Why Black Friday is such a sign of the times As the middle class disappears, the rich go hiking and the poor fight over bargains.

By: Lloyd Alter –

Lining up for bargains, Thanksgiving 2015 (Photo: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

People are lining up today for bargains in many stores across America; Black Friday has even become an international phenomenon, pushed in Canada and the U.K. where it isn’t even a holiday. Some say the name comes from when stores are finally in the black, but according to some sources, (including MNN:)

“’Black Friday’ is the name which the Philadelphia Police Department has given to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. It is not a term of endearment to them. ‘Black Friday’ officially opens the Christmas shopping season in centre city, and it usually brings massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to closing.”

That was back in the ’60s when everyone hit the department stores. Much has changed in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the retail world. Some might look at the crowds fighting for bargains as a sign that people have too much money to waste, but perhaps there’s another way to look at it: People are chasing bargains because they have less disposable income than ever before. In fact, the census data bear this out:

U.S. Census data show the middle class is shrinking. (Photo: U.S. census via New York Times)

For years up to 2000, the middle class shrunk because people were moving to the upper income group; then the middle class continued shrinking and the lower income group started increasing. The share of households in that middle class dropped from 55 percent in the ‘70s to 43 percent today. And as the New York Times notes, “Never before — since the Census Bureau’s data on household income began, in 1967 — has there been a decline in the share of households that qualify as high income.”

On Business Insider, Hayley Peterson describes how those middle income people “haven’t gotten a raise since 1999.”

After adjusting for inflation, U.S. median household income, at $53,657 in 2014, is still 6.5% lower than pre-recession levels in 2007, and 7.2% lower than its peak in 1999, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

This is having a big effect on how we shop and what we buy. There is a lot of really expensive stuff at the high end, and everyone else is chasing bargains and choosing cheaper brands. Middle-of-the-road brands are getting hurt. The head of Hershey’s called it “consumer bifurcation” (or as Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing explains, that’s “plutocrat-speak for “everyone is broke except the 1 percent.”)

While overall consumer confidence is trending up, lower income consumers continue to be fragile as income and wage growth has been minimal. Higher income and more confident consumers are driving premium growth, while cost-conscious consumers are driving the value segment.

Starre Vartan writes that “now that we can shop online, and we know the importance of shopping locally, and even buying less for the holidays … Black Friday seems like a lot of stress that’s just not worth it.” But lots of low-income people can’t easily shop online. They don’t have credit or they can’t be home for special deliveries.

It’s likely that Black Friday is going through its own “consumer bifurcation” — the upper income groups take REI’s advice and go outside and play, while everyone else fights over cheap TVs.

Related topics: Holiday, Thanksgiving

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The Turkey-Russia Confrontation Reminds Us: War Is Too Important to Be Left to Generals

The Associated Press

by VIRGIL

The first thing to remember about the Turkish downing of a Russian fighter-jet is that it could just as easily have happened to an American aircraft. Yes, the situation in Syria is that complex; there’s plenty of risk to go around—and that’s before anyone starts putting “boots on the ground.”

Today, in the skies over Syria, the warplanes of at least half-a-dozen countries are flying combat missions: the US, Russia, Turkey, Israel, France, and, of course, Syria.

Air-traffic-control is hard enough to manage even in peacetime; it’s infinitely harder in a combat theater, where the various players have different objectives, as well as various levels of hostility, toward one another.

It’s worth noting that Russia and Turkey are historic enemies: They have fought no fewer than 12 wars over the last five centuries. So it wouldn’t take much to get them into a thirteenth conflict.

And now we have the casus belli, if the Russians want it: the downing of the Russian airplane. Moscow’s leader, Vladimir Putin, is plenty mad: He called the shoot-down “a stab in the back committed by accomplices of terrorists,” adding, “Today’s tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations.”

Moreover, since Turkey is a member of NATO, a fight between Turkey and Russia would technically drag in the US and the 26 other NATO members. Why? Because under Article Five of the NATO treaty, an attack on one member-country is an attack on all.

In the midst of this high-stakes poker-ing, it’s a challenge to remember that the ostensible mission of all the countries involved is destroying ISIS. Indeed, any conflict among the air-powers is good news for the terrorist state, because if the big players fall into conflict with each other, then the decapitators of Raqqa can continue to do their evil thing.

