bostonangler

So Jax is your boss giving out bonuses this year? Is the company sharing in the profit? You see when America was great, the people who made the companies successful were rewarded for their hard work. Sadly we have gone back to the Gilded Age, where the Rockefellers, and Carnages and the Vanderbilts built empires while paying their workers next to nothing. Ask your grand parents how they were able to make a nice living and support the family. I'm willing to bet they won't say because the CEO make 400% more than the average worker. Or that they did well because they were earning a daily wage equal to a loaf of bread. Greed is a terrible thing and in today's America greed is the social disease bringing down this empire like so many throughout history. If you don't see the problem you cannot fix the problem. If you don't understand that greed is in control, I truly feel sorry for you and your family. Be thankful for what you have and share what you don't need. That's the American way. JMHO B/A

Yota, I may be wrong, but didn't you bring over some news from Alex Jones?

To answer your question I'm not perpetuating anything. I simply copied a news story and supplied a link. As you can see by the definition, many people misunderstand the meaning of income inequity. It's not simply having everyone receiving the same pay. It's about the how earnings are based by population. It also is about profit sharing, stock options and bonuses. Should everyone make the same pay? Hell no. Should Americans work for third world pay? Hell no! Below is a pretty good explanation... What is 'Income Inequality' Income inequality is the unequal distribution of household or individual income across the various participants in an economy. Income inequality is often presented as the percentage of income to a percentage of population. For example, a statistic may indicate that 70% of a country's income is controlled by 20% of that country's residents. Read more: Income Inequality Definition | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/income-inequality.asp#ixzz4Qt1ftyB4 BREAKING DOWN 'Income Inequality' Income inequality is often associated with the idea of income "fairness." Most people consider it "unfair" if the rich have a disproportionally larger portion of a country's income compared to the general population. The causes of income inequality can vary significantly by region, gender, education and social status. Economists are divided on the implications of income disparity and on whether it is ultimately positive or negative. Income inequality has grown increasingly evident since the 1980s, when the distribution of income had 30 to 35% of national income going to the top 10% of earners. Since then, the percent of income going to the top 10% has increased to 50%, creating a huge disparity between high earners and low earners. The issue has become politically and economically divisive regarding its root cause and acceptable solutions. While most economists agree that the growth in disparity is generally attributable to unequal education, environment and social interactions, they don’t fully agree on the specific mechanisms that are driving the increase. Contributing Factors to Income Inequality Education is known to affect equality in societies. Certain social-economic groups of people do not have access to quality education in the United States, especially at the secondary school level. In countries that provide higher-quality secondary education across the economic spectrum, there is much less income disparity. Competition for talent creates a salary divide. There is much more competition for high-quality executive talent, which has driven salaries for executives higher relative to the level of generated productivity. Big bonuses and other incentives have led to an inflation of executive salaries. Stagnant wages play a big role in inequality. The median income for low- to middle- income workers has been mostly flat since 2007, while executive compensation has increased. The diminished influence of labor unions has also led to flat or declining wages among workers. Family and social interactions impact earning potential. Social and emotional skills critical to leading a quality life are not sufficiently developed in economically distressed areas with a high percentage of unstable families. Increased demand for high-skilled workers adds to a widening wage gap. Companies are investing more heavily in developing a high-skilled workforce, driving wages up for high-skilled workers. This leads to de-emphasizing or automating low-skilled functions, pushing wages for low-skilled workers down. Read more: Income Inequality Definition | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/income-inequality.asp#ixzz4Qt20ek7c PART 2 Executives Pay.... My how things have changed. Our parents had much better earnings when compared to their bosses than any middle class worker today. Americans are working for less and by allowing corporations move off-shore and pay next to no taxes, workers were supposed to see the benefits. However, the truth is the only ones who benefited were executives who received bonuses, options and profit sharing. CEO Pay: How Much Do CEOs Make Compared to Their Employees? Employee Sentiment and Communication Around CEO Pay CEO pay in the U.S. has grown exponentially since the 1970s, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), rising almost 1,000 percent compared to a rise in worker salaries of roughly 11 percent over the same time period (adjusted for inflation.) Starting next year, the Dodd-Frank Act, enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will require publicly traded companies to publish their CEO-to-worker pay ratio, a move that could bring this issue further into the public consciousness. To get a sense of what might be revealed once companies begin reporting this new information, PayScale partnered with Equilar, a leader in executive compensation and corporate governance data solutions, to calculate ratios for some of the highest-paid CEOs in the U.S. Only companies with annual revenue over $1 billion were considered. PayScale also surveyed employees to find out how they feel about their CEO's compensation, and talked to a few CEOs (including our own) to understand how they communicate to employees about executive pay today. The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio for the 168 companies included in this report stands at about about 70-to-1, with some CEOs making more than 300 times the median salary of their employees – just in cash (base pay, bonuses, profit sharing, etc.). Many CEOs receive substantial stock/option grants and perks as part of their compensation, which can more than quadruple their total annual pay. But similar data for employees by company is not readily available, so we looked solely at cash compensation for both CEOs and workers to calculate ratios for this report. Larry Merlo, the CEO of CVS Health Corp, made roughly 434 times the salary of the median CVS employee in 2015, the largest ratio between CEO and employee pay at any company on this list. See the full list of CEO-to-employee pay ratios It wasn't always this way. In 1965, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio in the United States stood at about 20-to-1, according to a 2015 report by the EPI. But starting in the 1970s up through 2014, "inflation-adjusted CEO compensation increased 997 percent, a rise almost double stock market growth and substantially greater than the painfully slow 10.9 percent growth in a typical worker's annual compensation over the same period." <a href='#'><img alt='Rounds Dashboard ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/20/2016CEOPayRatios_0/RoundsDashboard/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a> Is this a problem? Is it out of line for the Chief Executive of a successful company to be paid hundreds of times the salary of his or her average employee? Or is CEO a demanding enough job requiring such a highly developed skillset that these high salaries are deserved? "Excessive executive pay is deservedly blamed for rising income inequality, because worker pay has stagnated as executive pay has soared," said the New York Times in a July 14 editorial. Additionally, the idea that the inequality between executive and worker pay is contributing to the downfall of the American middle class has been prevalent on the campaign trail this election year. But not everyone sees the disparity as an issue. Some even question the validity of the data, pointing out the pay of a CEO at an average company is only about four-times higher than the average American worker, a decidedly more balanced ratio than found at the largest firms. The problem there, however, is that the average firm is very small, employing just 20 workers, and workers at those companies are not representative of the typical American employee. Again, according to the EPI report, a typical American worker "works in a firm with roughly 1,000 workers. Half (52 percent) of employment and 58 percent of total payroll are in firms with more than 500 or more employees. Firms with at least 10,000 workers provide 27.9 percent of all employment and 31.4 percent of all payroll." Last year the SEC finalized a section of 2010's Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act designed to increase transparency into executive compensation by requiring publicly traded companies to publish, in addition to CEO pay figures, median worker pay and the ratio between CEO and median worker pay. By law, this data will be shared starting in 2017. (The Dodd-Frank Act was passed in response to the economic crisis of the late 2000s in an effort to avoid widespread financial collapse.) http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-pay

