Egypt Seizes Suez Ship ‘Ever Given’
Pending $900 Million Compensation

(Bloomberg) --April `3/2021

Egypt seized a giant container vessel that closed off the Suez Canal last month as it sought compensation of over $900 million for the blockage.

A court in the city of Ismailia granted the request regarding the Ever Given vessel at the behest of the Suez Canal Authority, state-run Ahram Gate reported on its website. It did not say who the SCA wants compensation from.

The ship’s insurer for third-party losses, the U.K. P&I Club, said in a statement that it received a claim for $916 million, the size of which is “largely unsupported.” It said it was disappointed that the vessel was arrested on Tuesday.

Egypt’s move underscores the legal complications following the container vessel’s grounding on March 23, which closed the canal for almost a week and roiled shipping markets. Logjams are expected to continue in the coming weeks at major ports such as Singapore and Rotterdam because of disruptions to schedules, according to supply-chain data provider project44.

Read more: The Suez Crisis Is Over. Now Time to Add Up the Damages

The SCA has said compensation is needed to cover losses of transit fees, damage to the waterway during the dredging and salvage efforts, and the cost of equipment and labor. It has calculated that it missed out on about $15 million of transit fees each day.

The U.K. P&I Club said the claim included a $300 million salvage bonus and another $300 million for loss of reputation, but not the professional salvor’s claim for its services. It said a generous offer was made to settle the claim and that negotiations will continue.

Read more: Egypt Still Discussing Ever Given Rescue Compensation

Calls to the SCA weren’t answered.

A spokesman for the Ever Given’s owner, Japan-based Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., declined to comment on compensation while discussions with the SCA are underway. The company said the crew is still on board the ship, which is now in the Great Bitter Lake, about halfway along the canal.

The charterer, Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp., said in an email it hadn’t received any information from the ship’s owner about a court order.

Ancient "Monkeydactyl" dinosaur bears the oldest known opposed thumbs

By Nick Lavars
April 12, 2021


Artist's impression of Monkeydactyl, or Kunpengopterus antipollicatus
Chuang Zhao

It's a common view that opposable thumbs are a key feature that distinguishes us from most other species, but a flying reptile that clambered through the trees 160 million years ago isn't one of them, according to analysis of a newly discovered species from the Jurassic era. Scientists have found that a small-bodied pterosaur dubbed "Monkeydactyl" is the oldest known example of a creature with opposed thumbs, which was seemingly an adaption for a life in the trees.

The Monkeydactyl, or as it's more formally known, Kunpengopterus antipollicatus, fossil was unearthed in the Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China, and was imaged through micro-CT scans so an international team of researchers could better understand its structure.

This revealed an estimated wingspan of 85 cm (33.5 in) and, strikingly, the presence of opposed thumbs on either hand. This feature had never been seen before in pterosaurs, which are not known to have lived in the trees. It is also the earliest record of opposed thumbs in Earth's history.

"The fingers of ‘Monkeydactyl’ are tiny and partly embedded in the slab," says Fion Waisum Ma, co-author of the study and PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham. “Thanks to micro-CT scanning, we could see through the rocks, create digital models and tell how the opposed thumb articulates with the other finger bones. This is an interesting discovery. It provides the earliest evidence of a true opposed thumb, and it is from a pterosaur – which wasn’t known for having an opposed thumb."

The micro-CT scans enabled the scientists to study the Monkeydactyl's forelimb morphology and musculature, alongside other pterosaurs from the same ecosystem, which indicated that the hand could have been used for grasping. The scientists believe this to be a case of "niche-partitioning" among these pterosaurs, with the Monkeydactyl developing its thumbs to better navigate the trees and separate itself from other creatures in the area.

“Tiaojishan palaeoforest is home to many organisms, including three genera of darwinopteran pterosaurs," says Xuanyu Zhou from China University of Geosciences, who led the study. "Our results show that K. antipollicatus has occupied a different niche from Darwinopterus and Wukongopterus, which has likely minimized competition among these pterosaurs.”

 I AGREE WITH SINN FEIN 

Sinn Fein councillor James McKeown slammed for 'disgusting' mocking of Prince Philip's death - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

 

NHS in Critical Condition

Posted on April 13, 2021 by Chris Pak

Blog by Pam Kleinot

Former journalist and psychotherapist, and producer of ‘Under the Knife’ (Directed by Susan Steinberg, UK 2019).

I was inspired to produce ‘Under the Knife’ by my father, a doctor who worked at the largest state hospital in Southern Africa. He always told me how wonderful the NHS was. It is one of the greatest institutions that humanity has ever created. When it began in 1948, it was revolutionary in providing free health care for everyone and became the gold standard for the world.

I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, where access to healthcare was not equal. I was a medical journalist and witnessed how serious inequalities affected black people under the apartheid regime in every aspect of their lives. I came to live in the UK 35 years ago and worked as a sub-editor on the Guardian. During this time, I trained as a psychotherapist and group analyst. I worked in the NHS for more than 10 years and felt immensely proud and privileged to be part of it. However, I became unsettled by what was happening; I witnessed several cuts, closures, and the endless re-organisations. I experienced the surveillance and targets for staff and not knowing what was going to happen next with austerity and significant underfunding.

After leaving the NHS, ‘Under the Knife’ began as a simple idea which I started researching tirelessly. I became increasingly aware of the NHS being covertly privatised. I then asked Susan Steinberg, an Emmy award-winning film director, to join me, and together with a small team we made a 90-minute documentary that paints a chilling picture of how the NHS was being systematically dismantled and undermined. I felt so passionate about the subject matter that I used my own money and took out a loan to make the film.

Understaffed and fragmented the NHS was on its knees. Despite warnings from a pandemic drill in 2016 and the rapidly emerging, alarming facts from the COVID situation in Wuhan, Italy, and Spain in 2019, the UK government did not undertake any serious plans to manage the pandemic. The result of such inefficiency has been needless deaths; there were more than 126,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the UK in a year to 18 March 2021 (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths, accessed 20th March 2021).

The marketisation of the NHS, which began with Margaret Thatcher, has continued for more than 30 years with the advancing wave of Neoliberal thought that led to the crippling private financial initiative and other forms of privatisation.

