Raising Social Security’s retirement age would slam low-wage workers yet again

A proposal by Sens. Angus King (I-ME) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 would be a massive benefit cut, particularly affecting low-wage workers. If Congress enacts it, millions more Social Security taxpayers would not live long enough to collect a cent in retirement benefits.

Raising Social Security’s retirement age would slam low-wage workers yet again

Related:

Social Security Solvency: Raised Retirement Age More Likely as Congress Fails to Compromise

We won’t be fooled again, say people of Pakistan

AUGUST 04: PAKISTAN JUSTICE MOVEMENT (PTI) PARTY SUPPORTERS HOLD A PROTEST LED BY FORMER PRIME MINISTER IMRAN KHAN AGAINST THE COALITION GOVERNMENT AND THE ELECTION COMMISSION AT FATMA JINNAH PARK IN THE F-9 REGION OF ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN ON AUGUST 04, 2022. (MUHAMMED SEMIH UĞURLU – ANADOLU AGENCY)

Politicians in Pakistan rise to power and fall from grace with alarming regularity, so much so that not a single prime minister has ever completed a full term in office. The one constant has been the genuine love and affection ordinary people have for the military. However, that could be about to change now that some inconvenient truths are beginning to surface in the increasingly clumsy attempts to silence Imran Khan.

We won’t be fooled again, say people of Pakistan

Exclusive: The Fugitive Who Tried to Spark a US-China War

Exclusive: The Fugitive Who Tried to Spark a US-China War

Guo’s intelligence handlers, Ma and Zhou, were allies of Ling Jihua, who was former President Hu Jintao’s chief of staff. The crucial link between Ma and Ling was provided by Sun Zhengcai, the former party secretary of Chongqing, also a Politburo member.

As we’ve seen, Zhou, Ling, and Sun all ended up in jail – targets of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. But, remarkably, not Guo – who according to former Chinese government officials was Ma’s MSS agent in charge of special ops overseas.

Guo’s job in 2012 was to sabotage the ascension of Xi by spreading an array of fake news in China and among the Chinese diaspora. That failed.

Nonetheless, Guo remained at work as an MSS agent until at least October 2021, according to well-placed Chinese sources. Considering his recent activities and the fact he was lavishly embraced by prominent US China hawks, it appears that his assignment was to cause maximum damage to US-China relations, arguably derailing them to a point of no return.

Steve Bannon & Guo Wengui.

Links behind paywalls (all but a few that I weren’t archived):

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Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates

The latest US GDP figures for second quarter of 2022 renewed the debate about whether the US economy was in a recession or not. Real GDP contracted in the second quarter of this year by a 0.9% annualised rate (or by 0.2% quarter over quarter). That meant the US economy had contracted for two successive quarters, and so ‘technically’ (by that definition) was in a recession. Real GDP is now up only 1.6% from Q2 2021. And business investment is slowing, up only 3.5% from this time last year, the slowest rate since the end of the COVID slump in 2020.

Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates

Redditors Are Furious at the SEC’s New Ad Campaign Portraying them as Idiot Investors

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 2, 2022 ~

Redditors at the subreddit Superstonk are posting obscenities directed at Gary Gensler, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), over the new ad campaign from the SEC that appears to target young Reddit investors as fools that do no research before investing, lose all their money, and deserve a whipped-cream pie in the face. (Yes, a young investor actually gets a whipped-cream pie in the face during two of the ads. See videos below.) CNBC ran one of the new SEC ads yesterday.

Redditors Are Furious at the SEC’s New Ad Campaign Portraying them as Idiot Investors