Massachusetts.. but I have lived in the south since 1987

Trump's tax plan: massive cuts for the 1% will usher 'era of dynastic wealth' More than eight million low-income and single-parent families will face sharp tax increases under Donald Trump exacerbating income inequality, experts warn Under Donald Trump’s proposed tax plan, the most wealthy Americans will recive an average annual tax cut of $215,000. Photograph: Peter Foley/EPA Rupert Neate in New York @RupertNeate Wednesday 23 November 2016 07.00 EST Last modified on Wednesday 23 November 2016 07.02 EST President Donald Trump is set to give America’s richest 1% an average annual tax cut of $214,000 when he takes office, while more than eight million families with children are expected to suffer financially under his proposed tax plan. On the eve of the election, Trump promised to “massively cut taxes for the middle class, the forgotten people, the forgotten men and women of this country, who built our country”. But independent expert analyses of Trump’s tax plan show that America’s millionaire and billionaire class will win big at the expense of struggling low- and middle-income people, who turned out in large numbers to help the real estate billionaire win the election. Experts warn that Trump’s tax plan will exacerbate America’s already chronic income inequality and herald in a “new era of dynastic wealth”. “The Trump tax plan is heavily, heavily, skewed to the most wealthy, who will receive huge savings,” said Lily Batchelder, a law professor and tax expert at New York University. “At the same time, millions of low-income families – particularly single-parent households – will face an increase.” Batchelder, who wrote an academic paper on Trump’s tax plan published by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said that the president-elect’s plan “significantly raises taxes” for at least 8.5 million families, with “especially large tax increases for working single parents”. More than 26m individuals live in those families. According to Batchelder’s research Trump’s tax changes – taken at their “most conservative” – could leave just over half of America’s nearly 11m single-parent households facing an increased tax burden. This figure rises to 61% – or 7m households – if the analysis is run on “reasonable assumptions” that the changes Trump has suggested go ahead. Single-parent families would suffer the most because Trump would lower the minimum of tax-free earnings to $15,000 per adult no matter how many children in the household. Under current law the threshold is $17,400 for single-parent families with one child and $24,750 for a couple with one child, and the threshold increases by $4,050 for each additional child. Trump also plans to consolidate the current seven tax breaks into three: 12%, 25% and 33%. His plan would scrap the current 10% tax for earnings under $19,625 and replace it with 12%. Trump’s proposed childcare credits would not make up for the changes, according to Batchelder. Minority families are set to suffer disproportionately from the tax increases, according to Batchelder. With 32% of African American families facing a tax increase compared with 19% of whites, this is mostly due to African American families being more likely to share the burden of childcare within the family and hence not benefit as much from Trump childcare credits. Batchelder said the effective tax increase for many millions of families would run into the thousands. While the poor will face tax increases, the Tax Policy Center research said the rich would received big tax cuts that get even bigger as you work up the income scale. The top 20% of earners would receive an average annual tax cut of $16,660 compared with an overall average cut of $2,940. The richest 1% will collect 47% of all the tax cuts – an average saving of $214,000. The 0.1% – the 117,000 households with incomes of more than $3.7m – would receive an average 2017 tax cut of $1.3m, a nearly 19% drop in tax they were due to pay in 2016. The tax savings of the super-rich will increase further in future, with the 0.1%’s estimated 2025 tax bill to fall by $1.5m. It is a stark contrast to Hillarious Clinton’s tax plan, which would have seen taxes rises for the super-wealthy. Under her plan, the top 1% would pay an extra $163,000 a year more on average, and would have made up 93% of all new tax revenue by 2025. Clinton and Trump promised very different tax plans during the election. Composite: Justin Sullivan/ Mike Segar/Getty/Reuters “Listening to Trump’s rhetoric, most Americans probably don’t realise at all the impact of Trump’s tax plan,” Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said. “Any way you slice it, the very best-off Americans will be the biggest beneficiaries. “If it looks bad now for middle-income families, those who turned out to vote for him, it’s only likely to get worse [with Trump as president]. It is very likely that they will end up poorer still. The most likely victims are middle- and low-income families.” Gardner said that under Trump, America will become even more divided between the rich and poor. “America is already very unequal, and his proposals would make income inequality a lot worse,” Gardner said. “This is obviously quite worrisome. If he rode to victory on a middle-income wave of support, those middle Americans will be very disappointed.” The inequality problem will be exacerbated by Trump’s plan to scrap inheritance tax – which he refers to as “the death tax”. The 40% inheritance tax is currently only charged on personal estate worth more than $5.45m and joint estates of $10.9m – sums so large that it only affects less than two in 1,000 Americans. Trump has proposed repealing the tax entirely. While Clinton, pushed by Bernie Sanders’ strong stance on the issue, had suggested lowering the threshold to $3.5m and increasing the rate to 65% for the super-wealthy. “It’s hard to think of a tax change that will have a more detrimental effect on inequality,” Garnder said. “There is no question that this will lead to a perpetual income elite – hardly the thing that Trump voters would have wanted. This will lead to a new era of dynastic wealth.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/trump-tax-plan-cuts-wealthy-low-income-inequality

