U.S. Citizens Now Hold About $1.3 Trillion in Student Loan Debt
November 21st, 2016Via: Finance Geography:
The New York Fed’s second quarter numbers are out for 2016 and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture for student loan debt. Officially, the nation owes $1.26 trillion in student loan debt. Realistically, we are probably over the $1.3 trillion mark when taking into account the fact that the Fall semester has just started and many Spring graduates are still in the grace period.
Just one year ago, student loan debt was at $1.19 trillion. About $70 billion worth of student loans have been added in the last 365 days.
Student loan debt has been the largest sector of non-mortgage debt since March 2010 and it seems to be growing at what might be an untenable pace. At the beginning of 2004, the nation owed about $260 billion in student loan debt and default rates were relatively low.
In the past 12 years, we have added a trillion dollars to that amount and gained about 4% in the overall college graduation rate. While an educated populous is a good thing, the number of those not making payments on their student loan debt as soared. Approximately 40% of those who owe money on student loan debts are not making any payments on them at all, either from defaults, forbearance, deferment, or being delinquent.
Trump’s Picks For AG & CIA Happy To Undermine Civil Liberties, Increase Surveillance
November 20th, 2016Via: TechDirt:
This is (unfortunately) not a huge surprise, but it appears that a Trump administration is going to be much worse for civil liberties and surveillance. Earlier today, Donald Trump named his choices to head the CIA — Rep. Mike Pompeo — and to be the next Attorney General — Senator Jeff Sessions — and both have terrible records on surveillance, civil liberties and whistleblowing. They also are problematic in other areas, but in the areas where we cover, it’s not looking good.
America Called Bullshit on the Cult of Clinton
November 20th, 2016Via: Reason:
If you want to see politics based on emotionalism over reason and a borderline-religious devotion to an iconic figure, forget the Trump Army; look instead to the Cult of Clinton.
Ever since Donald Trump won the presidential election, all eyes, and wringing hands, have been on the white blob who voted for him. These “loud, illiterate and credulous people,” as a sap at Salon brands them, think on an “emotional level.” Bill Moyers warned that ours is a “dark age of unreason,” in which “low information” folks are lining up behind “The Trump Emotion Machine.” Andrew Sullivan said Trump supporters relate to him as a “cult leader fused with the idea of the nation.”
What’s funny about this is not simply that it’s the biggest chattering-class hissy fit of the 21st century so far — and chattering-class hissy fits are always funny. It’s that whatever you think of Trump (I’m not a fan) or his supporters (I think they’re mostly normal, good people), the fact is they’ve got nothing on the Clinton cult when it comes to creepy, pious worship of a politician.
Particular Seaweed Fed to Cows Nearly Eliminates Methane
November 20th, 2016Via: CBC News:
The agricultural scientist, then at Dalhousie University, helped test Dorgan’s seaweed mix, and discovered it reduced the methane in the cows’ burps and farts by about 20 per cent.
Kinley knew he was on to something, so he did further testing with 30 to 40 other seaweeds. That led him to a red seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis he says reduces methane in cows burps and farts to almost nothing.
…
“I was testing one day a series of samples when all of a sudden it looked like my instruments were having problems, and I wasn’t able to see emissions from one particular sample,” he said. “So I did it over and over again and lo and behold the methane emissions were eliminated.
West Texas Shale Oil
November 20th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
In a troubled oil world, the Permian Basin is the gift that keeps on giving.
One portion of the giant field, known as the Wolfcamp formation, was found to hold 20 billion barrels of oil trapped in four layers of shale beneath the desert in West Texas, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a report on Tuesday. That’s almost three times larger than North Dakota’s Bakken play and the single largest U.S. unconventional crude accumulation ever assessed. At current prices, that oil is worth almost $900 billion.
The estimate lends credence to Pioneer Natural Resources Co. Chief Executive Officer Scott Sheffield’s assertion that the Permian’s shale endowment could hold as much as 75 billion barrels, making it second only to Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field. Pioneer has been increasing its production targets all year as drilling in the Wolfcamp produced bigger gushers than the Irving, Texas-based company’s engineers and geologists forecast.