So, for the sake of humanity—and to exact appropriate punishment on the masterminds of the Paris attacks, as well as other attacks—it’s best if Turkey and Russia step back from the brink of a confrontation that, at best, is a distraction and, at worst, could escalate into a major calamity.

But of course, we have to be realistic: In the current superheated environment, it will be hard for either Russia’s Putin or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan to back down. Once again, this is how new wars start, and we already have an old war, on ISIS, that we need to win. One war is enough.

For the rest of us, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that there are well-established ways of dealing with this sort of crisis. The bad news is that they require “leading from the front,” as opposed to “leading from behind.” And so President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, who have been passive to the extreme in the fight against ISIS—because the only “fight” that gets them energized is “climate change”—will have to rouse themselves to and convene a true council of war.

That is, all the big outside players—the US, Russia, Turkey, Israel, and France—would have to get together and coordinate their combat missions, at least enough to stay out of each other’s way. And yes, to the extent that the Syrian regime has air assets, either in the form of airplanes or anti-aircraft missiles, it would be helpful to have Damascus, too, as part of the parley.

Two centuries ago, the brilliant French diplomat Talleyrand declared, “War is too important to be left to generals.” That is, generals, who tend to take the approach of, “Let’s knock the [bleep] out of the other guy,” are not that useful when the issue is channeling anger in a very specific direction—in this case, solely against ISIS.

So today, what’s needed, at the highest level, are purposeful politicos, who understand that Russia vs. Turkey is an unfortunate and unnecessary sideshow, distracting from the main mission—namely, annihilating ISIS.

To be sure, many will object to such a “summit conference.” As noted, the Russians and the Turks hate each other; the US doesn’t like the Russians; the Muslim powers loathe the state of Israel; and so on. So of course, it would be a challenge to get all the players around a table, refocused on the anti-ISIS mission.

Indeed, the situation is urgent, because if anyone’s plan for destroying ISIS includes ground troops, then the downside of making a mistake becomes all the more acute. “Ground-pounders,” after all, are far more vulnerable than “fly-boys.”

Once again, there’s little chance that Obama is capable of doing any of this diplomatic work—as we know, he would rather be smearing Americans. So perhaps one of the other countries will step in to mediate, cajoling the sextet of powers into some sort of working arrangement.

But let’s not give up hope on American leadership, post-Obama. And in the meantime, it would be nice to see one or more of the Republican presidential hopefuls show that they have a bit of Talleyrand in them.

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National Security, Middle East

 

An ISIS defector explained a key reason people continue joining the group

By Jeremy Bender

(Amwal al Ghad)
ISIS militants march in a military parade.

Despite ISIS’s claims of ruling over a Islamic “caliphate” in line with Sharia law, a large number of the group’s fighters joined for reasons having little to do with religion, according to a defector from the group that The Daily Beast’s Michael Weiss interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey.

Instead, people are joining the organization because they are desperate for money and are struggling to find a way to survive in Syria, where four years of civil war have decimated the economy.

The ISIS defector, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Khaled, spoke with Weiss about the group’s internal dynamics, and what it was like to live under ISIS’s rule.

According to Abu Khaled, a large number of people are joining ISIS because they need money. After joining the militants, people are paid in US dollars instead of Syrian liras. Abu Khaled said that ISIS also runs its own currency exchanges.

ISIS members receive additional incentives to fight for the group. “I rented a house, which was paid for by ISIS,” Abu Khaled, who worked for ISIS’s internal-security forces and “provided training for foreign operatives,” told Weiss. “It cost $50 per month. They paid for the house, the electricity. Plus, I was married, so I got an additional $50 per month for my wife. If you have kids, you get $35 for each. If you have parents, they pay $50 for each parent. This is a welfare state.”

And those financial benefits are not just limited to the organization’s fighters. According to Abu Khaled, any member of ISIS, ranging from construction workers to doctors, receives similar compensation. In war-torn Syria, these salaries are a powerful lure for people who might not otherwise be able to support their families — or for people just hoping to get rich.

“I knew a mason who worked construction. He used to get 1,000 lira per day. That’s nothing,” Abu Khaled told Weiss. “Now he’s joined ISIS and gets 35,000 lira—$100 for himself, $50 for his wife, $35 for his kids. He makes $600 to $700 per month. He gave up masonry. He’s just a fighter now, but he joined for the income.”