As a taxpayer, you might be interested in this story. I'm just saying... Trump's tax plan: massive cuts for the 1% will usher 'era of dynastic wealth' More than eight million low-income and single-parent families will face sharp tax increases under Donald Trump exacerbating income inequality, experts warn Under Donald Trump’s proposed tax plan, the most wealthy Americans will recive an average annual tax cut of $215,000. Photograph: Peter Foley/EPA Rupert Neate in New York @RupertNeate Wednesday 23 November 2016 07.00 EST Last modified on Wednesday 23 November 2016 07.02 EST President Donald Trump is set to give America’s richest 1% an average annual tax cut of $214,000 when he takes office, while more than eight million families with children are expected to suffer financially under his proposed tax plan. On the eve of the election, Trump promised to “massively cut taxes for the middle class, the forgotten people, the forgotten men and women of this country, who built our country”. But independent expert analyses of Trump’s tax plan show that America’s millionaire and billionaire class will win big at the expense of struggling low- and middle-income people, who turned out in large numbers to help the real estate billionaire win the election. Experts warn that Trump’s tax plan will exacerbate America’s already chronic income inequality and herald in a “new era of dynastic wealth”. “The Trump tax plan is heavily, heavily, skewed to the most wealthy, who will receive huge savings,” said Lily Batchelder, a law professor and tax expert at New York University. “At the same time, millions of low-income families – particularly single-parent households – will face an increase.” Batchelder, who wrote an academic paper on Trump’s tax plan published by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said that the president-elect’s plan “significantly raises taxes” for at least 8.5 million families, with “especially large tax increases for working single parents”. More than 26m individuals live in those families. According to Batchelder’s research Trump’s tax changes – taken at their “most conservative” – could leave just over half of America’s nearly 11m single-parent households facing an increased tax burden. This figure rises to 61% – or 7m households – if the analysis is run on “reasonable assumptions” that the changes Trump has suggested go ahead. Single-parent families would suffer the most because Trump would lower the minimum of tax-free earnings to $15,000 per adult no matter how many children in the household. Under current law the threshold is $17,400 for single-parent families with one child and $24,750 for a couple with one child, and the threshold increases by $4,050 for each additional child. Trump also plans to consolidate the current seven tax breaks into three: 12%, 25% and 33%. His plan would scrap the current 10% tax for earnings under $19,625 and replace it with 12%. Trump’s proposed childcare credits would not make up for the changes, according to Batchelder. Minority families are set to suffer disproportionately from the tax increases, according to Batchelder. With 32% of African American families facing a tax increase compared with 19% of whites, this is mostly due to African American families being more likely to share the burden of childcare within the family and hence not benefit as much from Trump childcare credits. Batchelder said the effective tax increase for many millions of families would run into the thousands. While the poor will face tax increases, the Tax Policy Center research said the rich would received big tax cuts that get even bigger as you work up the income scale. The top 20% of earners would receive an average annual tax cut of $16,660 compared with an overall average cut of $2,940. The richest 1% will collect 47% of all the tax cuts – an average saving of $214,000. The 0.1% – the 117,000 households with incomes of more than $3.7m – would receive an average 2017 tax cut of $1.3m, a nearly 19% drop in tax they were due to pay in 2016. The tax savings of the super-rich will increase further in future, with the 0.1%’s estimated 2025 tax bill to fall by $1.5m. It is a stark contrast to Hillarious Clinton’s tax plan, which would have seen taxes rises for the super-wealthy. Under her plan, the top 1% would pay an extra $163,000 a year more on average, and would have made up 93% of all new tax revenue by 2025. Clinton and Trump promised very different tax plans during the election. Composite: Justin Sullivan/ Mike Segar/Getty/Reuters “Listening to Trump’s rhetoric, most Americans probably don’t realise at all the impact of Trump’s tax plan,” Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said. “Any way you slice it, the very best-off Americans will be the biggest beneficiaries. “If it looks bad now for middle-income families, those who turned out to vote for him, it’s only likely to get worse [with Trump as president]. It is very likely that they will end up poorer still. The most likely victims are middle- and low-income families.” Gardner said that under Trump, America will become even more divided between the rich and poor. “America is already very unequal, and his proposals would make income inequality a lot worse,” Gardner said. “This is obviously quite worrisome. If he rode to victory on a middle-income wave of support, those middle Americans will be very disappointed.” The inequality problem will be exacerbated by Trump’s plan to scrap inheritance tax – which he refers to as “the death tax”. The 40% inheritance tax is currently only charged on personal estate worth more than $5.45m and joint estates of $10.9m – sums so large that it only affects less than two in 1,000 Americans. Trump has proposed repealing the tax entirely. While Clinton, pushed by Bernie Sanders’ strong stance on the issue, had suggested lowering the threshold to $3.5m and increasing the rate to 65% for the super-wealthy. “It’s hard to think of a tax change that will have a more detrimental effect on inequality,” Garnder said. “There is no question that this will lead to a perpetual income elite – hardly the thing that Trump voters would have wanted. This will lead to a new era of dynastic wealth.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/trump-tax-plan-cuts-wealthy-low-income-inequality B/A

