US College costs have increased by 169% since 1980—but pay for young workers is up by just 19%: Georgetown report

Abigail Johnson Hess 

Today, typical college costs (including tuition and fees, room and board, and allowances for books and supplies, transportation and other personal expenses) range from $27,330 for public in-state university students to $55,800 for private nonprofit college students. When scholarships and grants are taken into account, average net costs for tuition and fees at these kinds of schools are closer to $2,640 and $14,990, respectively

.

© Provided by CNBC Campus of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Though the pandemic and recent increases in higher education funding may have slowed the speed of rising college costs, a recent report from Georgetown University highlights the growth in the gap between how much young workers make and how much they must pay to earn a college degree over the past several decades. The report, titled "If Not Now, When? The Urgent Need for an All-One-System Approach to Youth Policy," breaks down seven trends that have made it difficult for workers to transition from education to the workforce since 1980.


"Postsecondary education policy has failed to keep higher education affordable even as formal education beyond high school has become more essential," reads the report. "Today, two out of three jobs require postsecondary education and training, while three out of four jobs in the 1970s required a high school diploma or less. Yet while young people today need more education than ever to compete in the labor market, a college education is more expensive than in the past."

According to the researchers' analysis of U.S. Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics and National Center for Education Statistics data for the years 1980 to 2019, college costs have increased by 169% over the past four decades — while earnings for workers between the ages of 22 and 27 have increased by just 19%.

Included on page 13 of the report is a graph that captures this gulf:© Provided by CNBC

To be sure, wages for young workers of all levels of educational attainment have grown slowly over the past several decades. And though college costs have risen, workers with a bachelor's degree have still fared best in the labor market.

The Georgetown report estimates that median earnings for young adults with a college degree hover near $45,000 while earnings for those without a college degree remain closer to $30,000.

© Provided by CNBC

The report also broadly critiques the United States' "fragmented" system of education and workforce development.

"The evidence of our failure to help all youth make the long journey from early childhood to adult economic independence is plain. In the trajectory from kindergarten to a good job, the most talented disadvantaged youth do not fare nearly as well as the least talented advantaged youth," reads the report. "It is far better to be born rich and white than smart and poor in America."

In 2019, Georgetown researchers dug into this topic and found that poor kindergartners with good scores are less likely to graduate from high school, graduate from college or earn a high wage than their affluent peers with lower grades.

"When we track student test scores beginning in kindergarten, we find that children from families in the top quartile of family socioeconomic status (SES) who have low test scores have a 71% chance of being in the top half of socioeconomic status by their late 20s," they write in 2021. "However, children from families in the bottom SES quartile but with top test scores have only a 31% chance of being in the top half of SES by their late 20s, and the numbers are even worse for talented children from low-income racial and ethnic minority households."

To address these issues, the researchers suggest investing in early education, culturally responsive curriculum, work-based learning, free college for low-income students and career counseling.

"We haven't connected the dots from early childhood, through K –12 and postsecondary education, to careers," says Anthony P. Carnevale, lead author and CEW director in a statement. "We need an all-one-system approach that facilitates smooth transitions on the pathway from youth dependence to adult independence."

WW3.0

Satellite images appear to show China is making significant progress developing missile silos that could eventually launch nuclear weapons

By Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler, 

Rapid construction at three suspected silo fields in China -- which could eventually be capable of launching long-range nuclear missiles -- appears to indicate that Beijing is putting substantial efforts and resources into the development of its nuclear capabilities, according to analysis of new commercial satellite images.

© Planet Labs Inc.

Experts from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a nonpartisan national security research and advocacy organization, found that China has made significant progress on suspected silo fields in the western part of the country.

"For China, this is an unprecedented nuclear buildup," wrote Matt Korda and Hans M. Kristensen, the authors of the FAS report released Tuesday.

The authors noted that "the missile silo fields are still many years away from becoming fully operational and it remains to be seen how China will arm and operate them."

However, recent reports of Chinese activities have added to concerns from US officials about China's rapid military progress. The suspected development of a first missile silo field was reported in late June. Following another report from FAS released in July on China's suspected development of a second silo field, US Strategic Command tweeted, "This is the second time in two months the public has discovered what we have been saying all along about the growing threat the world faces and the veil of secrecy that surrounds it."

Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard, the commander of US Strategic Command, said in August that "we are witnessing a strategic breakout by China."

"The explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking. And frankly, that word breathtaking may not be enough," he said.

The commercial satellite images from Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs analyzed by FAS offer some of the most detailed pictures yet of three suspected missile silo fields, where the Chinese appear to be constructing roughly 300 new missile silos.

"What's notable, of course, is the scale and the speed of this that this is so out of sync with what the Chinese have done on missile silos ever before," Kristensen told CNN.

CNN has reached out to the Chinese government for comment on new report.

China's ongoing development of the silos comes as the country is bolstering its military capabilities significantly.

The US has said that China tested a hypersonic weapon over the summer which Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley called "very concerning." He also said that "Chinese military capabilities are much greater than that" single test.

© Planet Labs Inc. This graphic image shows the progression of silos under construction. Some of the silos just beginning the building progress, others in the midst of being developed under an inflatable dome and others have advanced so far that the dome has been cleared.

However, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the August test was "a spacecraft, not a missile."

China has long committed to a minimum deterrence policy, meaning it keeps its nuclear arsenal at the minimum level necessary to deter an adversary from attacking. It is believed to have about one-tenth the nuclear weapons that Russia and the US have and has a no-first-use policy.

A change in China's approach?

Some experts and officials say recent developments raise questions about its commitment to that policy.

Nicholas Burns, the Biden administration's nominee to be US Ambassador to China, said during his confirmation hearing last month that the Chinese "are blasting past that definition (of a minimum nuclear deterrent), and they're rapidly engaged in the buildup of their nuclear arsenal, including the disturbing reports of the hypersonic technology."

Benjamin Friedman, the policy director of Defense Priorities, a Washington-based think tank, said he believes China has not fundamentally changed policy, "but they seem to have decided that it takes a little more than it used to," and "we shouldn't take the development of more missiles necessarily as a different approach on the Chinese part, it might just be that they think the same approach takes more weapons than it used to."

"The United States has long continued to pursue a first strike capability against all nuclear adversaries -- that is the ability to have enough weapons, and nuclear weapons are most important in that, to destroy their entire arsenal in one go," said Friedman, adding that China probably feels "they might need a little more insurance against the prospect of the US disarming first strike for various reasons."

Kristensen of FAS said that the construction of the silo fields "likely has to do with the fact that the Chinese leadership has just decided that China has to be big militarily, and the nuclear forces have to match that."

He also noted that it "reduces the vulnerability that anyone can knock them out in a surprise attack."

It is unclear if the US will be able to know with certainty if these silos are filled with missiles, creating a conundrum for the US in determining how to counter or compete with China's buildup.

Some experts point out that this may be part of China's strategy.

"China may fill these out eventually but in the interim, when they are not all filled out, would the US be able to distinguish with certainty which silos are filled and which aren't and would we have to commit to destroying all of these no matter what? If that is the case then the US has to commit maybe twice the number of warheads to all of the silos," said Vipin Narang, a professor of political science focusing on nuclear proliferation and strategy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"If you are the US this forces you to re-think nuclear planning," he said.

The images in the report also reveal that China appears to be constructing other types of support facilities around the silos, Kristensen said. The report says they are almost the size of a football stadium -- to protect the silo construction area from severe environmental factors. The experts who compiled the report also noted that the shelters may have been constructed to "hide technical details from satellites."

© Planet Labs Inc. Different stages of construction underway by Chinese engineers on multiple silos at the possible Ordos missile silo field in August 2021. After clearing the space for the project, they use inflatable domes to protect the active construction on the silos.

