The World Web TimesThe post Марочко: армия России отрезала пути отступления ВСУ под Волчанском first appeared on The News And Times.
The post Марочко: армия России отрезала пути отступления ВСУ под Волчанском first appeared on Trump And The FBI – The News And Times.
The post CNN: визит Моди в Москву показал провал Запада в попытке изолировать Россию first appeared on The News And Times.
The post CNN: визит Моди в Москву показал провал Запада в попытке изолировать Россию first appeared on Trump And The FBI – The News And Times.
The post Water security initiatives in Shusha: Fostering prosperity in Garabagh first appeared on The South Caucasus News.
In ten years, Americans counting on Social Security benefits for income will be in for a shock.
The shock will come because the trust fund that provides about one-fifth of the cash Social Security benefits receive will run out of money in 2033. Starting in 2034, under current law, Social Security will only have enough money to pay 79% of its promised benefits. Everyone who receives retirement benefit payments from Social Security in that year will see that income stream slashed.
That’s according to Social Security’s Trustees, who issued their2024 reportin May. When the Old Age and Survivors’ Insurance (OASI) trust fundis depleted, the agency can only pay benefits from the money it collects through its dedicated payroll taxes. Technically, because that’s whatis writteninto the current law, those reduced benefits are alsopromised benefits.
None of this isreallynews. Social Security’s trustees have been telling this same basic story for much of the last decade. The only parts of the story that have changed are the projected timing for when the trust fund will run out of money and howbigthe benefit cuts will be when that happens. As we get closer to these projected events, the Trustee’s estimates of their timing and the size of the benefit cuts have firmed as they should. At ten years out in 2024, they are no longer long-term projections.
Social Security’s trustees have some ideas for keeping Social Security’s retirement benefits at their 2033 level. One of those ideas involves taking money from its Disability Insurance trust fund and using it to pay both retirement and disability benefits. Doing that would delay benefit cuts for two years, after which all these benefit payments wouldbe cutby 17%. The cuts would then continue, growingslowlyuntil they reach 27% in 2098.
Another option would be to increase the payroll taxes that fund Social Security benefits. Right now, that’s 12.4% of the wage and salary income earned by working Americans, and most see half that amount come straight out of their paychecks while employers pay the other half. To avoid cutting Social Security benefits, the Trustees estimate they would have to increase the total employee and employer payroll tax rate to 15.73%.
A third option would hinge on when those who receive Social Security benefits start getting them. They could keep everyonewho isalready receiving Social Security benefits as of 2023 from experiencing any cuts. Doing that, however, would meanbiggerbenefit cuts for everyone who starts receiving benefits after that year. If they take this approach, anyone whostartscollecting benefits in 2024 or after would see their benefits cut by almost 25%.
They could also mix and match these options. No matter what, whatever happens will take an act of Congress.
Speaking of which, Congress has at least six new Social Security bills to consider. One way or another, Social Security reform is coming. Whether anyone likes it or not.
The post Day Of Reckoning For Social Security Draws Closer – OpEd first appeared on The South Caucasus News.
By Arthur M. Diamond, Jr.
“The Bear” got on my good side early by starting most episodes with scenes from my favorite city, the one Gwendolyn Brooks called “the city of the out-stuck neck.” In its first two seasons The Bear stuck its neck out, too.
It takes an out-stuck neck to be all-in on getting a job done and doing it well. Today it is more common for us to protect our necks by endorsing work-life balance and only being all-in on the checking of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) boxes.
As The Bear begins, Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (“Bear”) leaves his job as the sous chef of a 3-star restaurant in New York and returns to Chicago to take over his family’s beef sandwich shop. The shop is struggling to survive:Carmy’s father suddenly and mysteriously left town, and his brother Mikey took over management.Mikey had charisma, viewers learn, but neither the drive nor the knowledge to run the shop; the shop was deep in debt, he was overwhelmed, abused drugs, and found no way out.