Yup I've met a couple of them too... I love the south!!! B/A

It is his real name a combination of Jonathon and Anthony. Walker... Actually I have met several Johnny Walkers since moving here.

Jonthony... I live ten minutes from there and it has been a very sad couple of days... They have reported he only got his Commercial license in April and has had several complaints about speeding with kids on the bus... I went to give blood because 23 kids were rushed to the hospital several are critical. It took 2 hours to donate. Chattanooga is a very giving city. B/A

Sure. My customers are begging for workers. If you want a job you can get one today. My mortgage rate is certainly lower. It was 6.5% in 2001 now it is 3.75%. Huge savings per month. My credit card is 9.9% much better than the 15% it was in 2000. Advertising sales a leading indicator of the economy have been up. You see when the economy is bad businesses do not advertise. It is one of the first industries to take a hit when things are going bad. However that hasn't been the case in the last 8 years. The last 8 years have been very robust. As I said, personally my lifestyle has improved immensely under Obama. I'm sorry if that isn't the case for you and your family. I don't want to confuse with this answer, but many things have been good in the last 8 years. Below are some links showing the growth. Following that are some forward looking statistics that show things may be changing. The new administration needs to move slowly or they could really rock the boat. Tax cuts sound great, but it depends who gets them. Pushing out cheap labor sounds great, but Americans will not work as cheap and that will cause prices to rise. Deregulation of Wall Street sounds great, but look what happened last time Wall Street made their own rules. Here is a quote from an advertising statistic company... to see the whole report you have to have a VIP membership. But this gives you an idea. "Annual growth of advertising, sales promotion and sponsorship spending in North America from 2010 to 2016. This graph depicts the annual growth of advertising, sales promotion and sponsorship spending in North America from 2010 to 2014 and a forecast for 2015. In 2010, advertising spending grew by two percent. It is expected that it will grow by 3.8 percent in 2015." https://www.statista.com/statistics/196872/change-in-advertising-sales-promotion-sponsorship-since-2008/ Auto sales are up... Here is a snippet, followed by link from February.. "Ford, the number-two US automaker, scored a 20.4 percent year-over-year increase in February, with 217,192 vehicles sold, well above expectations" https://www.yahoo.com/news/ford-fiat-chrysler-us-sales-jump-february-gm-172647882.html?ref=gs Housing sales hit 10 year high "October existing home sales added to September's rebound, rising to the highest annualized pace in nearly a decade." http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/11222016_existing_homes.asp The sad thing is advertising has begun to slow down. I'm already seeing people cutting back. Sometimes that is simply because of it being an election year. I'm hoping that's all that it is, again as a leading indicator, advertising can tell us the future of the economy. The other thing that is scary is how the stock markets are overbought, meaning there could be a big selloff. I personally am moving a lot of my investments out of stocks over to bonds and metals. JMHO The above articles are talking about the last few years... The articles below are looking forward. Things are slowing down. Some updates... Auto industry slowing down After six years of growth, he says, there is effectively no more pent-up demand, so "we are headed toward a stable market for U.S. auto sales, not a growing market." http://www.autonews.com/article/20161121/RETAIL06/311219939/nada-economist-says-auto-sales-will-cruise-along Advertising is slowing Internet ad revenue may have reached $17 billion in the first half of the year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, but the rate of growth declined between 2011 and 2012. https://gigaom.com/2012/10/11/internet-advertising-still-a-growth-business-but-pace-slows/ Housing is a big question "Demand from first-time buyers has increased with household formation and is outpacing supply, leading to significant price increases and affordability challenges for entry-level buyers. Home purchase affordability will be constrained further if the recent pickup in mortgage rates persists, which would present a downside risk to our forecast of housing and mortgage activity." http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/609164.html Blame whomever you'd like, that's your right. But don't deny things improved from the Bush years. Let's just hope the change coming is really for you and me and not the multinationals. B/A

Good question... I guess we'll see if this shows up in the news anywhere. Let's hope this time it is really happening.... Go RVvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv B/A

I don't know... The Obama years were definitely better the "W" years. My bank account proves that. Let's hope President Elect Trump can keep the good times rolling. JMHO B/A

I know it is a scam and very amusing. Did you see the story I posted about fake news... It is an interesting story of who is putting out the most fake news. It is funny, because I saw a few of those fake news stories posted right here on DV... And that is the truth. You may have noticed I dropped out of the on going discussions about the election. I too am going to sit back and wait to see how things go. B/A