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(Reuters)
Other Syrians who have fled from ISIS’s rule have corroborated Abu Khaled’s reports, confirming that one of the only ways to accumulate wealth and status under ISIS’s rule is by joining the organization. Yassin al-Jassem, a Syrian refugee from near ISIS’s de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria,shared his experience with The Washington Post.”There is no work, so you have to join them in order to live,” al-Jassem told the Post. “So many local people have joined them. They were pushed into Daesh by hunger.”

According to Newsweek, there is a widening gap in living standards for those under ISIS rule. Members of the organization have access to food, free medical care, and desirable housing. In contrast, people who aren’t ISIS members suffer under a barely functioning economy with rapidly increasing prices.

ISIS can afford to pay people seeking to join its ranks through four main sources of income: oil, the sale of looted antiquities, taxation, and kidnapping ransoms.

The militant group either controls or has an operational presence around a number of oil wells in Iraq and in the majority of oil-producing areas in Syria. This allows the group to earn a steady income from oil production and smuggling that helps it to continue its daily operations.

The New York Times estimates that ISIS can make upward of $40 million a month through oil-related activities. In a bid to cut the group’s income, the US conducted its first airstrikes against ISIS oil trucks on November 16.

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(REUTERS/Stringer)
Residents watch militant Islamist fighters taking part in a military parade along the streets of Syria’s northern Raqqa province on June 30, 2014.

ISIS’s main source of income is significantly more difficult for the US and other coalition partners to target by air. According to Foreign Policy, ISIS makes the majority of its money through extortion and taxation of people living under the group’s rule.

ISIS taxes nearly every possible economic activity, with the revenue ultimately covering the expenses of waging continuous war along multiple fronts. Foreign Policy notes that taxes are put in place for militants who loot archaeological sites. Non-Muslims must pay religious taxes, and all ISIS subjects pay a base welfare and salary tax in support of the fighters. All vehicles passing through ISIS territory — which may carry the only food available to those living under ISIS control — must pay taxes often totaling hundreds of dollars.

This ad hoc war economy means that ISIS has little money to spend on improving the lives of those who are forced to live under its rule. But as Abu Khaled’s account confirms, it still finds the money for conducting military operations and incentivizing militants to join the group.

That money and the other benefits that ISIS fighters receive means that Syrians join ISIS out of desperation — and not necessarily out of religious or ideological conviction.

Pamela Engel contributed to this report.

NOW WATCH: President Obama: Syrian refugee rhetoric is a ‘potent recruitment tool for ISIL’

 

Dalai Lama: Stop praying for Paris — humans created this problem and humans must solve it

by BETHANIA PALMA MARKUS

 

Don’t pray for Paris — work for peace, he told Deutsche Welle, a German broadcasting company.

“We cannot solve this problem only through prayers,” the spiritual leader said. “I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place.”

He added his hopes that the record violence of the 20th Century doesn’t continue to bleed into the current one.

“We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony,” he said. “If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody’s interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments.”

In what the Friendly Atheist described as sounding like Humanism, the Dalai Lama also said that much of the violence is over superficial matters.

“Furthermore, the problems that we are facing today are the result of superficial differences over religious faiths and nationalities,” he told DW. “We are one people.”

He also said he was leaving it up to the people of Tibet whether they wanted to continue having Dalai Lamas serve as leaders in the future.

“If the people think that this institution is no longer relevant, it should be abolished. I am no more involved in political matters,” he said. “I am only concerned about Tibet’s well-being.”

 

More pics of ballsy topless Lebanese girls burning #ISIS flags…

You have to respect this kind of anger and self-assertiveness. The rest of the world may be afraid of ISIS, but these girls aren’t…

 

A French Soldier’s View of US Soldiers

DoD Photo

A French Soldier’s View of US Soldiers in Afghanistan.

What follows is an account from a French ISAF soldier that was stationed with American Warfighters in Afghanistan sometime in the past 6 years. This was copied and translated from an editorial French newspaper.  Grammatical errors have been kept in-tact to preserve authenticity.

A NOS FRERES D’ARMES AMERICAINS

“We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while – they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army – one that the movies brought to the public as series showing “ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events”. Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.

They have a terribly strong American accent – from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever State they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other. Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine- they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them – we are wimps, even the strongest of us – and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.

And they are impressive warriors! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark – only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered – everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.Here we discover America as it is often depicted: their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley.

And combat? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all – always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks: they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the enemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting: they just charge! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later – which cuts any pussyfooting short.Honor, motherland – everything here reminds of that: the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location: books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions: the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.