Reflecting on the history of the NHS foundation in 1948, the film looks at the socio-economic issues where many people died back then because they could not afford health care. The Covid pandemic has highlighted how the virus is affecting a disproportionate amount of Black Ethnic minorities including those from NHS frontline staff.

The lies and deception of successive governments dates from Thatcher promising in 1982 that “The NHS is safe in our hands”. Former Tory MP Michael Portillo admitted the Tories lied in their 2010 election manifesto because they did not believe they would win if they told the electorate their NHS plans because people are so wedded to the NHS – it’s like a national religion.

‘Under The Knife’ looks in depth at the 2012 Health and Social Care Act which signalled the end of a truly NHS and opened the floodgates to privatisation. It was chilling to learn that 200 MPS and Peers with vested interests in private health care voted for the bill. As Lord Owen said governments woo people, he did it himself, with a peerage here and a knighthood there. He said the government was slowly, surreptitiously preparing the UK for an American type health system which has bankrupted so many and as we have seen failed the people again in this pandemic. Former PM John Major said the NHS is about as safe with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove as a pet hamster in the presence of a hungry python.

The Covid pandemic has highlighted that in the face of a life-threatening public health emergency, only a functional NHS is equipped to survive it. Health is not a luxury; it is a right and we need to get rid of the business model with its wastage of bureaucracy.

A major obstacle for the film makers was the reluctance of some Tory MPs and health ministers to be interviewed. However we managed to interview more than 60 people focusing on frontline doctors, nurses and patients. We also hear from public figures such as Gina Miller, the businesswoman and Brexit campaigner. She talks about her 30-year-old daughter, who has the mental age of six because she was starved of oxygen during birth because of a shortage of midwives.  As the doctor and broadcaster Dr Phil Hammond puts it, responding to the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s claim that a “jumbo jet-load” of patients die unnecessarily each week”: “The NHS takes off with unsafe staffing levels, a hole in the fuselage and half a wing missing every day.”

The film ends on an optimistic note, illustrating how communities, health care professionals and campaigners have fought to save hospitals through the courts, in council chambers and on the streets.

 

To view the film, follow this link,
https://vimeo.com/360526465
Password: Undertheknife1!

Email for correspondence: pamkleinot@hotmail.com

Tories accused of corruption and NHS privatisation by former chief scientist


Exclusive: Boris Johnson’s ‘chumocracy’ is using Covid crisis to sell off health service by stealth, says Sir David King

Boris Johnson’s use of public money during the coronavirus pandemic ‘really smells of corruption’, Sir David King said. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images


Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Tue 13 Apr 2021 

Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of corruption, privatising the NHS by stealth, operating a “chumocracy” and mishandling the pandemic and climate crisis, by Sir David King, a former government chief scientist.

“I am extremely worried about the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, about the processes by which public money has been distributed to private sector companies without due process,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “It really smells of corruption.”

King contrasted the success of the vaccination programme, carried out by the NHS, with the failure of the government’s test-and-trace operation, which has been contracted out to private companies.

“The operation to roll out vaccination has been extremely successful, it was driven through entirely by our truly national health service and GP service – just amazing,” he said. “Yet we have persisted with this money for test and trace, given without competition, without due process … I am really worried about democratic processes being ignored.”

He said: “This is a so-called chumocracy, that has been a phrase used, and that is what it looks like I’m afraid: it is a chumocracy.”

Sir David King was chief scientific adviser under Tony Blair and worked for Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary. Photograph: Dan Atkin/Alamy Stock Photo

Last May, King set up an independent alternative to the government’s Sage committee, which advises on the pandemic. The intention was for the unpaid members of Independent Sage to offer public advice without political influence, after it was revealed that Johnson’s then adviser Dominic Cummings had sat in on some Sage meetings.

King, a former professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, has a long history of working with governments of all stripes. He was appointed chief scientific adviser under Tony Blair in 2000, serving until 2008, and under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition was appointed chair of the Future Cities Catapult, launched in 2013. He also worked under Johnson as foreign secretary during Theresa May’s premiership.

King said: “He was my boss – he wrote me a handwritten letter to congratulate me on my climate success.”

King rejected the argument that the government had to act quickly to counter the pandemic and had been forced to ignore normal processes in doing so. “People say it’s a crisis – I say the government is using a crisis to privatise sections of the healthcare system in a way that is completely wrong,” he said. “A fraction of this money going to public services would have been far better results.”

He accused the government of acting deliberately to carry out ideological aims of privatising the NHS. “It is slipping this through in the name of a pandemic – effectively, to privatise the NHS by stealth,” he said. “I’m quite sure this has not been an accident, I’m quite sure this has been the plan, there has been clarity in this process. The audacity has been amazing.”

King, who has made the climate crisis one of his key areas of focus, is also concerned about the police and crime bill, which would give police the powers to shut down protests regarded as a nuisance.

He said: “It’s extremely worrying, as we pride ourselves in Britain on having developed a true democracy. Any democracy needs to give voice to dissent. There’s a real danger that we’re going down a pathway that leads away from democracy.”

King recently signed a letter calling on the supreme court to reconsider its pursuit of Tim Crosland, a campaigner against the third runway at Heathrow, for contempt of court. “I think he is being set up as an example to others,” said King. “It shows [the government’s] churlish attitude towards people campaigning.”

Greta Thunberg 'The Absurdity of the Situation': Greta Thunberg Compares Climate Threat to Laughing-Tears Emoji



'The Absurdity of the Situation': Greta Thunberg Compares Climate Threat to Laughing-Tears Emoji

© CC BY-SA 4.0 / Anders Hellberg / Greta Thunberg
ENVIRONMENT
13.04.2021
by Igor Kuznetsov

FROM SPUTNIK THE RUSSIAN NEWS SERVICE OPPOSED TO GRETA HENCE THE UNDERAGE PHOTO FROM YEARS BACK, GRETA IS 18 NOW

Speaking ahead of the launch of the BBC series “Greta Thunberg: A Year To Change The World”, the Swedish activist turned climate icon self-deprecatingly said she only “writes and gives speeches and travels around”, suggesting that “anyone else could have done the same thing”.

When asked which emoji best described the threat of climate change, Swedish teenage climate activist and campaigner Greta Thunberg ventured it was a laughing face with tears in the eyes.