"Mr, Trump says the best opportunity available is a new program called Explosive Payday which teaches regular people to take advantage of this massive internet opportunity quickly and easily, and even places them with real online companies that pay them for their time completing simple tasks." I guess, this endorsement is more fake news... B/A

Just how partisan is Facebook's fake news? We tested it Far more spin and fake news is pushed at Trump supporters. By Mark Hachman Senior Editor, PCWorld | Nov 21, 2016 3:00 AM PT It was only a few minutes after my imaginary Trump supporter “Todd White” began exploring Facebook that he learned filmmaker Michael Moore was staging a coup d’etat against president-elect Donald Trump. Todd also learned that Trump won the popular vote. And that there were people paid to protest at Trump rallies. None of that is true, of course. That’s the sort of fake news that’s being disseminated by Facebook—bogus content that many believe was written by partisan groups to influence the election. But how do Facebook users end up seeing it? We decided to test who’s seeing this partisan fake news, who’s supplying it, and just how obvious it is. We began our investigation last Monday, as the fake-news controversy gained momentum—and Facebook and Google began blocking sites that traffic in disinformation from their respective advertising networks. We set up two Facebook accounts, one favoring Hillarious Clinton, and the other supporting Trump, then let Facebook recommend a series of news pages. In effect, we were asking Facebook to be our news service. Then we sat back and watched the news roll in. We looked closely at each post to determine whether it was real news, fake news, or something in between. Fake news is real problem Questions about Facebook’s role in spreading fake news were raised almost as soon as Trump shocked the world with his victory. BuzzFeed and other news sites began publishing reports about how a small town in Macedonia turned fake election news into a cottage industry. It appears the authors behind the fake news reports had no partisan agenda. They were just in it for the money. One creator claimed he could make $10,000 per week in ad revenue from stories that were shared among Trump supporters. Mark Hachman Fake or just partisan? The Macedonians may still be at it, because our Republican supporter, Todd White, was flooded with partisan posts. Worse, over a little more than two days, we counted 10 such posts in his feed that were fake, most accusing Democrats or their supporters of illegal activity. In all, White was clearly exposed to more spin than his Democratic counterpart, Chris Smith, who saw exactly zero fake news stories. But the problem goes beyond fake news. As Facebook’s feeds prove, we live in a “post-truth” world, where the line between partisan spin and outright lies is practically indistinguishable. What our Democratic persona, “Chris Smith,” sees when using Facebook. Table of Contents Letting Facebook choose the news Into the cesspool Fake news and propaganda Major change is needed at Facebook Fake posts Show More Letting Facebook choose the news To conduct our experiment, I opened Google Chrome in Incognito mode, then created two Gmail addresses. I then used both email addresses to register for new Facebook accounts—“Chris Smith” for Clinton, and “Todd White” for Trump. To eliminate hidden biases, I registered them both as white males, each with the same birthday. For Smith, I then Liked three people: Hillarious Clinton, Joe Biden, and President Barack Obama. For White, I Liked Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Newt Gingrich. Facebook has a large, visually interesting page suggesting Pages to follow. I then asked Facebook to recommend Pages to follow. Facebook provides two mechanisms for doing this: a “Like Pages” page in the left nav bar, which provides a visually compelling tiled layout of suggested Pages, and a similar list of suggested Pages next to the Pokes section. For each of my test profiles, I systematically selected the first, fourth, and seventh from the list of Pages next to Pokes. Then I added the first seven suggestions from Like Pages later that night, for a total of 10 across both avatars. Note that I deliberately didn’t Like pages like alt-right news service Breitbart.com, as I wanted to see if other pages would reference them. (Surprisingly, they often didn’t.) I was testing what Facebook offered my avatars, more than what these avatars might actively solicit. I also made no friends on the service—again, to test Facebook, not other humans. Facebook suggests Pages like these to follow. For someone new to the system, this is what they might click upon. Note that some conservative sites snuck in. Smith ended up with Pages like “Exposing Facts to the Misinformed Viewers of Fox News,” “Hillarious Clinton, Democratic News,” and “Rude and Rotten Republicans.” White landed such gems as “Hillarious for Prison,” “TRUMP TRAIN,” and “I hate Hippies and their stupid light bulbs.” I was putting my trust in Facebook. Would Facebook show me Pages that believed in trusted news sources? Or would Facebook toss me into the maelstrom of partisan news, some of it fake? What do you think? Into the cesspool Immediately I saw some clear distinctions between my two Facebook users, Smith and White. For one, Trump fan White saw many, many more posts compared to Smith: 129 versus just 41, over the course of about two and a half days. Granted, this was partially due to the whims of the Pages recommended by Facebook. It’s likely (or at least possible) that White’s news sources are more prolific posters. Nonetheless, it appears that conservative Facebook viewers are being flooded with posts. Another post in the conservative Facebook feed. Second, rarely did conservative Pages reference so-called mainstream media. Instead, they tended to regurgitate blog posts from other sites, Facebook posts, and right-wing blogs—sites like AmericasFreedomFighters.com and USASupreme.com. Facebook didn’t show my avatar any outright hate sites, though Photoshopped images of a “sickly” Hillarious Clinton certainly wandered into that territory. Third, although Clinton lost, my pro-Clinton page was bombarded not by anti-Trump messaging, but rather pro-Clinton messaging. The pro-Trump page was split about 50-50, I’d say, between pro-Trump posts and insults directed at Clinton and other Democrats and liberals. The question that we set out to answer, though, was how many partisan fake news stories we saw. In our study, 10—and that’s 10 too many if you believe that Facebook should be held to accuracy standards. Fake news and propaganda As I skimmed through each post on the feeds of Smith and White, I tried to characterize each post: Was it politically neutral? Was it clearly partisan? Fake? Or simply a non-political post that would qualify as none of the above? One of the posts in the feed of “Chris Smith,” our Democratic Facebook user. A significant number of posts on both sides were largely neutral, or slanted so slightly that I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Of those, Smith, the Democrat, saw 12 political posts, 23 slanted posts, and six posts which I