Carmy’s staff are wounded misfits who argue, yell, and then usually pull together, sometimes just to make it to closing time, other times to make the food better.Carmy has them call each other “chef,” a sign of respect, that they all matter for getting the job done.
Carmy is what I call in myOpenness to Creative Destructionbook, a “project entrepreneur.” His project is to transform his family’s Italian beef sandwich shop into a fine dining restaurant whose food and service is worthy of a Michelin star.In pursuit of his project, Carmy exemplifies many of the traits common among project entrepreneurs.
Carmy seeks to learn, even when the lessons are humiliating.He performs low-level tasks at top restaurants in Copenhagen, New York, and Chicago, in order to learn the skills and ingredients of creative cooking, and how to manage an efficient kitchen.He perseveres, even at the price of repeatedly having to say, “yes, chef” to the obnoxious Chef Fields in the Empire restaurant, who calls Carmy short, slow, “talentless,” finally whispering that “you should be dead.”But all the while, gathering experience.
Carmy is demanding of his staff, constantly asking them to do better and quicker in service of the project. He adopts the motto of a Chicago restaurant where he trained, EVERY SECOND COUNTS.We often see the tattoos on Carmy’s hand:the first finger has “S”, the second “O”, and the third, “U”, short for Sense of Urgency: that drive in pursuit of a project goal is essential.
Carmy always demands more from himself than from anyone else.He arrives earlier and stays later. We see him on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor, standing in a trash bin breaking up cardboard boxes, on his back with a screwdriver under a table that needs leveling.
Project entrepreneurs, especially at the start, are usually self-funded (meaning funded by the entrepreneur themselves or their close family or friends). Project entrepreneurs are not conspicuous consumers, choosing instead to pour any revenue back into the project.Carmy does not even own a car and we see nothing conspicuous in his apartment and clothes.
The main investor in Carmy’s project is his “Uncle” Cicero, who tells him to “be the guy” who gets the hard, risky project done. Cicero helps in more than one way. In Chicago, politicians mandate many licenses, permits, and inspections. To get an inspector to arrive quickly enough so the new restaurant can open in time, Cicero gives Carmy an envelope of money to drop off at the inspector’s post office box.(Some would accuse Carmy of immorality in delivering the bribe.But I would locate the immorality with those who require bribes in order to regulate honestly and quickly.)
Carmy constantly experiments and innovates to advance his project.At great cost in time, energy, and money, he starts to change the menu every day. He removes a best-selling dish that “doesn’t make sense on the menu.” He arranges ingredients on a plate, re-arranges, and tastes, and more often than not, throws the plate in the trash to start again.He takes notes and draws or photographs what works.
The faster brother of trial-and-error is improvisation. In one lunchtime of manic chaos, when anything can and does go wrong, Carmy and his chefs madly improvise and pivot from crisis to crisis.Episode seven of season one captures this manic intensity in one exhilarating 17-minute continuous take.What Carmy struggles to give his staff is what Charles Koch calls “decision rights” — issues over which they can act without his approval.As with any entrepreneur, giving up control is not easy.He is tempted, and sometimes yields to the temptation, to intervene when he knows a better way.If such interventions are done selectively, they can be teaching moments. If done too often, they can create suffocating micromanagement.
The night of the soft opening at Carmy’s transformed fine-dining spot The Bear, we see that he has done well-enough:when Carmy accidentally locks himself in the refrigerator, his staff know enough and care enough to keep the restaurant running well without him.
The Bear illustrates much that is important about project entrepreneurs. But where The Bear really sticks its neck out is in taking the politically incorrect side of two currently contentious issues. It takes an out-stuck neck to show that intensity has benefits and so we should preserve the freedom to choose intensity over work-life balance. And it takes an out-stuck neck to show that the pursuit of merit has benefits and so we should preserve the freedom to choose the pursuit of merit over the pursuit of mere diversity.