“You need to be able to laugh sometimes. The climate crisis is actually hilarious, if you think of it. It’s just the absurdity of the situation,” she told The Times. “If you’re doing everything you can, then you just need to take a step back and say, OK, there’s nothing more I can do, so then you just have to laugh.”

Thunberg, who last year returned to school to study social science after spending much of 2019 on the move campaigning to promote her cause – which featured publicity stunts such as crossing the Atlantic aboard a “zero-emissions” yacht and rubbing elbows with celebrities – said she drew hope from the fact that the science about climate change was becoming clearer, even though the world still failed to act sufficiently on the problem.

“Of course, I don’t have all the solutions. No one has. But when we ask that question, we need to think about: solutions to what? Solutions to the climate crisis, or solutions that allow us to go on like today? Because right now, we are looking for solutions that allow us to go on like today.”

Furthermore, Thunberg accused politicians of profiting in popularity by using her, regardless of whether they support her cause, like Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or oppose it, like former US President Donald Trump. Regardless of whether they criticise her or praise her, they are exploiting her, Thunberg maintained.

“Whether it is by applauding me or taking selfies with me, or whether it is by calling me things, or criticising me. I mean, both these teams are using me for different purposes and in different ways, but they are still using me to gain popularity,” Thunberg said.

At the same time Thunberg addressed the decision of the University of Winchester to erect a $33,000 bronze statue of her by calling it “very strange”. Previously, the local students union called the statue a “vanity project” and lamented the money which, they argued, could be better spent.

​18-year-old Thunberg spoke to journalists ahead of the launch of the BBC series “Greta Thunberg: A Year To Change The World”, in which she visits places most dramatically affected by climate change, and meets climate scientists and fellow activists calling demanding more strenuous environmental action.

On a self-deprecating note, she ventured that she has “done nothing” compared to Sir David Attenborough.

“I’ve only done this together with the millions of others in the Fridays for Future movement, so it’s not something that I have accomplished, really. All I’ve done is to write and give speeches and to travel around, and it feels like anyone else could have done the same thing. It’s not that I’m unique in this sense,” Thunberg suggested.

Greta Thunberg shot to fame as a 15-year-old through her solitary protests opposite the Swedish parliament, which later mushroomed into a worldwide movement, making her an icon of the contemporary climate movement. Basking in undivided media attention ever since and lavished with prizes and accolades, Thunberg remains a highly divisive figure seen as a daring and dogged fighter by her fans and a manipulated stooge and a puppet by her critics.

Upper-class traitor Chuck Collins on how "wealth hoarding" will create more Trumps'

Chuck Collins walked away from a family fortune — and he's here to tell us how the super-rich dominate society

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

SALON
APRIL 13, 2021 

)

Businessman with Coin Bank (Getty Images)

Rich people may live on the same planet as the rest of us, but they exist in their own very special world.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed millions of people and caused economic, social, and political crises around the world. During this time of tumult, the world's richest people have seen their income and wealth grow immensely. For example, the world's billionaires have increased their collective wealth by a trillion dollars, at least a 50 percent expansion compared to the previous year.

In the United States, the language of "essential workers" is summoned to describe how the working poor are exploited by huge corporations like Amazon and Walmart. The billionaires who own or control such corporations are becoming even wealthier while preventing their employees from earning a living wage or organizing to defend their rights, health and safety.

Propaganda economy-speak about the alleged "K-shaped recovery" also masks the true extent of poverty and human misery that has been caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump regime's negligent, if not criminal, response.

Of course, while many millions of people have been imperiled by the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. and around the world, the very rich received early access to vaccines and lifesaving experimental treatments.

Money has been enshrined as a form of free speech in American politics. This has translated into enormous power and influence over the machinery of democracy. The predictable outcome is the peoples' democratic will is smothered, if not wholly ignored by elected officials; what political scientists describe as "plutocratic populism" is doing the work of American neofascism and autocracy.

Gangster capitalists are escalating their exploitation of the rainforests, jungles, and other crucial habitats and wilderness areas. This only increases the likelihood that other pandemic-scale diseases such as COVID-19 will spread from animals to humans.

How have the plutocrats responded to these crises and others? Instead of displaying social responsibility, many of the world's richest individuals and families are building bunkers, buying fortified islands or even making ultimate plans to abandon the planet.

What is it like to be a member of that social class? Chuck Collins knows. He was born into the Oscar Mayer meat and cold cuts family fortune. At age 26, he was compelled by conscience to give away his inheritance in an act of solidarity with the poor and broader community. Living his principles of human solidarity and social change work, Collins is now director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Collins is also the author of several books, including "Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good" and "Is Inequality in America Irreversible?" His new book is "The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Spend Millions to Hide Trillions."
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In this conversation, Collins explains how wealth hoarding negatively impacts American society, and how the very rich use the "wealth defense industry" to hide their assets in order to avoid paying taxes — and to remain above the law in other ways as well. Donald Trump is a prime example of that corrupt and dangerous plutocratic class.

He also discusses the unspoken cultural rules of the wealthy and the antisocial values and beliefs which guide their lives. At the end of this conversation, Collins debunks right-wing talking points about "the death tax" and "makers and takers" that are used to propagandize far too many "working-class" Americans into voting against their own economic self-interest.

During America's ongoing pandemic and this age of death, the rich have become even more powerful and wealthy while "essential workers" are being sacrificed. Unions have been further undermined and income is stagnant, if not declining, for the average American. There is mass unemployment and human misery. Given your life and decision to walk away from an inherited fortune, how do you make sense of this moment?

In a way, the pandemic was the great reveal of what happens when you allow a society to pull apart economically, socially, racially and politically. The fact that billionaires have seen their wealth increase and so many other people have lost so much — their lives, livelihoods, their savings, and their health. In my opinion, we should be making a big pivot and a transition in American society because of these lessons learned. There is a broader recognition that we need to do things to lift up the most vulnerable, pay a living wage, and have proper health care. More people are also realizing how top heavy the country's wealth concentration is.

Because I have an intimate front row seat to the world of wealth, I also see things cracking at that level. There are many wealthy people who do not want our society to keep going down this path. They know it is not going to end well.