(This is the main area where I’d like to comment. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Kipling knows the lines from Chant Pagan: ‘If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white/remember it’s ruin to run from a fight./ So take open order, lie down, sit tight/ And wait for supports like a soldier./ This, in fact, is the basic philosophy of both British and Continental soldiers. ‘In the absence of orders, take a defensive position.’ Indeed, virtually every army in the world. The American soldier and Marine, however, are imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other ‘incident’, the American force will simply go, counting on firepower and SOP to carry the day.

This is one of the great strengths of the American force in combat and it is something that even our closest allies, such as the Brits and Aussies (that latter being closer by the way) find repeatedly surprising. No wonder is surprises the hell out of our enemies.)

We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is – from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.

To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America’s army’s deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers”.

We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is – from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.

To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America’s army’s deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers”.

Everyone complains about the quality of ‘the new guys.’ Don’t. The screw-ups of this modern generation are head and shoulders above the ‘high-medium’ of any past group. Including mine.So much of ‘The scum of the earth, enlisted for drink.’

This is ‘The Greatest Generation’ of soldiers.

They may never be equaled.

Original Article in French HERE

 

Syria Op-Ed: Talking to Assad is Necessary, But It Does Not Make Him “Respectable”

by Scott Lucas

PHOTO: President Assad with US Secretary of State John Kerry

 

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When politicians insist that negotiations about Syria’s future must include talking to Bashar al-Assad, do they make him respectable?

That depends on your definition of “respectable”.

Does talking mean that politicians acknowledge him as an essential player in any effort to resolve the Syrian crises? Yes.

Does talking mean that they accept him as the legitimate President of Syria? Definitely not. Assad is going to be involved in any transition, but his personal destiny is another story.

In 2012, about 100 states already declared Assad to be an illegitimate representative of Syria. Since then, the President has been politically isolated, except for the ties to Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah on which he depends.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offensive — both in diplomacy and military intervention — is a new development in the intractable 4 1/2-year conflict. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that the West would have to talk to Assad to resolve the crisis made headlines, but she was only following up on the statement of US Secretary of State John Kerry who said that Assad’s removal would not have to be immediate. Even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a visceral foe of his Syrian counterpart, said that Assad could be part of a transitional process.

None of this will make Bashar al-Assad respectable, but international politics are driven by interests and rarely by morals. It is in the interest of many players to find a solution for the Syrian conflict – or at least move towards it, and the announcement of possible talks with Assad simply reflects that reality. As unbearable as it may appear to talk to Assad — the President who is responsible for the majority of the 300,000 dead and 11 million displaced Syrians — on equal terms, there is no alternative.

As uncertain as all variables in the Syrian conflict are, one thing is certain: There will be no development towards a silencing of weapons as long as Assad can call himself “Syrian President”. But holding discussions with someone is not equivalent to supporting him.

Those talks will not take place in isolation from the battlefield. Asked how Riyadh would respond to Russian airstrikes, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said, “You’ll see.“

Whether that is going to be an increase in the supply of arms and financial aid to Syria’s rebels or more radical steps such as circumventing the embargo on anti-aircraft missiles is guesswork. However, it is certain that those powers backing the opposition will strengthen its military capacities in some way. Already that supply has helped rebels blunt the multi-front regime offensive — supported by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iranian-led units, and Russian air cover — with TOW anti-tank missiles, inflicting significant casualties on a Syrian military which lacks manpower.

The military pressure on the Assad regime is not likely to decrease, but that only bolsters the necessity in the long-term of negotiations to ensure the survival of military and economic groups who are currently propping up Assad.

In early September, the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, presented a plan for a “Transitional Governing Body“ including representatives from the government, the opposition, and civil society. Assad could take the role of a “ceremonial Head of State“, but without executive powers, while 120 members of his inner circle would be barred from public office.

Russia, Iran, and the opposition all prevented consideration of the plan. However, the political dynamics might be different if the proposal came from the Syrian business and military elites.

Assad’s rule is based on the binding of the existence of those elites to the President’s survival. But restarting dialogue could send a signal to those elites that Assad is not essential for their future, and conversely that failure to distance themselves from Bashar could be their demise.

This would not be the first time in history that an effective coup was spurred by the urge to survive among the elites. For that to happen in Syria, these groups need the assurance of diplomatic talks. Otherwise the elites will be stuck, for better or worse, with Assad. And for the foreseeable future, everyone else will be stuck as well.