“The fact that this is the largest assessment of continuous oil we have ever done just goes to show that, even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more,” Walter Guidroz, coordinator for the geological survey’s energy resources program, said in the statement.
Apple Asks iPhone Manufacturers to Investigate Making iPhones in U.S.
November 19th, 2016Via: Nikkei:
iPhones might one day soon carry “Made in America” labels.
Key Apple assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn Technology Group, has been studying the possibility of moving iPhone production to the U.S., sources told the Nikkei Asian Review.
“Apple asked both Foxconn and Pegatron, the two iPhone assemblers, in June to look into making iPhones in the U.S.,” a source said. “Foxconn complied, while Pegatron declined to formulate such a plan due to cost concerns.”
‘Extreme Surveillance’ Becomes UK Law with Barely a Whimper
November 19th, 2016Via: Guardian:
A bill giving the UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world has passed into law with barely a whimper, meeting only token resistance over the past 12 months from inside parliament and barely any from outside.
The Investigatory Powers Act, given royal assent on Thursday, legalises a whole range of tools for snooping and hacking by the security services unmatched by any other country in western Europe or even the US.
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US whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted: “The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies.”
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The Investigatory Powers Act legalises powers that the security agencies and police had been using for years without making this clear to either the public or parliament. In October, the investigatory powers tribunal, the only court that hears complaints against MI6, MI5 and GCHQ, ruled that they had been unlawfully collecting massive volumes of confidential personal data without proper oversight for 17 years.
Research Credit: Jb
A Demonstration of Browser Events Used to Monitor Online Behaviour
November 19th, 2016Via: clickclickclick.click:
A browser-based game on online profiling.
Michigan Fights Order to Deliver Bottled Water to Flint Residents After Lead Poisoning Disaster
November 18th, 2016Via: Detroit News:
A federal court order requiring Michigan and Flint to deliver bottled water to all city residents without a verified filter at their home places is unnecessary and places an “insurmountable” burden on state government, the Snyder administration argued in a motion seeking relief.
Snyder officials argued the court order would require a “Herculean effort” equivalent to a large-scale military operation and cost the state at least $10.45 million a month, or $125 million annually. For about a year, Flint’s residents have been advised against drinking their tap water without a filter due to dangerously high lead levels.
Attorneys for Michigan Treasurer Nick Khouri and the Flint Receivership Transition Advisory Board on Thursday asked U.S. Circuit Judge David M. Lawson to “stay” his order from last week while the state prepares an appeal.
In a 37-page opinion, Lawson ordered home delivery of four cases of water per resident each week unless state and city officials can verify each resident has a properly installed and maintained faucet water filter. The delivery order “increases the scope of the State’s emergency response to an unnecessary and insurmountable degree, particularly in light of the injunction’s time constraints,” attorneys wrote.
“The required injunction far exceeds what is necessary to ensure Flint residents have access to safe drinking water,” the lawyers wrote, arguing Khouri and the state advisory board lack the authority to ensure compliance with an order that could cost Michigan taxpayers “millions of dollars.”
Michigan Democratic Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, criticized the Snyder administration’s appeal.
“If the governor had made a Herculean effort to address this crisis from the start, they wouldn’t need to continue this legal maneuvering,” Ananich said in a Thursday statement, referring to the three months that passed between the acknowledgment of elevated lead levels and a January state emergency declaration.
Research Credit: Duros
“Pizzagate”: How 4Chan Uncovered the Sick World of Washington’s Occult Elite
November 18th, 2016This is a very bad one. I was trying to follow this on 4chan a couple of weeks ago, but I just couldn’t stand it.
Thankfully, Vigilant Citizen has put this summary together.
Via: Vigilant Citizen:
Posters over at 4Chan and Reddit have been conducting an extremely bizarre investigation following the John Podesta e-mail leak (Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman) and the results are surreal: They’ve apparently uncovered an elite child trafficking network which celebrates its tendencies using code words and disturbing artworks.
Research Credit: DF