What do we do with hope? Is hope a dangerous thing in America today?

I am friends with a labor organizer named Ernesto Cortes. He used to say, "You need to cultivate your cold anger." There is hot anger at the deep and entrenched systemic inequality and systemic racism. We can take that anger and lash out or we can take the steely cold anger and steer it into transformational activities. Let's get organized. Let's get people to run for office. Right now, there is a big fight over this question: Should a small, rich minority rule over America, who want to block the social and political changes that so many people want for this country? I think the pressure is going to keep building for a political realignment.

The concept of the "moneyed classes" is a very important one. I prefer it to the "one percent" or "plutocrats," which is vague and imprecise language. What does the concept and language of the "moneyed classes" allow us to communicate to the public at large?

We are drifting toward an oligarchy or what we could also describe as a "hereditary aristocracy of wealth". We could also describe that group as consisting of "wealth dynasties." In 20 years, the sons and daughters of today's billionaires will be calling the shots, running the economy, dominating politics, blocking change that everyone else wants and even using their philanthropy as an extension of their power and influence.

America is going to be moved even more away from a democratic self-governing society and toward raw rule by money. I do not believe this is in anyone's long-term interests. I have been trying to explain to wealthy people how ecological crises impact everybody. The super-rich need to reinvest back into society in order to solve some of the problems that impact and hurt them too. It is in their self-interest.
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How is the world you are describing any different from America right now?

It is a matter of degree. The inequality will be even more entrenched than it is today. It will be harder to dig out of the rut if you will. We'll have many more Donald Trumps running for office. The social safety net will be even more dismantled. There will be more political and social polarization. America may even be controlled by autocratic, totalitarian institutions. If these trends continue here in the United States, the country could look more like Brazil, a country with a very weak state, a powerful plutocratic governing class, a very small and precarious middle class and lots of desperate people. That is the dystopian outcome that could await America in 20 years.

What is life like for the rich, especially the extremely wealthy?

These people live in their own distinct realities. I grew up in middle "Richistan." I'm not from "Billionaireville." I'm not from old dynastic wealth. But I know enough about the rich to know that the higher up you get, the more unplugged you are from the day-to-day struggles of most people. In that way, wealth and privilege are a type of disconnection drug.
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Some members of the very rich might be politically engaged through their philanthropy and attempts to solve social problems. Some of these people might be liberal or even radical in terms of their politics. But as a group they are far removed from people, the majority of Americans, who experience true economic vulnerability and a feeling of being the precariat.

In discussing the rich we also need to make a distinction between those who are "merely" rich and those who are the very rich. I draw that line at $30 million. At $30 million and up, we see an oligarch class that have more money than they need to meet their needs. Now members of the group are focusing on achieving more social and political power. They are focusing on using their wealth to rig the rules of society to get more wealth. It is these oligarchs who the United States should be focusing tax reforms on. They are hoarding and hiding wealth through a whole "wealth defense" industry. They are also politically engaged and rigging the system to accomplish that goal.

What does their culture teach its members? What are the unstated rules?

One rule is that capital preservation is the norm — that you want wealth to continually grow. Do not touch the principal. Do not touch the assets. If you have to ask how much something is, you can't afford it. Look like you belong everywhere.

There are other rules and cultural norms as well. Be wary of everybody. People are after your money. Be careful who you marry, because they might want to take your money. There is much distrust among this class that keeps them from having meaningful connections with other people.

Among the rich there is also a very deep mythology of deservedness. Even if you are born on third base and you inherit wealth, you repeat that line from Donald Trump: "Well, I'm from a good family. My family's virtuous. My family worked hard, even though I just happened to have picked wealthy parents. There's something virtuous about me too!" That myth of deservedness, whether it's a first-generation wealth builder, entrepreneur or old wealth, is how social inequality is justified. The implication becomes "I deserve all the wealth that I have because I am virtuous and work hard." The corollary of that logic is that those people who are not wealthy deserve to be just where they are.

My response to that culture was to ask myself, "How come I have all this money? I didn't work to get it." To me that was wrong and an example of how the system is broken. All these other people are working incredibly hard, and they experience so much risk and insecurity in their lives. Something is broken here. I know I am not alone in those feelings.

What did the choice to walk away from your inheritance cost you? By this I do not mean money, but the cost in other ways to your life.

To be honest, it did not cost me much. I have so many other types of privilege and advantage. That is the nature of multigenerational advantage. Multigenerational disadvantage is the flipside of that. The privilege and advantage include such things as being fourth-generation property owners, financial literacy, access to education and the like. I also had a debt-free college education. I'm white, I'm male. I don't have to worry about economically supporting my parents in their older years. That is a huge advantage.

What is Donald Trump an example of, in this context?

Donald Trump is an example of a second-generation wealth dynasty. He was born into a privileged circumstance, but he remade his identity. Trump pretends that he is a first-generation entrepreneur. Trump is also a crypto-eugenicist. He talks about his genes all the time. He does not speak in terms of societal opportunities or advantages, but rather in terms of some form of genetic superiority. He is not alone: There are many other rich people who think of the world in the same terms. Donald Trump received $400 million from his father. That is a great head start in life. I would like to do an experiment and give that $400 million to another hundred people and see what they do with their lives.

I see Trump as an example of a class of wealthy white people who live largely consequence-free lives.

That is an apt description. Actually, one of the things that the wealth defense industry does is to take a rich person's wealth and put it in asset protection trusts. With these trusts, for example, if a rich person drives through a red light and kills somebody, they are not going to be held financially responsible for their actions. Another scenario: What if a rich person steals money from people and then parks it in an offshore trust or some other type of account or asset? There is a law professor at the University of Richmond named Allison Tait who describes this as "high-wealth exceptionalism." The rich believe that they live by a separate set of rules. You believe you get to have a separate set of rules. And in fact, the wealthy truly do have a separate set of rules than the rest of us in America.

What does that sense of immunity from consequence do to their emotions, morals and values? That core level of what it means to be a human being?

It leads to a breakdown in empathy and a breakdown in individual responsibility for your actions. Privilege is a disconnection drug. It separates people from one another, and it also separates them from the impact of their actions or inaction.

How does the wealth defense industry work?