characterized as non-political. None were fake. White, the Republican, saw 33 political posts and 79 slanted posts—many more posts in general, but a higher percentage of slanted posts within his overall News Feed. Facebook also chose to show White the 10 fake posts, as well as seven that weren’t political. We’ve listed all the fake posts we found at the end of the article. While a couple of them were obviously faked, most were plausible—just as plausible as stories that I thought were false, and turned out to be completely true. Will carrying a medical marijuana card prevent you from owning a gun? Sounds incredible, but yes, that story is true. Then there’s the piece on Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver, who apparently advocated violence after Trump’s election. That’s true as well, and he apologized for it on Nov. 15. Discovering that such outlandish stories are indeed factual helps reinforce the idea that other seemingly dubious articles can be factual, too. Is this factual? Depends on how you see it. But it’s the stories that fall somewhere in between that can be confusing. Is Paul Ryan really trying to get rid of Medicare? He may not have said so explicitly, but if you’re a Democrat, you probably believe he is. Picture “memes” add another element: They may not explicitly tell an untruth, but they can imply as much through innuendo. Most of Facebook’s political posts fall somewhere in this middle ground between truth and fiction, and it can be exhausting trying to label them as one or the other. “People Also Shared” posts typically either confirm the post above or simply take the topic in new directions. In this case, we weren’t able to confirm or deny the first story that Clinton was too intoxicated to speak on Election Night, so it went into our “slanted” category. One important problem is that Facebook doesn’t just show you posts from Pages you’ve Liked. The site also suggests posts that other users have shared, as well as what it calls Related Articles. In both cases, that means certain posts are “reinforced” by other similar posts placed directly beneath them, with stories that seemingly back up what’s being shared as actual truth. (Occasionally, Facebook also promotes fact-checking sites like Snopes.com to either back up or debunk the story in question, but that’s far rarer.) The upshot, though, is that the post in question seems to be true, because of this apparent confirmation by other reports. Major change is needed at Facebook Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has scoffed at accusations that fake news affected the election. “Personally, I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way—I think is a pretty crazy idea,” Zuckerberg said on Nov. 11. Zuckerberg’s numbers may be right. But he seems to be conflating the volume of fake news with the impact of fake news, ignoring the power of half-truths, omissions, and outright lies to spread misinformation and confusion. Negativity—and half-truths—aren’t just confined to the conservative side. Even President Barack Obama has voiced his concern about fake news. Speaking at a November 18 press conference in Berlin during a visit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama remarked, “If we are not serious about facts and what’s true and what’s not—and particularly in an age of social media where so many people are getting their information in soundbites and snippets off their phones—if we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.” Facebook has not returned an emailed request for comment. Recent reports indicate the company is aware of the problem, but it may be struggling to address it while also distancing itself from earlier allegations of liberal bias. Facebook vice president of product management Adam Mosseri has acknowledged that the company’s efforts to verify stories don’t go far enough. “It’s important that we keep improving our ability to detect misinformation,” he said. “We’re committed to continuing to work on this issue and improve the experiences on our platform.” Most recently, over the weekend, Facebook said it would employ third-party fact-checkers to verify news posted on its site. This sounds like one of the Big Problems that Silicon Valley companies are forever setting out to solve. And it’s not going away. The clock’s ticking on the midterm elections, meaning Facebook has less than two years to make real changes around fake news. Fake posts Here’s a list of the fake news that Todd Smith, our fake GOP supporter, encountered while on Facebook: ”Soros Can Face Prison Under U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 115” Is George Soros planning the next American Revolution? Not really. ”Putin Soros in a Bind” Russian president Vladimir Putin does not have a warrant to arrest Soros. ”Woman Investigating Clinton Foundation CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING Just Found DEAD…” The source for this fake story was a Reddit post from someone with the username “billclintonisarap1st.” ”STILL PENDING! FINAL ELECTION 2016 NUMBERS: TRUMP WON BOTH POPULAR ( 62.9 M -62.2 M ) AND ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES ( 306-232)…HEY CHANGE.ORG, SCRAP YOUR LOONY PETITION NOW!” We saw this report twice. There are several sources that show this isn’t true; here’s one. ”Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: “I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump’s Rally” This isn’t true, according to the man who invented the hoax. ”Is Elizabeth Warren promoting Hillarious’s “Civil War?” She is not, nor is Clinton leading one. ”Donald Trump appoints Lord Voldemort as Chief of Staff” Cute idea, but not true. Also, there was this illustration: We would characterize what this picture implies as totally false. In this case, the story about Michael Moore seems fairly straightforward. Stating in the post that he’s involved in a coup d’etat, however, is false. Another slanted, partisan post in the conservative Facebook feed. In this case, what’s being communicated crosses the line into falsehood. ”‘Avengers’ director Josh Whedon suggests coup; Says Trump ‘cannot be allowed a term in office” The maker of Hollywood blockbusters is not leading an insurrection, either. Not totally fake, but almost certainly not true—especially after you click through to the page and parse what the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Avengers writer actually said. We didn’t receive any fake news on our imaginary Clinton supporter’s page. These stories do exist—but there are far fewer than the fake news from the Trump side. As the Macedonian writers of fake news told BuzzFeed, there’s not as much money in it. But here’s a smattering of what you can find on the Internet: ”Trump supporters call to boycott Pepsi over comments the CEO never made” Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi did not tell Trump supporters to “take their business elsewhere.” ”‘Lie Witness News’ Asks People About Donald Trump’s Fake White House Renovation Plans” This is openly fake news—Jimmy Kimmel’s “reports” about how Trump plans to redesign the White House. To comment on this article and other PCWorld content, visit our Facebook page or our Twitter feed.