When a culinary arts graduate named Sydney asks Carmy for a job as his sous chef, he is surprised because he is running a neighborhood sandwich shop, and he can’t pay her what she is worth.Syd doesn’t care, because she wants to learn from him, and to help him turn the shop into a starred restaurant.We find out later that after failing at a catering venture, Syd took her remaining dollars to New York to eat in a handful of the best restaurants, hoping to learn what the best tastes like. The best of the best food was at the restaurant where Carmy was sous chef.
Energized when Carmy hires her, Syd creates a risotto dish and asks Carmy what he thinks. He says it is tremendous, so she assumes she can put it on the menu.He says it is not ready.She is frustrated and hurt, but Syd does not accuse Carmy of racism because he is white and she is black.Syd has chosen to work with Carmy so he can help her to make risotto better.
Chef Marcus is likewise determined to make his pastries better, embracing his new role as the pastry chef. For many days he experiments with recipes and equipment, using up precious ingredients, at one point causing an electrical short that shuts down the restaurant.But finally at the end of one day he has created a chocolate cake that he thinks is worthy. He sets a tray of cake slices on the table and his fellow chefs each grab a slice and gratefully eat.
Carmy takes a slice too. Marcus quietly and intently watches Carmy, who with his face down toward the cake, slowly eats and ponders.Then he looks up, and with the slightest smile on his face, looks directly at Marcus, wordlessly points and slightly wags his index finger up and down at Marcus in approval.Marcus breathes, smiles, and wordlessly turns away.It does not matter that Carmy is white and Marcus is not. What matters is the taste of the cake.
These are real, flawed people who yell and cry and ask forgiveness as they try to improve themselves and the food.The details of the kitchen make it real too. The trial and error, the tasting and spitting out in frustration, the jotting down notes, and finally the tasting and the slight smile from making it taste better.
By the end of the second season, the chefs have found roles in the restaurant they can and want to do, are doing them better, and are feeling pride, commitment, and an imperfect kind of happiness.Carmy pulls them together to transform the sandwich shop into “The Bear.”
Sometimes the intensity of their work interferes with their personal relationships. We see them devise methods to apologize for the inevitable hurts, and heal when the strain has passed.At the opening of the new restaurant, Carmy’s sister Natalie thanks her husband Pete for being patient with her while she invests so much time overcoming obstacles to the opening.He says that her commitment makes their marriage “easier” because she loves what she is doing and she “is not as pissed all the time.” Later he says to her that he is “the most proud of you ever” and how “special and cool and great this place is.”
The Bear was not perfect in its first two seasons (like a realistic professional kitchen, there are a lot of f-bombs).But I often laughed long and hard, sometimes from its wit, more often from a chef’s meaningful, unexpected out-stuck neck.
I hadn’t known how hungry I was for The Bear.
The post The Bear’s Out-Stuck Neck – OpEd first appeared on The South Caucasus News.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg celebrated NATO’s 75th anniversary with US President Joe Biden and all other Allied Heads of State and Government in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday (9 July 2024).
In a speech at the Mellon Auditorium, where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, the Secretary General underlined that NATO is “not only the most successful and strongest, but also the longest-lasting Alliance in history”. He acknowledged that NATO’s enduring success has never been a given, but is rather “the result of deliberate choices and difficult decisions” – from NATO’s creation to arms control negotiations, and from NATO’s enlargement at the end of the Cold War to NATO’s support to Ukraine today.
Warning that “there are no cost-free options with an aggressive Russia as a neighbour; there are no risk-free options in a war,” the Secretary General said that the biggest cost and greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine, as this would embolden President Putin but also other authoritarian leaders in Iran, North Korea, and China. “The time to stand for freedom and democracy is now; the place is Ukraine,” he said. Mr Stoltenberg concluded by saying that the Alliance will continue to face difficult questions in the future, but that “we are stronger and safer together, in NATO.”