The wealth defense industry has many tools at its disposal. These are individual wealthy people who help other wealthy people who are worth $30 million or more. There is also a parallel industry and set of personalities who help global corporations to hide their wealth and income.

But in terms of wealthy individuals, let's consider someone who lives in another country, some mineral-rich country in the Southern Hemisphere. You've been siphoning wealth off, through bribery or through deals selling off minerals. Perhaps you are a government official. You want to get that money out of the home country because someday there will be people who want that money back.

So what do you do? You move it into an offshore tax haven. You open up a bank account. You may also create a shell company that does not have your name on it. Eventually you bring that money or company to the United States, where you can purchase a luxury condominium in somewhere like downtown Chicago or New York.

There are other ways to launder the money through the system. You can take that money to South Dakota and create a dynasty trust, where the money can just sit in an account that you control but will never be subject to accountability or taxation.

A wealthy person in the United States can also create a Delaware shell company. There are a variety of complicated loopholes that the rich use. The complication is intentional because complexity is the bread and butter of the dynasty defense industry. At the simplest level, what is being done is to create a labyrinth of ownership structures to pretend that the billion dollars that you have is no longer in your name. When the tax collector comes, you just hold up your hands and say, "It's not my money!"

How do you explain to the average American how the wealth defense industry impacts their lives?

One, it is tax avoidance, which translates into the narrative from the government and elected officials that there is no money, we have to cut services, we can't afford low-cost student loans or mortgage subsidies. We can't alleviate poverty because supposedly there isn't any money. The impact on the average American is also manifest in how the wealth defense industry empowers and enables kleptocrats. It makes social inequality worse. The wealth defense industry and wealth hoarding also enables anti-democratic concentrations of wealth and power.

How do we rebut the right-wing narrative that there are "makers" and "takers" in society and that these discussions of social inequality and economic injustice are just "class warfare" or a politics of resentment?

It's a diabolical framing of the world, one that ignores how we are all interdependent. Even rich people are dependent on the public investments and property law protections in American society. None of these rich people do it alone. They exist in a society that makes it possible.

And what of the "working-class" Republicans and Trump supporters in "middle America" who are obsessed about the "death tax" and class warfare? That right-wing propaganda has been very effective these last few decades.

We have lived through 40 years of intensified class war, where the wealthy have rigged the rules to funnel more income and wealth to the top of the economic pyramid. People who work for wages are being punished. Such an outcome is what happens when you tip the economy to the benefit of wealth against work and against wages.

In terms of the wealth tax, if you have less than $12 million, you are never going to pay this estate tax. It's not a tax on success. It's a tax that slows the creation of these democracy-distorting wealth dynasties. The wealth tax is a good tax.

The rich have funded campaigns to make people think, "Oh, you're going to have to pay the death tax. And that farmer over there is going to have to pay the death tax." It's just helpful to say, "Hey Joe on the barstool there, do you have more than $23 million, you and your spouse? Well, why are you bellyaching about that? Why are you defending the plutocrats who are picking your pocket?"

If rich people were taxed in the same way as regular people — bus drivers, schoolteachers, nurses and the like — what would American society look like?

On a fundamental level, America would be a much better place to live in. There would be so much less stress and fear and division. We would not have people afraid that a job loss or divorce or illness would lead them to destitution and having to live in a car. In the '50s, '60s and '70s, it seemed as if American society was moving towards more egalitarianism. But then the country took a huge wrong turn in the late '70s and '80s. It does not have to be that way.

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

Japan To Dump Wastewater From

Wrecked Fukushima Nuclear Plant Into Pacific Ocean


April 13, 2021
ANTHONY KUHNTwitterFacebook

NPR

People in Tokyo protest a decision to start releasing into the ocean massive amounts of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant. The plant was damaged in a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Japan's government announced a decision to begin dumping more than a million tons of treated but still radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years.

The plant was severely damaged in a 2011 magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami that left about 20,000 people in northeast Japan dead or missing.

Despite Tokyo's assurances that discharging wastewater will not pose a threat to people or the environment, the decision was roundly criticized by the local fishing community, environmental groups and Japan's neighbors. Within hours of the announcement, protesters rallied outside government offices in Tokyo and Fukushima.

THE PICTURE SHOW
Remembering Fukushima: 10 Years After The Devastation

"On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release," Japan's government said in a statement after Cabinet ministers finalized the decision. The water will be further treated and diluted, and the release will begin in two years, and take decades to complete.

The damaged Fukushima plant will take at least decades to decommission. A swath of land around the plant remains uninhabitable, thousands of residents remain displaced, and the wastewater issue is another example of the 2011 disaster's complex, long-term effects.

Since the quake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, water used to cool the nuclear reactors and contaminated groundwater have been stored in massive tanks at the plants.

The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), says that by around next summer it will run out of space to build new tanks to hold the accumulated 1.25 million tons of wastewater. Critics argue that the government could acquire more land to build storage tanks.

Last year, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan's plan to release the water — or alternatively, to let it evaporate into the air — was technically feasible, "routinely used by operating nuclear power plants worldwide," and soundly based on safety and environmental impact assessments.

TEPCO says the wastewater has been treated to remove most of the radioactivity. However, tritium — a radioactive hydrogen isotope — remains.

But environmental groups remain skeptical of the government's and TEPCO's claims. "This process of decision-making is quite undemocratic," says Ayumi Fukakusa, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Japan, a Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization.

"The government and TEPCO said that without consent from the fishing communities, they won't discharge the contaminated water," she notes. "That promise was completely broken."

She adds that a series of hearings intended to canvass residents' opinions on the Fukushima water issue involved almost all men, thereby excluding women's viewpoints.


Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met last week with Hiroshi Kishi, the president of JF Zengyoren, a nationwide federation of fishing cooperatives, and asked for their understanding about the government's decision, but Kishi said the group's stance remains unchanged.

Another problem, Fukakusa adds, is that "TEPCO and the government said the water just contains tritium, which cannot be separated from water. But it turned out that the water contains more radioactive materials. But they didn't disclose that information before."

"That kind of attitude is not honest to people," she says. "They are making distrust by themselves."

The nonprofit Health Physics Society says tritium is considered to be hazardous to health only in large amounts and "may very slightly increase the probability that a person will develop cancer during his or her lifetime," although humans are naturally exposed to many other forms of radiation.