Women lawmakers lead charge against Senator Joe Manchin’s intransigence on key bill

Eric Garcia and Andrew Feinberg
Tue, November 2, 2021


US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. (AP)

Female Democratic members of Congress and senators, particularly women of colour, are pushing back on Sen Joe Manchin’s efforts to pare down on their party’s social spending and climate bill and prioritise passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Mr Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, gave a press conference Monday calling for the House to pass an infrastructure bill that passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis. He criticised progressive Democrats for demanding his support of a larger social spending bill that would pass party lines through a process called reconciliation, allowing them to sidestep a filibuster, before moving forward on the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

“Holding this bill hostage is not going to work in getting my support for the reconciliation bill,” Mr Manchin told reporters on Monday.

Sen Joe Manchin speaks at a Capitol Hill press conference on 1 November. (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Similarly, Mr Manchin has expressed concern about including paid family leave, which was not included in the White House’s framework of the social spending bill, sometimes called the Build Back Better bill.

In response, Rep Cori Bush of Missouri, a member of the Squad, said Sen Manchin was actively harming multiple marginalised communities.

“Not supporting it is anti-Black, it’s anti-brown, it’s anti-immigrant, it’s anti-child, it’s anti-woman,” she said, since the reconciliation bill would aid groups most affected by the pandemic. “If we don’t do the work first for them, that what are you the senator for?”

Ms Bush is part of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is led by Rep Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, herself an immigrant from India. Ms Jayapal dismissed the concerns from Mr Manchin.

“I don’t know what Sen Manchin is thinking, but we are going to pass both bills through the House and we’re going to have transformative change,” she said, adding that she thought both the bipartisan bill and the reconciliation legislation would pass through the Senate.

Rep Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, center, along with other lawmakers, talks with reporters outside the West Wing of the Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021, following their meeting with President Joe Biden. Jayapal is joined by from left, Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-New York. 

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Conversely, Ms Jayapal told reporters she was optimistic after her meeting with the Senate’s other conservative Democrat, Sen Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

“All I can say is it was just a really good, productive meeting and I feel like she’s negotiating in good faith and she’s going to be a good partner,” Ms Jayapal said Monday evening, adding that she would also not accept any more cuts to the social spending bill.

“This is the framework that we endorsed and we agreed to and we made it clear to the White House that we’re happy with anything additive, so for something on prescription drug pricing we’d be be thrilled,” she said, noting some Democrats are working on that issue. “But nothing backwards.”

Rep Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who is the whip of the Progressive Caucus, said Ms Sinema and Mr Manchin’s actions were frustrating.

“I think the shenanigans of these two senators just sounds on-brand to me and it is not of a concern of mine and I know that it is not a concern of an overwhelming majority of the progressive caucus,” she said Monday evening.

“I trust my word, and my word has always been that we pass the two bills out of the Senate together, not a single bill passes, without the full agenda passing,” she said.

Ms Omar said it was undeniable that Mr Manchin’s words and opposition to policies like paid family leave were rooted in him not taking women’s needs seriously.

“The irony, you know, of a man who has all the resources available to him isn’t lost on me and it isn’t lost on the millions of American women who desperately want this benefit,” she said.

Congresswoman Cori Bush (Getty Images)

The House isn’t the only place where Mr Manchin has met opposition from Democratic women lawmakers. Last week, Sens Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Patty Murray of Washington and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii confronted Mr Manchin on the Senate floor about his opposition to paid family leave.

Political strategists said Mr Manchin’s position was more about exerting power than any animus towards an entire race or gender.

“I won’t live to see it, but I’m gonna do everything I can to accelerate the day we live in a post-racial world, and I’m sure to some extent it matters,” said Democratic strategist James Carville. Mr Carville pointed to the fact many members of the progressive caucus are women from poor urban areas.

“I like Senator Manchin, he’s a friend of mine, and you know, like everything in American politics I’m sure there’s some racial aspect to it, but I ain’t going there,” he said.

Conversely, Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist who helped start the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said the conflict comes from two disparate groups with a large amount of power.

“One, the Squad-type progressives, and two, the more center-ish, Joe Manchin-Sinema types,” he said. BULLSHIT NEITHER IS CENTRE ANYTHING MANCHIN IS A FAR RIGHT DEM AND SINEMA IS AN OPPORTUNIST FIRST TERM SENATOR (WHO WILL BE PRIMARIED)

“They both find themselves in a position where they’ve got enormous leverage, and so I don’t think it has much to do with with demographics. I think it has to do with the ideology, and the and the use of power.”

