs I positively own in some physical form, though I likely also possess the Barry White and Janis Ian tracks.

You’re The First, The Last, My Everything – Barry White (20th Century Records), CB 1, co-written and produced by White

*Boogie On Reggae Woman – Stevie Wonder (Tamla), CB 1, RW 1, produced, arranged, and written by Wonder

*No No Song – Ringo Starr (Apple), CB 1, the last Starr single release to top any U.S. pop charts. Written by Hoyt Axton and David Jackson, produced by Richard Perry

*Jackie Blue – Ozark Mountain Daredevils (A&M), CB 2, RW 1

*How Long – Ace (Anchor), CB 1. Written by lead singer Paul Carrack.

*When Will I Be Loved – Linda Ronstadt (Capitol), CB #1. Written by Phil Everly; produced by Peter Asher.

If at first…

*Please Mr. Please – Olivia Newton-John (MCA), CB #1. Co-written and previously sung by Bruce Welch, a long-time member of The Shadows, who “also wrote several hit singles for the group and Cliff Richard.” He was once engaged to ON-J

*Someone Saved My Life Tonight – Elton John (MCA), CB 1, RW 1 from the Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy album that went to #1 in its first week of release

At Seventeen – Janis Ian (Columbia), CB 1. Written by Ian when she was 23.

Run Joey Run – David Geddes (Big Tree Records), CB 1. How did I miss this throwback from the 1950s?

Mr. Jaws – Dickie Goodman (Cash), CB 1, RW 1. One of those break-in novelties like his “The Flying Saucer” (1956)

*They Just Can’t Stop It, The (Games People Play) – The Spinners (Atlantic), RW1. Produced, arranged, and conducted by Thom Bell. I never understood why Games People Play was the info in the parentheses.

August rambling: America’s wombmate

NEW Rebecca Jade!

Big Brother Moves to Become America’s Wombmate -government access to medical data threatens patient rights.

Here’s a Map of What FOTUS-GOP Destruction of US Hospitals Looks Like

America First is America alone. Power-crazed he may be, but he fails to grasp soft power.

This is what extreme heat is doing to us: Policies to Make the Planet Hotter

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon Burned: The NPS Burns Too

The Founders of This New Arkansas Development Say You Must Be White to Live There

How Ireland’s ‘Mediocre’ Milk Powder Made it Big in West Africa

U.S. Drinking Drops to New Low, Poll Finds

How to champion libraries in Congress: a free virtual event on Tuesday, September 9 at 5 PM ET / 4 PM CT / 2 PM PT, where ALA policy experts and special guests will share updates, inspiring stories, and how you can pitch in at the start of this school year.

Mike Lindell & MyStore: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Kelly’s 2X4

Matt Damon & Ken Jennings on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

Marvel v. DC: The 25-Cent War from Tales From My Spinner Rack! by Gary Sassaman

Now I Know: The Dancing Plague and The Baseball Player With The Special ID, and He Bought His Freedom With Fake Money, and Why Some Movies Can’t Give it a Rest, and His Hometown Went to Pot? and Excel Has Bad Genes

ICE Raids and DC Occupation

Make democracy work part of ordinary life, not an add-on (ht/Paul Tonko). Lauren DesRosiers quoted Audre Lorde: “Every day of your lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be. No instantaneous miracle is suddenly going to occur and make you brave and courageous and true. And every day that you sit back silent, refusing to use your power, terrible things are being done in our name.”

DHS is using the Bible to promote ICE, claiming ‘righteous’ fight against immigrants. The agency refers to Scripture, including Micah 6:8, as it seeks to recruit agents.

New York State has seen a surge in ICE arrests, with totals four times the number seen during the same June-July period last year.

Don’t Let ICE’s Legal Abuses Stop You From Asserting Your Rights

‘Go Home, Fascists’: Protesters Jeer Federal Agents in Streets of DC

Federal agents face protests after Trump orders unprecedented takeover of DC police

Five Ways to Fight FOTUS Fascism by Robert Reich

Tonko and Fahy

My Congressperson, US Rep. Paul Tonko: “I traveled to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia… This visit was even more urgent given the results of a report from ICE’s Office of the Inspector General from an unannounced facility inspection earlier this summer. The report found the facility and ICE staff were not in compliance with federal law and used excessive, inappropriate force, including striking detainees and spraying them with pepper spray.

“Despite the pressing need for oversight and in violation of federal law that grants me and all Members of Congress access to these facilities, I was denied at the gate. The facility guards blocking my entry went so far as to confirm that they knew they were in violation of the law. If they are fine ignoring the legal rights of a Member of Congress, what does that mean for our own communities and individuals who are detained?”

You may or may not be able to read my state senator, Pat Fahy’s, newest op-ed in the Times Union, “about the paramilitary-type tactics taking over our streets.

“No visible identification, no judicial warrants, no due process – these are setting a dangerous precedent for Americans and normalizing paramilitary secret police style tactics on our streets. That’s why I introduced legislation to prohibit ICE agents from wearing masks or face coverings during civil immigration enforcement in New York.

“Security and humanity can both exist, and instilling fear will not create the immigration reforms we need to enrich America and honor its legacy.”

Kudos to them both.