But Friends of the Earth Japan says the water in the storage tanks contains unknown quantities of radioactive contaminants besides tritium. Local media report that in February, shipments of black rockfish were halted after one sample caught near Fukushima contained cesium far in excess of acceptable levels.

Fish catches are at 17.5% of pre-quake levels, and many fishermen have been subsisting on handouts from TEPCO. They argue that the government's decision to dump the wastewater will make it impossible to sell their catch and will devastate their industry.

China expressed grave concern at the decision to dump wastewater, which the Foreign Ministry called "extremely irresponsible" and damaging to neighboring countries' interests.

In Seoul, South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon summoned Japan's ambassador to Seoul to protest the decision, expressing "deep regret over the potential threat to our citizens' health and environment."

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price commented in a statement that Japan "appears to have adopted an approach in accordance with globally accepted nuclear safety standards."

TEPCO again apologized for the nuclear accident in a statement Tuesday, saying it would work to restore trust in the company, "ascertain the root causes of these incidents and strengthen countermeasures throughout the entire organization."

The bizarre push to kill more of Montana’s wolves, explained

Four new hunting bills in the Big Sky State are reigniting a centuries-old debate.

MONTANA WOLVES ARE FROM CANADA THEY ROAM THE ROCKIES SOUTH

Amanda Northrop/Vox

By Benji Jones Apr 12, 2021, 11:20am EDT
Illustrations by Amanda Northrop/Vox

This story is part of Down to Earth, a new Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis.

Late this winter, Greg Gianforte, Montana’s recently elected Republican governor, trapped and shot a male wolf just outside the boundary of Yellowstone National Park at a private ranch owned by his pal Robert E. Smith, a director of the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group (a former campaign donor).

Hunting wolves is legal in Montana, and Gianforte later told the Helena Independent Record that he’d been after one for five years. “I put a lot of time in over many, many years and not every sportsman is fortunate to ultimately harvest a wolf,” said Gianforte, who added that he planned to mount it on his wall.

Not everyone who initially knew about the governor’s trophy was impressed, apparently. In the weeks after the hunt, someone tipped off a reporter with the Mountain West News Bureau that not only had the governor killed one of the 94 wolves that frequent Yellowstone, but he’d also failed to comply with a state regulation requiring hunters take a wolf-trapping course before catching an animal.

Nate Hegyi, the bureau reporter, also learned that the wolf had a name, “1155.” It had worn a radio collar since 2018 when National Park Service biologists began to track his movements in and out of the park.

The timing of the governor’s hunting protocol gaffe was disconcerting to conservationists already worried about the fate of Montana’s wolves. Gianforte, the first Republican governor in 16 years, would soon be deciding on several hunter-friendly bills to relax restrictions on killing wolves.

The argument behind those bills — which seek to legalize a range of new hunting methods and offer reimbursement to trappers for their expenses — is that wolves in Montana are killing too many game species like elk and deer, which people like to hunt. As of 2019, there were almost 1,200 wolves in Montana, according to the state’s Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Department. (The agency hasn’t yet released numbers for 2020.)

“Wolf numbers need to be reduced,” Paul Fielder, a Republican state representative behind two of the four bills, told Vox. One of them legalizes the use of snares, which catch and choke animals to death.

“Allowing the snaring of wolves in Montana by licensed trappers will give wildlife managers another tool to reduce wolf numbers — especially in areas where ungulate populations are stressed by wolves,” Fielder said at a state hearing in February.

There’s just one problem: This isn’t true. Parks department data doesn’t indicate that hoofed wildlife populations are stressed by wolves. Many wildlife biologists — and even the Montana Wildlife Federation, a pro-hunting conservation group — agree.

“The truth is, we have record numbers of elk in the state of Montana, including in areas with wolves,” said Nick Gevock, the federation’s conservation director. What’s more, critics of the bills say hunting methods like snares are cruel and indiscriminate.

On this highly charged issue with a complex history, the governor appears sympathetic to wolf hunters, many of whom have ties to his party. Gianforte recently signed Fielder’s two wolf bills into law.

“I think trapping is an important tool for predator control and for wildlife management,” he told the Independent Record in March. “I’m proud to be a trapper.”

But the wolf debate doesn’t seem to have much to do with science-based management. Instead, it comes down to how people view wolves across the state — and how their politics inform those views.

The rise and fall and rise of the gray wolf, briefly explained

Indigenous communities had, of course, been living with wolves for centuries before European settlers arrived.

“Traditionally, in the tribal views, when you look upon wolves, we look at them as kin, as helpers,” Letara Lebau, a resident of Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation, said last October during a presentation about human-carnivore coexistence. “We really look at the wolves as deserving of respect.”


Settlers and their early descendants held a vastly different view.

They saw wolves as villains that posed a threat to valuable livestock. And so in the 19th and 20th centuries, the US led a campaign to exterminate them. It was wildly effective: By the mid-20th century, only two populations of wolves remained in the lower 48 states.

In the decades that followed, we learned about the animal’s integral role in ecosystems — a fact Indigenous people already knew — causing attitudes toward the predator to shift. What started as a campaign to eradicate wolves became a campaign to save them. And in 1974, they were added to the newly minted Endangered Species Act, setting the stage for their recovery.

Twenty years later, that recovery got a huge boost: Biologists reintroduced 31 gray wolves from Canada into Yellowstone National Park (and some more into Idaho). It remains one of the most significant moments in the history of carnivore conservation in the US.

The recovery worked, and Montana was central to its success. By 2009, there were enough breeding pairs for the wolf to be delisted in Montana and in a few other regions, though the wolf remained on the federal ESA for another decade. (The Trump administration delisted it last year, much to the chagrin of environmental groups, citing a “successful recovery.”)

“The restoration of the gray wolf in the Northern Rockies is arguably the most successful wildlife reintroduction in United States history,” said Gevock.

Tim Williams/Vox

It’s still not easy to stumble upon a gray wolf in Montana — there are about 1,160 of the animals across the Big Sky State, just a fraction of their historic population. Yet the number is safely above the federally mandated minimum, set at 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves.

