"Inflation Only Hurting The Poor, No Biggie," -Secretary of Treasury- Basically,"Millennials/Gen-Z Splurge on Groceries," -Corporate Press, US/Japan/Philippines Unite vs. China (The Five for 04/09/24)
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
Let’s dive into the news.
[one]
In 2012, the sitcom 30 Rock ran a bit where an American reporter had been kidnapped by North Korea, and went on TV to tell the starving population of the Communist Dictatorship, “you’ve had enough to eat today.”
A decade life appears to be mimicking art, as the corporate press has made two horrific proclamations in the same week.
During an interview with CNBC released on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that “Some low-income consumers are perhaps exhausting their buffers of saving[s] that they built up during the pandemic, we’re seeing a little bit more distress at the household level there.” But despite that, “we’ve got a good, strong economy” with “very strong domestic demand” that is “on a solid track” and “generally, households are in very good financial shape.”
Oh good. Wall Street is doing great, but the working class and poor are getting crushed…so the corporate press has decided to just re-brand this as “splurging” on calories needed to survive, and avoiding extra spending…to purchase those calories needed to surive.
From Business Insider.
Splurging once meant spending money on buzzy restaurants, expensive vacations, and designer clothing. These days, what's considered splurge-worthy falls into a more humble category.
Groceries are shaping up to be a top spending priority for younger generations, a February report from McKinsey & Company found.
The firm asked over 4,000 people, from baby boomers to Gen Zers, about the categories they intend to splurge on this year. Groceries ranked highest for millennials and Gen Zers, outpacing restaurants, bars, travel, beauty and personal care, apparel, and fitness.
That’s not “splurging,” that’s just not having money for anything else. As a rule, I try to stay away from using the tired line “the press hates the American people,” but what else are we supposed to think about spouting the above talking points at the public?
[two]
One of the hottest topics during the last couple of years in the business world are HR-mandated DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) trainings for corporate employees.
Turns out the call is coming from inside the house…HR departments aren’t the ones who should be rolling out mandated training on race in the workplace…they should be forced to take it themselves.
A group of economists recently performed an experiment on around 100 of the largest companies in the country, applying for jobs using made-up resumes with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics. They changed applicants’ names to suggest that they were white or Black, and male or female — Latisha or Amy, Lamar or Adam.
On Monday, they released the names of the companies. On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5% more often than the presumed Black applicants.
Yet this practice varied significantly by firm and industry. One-fifth of the companies — many of them retailers or car dealers — were responsible for nearly half of the gap in callbacks to white and Black applicants.
Two companies favored white applicants over Black applicants significantly more than others. They were AutoNation, a used car retailer, which contacted presumed white applicants 43% more often, and Genuine Parts Co., which sells auto parts including under the NAPA brand, and called presumed white candidates 33% more often.
In a statement, Heather Ross, a spokesperson for Genuine Parts, said, “We are always evaluating our practices to ensure inclusivity and break down barriers, and we will continue to do so.” AutoNation did not respond to a request for comment.
Racism is a real thing, and very much still a problem facing the United States. But that racism is often stereotyped as coming from an Oklahoma oil rig worker, when more and more data points to the thirtysomething white liberal HR employee, as The Washington Post covered in 2018.
[three]
The U.S., Japan and the Phillipines have had a turbulent relationship, which includes the U.S. invading the Phillipines for no good reason (well, we wanted their land and stuff and declared they were “incapable of self rule”), and obviously Japan attacked U.S. soil on December 7, 1941…and the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan at the end of WWII.
But hey, nothing makes you forget old grudges like a new war, as China could attack both Japan and Philippine military bases in an an invasion of Taiwan.
CNN reports:
“The perceived threat of China has really driven these three together,” said James D.J. Brown, associate professor of political science at Temple University in Tokyo, ahead of this week’s summit between US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control and has not renounced the use of force to do so.
The Taiwan Relations Act obligates Washington to provide weaponry for the island’s defense, and Biden has repeatedly suggested he would use US military personnel to defend it in the event of a Chinese invasion (though White House officials have said the US policy to leave that question ambiguous has not changed).
Both the Philippines and Japan are US defense treaty allies, and the US military retains permanent bases in Japan and has base rights in the Philippines.
In the event of conflict, China could not ignore either with less than a few hundred kilometers of water separating both the Philippines and Japan from Taiwan, analysts say.
“If you’re China, you cannot invade Taiwan, without dealing with the Philippines first, or dealing with the Japanese bases as well,” said Micah Jeiel Perez, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
[four]
A complicated police shooting has occured in Chicago, leaving one officer injured and the alleged perpetrator dis
Plainclothes Chicago police officers fired nearly 100 gun shots over 41 seconds during a traffic stop that left one man dead and one officer injured, according to graphic video footage a police oversight agency released Tuesday.
Five officers from a tactical unit who were in an unmarked police vehicle surrounded an SUV last month driven by Dexter Reed, allegedly for failing to wear a seatbelt. Video shows the 26-year-old Black man briefly lowering a window and then raising it and refusing to exit the vehicle as more officers arrived, yelled commands and drew weapons.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability said preliminary evidence showed Reed fired first, injuring an officer in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the city’s West Side. Then four officers returned fire, shooting 96 rounds.
The gunshots continued even after “Reed exited his vehicle and fell to the ground,” COPA said in releasing the body-worn camera footage, 911 calls and police reports.
The videos released offer a fuller perspective than what police initially offered last month.
Police Superintendent Larry Snelling previously said the shooting on March 21 began with a traffic stop and described it as an “exchange of gunfire.”
The law allows those in self defense scenarios, whether police or civilians, to use deadly force until the threat has stopped. The full bodycam hasn’t been released yet…and what we can see above is blurred…but if the officer kept firing on an unarmed Reed (who, at that point, might have already been dead), this situation could escalate, and the officers could theoretically be charged with a crime.
It’s also entirely possible Reed was still holding the gun and firing from a prone position. We won’t know until the footage is released, but this could be an explosive situation.
[five]
A Wyoming man has only been fined $250 for horrendous animal cruelty.
A Wyoming hunter paraded a wounded wolf in a bar with its mouth taped shut before taking it outside to kill it – with a family member later mocking outrage over it by posting a reenactment.
A shocking photo recently obtained by the Cowboy State Daily shows Cody Roberts, 42, smiling and raising a can of beer while holding the wolf with red tape wound tightly around its muzzle.
Roberts allegedly disabled the wolf when he ran over it with a snowmobile, but instead of killing it — which is legal in Sublette County, where it happened — took the animal to his home and then to the bar.
He finally took it behind the building and killed it, according to the Cowboy State Daily.
An investigation was launched into the Feb. 29 incident after an anonymous tip was called in a few days later, Wyoming Game and Fish spokeswoman Breanna Ball told Cowboy State Daily.
However, Roberts has only been cited for a wildlife violation over the shocking incident because people may only be charged with cruelty for cases involving pets and domestic animals, not predators like wolves.
He was fined $250 for the violation, the only penalty that Game and Fish said it had the power to enforce.
The photo sparked horror as well as a petition calling for Roberts to face a felony charge of animal cruelty.
There is a VERY strong link between animal cruelty and the abuse and murder of people, according to several well researched sources.
Somebody call Rip Wheeler, we’ve need a drop-off at the train station…
Until the next one,
-sth