EXPLOSIVE NEWS: A Message from Donald Trump

Shabs I can't believe you would joke about such a serious issue... I mean if they build the wall who is going to do our landscaping, janitorial jobs, farming, trash pick up? That would mean our new generation the "Me-llennials" might actually have to work... How will those twenty somethings deal with leaving mommy's safe haven and have to take an entry level position? Aren't they all supposed to start as CEOs? We are doomed. B/A

Learning from history, the S & P is showing us what may lay ahead for the economy... Think about your investments and 401Ks... It might be time to realign. B/A

And after the vent in 1996.... It took a little while but; After the relatively mild 1990 recession ended in early 1992, the country hit a belated unemployment rate peak of 7.8% in mid-1992. Job growth was initially muted by large layoffs among defense related industries.[1] However, payrolls accelerated in 1992 and experienced robust growth through the year 2000.[2] Predictions that the bubble would burst emerged during the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s. Predictions about a future burst increased following the October 27, 1997 mini-crash, in the wake of the Asian crisis. This caused an uncertain economic climate during the first few months of 1998. However conditions improved, and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates six times between June 1999 and May 2000 in an effort to cool the economy to achieve a soft landing. The burst of the stock market bubble occurred in the form of the NASDAQ crash in March 2000. Growth in gross domestic product slowed considerably in the third quarter of 2000 to the lowest rate since a contraction in the first quarter of 1992.[3] The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee has determined that a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March 2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession. The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that the expansion that began in March 1992ended in March 2001 and a recession began [1]. The expansion lasted almost 10 years, the longest in the NBER's chronology [2]. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization charged with determining economic recessions, the U.S. economy was in recession from March 2001 to November 2001 [3], a period of eight months at the beginning of President George W. Bush's term of office. However, economic conditions did not satisfy the common shorthand definition of recession, which is "a fall of a country's real gross domestic product in two or more successive quarters," and has led to some confusion about the procedure for determining the starting and ending dates of a recession. The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee (BCDC) uses monthly, rather than quarterly, indicators to determine peaks and troughs in business activity,[4] as can be seen by noting that starting and ending dates are given by month and year, not quarters. However, controversy over the precise dates of the recession led to the characterization of the recession as the "Clinton Recession" by Republicans, if it could be traced to the final term of President Bill Clinton. BCDC members suggested they would be open to revisiting the dates of the recession as newer and more definitive data became available.[5] In early 2004, NBER President Martin Feldstein said: "It is clear that the revised data have made our original March date for the start of the recession much too late. We are still waiting for additional monthly data before making a final judgment. Until we have the additional data, we cannot make a decision."[5] However, the NBER has since confirmed that the recession started in March 2001. From 2000 to 2001, the Federal Reserve, in a move to protect the economy from the overvalued stock market, made successive interest rate increases; while this may have initiated the readjustment, it is starkly contrasted with the severe, prolonged recession that would have occurred had the unsustainable growth continued unabated.[6] Using the stock market as an unofficial benchmark, a recession would have begun in March 2000 when the NASDAQ crashed following the collapse of the Dot-com bubble. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was relatively unscathed by the NASDAQ's crash until the September 11, 2001 attacks, after which the DJIA suffered its worst one-day point loss and biggest one-week losses in history up to that point. The market rebounded, only to crash once more in the final two quarters of 2002. In the final three quarters of 2003, the market finally rebounded permanently, agreeing with the unemployment statistics that a recession defined in this way would have lasted from 2001 through 2003. The Labor Department estimates that a net 1.735 million jobs were shed in 2001, with an additional net 508,000 lost during 2002. 2003 saw a small gain of a mere 105,000 jobs. Unemployment rose from 4.2% in February 2001 to 5.5% in November 2001, but did not peak until June 2003 at 6.3%, after which it declined to 5% by mid-2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession

So what followed this historic event? Here is what followed 2006 event The Great Recession of 2007–09 SEARCH THIS EVENT December 2007 - June 2009 by Robert Rich, Federal Reserve Bank of New York The Great Recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, which makes it the longest recession since World War II. Beyond its duration, the Great Recession was notably severe in several respects. Real gross domestic product (GDP) fell 4.3 percent from its peak in 2007Q4 to its trough in 2009Q2, the largest decline in the postwar era (based on data as of October 2013). The unemployment rate, which was 5 percent in December 2007, rose to 9.5 percent in June 2009, and peaked at 10 percent in October 2009. The financial effects of the Great Recession were similarly outsized: Home prices fell approximately 30 percent, on average, from their mid-2006 peak to mid-2009, while the S&P 500 index fell 57 percent from its October 2007 peak to its trough in March 2009. The net worth of US households and nonprofit organizations fell from a peak of approximately $69 trillion in 2007 to a trough of $55 trillion in 2009. As the financial crisis and recession deepened, measures intended to revive economic growth were implemented on a global basis. The United States, like many other nations, enacted fiscal stimulus programs that used different combinations of government spending and tax cuts. These programs included the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Federal Reserve’s response to the crisis evolved over time and took a number of nontraditional avenues. Initially, the Fed employed “traditional” policy actions by reducing the federal funds rate from 5.25 percent in September 2007 to a range of 0-0.25 percent in December 2008, with much of the reduction occurring in January to March 2008 and in September to December 2008. The sharp reduction in those periods reflected a marked downgrade in the economic outlook and the increased downside risks to both output and inflation (including the risk of deflation). With the federal funds rate at its effective lower bound by December 2008, the FOMC began to use its policy statement to provide forward guidance for the federal funds rate. The language made reference to keeping the rate at exceptionally low levels “for some time” (Board of Governors 2008) and then “for an extended period” (Board of Governors 2009a). This guidance was intended to provide monetary stimulus through lowering the term structure of interest rates, increasing inflation expectations (or decreasing prospects of deflation), and reducing real interest rates. With the recovery from the Great Recession slow and tenuous, the forward guidance was strengthened by providing more explicit conditionality on specific economic conditions such as “low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations” (Board of Governors 2009b). This was followed by the explicit calendar guidance in August 2011 of “exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013” and eventually by economic-threshold-based guidance for raising the funds rate from its zero lower bound, with the thresholds based on the unemployment rate and inflationary conditions (Board of Governors 2012). This forward guidance can be seen as an extension of the Federal Reserve’s traditional policy of affecting the current and future path of the funds rate. In addition to its forward guidance, the Fed pursued two other types of “nontraditional” policy actions during the Great Recession. One set of nontraditional policies can be characterized as credit easing programs that sought to facilitate credit flows and reduce the cost of credit, as discussed in more detail in “Federal Reserve Credit Programs during the Meltdown." Another set of non-traditional policies consisted of the large scale asset purchase (LSAP) programs. With the federal funds rate near zero, the asset purchases were implemented to help push down longer-term public and private borrowing rates. In November 2008, the Fed announced that it would purchase US agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and the debt of housing related US government agencies (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan banks).1 The choice of assets was partly aimed at reducing the cost and increasing the availability of credit for home purchases. These purchases provided support for the housing market, which was the epicenter of the crisis and recession, and also helped improve broader financial conditions. The initial plan had the Fed buying up to $500 billion in agency MBS and up to $100 billion in agency debt; this particular program was expanded in March 2009 and completed in 2010. In March 2009, the FOMC also announced a program to purchase $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities, which was completed in October 2009, just after the end of the Great Recession as dated by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Together, under these programs and their expansions (commonly called QE1), the Federal Reserve purchased approximately $1.75 trillion of longer-term assets, with the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet increasing by slightly less because some securities on the balance sheet were maturing at the same time. As of this writing in 2013, however, real GDP is only a little over 4.5 percent above its previous peak and the unemployment rate remains at 7.3 percent. With the federal funds rate at the zero bound and the current recovery slow and grudging, the Fed’s monetary policy strategy has continued to evolve in an attempt to stimulate the economy and fulfill its statutory mandate. Since the end of the Great Recession, the Fed has continued to make changes to its communication policies and to implement additional LSAP programs: a Treasuries-only purchase program of $600 billion in 2010-11 (commonly called QE2) and an outcome-based purchase program that began in September 2012 (in addition, there was a maturity extension program in 2011-12 where the Fed sold shorter-maturity Treasury securities and purchased longer-term Treasuries). Moreover, the increased focus on financial stability and regulatory reform, the economic side effects of the European sovereign debt crisis, and the limited prospects for global growth in 2013 and 2014 speak to how the aftermath of the Great Recession continues to be felt today.

The Dow Jones industrial average is on track to do something it has done only twice in the past 20 years. The blue-chip index, which has posted record closes for four straight sessions, had gained 8.6 percent year to date entering Wednesday's session, outperforming the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite, which were up 6.68 percent and 5.84 percent for the year, respectively. The last two times the Dow outperformed the S&P and Nasdaq in a year when all three were higher year to date were in 2006 and 1996. A large chunk of the Dow's rally came after Republican Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the U.S. presidential election over Hillarious Clinton. The index gained 3.79 percent between Election Day and Tuesday's close. Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial, said one of the main reasons for the Dow's sharp gains following the election is that the index leans more heavily toward financial and industrial stocks than the S&P and Nasdaq do. Those two sectors have outstripped most of the market since Election Day. "This is a Trump rally. On Election Day, institutional investors got caught on the wrong side, and you've seen them make major portfolio switches," he said. "The industrials and financials have led the rally in the Dow, and that has been due to [the possibility of] higher-growth policies." Shares of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, two Dow components, surged 17.65 percent and 14.06 percent, respectively, between Election Day and Tuesday's close. Dow (blue), S&P (green) and Nasdaq (violet) in 2016Source: FactSet — CNBC's Peter Schacknow contributed to this report.

Kaperoni November 18, 2016 Article: “Parliamentary Economy: project to delete the zeros from the currency has become impossible due to corruption” This kind of banter has been going on for years. It has been referred to as “political football” within Iraq. Fortunately for us this time, the CBI is under an SBA with the IMF that will dictate economic and banking reforms to move the economy forward. We just have to wait and see what that entails.

Now that's funny... I don't care who you are!!! B/A

Yup fit for a king... Or queen. B/A