Fielder, the state representative who sponsored the two bills that Gianforte signed and a retired wildlife biologist, says that to maintain 15 breeding pairs you need about 285 wolves, because not all packs have breeding pairs. So, in his view, 1,160 is way too many.
Critics say the anti-wolf bills hark back to the extermination campaign

The bills, in short, would make it easier to kill more wolves.

One of them, sponsored by state Sen. Bob Brown, would provide reimbursement for trapping expenses — which critics call a bounty. The Senate bill is currently making its way through the House.

“Montana’s territorial legislature first offered a wolf bounty in 1883, and the goal was to reduce the wolf population,” said Jennifer Sherry, an environmental scientist and wildlife advocate at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. “Here we are over 100 years later talking again about the need for a wolf bounty to reduce the wolf population.”


Another bill, also sponsored by Brown, allows individual hunters to shoot an unlimited number of wolves and legalizes nighttime hunting using spotlights that temporarily blind the animals, with the intent of reducing the wolf population. Brown did not respond to a request for comment.

The other bills — both of which Fielder sponsored and the governor signed — extend the trapping season and allow hunters to use snares. (Montana allows for the snaring of some other animals, including bobcats.)

The reasoning that Fielder and Brown use to justify their bills is simple: Wolves in some parts of the state are eviscerating deer, elk, and moose populations. “Wildlife is suffering,” Fielder said in the hearing.

But the data tells a different story.

Elk and most other game species are doing just fine across Montana — and throughout the West

“The numbers don’t add up,” Sherry said. “Elk numbers are consistently strong across the state. Hunter success rates are consistently strong.”

In fact, the number of deer and elk killed by hunters across Montana has actually gone up overall in the past decade, according to Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Department hunting estimates.

Tim Williams/Vox

“These are good times for elk hunters, as Montana elk populations continue to be strong across most of the state,” said the agency’s 2020 hunting forecast.

Moose are an exception — their numbers are trending down — but there’s no evidence that wolves are to blame. The state commissioned a 10-year study in 2013 to pinpoint a culprit.

“Despite widespread speculation that adult moose are being killed by wolves and other carnivores, the study shows that the main culprits are health related,” Tom Dickson, the editor of the parks department’s newsletter, wrote in 2019, in reference to the study.

Fielder, however, argues that the problem is most severe in western Montana — where wolves are, by far, most abundant. But again, the evidence is sparse to tie the predator to any ungulate decline.

If you zero in on the northwest, home to the highest densities of wolves, you find that deer kills by licensed hunters have hovered around 2,000 a year for more than a decade (though they were much higher if you go back to 2004), according to parks department data. And while elk harvest numbers have fluctuated, there doesn’t seem to be a clear downward trend in the last decade either.


“White-tailed deer numbers have been on an upward trend in general,” the hunting forecast says about deer in the West.

Not surprisingly, the number of moose killed by hunters in the northwest is falling, but again, that may not have much to do with wolves. For one, the population of wolves isn’t growing, at least through 2019, the most recent year for which there’s data; it’s actually about the same as it was a decade ago. Plus, there are several other factors that shape the population of game animals, including forest fires and weather.

“Fire and winter have a much more significant impact than all the predators combined,” said Diane Boyd, a renowned wolf biologist and former parks department wolf specialist in northwest Montana. Prey have other predators, too, such as bears and mountain lions.

Parks department spokesperson Greg Lemon said the agency provided information to the legislature but declined to comment on aspects of the legislation.

“We find these bills to be based on misinformation about wildlife, misinformation about the effects of predators on prey species, and a lack of understanding about the complexity of natural environments in Montana,” residents and wildlife biologists, including Boyd and 16 former parks department employees, wrote in a March 16 letter to the state legislature and governor. “These bills are not based on science.” (Fielder disputes this claim.)

So if the bills aren’t based on science, what are they based on?

That’s a more challenging question to answer. Boyd, a hunter herself, pointed to politics. Far-right conservatism has surged in the last few years, she said, emboldening lawmakers with anti-wolf views. The stance among some conservatives on issues like gun and property rights often conflict with wildlife protections, she added.

But the relationship between far-right ideology, which flourished in the US in the Trump years, and wolf conservation isn’t so clear cut. One survey from 2012 found that while hunters tend to lean Republican or independent, and support gun rights, they also highly value conservation and access to the outdoors. To say conservative values are aligned with these bills would be an oversimplification.

“We’re really not sure why this extreme anti-wolf sentiment is here,” Gevock said, adding that he believes much of it comes from far-western Montana. Both Brown and Fielder hail from Thompson Falls, a small town about two hours northwest of Missoula.

Others say the new push to kill wolves with more brutal measures is rooted in antiquated views of these predators. Some influential lawmakers simply don’t believe in the inherent value of wolves, said Mike Phillips, a retired Democratic state senator and director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, who was involved in reintroducing wolves in Yellowstone.
All four bills are likely to become law, but that doesn’t mean Montana’s wolves are headed off a cliff

Gianforte has already signed two of the wolf bills, another is headed to his desk, and the fourth is still going through the legislature. Gevock says all four bills are likely to become law, whether or not Gianforte puts his signature on them.

“The governor will carefully consider any bill that the legislature sends to his desk,” Brooke Stroyke, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement to Vox.

But as Gevock and others point out, that doesn’t necessarily mean wolves are imperiled across the state, even if their numbers fall. As history has demonstrated, wolves are highly resilient animals.

“Wolves are a very elastic species, meaning they can take some pretty extreme measures and survive,” Gevock said. “Yes, we will kill more wolves, but they can bounce back quickly. They can take a pretty aggressive hunt.”

What’s harder to stomach, at least for Phillips, is what he calls a “disregard for life.”

“This is a moment defined by people of authority who don’t value large carnivores much at all,” Phillips said. “Why would we ever sanction needless killing?”

Marijuana legalization has won

Marijuana legalization is sweeping states from Virginia to New Mexico. The writing is on the wall.

By German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com Apr 12, 2021

 

A marijuana-themed US flag flies during a 2019 protest at the US Capitol. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

The US is nearing a tipping point of sorts on marijuana legalization: Almost half the country — about 43 percent of the population — now lives in a state where marijuana is legal to consume just for fun.