Despite the disputes, Rep Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin and former chairman of the Progressive Caucus, said it was possible there might be a race and gender divide but was more optimistic about the final outcome.

“I think we’re gonna pass these bills this week,” he said. “And I think we’ll be celebrating real soon what we’re getting done for American people."

PRAGMATIC MODERATE DEMOCRAT NOT MANCHIN

Editorial: Biden’s big breakthrough: The president strikes a deal on his domestic policy agenda, and it’s a very good one

New York Daily News, 
Mon, November 1, 2021

Divide $3.5 trillion in half and you get $1.75 trillion — which makes the domestic policy framework President Joe Biden touted Thursday a pretty perfect encapsulation that half a loaf is better than none. Yes, Biden and fellow Democrats had to throw overboard prized priorities, including 12 weeks of paid family leave. That painful concession means America will remain the world’s outlier, failing to provide a fundamentally humane benefit to the parents of newborns.

Still, what survived is expansive indeed — nearly twice the 10-year cost of the Affordable Care Act, which Biden rightly coined a “big f---ing deal,” including: a half-trillion dollars in clean energy and climate investments; universal, free-pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds; subsidies guaranteeing that no family earning less than $300,000 will pay more than 7% of their income on child-care; more federal rental assistance, which is desperately needed to make the nation’s largest city more livable; the addition of hearing benefits to Medicare; and billions to help families care for their elderly loved ones in their own homes. The bill also rightly provides all $2.86 billion needed to fund health care for those sickened by the toxic air around the World Trade Center after 9/11.

Unlike the Bush and Trump tax cuts, sold on the false promise that they’d pay for themselves, Democrats propose footing the bill by, among other things, collecting a 15% minimum tax from large corporations and imposing a surcharge on the wealthiest Americans (5% extra those with incomes over $10 million, and another 3% on those with incomes above $25 million). The world’s smallest Stradivarius plays for them.

It is yet to be determined whether the egregious limit on the ability of Americans to deduct their state and local taxes against their federal liability — the SALT cap, which targets high-tax states like ours — will remain. For fairness, it should be removed.

In the end, however, the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good, either for moderates or progressives. What Biden has cobbled together here is surely good.

'So We Drop What's Most Popular?' Sanders Asks Democrats

"When 41% of the American people tell us that their top priority is for us to expand Medicare to include dental and vision benefits... what should we do? We should listen to the people."




Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) talks to reporters while leaving the U.S. Capitol on August 9, 2021. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images


JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

November 2, 2021

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont reportedly asked his Democratic colleagues a pointed question on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday: "So we drop what's most popular?"

"Maybe—just maybe—Congress should respond to the demands of the American people and finally expand Medicare."

Sanders was referring to a proposal to add dental and vision benefits to Medicare coverage, a plan that U.S. voters identified as their top priority for Democrats' emerging reconciliation package, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll released Tuesday.

Last week, however, the Biden administration released an updated reconciliation framework that excluded dental and vision for Medicare recipients as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), dental industry groups, and large insurers objected to and lobbied against the proposed expansion. The new Build Back Better framework would still add hearing benefits to Medicare.

Sanders, the leading champion of Medicare expansion in Congress, vocally criticized the administration's decision to drop the dental and vision coverage and indicated that he would continue working to include the benefits in the final reconciliation package.

On Tuesday, HuffPost's Igor Bobic tweeted that he saw Sanders showing Senate Democrats the Morning Consult/Politico survey, which found that 41% of U.S. voters see adding dental and vision to Medicare as their number one hope for the Build Back Better Act.

In a pair of tweets Tuesday, Sanders once again highlighted the Morning Consult/Politico survey and wrote, "Maybe—just maybe—Congress should respond to the demands of the American people and finally expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing."

"When 41% of the American people tell us that their top priority is for us to expand Medicare to include dental and vision benefits—one of the most popular items in the Build Back Better agenda—what should we do?" Sanders continued. "We should listen to the people. Let's get this done."