Earlier in the day, the Secretary General met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They discussed the decisions to be taken at the Summit to “strengthen our Alliance for the future”, including on deterrence and defence, support for Ukraine and strengthening NATO’s partnership in the Indo-Pacific. The Secretary General also participated in the first-ever NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum, hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce. He spoke to industry representatives, Allied defence ministers and others about NATO’s new defence industry pledge aimed at building greater transatlantic defence industrial cooperation, and welcomed that “just today, the (NATO procurement agency) NSPA signed a new multinational contract for Stinger missiles worth almost 700 million dollars.”
At the end of the event, President Biden presented Mr Stoltenberg with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honour, in recognition of his decade of service at the helm of the Alliance.
The post Secretary General Celebrates NATO’s 75th Anniversary With Allied Leaders On Eve Of Washington Summit first appeared on The South Caucasus News.
By Reem Ibrahim
“We did it!” declared Britain’s newest Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, in his victory speech on Friday. With a surprise call for an early election, various mediocre policy announcements, head-to-head debates, and the rapid emergence of smaller political parties, the UK General election is finally behind us.
After 14 years of Conservative-led Governments, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won one of the largest majorities in British electoral history. The Labour Party have now secured 412 out of the total 650 seats in Parliament (excluding the speaker’s seat). The Conservatives lost a total of 252 seats, and their vote share plummeted from more than 40 percent in the last general election to below 25 percent.
But if we scratch below the surface, Labour’s stonking Parliamentary majority disguises the fact that they won remarkably few votes. In fact, this election saw Labour win a majority on the lowest share of the popular vote in British postwar history. The Labour Party will now occupy 63 percent of seats in the House of Commons with less than 35 percent of the national vote share. According to the BBC, this gap between the share of total votes won and their share of seats is the largest since records began.
To put this into context, this vote share is actually less than what far-left former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn managed in 2017 when the party lost to Theresa May’s Conservatives.
This disparity between votes and seats significantly affects smaller parties. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the insurgent party on the right, received 14 percent of the national vote, but only managed to win a total of five seats in Parliament. By contrast, the Liberal Democrats, a centrist party, won 12 percent of the national vote, but managed to win 72 seats in Parliament.
To understand this electoral discrepancy, we must first understand the UK’s “first-past-the-post” electoral system. In the UK, a general election is essentially 650 mini-elections. There are 650 constituencies across the country, each with approximately 70,000 voters. Each constituency has an election to decide who their Member of Parliament (MP) will be to represent them in the House of Commons. It is a winner-takes-all system—whoever gets the most votes in a constituency wins the seat. At the national level, the King will ask the party with the largest number of seats in the House of Commons to form His Majesty’s Government.
This system is called First-Past-the-Post (FPTP), and has a distorting majoritarian effect which favors larger parties. If you are a smaller party, and your voters are spread out, you are unlikely to win many seats. By contrast, if you are a larger party, and your voters are more concentrated, you are likely to win more seats.
The debate around the fairness of FPTP has fluctuated in importance on the political agenda. Larger parties have an incentive to favor the status quo (turkeys wouldn’t vote for Christmas!), but there are some genuine reasons as to why many people favor FPTP over other systems. It generally does produce stronger and more stable Governments, especially when compared to our European counterparts. Belgium, for example, once took 18 months to form a Government through their proportional electoral system.
However, FPTP does not always return a majority. In 2010, the Conservatives had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats to form a Government. In 2011, this led to the national referendum on reforming the FPTP to a more proportional electoral system called “Alternative Vote.” The referendum saw 68 percent of voters reject the change.
The disproportionate result of this election gives ammunition to voices that wish to place proportional representation at the top of the political agenda, and raises questions about how democratic the result really was. This week, Farage said that “these results prove the system doesn’t work.”
While it is unlikely that the new Government would consider electoral reform, one thing is clear: the conversation about how Britain elects its leaders is far from over.
The post Labour’s Historic Win: A Victory Shrouded In Electoral Disparity – OpEd first appeared on The South Caucasus News.
The post FBI searching for Plymouth kidnapping victim: Jose Luis Muro Del Real – WTCA – GIANT fm – Real Radio first appeared on Trump And The FBI – The News And Times.