The past two months alone have seen a burst of activity as four states across the US legalized marijuana for recreational use: New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and, on Monday, New Mexico.

It’s a massive shift that took place over just a few years. A decade ago, no states allowed marijuana for recreational use; the first states to legalize cannabis in 2012, Colorado and Washington, did so through voter-driven initiatives. Now, 17 states and Washington, DC, have legalized marijuana (although DC doesn’t yet allow sales), with five enacting their laws through legislatures, showing even typically cautious politicians are embracing the issue.

At this point, the question of nationwide marijuana legalization is more a matter of when, not if. At least two-thirds of the American public support the change, based on various public opinion surveys in recent years. Of the 15 states where marijuana legalization has been on the ballot since 2012, it was approved in 13 — including Republican-dominated Alaska, Montana, and South Dakota (although South Dakota’s measure is currently held up in the courts). In the 2020 election, the legalization initiative in swing state Arizona got nearly 300,000 more votes than either Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

Legalization has also created a big new industry in very populous states, including California and (soon) New York, and that industry is going to push to continue expanding. One of the US’s neighbors, Canada, has already legalized pot, and the other, Mexico, is likely to legalize it soon, creating an international market that would love to tap into US consumers.

The walls are closing in on this issue for legalization opponents — and quickly.

Many politicians have played it cautiously in response to these trends. While some high-profile Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have come out in support, Biden continues to oppose legalization. Republicans, including Trump, are almost entirely opposed.

But at this point, their refusal comes off more like a last gasp than a movement that can hold back the tide of change. At a certain point, lawmakers will have to follow public opinion or risk losing an election. And the public has spoken very clearly, time and again.

What’s less clear is how it’ll happen. Maybe it’ll be a slow, state-by-state battle before the federal government ends its own prohibition on cannabis, or maybe federal action will lead to a flurry of states legalizing. What has become clear is that legalization will eventually win, and the vast majority of states, if not all, will soon join the ranks of the legalizers.

Marijuana legalization is very popular

In the span of two decades, marijuana legalization has gone from a fringe issue to one the vast majority of Americans embrace.

In 2000, just 31 percent of the country backed legalization while 64 percent opposed it, according to Gallup’s public surveys. By 2020, the numbers flipped: The most recent Gallup poll on the topic showed that 68 percent supported legalization and 32 percent were against it.

There are a few possible explanations for the flip. The general failure of the war on drugs to actually stop widespread drug addiction (see: the opioid epidemic), as well as backlash to the punitive policies the drug war brought, left a lot of Americans craving new approaches. The public has come to see marijuana as not so bad — less harmful than legal drugs such as alcohol or tobacco. The advent of the internet likely sped up some of these conversations, too, and the spread of medical marijuana might have shown more Americans that the US can handle the drug’s legalization.

Gallup

Regardless, the trend toward support is found in basically every major survey on this issue, with polling groups consistently finding a strong majority backing of legalization, from the Pew Research Center (67 percent in 2019) to the General Social Survey (61 percent in 2018).

The trend toward legalization is found in the real world, too. Oregon voters rejected a legalization measure in 2012, only to approve a separate initiative two years later. Arizona voters said no to a legalization measure in 2016, only to approve another one four years later.

There’s even solid Republican support for legalization. Gallup found that a slim majority of Republicans supported it in 2017, 2018, and 2019; a majority opposed it in 2020, but the difference was within the margin of error, and a sizable minority of 48 percent still backed legalization. Pew also found a majority of Republicans — 55 percent — backed legalization in 2019.

This Republican support is also seen in the real world. In the 2020 election, Trump won Montana by 16 points and South Dakota by 26 points. In both states that same year, most voters approved legalization initiatives, with pretty strong margins of around 8 percentage points in South Dakota and 16 percentage points in Montana.

To put this another way, marijuana legalization has appeared on the ballot in four states dominated by Republicans: Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. It’s won in three of them, losing only in North Dakota. Marijuana legalization is 3-1 in solid red states!

There’s little reason to think that any of these trends will change soon.

There’s not much that can turn this around

There’s a world in which you could envision growing support for marijuana legalization suddenly collapsing. Maybe after Colorado, Washington, or a few other states legalized, things went really badly. Teen use went up, along with car crashes, crime, ER visits related to pot, and other bad outcomes. Voters see the error of their ways and change course.

But that just hasn’t happened. In the states that have legalized, things have generally gone fine. There were some concerns about marijuana-laced edibles in the early days, but those worries died out quickly as regulators instituted some new rules and retail outlets bolstered their advice to newbies about how to consume edibles. The gigantic rises in all the problem outcomes legalization opponents warned against never came to fruition.

A big tell here is how often politicians flip-flop to support legalization once their state legalizes and things go basically fine. In Colorado, then-Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2012 said he opposed the ballot measure, only to fully support legalization and brag about how his administration implemented it by the time he ran for senator in 2020. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who opposed legalization during his 2012 run, said in March that the one thing he’d do differently is “[embrace] this position of decriminalizing it earlier, had I known how successful this has been with not any really large increase in juvenile usage, which was a concern while we were debating this.”

There are also major forces that will continue to support legalization and encourage its expansion. The US marijuana industry is now valued at more than $18 billion, supporting the equivalent of over 300,000 full-time jobs, more than the total number of electrical engineers or dentists, according to the 2021 Leafly Jobs Report.

This is simply a big industry now, for better or worse. Any politician moving to shut it down risks incurring the wrath of hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs. And because it’s a promising industry, there’s a strong economic incentive — between additional jobs and tax revenue — for more states to embrace legalization.

Not to mention that this major new industry can now use its economic weight to directly back legalization measures, providing much-needed funding to help get them across the finish line. In this way, marijuana legalization’s success at the ballot box so far will lead to more success.

There are, of course, still major barriers to full legalization nationwide. Marijuana remains totally illegal under federal law, including in states that have legalized it under their own statutes. International treaties prohibit countries from legalizing marijuana for recreational uses (although with Canada, Mexico, and Uruguay moving to legalize, it doesn’t seem like anyone really cares). Most of the US population still lives in a state that hasn’t legalized, and it will take a lot of time and effort in legislatures and ballot boxes to change that.

But it’s now very clear where the trends are heading. It might take several more years to become national reality, but marijuana legalization is here to stay.