MUSIC

Not Me No Way – Rebecca Jade ℗ 2025 Ultimate Vibe Recordings, Released on: 2025-08-18

Join Ice – Jesse Welles

He Just Can’t Wait To Be King! – Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Coverville 1545: Cover Stories for Steve Martin and Modest Mouse and 1546: The Mamas & The Papas Cover Story

The Mamas & The Papas cover Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart songs: My Heart Stood Still (from One Dam’ Thing after Another, 1927); Glad To Be Unhappy (from On Your Toes, 1936); Sing For Your Supper (from The Boys from Syracuse, 1938). They sang those three songs and Here In My Heart (from Dearest Enemy, 1925) for Rodgers and Hart Today, a salute to the composers, which aired March 2, 1967, on ABC TV, then reworked it as No Salt On Her Tail.

Symphony No. 1 in F minor by Dmitri Shostakovich

Gospel Plough – Robert Plant and Saving Grace

Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You from the movie The Music Man

You’ll Be Back – Primer

On The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe from the movie The Harvey Girls (1946), with Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, and many others

Theme to the movie Emma by Rachel Portman

The Cast of Oliver with Davy Jones perform I’d Do Anything on The Ed Sullivan Show, Feb 9, 1964

Peter Sprague Plays Waters of March featuring Allison Adams Tucker

Run On -Elvis Presley

I Love You Period – Dan Baird

Bernstein – Academic Festival Overture (Brahms)

Go Away, Little Girl – Donny Osmond

Beethoven “Moonlight Sonata” for Mongkol, the Old Bull Elephant (ht/aal)

The hairpin: The Most Misunderstood Symbol in Music (ft. Seymour Bernstein) by Ben Lade

Still writing about Emmett Till

The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi

I wrote about Emmett Till on August 28, 2005, on the 50th anniversary of his death, then ten years later. And I’m still writing about Emmett Till.

He was the Chicago-born black teenager who was murdered, purportedly for whistling at a white woman, in rural Mississippi in August 1955. He disappeared 70 years ago today; his mutilated body was found three days later. “His mother allowed photos to be taken of his open casket, and the horrifying pictures helped galvanize the Civil Rights movement, including the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech eight years, to the day, later.”

As I’ve noted, “I want to know why I can see that photo in my mind’s eye when the event took place when I was only two years old. I’m guessing that on the fifth anniversary in 1960, Ebony and/or Jet magazines reran the photos. I saw them, and the images seared in my mind to this day.

“His brutal demise, which helped energize the efforts for black equality, has been the subject of Dreaming Emmett, the first play by the Nobel-winning African-American writer Toni Morrison, in 1986, and the Oscar-nominated short film My Nephew Emmett (2017), both of which I have seen.”

But I have not yet seen Till (2022). “In 1955, after Emmett Till is murdered in a brutal lynching, his mother vows to expose the racism behind the attack while working to have those involved brought to justice.”

Here’s a curious thing I discovered recently: Emmett has an IMDb page, not Till, the character in the movies, but the actual person.

The Barn

I have not read the book The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson. “A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till, laying bare the global forces that converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was hidden for so long.

“Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is twenty-three miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he learned of it only when he left the state for college. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are hidden and unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing.”

From here: “The instant New York Times bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe

“It literally changed my outlook on the world…incredible.” —Shonda Rhimes.

“The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel… The Barn describes not just the poison of silence and lies, but also the dignity of courage and truth.” — The Washington Post

CBS Sunday Morning: “The Barn”: A murder in Mississippi, and the evil hiding in plain sight, 1 Dec 2024

A musing about Matthew Shepard as Emmett Till

My Name Is Emmett Till – Emmylou Harris

A monument, and then…

2023: A New Monument to Till Doesn’t Measure Progress, But It Does Matter

February 2025: A new exhibit at the Chicago History Museum focuses on the infamous trial. Seventy years after the racist murder of Chicago teen Till in Mississippi helped inspire the civil rights movement, a new exhibit on him at the Chicago History Museum explores in greater depth what happened after his lynching.

June 2025: National monument honoring Emmett Till at risk of removal due to Trump’s anti-DEI initiatives and budget cuts. They are trying to disappear Emmett again.

Understand the attitude

Heather Cox Richardson wrote on July 25, quoting a Guardian article, about how, on May 2, 2025, “a Florida Highway Patrol officer pulled over a van with 18-year-old U.S. citizen Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio and two undocumented men in it. ” Read about the abuse, but especially the ICE attitude.

Then she noted Emmett Till’s birthday – he would have been 84 -and discussed his death. She cited LIFE magazine photos, two PBS pieces, an article from LOOK magazine, and Saving Places in sharing this stunning parallel:

“In September 1955, an all-white jury took just over an hour to find [Roy] Bryant and [J.W.] Milam not guilty. A member of the jury said, “We wouldn’t have taken so long if we hadn’t stopped to drink pop.”

“Immune from further prosecution, Bryant and Milam told their story to Look magazine for $4,000. They said they had kidnapped and beaten Till to frighten him, but when he refused to beg for mercy, they drove him to the river. Milam asked, ‘You still as good as I am?’ and when Till answered, ‘Yeah,’ they shot him, tied a 75-pound cotton gin fan around his neck with barbed wire, and threw him in.

“‘What else could we do?’ Milam said. ‘He was hopeless. I’m no bully. I never hurt a n#gger in my life. I like n#ggers, in their place. I know how to work ’em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, n#ggers are gonna stay in their place.'”

Just this week, thousands of pages of records have been released detailing the government’s response to the lynching.