RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/starbucks-ceo-progressive-cities-have-abdicated-their-responsibility-in-fighting-crime/

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, suggested Wednesday that major U.S. cities and those managing their governments are neglecting the crime issue to the detriment of commerce and community safety.

“I must say, in my view at the local, state and federal level, these governments across the country and leaders, mayors and governors, city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental health,” Schultz reportedly said at an internal meeting, according to a video posted on Twitter.

The business leader’s remarks came after his company announced plans to permanently close 16 locations in five progressive U.S. cities, including six in Seattle, six in Los Angeles, two in Portland, one in Philadelphia, and one in Washington, D.C., by the end of the month due to repeated security disturbances. Such incidents included customers and other members of the public using drugs in the stores.

“I don’t have to spend too much time on what’s going on in the country and how America is becoming unsafe, but you all read the press release over the last couple of days that we are beginning to close stores that are not unprofitable,” Schultz lamented. “It has shocked me that one of the primary concerns that our retail partners have is their own personal safety.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2022/07/15/the-u-s-misery-index-worsens-as-unchecked-bidenflation-grows-n1612816

The U.S. government announced Wednesday that June’s federal inflation numbers increased to a staggering 9.06% — a 40-year high. According to the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) news release, inflation is being felt keenly and across the board:

The increase was broad-based, with the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food being the largest contributors. The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent and the other major component indexes also
rising. The food index rose 1.0 percent in June, as did the food at home index.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.7 percent in June, after increasing 0.6 percent in the preceding two months. While almost all major component indexes increased over the month, the largest contributors were the indexes for shelter, used cars and trucks, medical care, motor vehicle insurance, and new vehicles. The indexes for motor vehicle repair, apparel, household furnishings and operations, and recreation also increased in June. Among the few major component indexes to decline in June were lodging away from home and airline fares.

From the updated BLS data, economists quantify the economic health of the country. To do so, they add the current U.S. unemployment rate, which is a stagnant 3.6%, to the current rate of U.S. inflation, which is a jarring 9.06%, to produce a snapshot of the country’s economy. The result is known as the U.S. Misery Index.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

War has always been man’s nemesis, combatting his desire for global peace. Unfortunately, war has won, perhaps because the latter is an unrealistic ideal, not possible given man’s imperfections. Nevertheless, just because world peace has never been achieved does not mean the search for it should cease, though any search should be leavened with realism. We live in a world as it is, not as we would wish it to be.

Does global peace depend on a governing world order, or does it depend on maintaining a balance of power among sovereign nations having membership in organizations like the UN, the IMF and the WHO? If so, how much authority should each state cede to global authorities? A more basic question: Is lasting peace even possible given the fallibility of humans and with states having myriad views on governance? Limited wars may be unavoidable. What should be paramount is reducing the risk of annihilation by nuclear weapons. Should not nations and societies, instead of attempting a world order, first build cultures of respect, tolerance, civility and decency?

In his 2014 book World Order, Henry Kissinger wrote: “No truly ‘global’ world order has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised in Western Europe nearly four centuries ago, at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia.” The Peace of Westphalia concluded the Thirty Years War, and it established modern Europe with sovereign states. Yet their efforts did not prevent Napoleon from trying to unite Europe in the first two decades of the 19th Century, nor did it stop Hitler from trying to do the same 120 years later. It did not prevent lights from “going out all over Europe” in August 1914.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/07/15/biden-claims-inflation-numbers-out-of-date-because-of-lower-gas-prices-the-last-two-weeks-n1613112

This is a good example of a desperate man reaching for a life preserver that turns out to be a shark fin.

Joe Biden is in the Middle East, where the Muslims don’t like him or the country he leads very much at all. No American flags greeted Biden as his motorcade made its way through Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s capital. Biden spent the better part of his first year in office blasting Saudi Arabia and its leader, Mohammed bin Salman, for his part in the death of a Washington Post writer.

Now, he’s coming to the Saudis on his knees, begging them to increase oil production.

Being overseas, Biden is relieved because he doesn’t have to listen to the constant carping of the media and even his own party about prices. The day after the consumer price index showed a frightening rise of 9.1 percent over the last year, and the producer price index showed a rise of 11.3 percent in wholesale prices, Biden decided to pretend things weren’t so bad.