The third most popular proposal from the original Build Back Better package, according to the new poll, is allowing Medicare to directly negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

That plan was also absent from the Biden administration's new framework, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Tuesday that Democrats reached a deal to include a weaker version after Sanders, grassroots activists, and lawmakers in vulnerable congressional districts fought to rescue at least portions of the proposal.

"Think about this: the exact same medications, manufactured by the same companies, in the same factories are all available in Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan for a fraction of the price that the American people pay," Sanders said over the weekend. "And why? Because of Big Pharma's greed. Time to end it."

Activist dares to don Halloween condo costume despite police warning



Susannah Bryan, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Sun, October 31, 2021, 3:03 PM·3 min read

The free speech witch must have been watching over Cat Uden Saturday night.

Uden, the activist warned by police not to wear a condo costume to the city’s Halloween block party, dared to wear it anyway.

To her relief, she and six friends in similar costumes were not told they had to leave the party. No one spent the night behind bars. And one woman toting a “No Condo” sign says she got a hug from a police sergeant.

But Uden was ready, just in case. “My husband was at home waiting for my one phone call,” she said. “He said he would bail my friends out, too.”

Uden’s costume controversy, a story first told by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, has sparked a slew of headlines from news outlets across the country, including Newsweek and Forbes.

“When I woke up this morning it looked like I was in every newspaper in the nation,” she said Sunday.

In recent months, Uden has emerged as a fierce critic of the Related Group’s plan to build a 30-story condo on taxpayer-owned beachfront land 13 blocks south of Hollywood Boulevard.

She’s held two protests so far, one in September at City Hall and one in mid-October on the 4-acre beachfront parcel the developer hopes to build on. She got permits for both.

Uden didn’t think she’d need a permit to show up at a public block party in a condo costume.

But on Wednesday, Uden says she got a chilling call from a police lieutenant who told her she needed a permit to wear the costume or even tell anyone why she was wearing it.

A police spokeswoman confirmed that if Uden attended the event and led an organized protest, she would be given a warning and asked to leave. If she refused, she could be arrested and face a fine up to $500 or 60 days in jail. The spokeswoman didn’t respond when asked how the city defined an organized protest.

“I was surprised the city doubled down and said if I didn’t leave it could be a fine or jail,” Uden said. “It was just supposed to be a fun condo costume.”

On Saturday, Uden and her costumed friends danced and shimmied the night away in full view of police officers.

“We had a little conga line,” she said. “We danced past the police, the SWAT team and two city commissioners.”

Uden plans to hang onto the condo costume and wear it to the next protest.

“We are going to hang on to them in case we have a demonstration in the future,” she said.

On Sunday morning, she was out on the ocean on her paddleboard in a different costume. For her Halloween paddle, she ditched the boxy condo look for a black bikini and witch hat.

On Twitter, she posted a photo of her silhouette with the tagline: “Good witch of the east.”

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @Susannah_Bryan

Wolff Responds: US Capitalism's Helpers - Obama, Trump, Biden

 NOV 2, 2021 AT 6:01 AM

In this Wolff Responds,  Prof. Wolff comments on the failures of both Republicans and Democrats to deliver on their promises and improve living standards for the majority of Americans.

Wolff Responds is a Democracy At Work  production. We provide these videos free of ads. Please consider supporting our work. Visit our website democracyatwork.info/donate or join our growing Patreon community and support Global Capitalism Live Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff at https://www.patreon.com/gcleu.

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Check out the NEW 2021 Hardcover edition of “Understanding Marxism,” with a new, lengthy introduction by Richard Wolff! Visit us at: www.democracyatwork.info/books.

“Marxism always was the critical shadow of capitalism. Their interactions changed them both. Now Marxism is once again stepping into the light as capitalism shakes from its own excesses and confronts decline.”

Check out all of d@w’s books: "The Sickness is the System," "Understanding Socialism," by Richard D. Wolff, and “Stuck Nation” by Bob Hennelly available at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/democracyatwork

 

 

Class War is the new, two-player, board game
from Jacobin. You can order a copy today and support our journalism!

