Top 1.0% of earners see wages up 157.8% since 1979

"Over the last four decades since 1979, the top 1.0% saw their wages grow by 157.8% and those in the top 0.1% had wages grow more than twice as fast, up 340.7%. In contrast those in the bottom 90% had annual wages grow by 23.9% from 1979 to 2018. This disparity in wage growth reflects a sharp long-term rise in the share of total wages earned by those in the top 1.0% and 0.1%."

Link here.

Two charts from S&P Global - foreign revenue for US corporations

Link here.

Indispensable No More? How the American Public Sees U.S. Foreign Policy

Its about fucking time . . .

"America’s unipolar moment which arrived after the end of the Cold War is no more. Policymakers like to think America plays by a different set of rules than – or even makes the rules obeyed by – other countries. But the American public can see how U.S. actions overseas can set the country back. In the eyes of its
citizens, the United States is losing its omnipotence, its moral leadership, its exceptionalism.

Pax Americana is unwinding. China’s rise certainly challenges it, but other phenomena do too. Technological changes, environmental crises, mass migrations, and the resurgence of ultranationalism and authoritarianism all complicate America’s international influence.

The question Washington now confronts is not how they will creatively respond to new challenges, but whether they will. If Washington chooses to believe nothing much has changed, that the international institutions and rules America championed will regain their legitimacy, that America’s military dominance
can help midwife democratic governments despite a few recent aberrations, then America risks giving the same old answers to new and urgent questions."

Link here.

Report outlines UAE's 'immensely influential' lobbying in US

The Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative (FITI), a program of the Center for International Policy, analyzed every Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Supplemental  Statement filed in 2018 by organizations working on behalf of clients in the United Arab Emirates. From this analysis we found:

• 20 different firms served as registered foreign agents in the U.S. for clients in the UAE;
• Over $20 million in payments from UAE clients to these firms;
• 3,168 reported political activities done on behalf of the UAE by those firms;
• UAE foreign agents contacted more than 200 Congressional offices, 18 think tanks, and most mainstream media outlets;
• Considerable interactions between UAE foreign agents and think tanks funded by the UAE;
• Nearly $600,000 in campaign contributions from these firms and their registered foreign agents

UAE - bunch of motherfuckers.

Link here.

Ready, Fire, Aim: U.S. Interests in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria

"It is widely claimed that the United States was inadequately engaged in the Syrian maelstrom. Nonsense! Since 2014, we have spent well over $50 billion in appropriated funds to train, arm, and otherwise support various factions in the conflict, including some with direct links to al Qaeda. This fiscal year alone, DoD has budgeted $15.3 billion and the Department of State about $1 billion for Syria. In total disregard of international law, we have carried out well over 11,000 air and missile strikes against both government and rebel forces in Syria and deployed about 2,000 U.S. troops there to support secessionist factions. We cannot escape a considerable measure of moral responsibility for both the perpetuation of the conflict in Syria and some of the 200,000 undocumented and 375,000 documented Syrian dead, about 125,000 of whom have been verified as pro-government, 133,000 as anti-government, and 112,000 as noncombatant, neutral civilians. But we have made it clear we will not contribute to Syria’s reconstruction."

Link here.

Insane and Ill-Advised: Trump’s Future War with Iran, Part 1

''To better understand Iranian foreign policy, it is important to recognize that the history Iranians remember of their relations with America is very different from the history Americans remember. Americans’ memory centers on the hostage crisis; terrorist actions such as the bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut (April 1983, 63 dead), U.S. and French peacekeepers’ barracks in Beirut (October 1983, 305 dead), and Iranian overseas terror attacks in the 1980s and 1990s; and Iran’s supply of advanced weapons to Shia militias as they targeted American servicemen in Iraq during the war there.

Younger Iranians’ memory, on the other hand, centers less on the coup against Mossadegh and more on the Iran-Iraq War — on the international community’s failure to condemn Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran, its support for Saddam even as he used chemical weapons against Iranian troops, Iraqi actions (including the gassing of Halabja and the missile attack on the frigate USS Stark) for which the U.S. blamed both sides, and the U.S. downing of the Iranian airliner. Nearly all of Iran’s neighbors and most of the great powers supported Saddam in one way or another. That led to a strong Iranian sense of isolation, including distrust of the international community, of international institutions, and especially of the United States."

Link here.

Supporting the stock market is official US government policy

Link here.