cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20782694

I posted on Facebook about hurricane Helene hitting Asheville North Carolina and how climate change resulted in one of the most severe storms and disasters we have ever seen in American history. This public school teacher in Florida proceeded to message me privately to tell me that climate change is fake, and how I need to get real because climate change supposedly had nothing to do with Western North Carolina looking like the setting for the next season of Fallout TV series. There's no other way to put it, honestly. I have seen so many pictures and videos of the damage, it is simply astonishing. I have never seen something so gruesome and horrific in my whole life...

It's honestly crazy that there are teachers, who are responsible for educating other people, and this is the kind of stuff that they are telling people.

Joe Biden has called off a four-day trip to Germany this week that had been intended to culminate in a summit to discuss Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan” for Ukraine.

The White House said on Tuesday evening that the president would stay at home “to oversee preparations for and the response” to Hurricane Milton, which is expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday.

It was not clear how Biden’s absence would affect the planned summit, the first time world leaders were due to gather at the Ramstein US airbase, normally the location of a regular meeting of defence ministers to discuss military aid for Kyiv.

While it is true that the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the nonprofit that helps manage the path and the lands surrounding it, has advised hikers to stay off the southernmost 865 miles, or its lower third, it is not true that those miles are destroyed. Sources I spoke to talked of toppled trees, down branches, and flooding.

What are lemmy's favorite video channels for more depth then you get from average news and television sources?

Prerun is one that comes to mind as he digs, thinks, and explains, and is willing to say he's wrong. Business Insider is another one that has a great number of in depth topics, even if not quite as much as one might want sometimes. DW is another. RealLifeLore also seems to some great explaining. LegalEagle similar.

All of these are debatable to a greater or lesser degree, but I'm interested in alternative sources. What else is out there? What platform? Why?

Harris entered August with more money than Trump, and managed to raise more than she spent over the month. Trump’s campaign, by contrast, spent more than it raised despite far fewer expenses. Her campaign reported taking in $190 million; his, just shy of $45 million.

The vice president’s campaign outspent Trump $174 million to $61 million in August. But Harris’ preexisting cash advantage and superior fundraising mean that she ended the month with $235 million, $100 million more than Trump.

...

Trump is also relying heavily on outside groups, including for campaign activities that most campaigns have traditionally conducted in-house, such as canvassing.

He benefited from more outside spending on his behalf in August than Harris did — $163 million to $104 million, according to FEC independent expenditure filings.

One pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., reported $25 million newly raised in August, including $10 million from Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks and $5 million from Paul Singer, a major GOP donor who was once critical of Trump. Several other groups that reported major spending on Trump’s behalf in August, including the Elon Musk-linked America PAC, don’t report their donors until October.

Two pro-Harris super PACs, FF PAC and American Bridge, respectively reported $36 million and $21 million raised in August. Much of that money came funneled through nonprofits, so the actual donors behind that money are not known. The largest individual donations to the groups included $3 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz to FF PAC and $2.5 million from longtime Democratic donor Deborah Simon to American Bridge.

So lots of numbers and a bit hard to track it in this article they way they reference, they need a table. An amazing amount of money for monthly numbers, even this late in the campaign.

Employers who force staff to return to the office five days a week have been called the “dinosaurs of our age” by one of the world’s leading experts who coined the term “presenteeism”.

Sir Cary Cooper, a professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Manchester’s Alliance Manchester Business School, said employers imposing strict requirements on staff to be in the office risked driving away talented workers, damaging the wellbeing of employees and undermining their financial performance.

Rostov-on-Don hit again? Anyone have links to visuals?

Trump has the magic touch to juice turnout and excite Republicans in a way that his imitators do not. In 2018 and 2022, the two elections in the Trump era when the head honcho was not on the ballot, pro-Trump Republican candidates did poorly, running below expectations and losing winnable races. Meanwhile, even when Trump lost in 2020, he overperformed in public polling.

It’s an interesting puzzle: Many of Trump’s ideas are largely unpopular with voters; without his charisma, his ideological allies are left with policy positions like abortion bans that most Americans don’t really like. It’s Trump’s personality that keeps him happily ensconced at the head of the party.

The result is that candidates like Vance up and down state ballots try to build on Trump’s political legacy without being able to capture his personal one.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.one/post/15434778

Krugman chimes in on US national debt

Alternative link: https://archive.ph/ce08r

"Specifically, let me make three points. First, while $34 trillion is a very large figure, it’s a lot less scary than many imagine if you put it in historical and international context. Second, to the extent debt is a concern, making debt sustainable wouldn’t be at all hard in terms of the straight economics; it’s almost entirely a political problem. Finally, people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites — the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal.

How scary is the debt? It’s a big number, even if you exclude debt that is basically money that one arm of the government owes to another — debt held by the public is still around $27 trillion. But our economy is huge, too. Today, debt as a percentage of G.D.P. isn’t unprecedented, even in America: It’s roughly the same as it was at the end of World War II. It’s considerably lower than the corresponding number for Japan right now and far below Britain’s debt ratio at the end of World War II. In none of these cases was there anything resembling a debt crisis. ..."

Alternative link: https://archive.ph/ce08r

"Specifically, let me make three points. First, while $34 trillion is a very large figure, it’s a lot less scary than many imagine if you put it in historical and international context. Second, to the extent debt is a concern, making debt sustainable wouldn’t be at all hard in terms of the straight economics; it’s almost entirely a political problem. Finally, people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites — the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal.

How scary is the debt? It’s a big number, even if you exclude debt that is basically money that one arm of the government owes to another — debt held by the public is still around $27 trillion. But our economy is huge, too. Today, debt as a percentage of G.D.P. isn’t unprecedented, even in America: It’s roughly the same as it was at the end of World War II. It’s considerably lower than the corresponding number for Japan right now and far below Britain’s debt ratio at the end of World War II. In none of these cases was there anything resembling a debt crisis. ..."

Reddit made an initial public offering filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday ahead of its highly-anticipated stock market debut.

The social network plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT.” Its listing – expected in March – would be the largest IPO by a social media company since Pinterest went public in 2019.

How social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined, Reddit said in a statement.

The IPO filing revealed that Reddit sustained $90.8m in losses in 2023, as its revenue grew by roughly 21%. The business estimated that its US average revenue per user or ARPU, was $3.42 for the last quarter of 2023 – a decrease of 2% year over year...

Guyana's oil production is booming, and it's growing at an unprecedented pace, according to energy expert Dan Yergin.

"Guyana is very important because it is the fastest offshore oil development in the history of the world," he said in a CNBC interview on Monday.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron have both been expanding their footprints in the region. Exxon began production at its third project in Payara, Guyana, this year, bringing its total production capacity in the region to approximately 620,000 barrels per day.

And in October, Chevron signed a deal to acquire oil company Hess, with one big trophy of the agreement being a project off the coast of Guyana.

But long-simmering antagonisms between Guyana and its neighbor Venezuela have resurfaced recently, with Venezuela claiming a big chunk of Guyana's land.

"So far it's more bluster," Yergin said. "Nicolás Maduro, the dictator president of Venezuela, had this farcical referendum where maybe 10% of people voted claiming two thirds of Guyana. But what's really piqued his interest is offshore oil."

The flare-up should be taken seriously in the US, Yergin warned, as Maduro remains in a weak position with the country seeing a large refugee crisis.

That's after years of economic collapse have sent millions of Venezuelans fleeing the country, landing mostly in other part of Latin America.

"The risk is that he might do something, he might seize a piece of territory, plant a flag," he said. "And of course, you have to keep in mind that Maduro's close allies are Russia, Cuba, and increasingly, Iran."

For now, hostility between Venezuela and Guyana is more words than action, Yergin added.

In terms of geopolitics, the real threat to oil markets is in the Middle East, at the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

That waterway sees about 9 million barrels of oil pass through every day, especially with Russian oil shifting south after Western sanctions were imposed.

Meanwhile, Houthi rebels in Yemen have declared they would target Israel-bound vessels that do not stop in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid.

"The Houthis seem to feel that they're invincible, that they can attack US naval ships," Yergin said. "That's a thing to watch as a geopolitical factor that could affect [oil markets]."