Has Monopoly night lost its charm? Do your friends head for the door when you reach for the 12-sided die? Ever play Magic: The Gathering and think, “If only, instead of tapping mana, I could tap the righteous anger of the proletariat”?

Neither have we. But now you can!

In Class War, you are a collective entity: a social class — either the Capitalists or the Workers. You’ll fight for social dominance in an unstable constitutional democracy. Will the Capitalists crush this rising wave of popular discontent and entrench their position as masters of society? Or will the Workers triumph over the power of money to make society more equal and just?

The gameplay is so addictive that even your libertarian uncle won’t be able to resist the world-historic struggle unfolding in the deck of cards before him. And if he looks closer, he just might see, for the very first time, what a socialist perspective on our society’s class antagonisms really looks like.

We’re currently raising funds to bring Class War to the masses. The game is already almost completed, but we need your help to produce thousands of boxes and get them into the hands of people around the world.

 

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WW3.0
Is There A War Brewing In The South China Sea?


Editor OilPrice.com
Sun, October 31, 2021

Tensions in the South China Sea have been percolating for years now. Even in relatively calm times when the battling claimants of the contested waters manage to stay out of the headlines, the reality out on the sea is rarely tranquil. In fact, a recent report from the South China Morning Post has revealed that Chinese boats have been harassing Civilian vessels in the Malaysian and Vietnamese portions of the South China Sea “on a daily basis” for years.

Extending from Singapore and the Strait of Malacca in the southwest to the Strait of Taiwan in the northeast, the South China Sea is a geopolitical hotspot as one of the most important trade routes in the world, not to mention the home of valuable oil and gas reserves as well as lucrative fishing grounds. The United States Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates that the South China Sea “contains approximately 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in proved and probable reserves.”

Huge, overlapping sections of the Sea are currently subject to claims by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. China has staked the largest claims to the South China Sea (at more than 85% of the total area) and has been the most aggressive in defending these claims, with a huge show of military might and navy vessels patrolling the waters. Last year, during another flare-up of tensions, the Asia Times reported that China’s most recent rash of aggressions was a bid to shut down Vietnamese resource development projects “as Beijing aims to force all foreign oil companies out of the South China Sea, leaving itself as the only potential joint development partner for rival sea claimants.”




Source: CSIS

Vietnam is far from Beijing’s only victim, however. Indonesian drilling has also been targeted in the so-called “Tuna Block” in the Natuna Sea, in the same waters where these two nations have clashed in the past over fishing rights. And now, according to the recent reports from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Malaysia has been bearing the brunt of Chinese bullying on a daily basis for the past two years. The Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas has been developing several oil and gas fields in the Luconia Shoals, where Chinese vessels have been reportedly driving dangerously and erratically with the intention of dissuading civilians to take contracts in the area.

“Beijing’s competing claimants to territory in the South China Sea have long accused it of using a paramilitary maritime militia, consisting of hundreds of civilian fishing boats, to help enforce its claims,” The South China Morning Post reported this week. The Chinese government claims that these swaths of civilian fishing boats are not dispatched by the military, but that they join of their own accord, although many other governing bodies (including the United States) believe that the vessels are directly under the command of the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

An all-out oil war in the South China Sea would be extremely costly for China, and ultimately may not be in the country’s best interest. Invading another nation is costly, and in this region, the battle could easily turn into another kind of ‘forever war.” And then there’s the fact that China risks destruction in the very waters that it wants to claim, imperiling valuable infrastructure. There are a lot of reasons why China should not and likely will not push its competing claimants hard enough to start a war, and many more reasons that much lesser military powers like Malaysia and Indonesia should just grin and bear the abuse, but Beijing’s behavior over the past few years has shown that China is more than willing to test those boundaries.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

 

Maersk profits triple on record freight prices

Tue, November 2, 2021, 

Shipping giant Maersk says profits tripled over the latest quarter.

Earnings hit $6.9 billion on the back of record-high freight rates.

That despite a drop in the volume of cargo it handled.

The number of containers on the move fell due to congestion at ports.

Surging consumer demand has led to a shortage of vessels and logjams at key hubs.

Meanwhile, Maersk continues its transformation from a shipping firm to an integrated logistics company.

On Tuesday (November 2) it said it would buy freight forwarding firm Senator International, which mainly operates air cargo.

Maersk also said it would step up share buybacks, purchasing an additional $5 billion by 2025.

Shares in the firm rose 1% in early trades, and are up some 40% so far this year.

COP26: Stop treating nature like a toilet, UN secretary general António Guterres tells world leaders

Jon Stone
Mon, November 1, 2021

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 at SECC on November 1 2021 (Getty Images)

The secretary general of the United Nations has told world leaders humanity must stop treating nature "like a toilet".

In a hard-hitting speech opening the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow António Guterres said "addiction" to fossil fuels was "pushing humanity to the brink".

Mr Guterres, who has held the position since 2017, said that some signs of progress were encouraging – and threw his support behind a "climate action army led by young people" – who he dubbed "unstoppable".

But the former Portuguese prime minister warned that current commitments by the nations attending the conference were not enough to avert catastrophe.

"We are still heading for climate disaster," he said. "Recent climate action announcements might give the impression that we are on track to turn things around. This is an illusion."

He told the audience of world leaders, including Boris Johnson: “Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We face a stark choice: Either we stop it — or it stops us.

“It’s time to say: enough. Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper,” said Mr Guterres, adding: “We are digging our own graves.”

Mr Guterres added: “The last published report on Nationally Determined Contributions showed that they would still condemn the world to a calamitous 2.7 degree increase.

"And even if the recent pledges were clear and credible — and there are serious questions about some of them — we are still careening towards climate catastrophe. Even in the best-case scenario, temperatures will rise well above two degrees."

He also pointed out that the years since the last crucial COP summit in Paris 2015 “have been the six hottest years on record”.

Leaders have gathered in Glasgow with the aim of thrashing out national contributions to the fight against carbon emissions – but scientists are sceptical they will go far enough to hit crucial targets.

Boris Johnson gave a keynote speech at the opening of the meeting on Monday in which he warned that future generations would react with anger if leaders did not turn the situation around.

China's Xi Jinping contributes only a written note to the COP26 climate conference, pushing the world's biggest polluter further to the margins

Thomas Colson

Mon, November 1, 2021

• China's Xi Jinping will only address the COP26 summit with a written statement, Reuters reported.

• China's lack of engagement comes despite its large contribution to global emissions.

• China contributes some 28% of carbon emissions and consumes more coal than any other nation.

China's Xi Jinping plans to contribute only a written note to the landmark COP26 climate change summit in Scotland, a gesture which further illustrates China's isolation from global action on emissions.

Xi was one of several world leaders, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, to refuse to attend the Glasgow summit of world leaders this week.

Reuters reported Monday that Xi will interact with the summit only via a written note published on the COP26 website.

China's foreign ministry had said Xi - who has not left China since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic last year - would participate via video link, the Guardian reported.

The downgrade appears to have come as a result of an intentional move to limit the impact of nations whose leaders do not come.

A source in the UK organizing team told The Times of London that only leaders who attended the conference in person would be able to address the conference.

Insider contacted Downing Street to confirm the report.

Prospects for a breakthrough at COP26 depended partly on the outcome of talks at the G20 summit in Rome, where world leaders hoped to secure an agreement on phasing out coal consumption.

But no such agreement was reached, and China - which contributes around 28% of carbon emissions and consumes more coal than any other country - was among the countries to resist making binding new contributions, The New York Times reported.

Some participants were downbeat about the prospects of a breakthrough in Glasgow.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the summit, held a downbeat press conference Sunday where he put the chances of success in talks at "six out of 10."

The UK wants countries to announce detailed plans to cut carbon emissions in half by as early as 2030, but very few countries have indicated that they will do so.

Boris Johnson said the G20 talks left countries with a "huge way to go" at COP26.

US President Joe Biden was highly critical of countries including China for their unwillingness to engage in the talks, Politico reported.

"With regard to the disappointment, the disappointment relates to the fact that … not only Russia but China basically didn't show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change," Biden said after the G20 summit.

"And there's a reason why people should be disappointed in that. I found it disappointing myself."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: "I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled."