Oh, I 'member!

Crossposted from https://aussie.zone/post/34526904

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8996939

By Mean Gene https://x.com/mean_gene_real/status/2075597505442509191

Some critics of the Trump administration are reacting with horror to revelations that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as the de facto ruler of Venezuela.

According to a Saturday report in The New York Times, Rubio for the last several months has been acting informally as the "viceroy" of Venezuela ever since its recognized president, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by the American military in January and brought to the US to face charges related to "narco-terrorism."

The Times' sources revealed that Rubio "effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources, and its government" and "is deeply involved in the country’s day-to-day operations," while maintaining regular contact with acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez.

Under current arrangements, the US Treasury Department takes in revenue from Venezuela's exports, including its petroleum, and then disperses the money back to the country through its private banks with strict conditions set by Rubio over what it can be spent on.

In explaining the system, the Times likened it to "parents handing out allowances to children," adding that it gives Rubio "immense leverage over... Rodríguez, who depends on the money to pay workers and prop up the national currency."

Elizabeth Saunders, professor of political science at Columbia University, described Rubio's power over Venezuela as "insane," as well as "derelict, unconscionable, and impeachable."

"The secretary of state's time is scarce, valuable, and not outsourcable," Saunders emphasized.

Orlando J. Pérez, professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas at Dallas, said the Times report made a mockery of Rubio's professed claims to want to bring democracy back to Venezuela.

"It appears Rubio has transformed from democracy promotion warrior," Pérez commented, "to transactional realpolitik operative!"

Kenneth Roth, former executive director at Human Rights Watch, wrote that US control over Venezuela appeared similar to the kind of imperial power wielded by European nations in the 19th Century.

"Trump has turned Venezuela into an effective US colony," said Roth, "with Marco Rubio as the viceroy and Washington controlling the country’s oil revenue and dictating major foreign and domestic policies. Democracy has been relegated to the distant future."

Bradley Simpson, historian at the University of Connecticut, also saw the current US arrangement with Venezuela as a return to overt imperialism.

"We are literally back in the Dollar Diplomacy days of the 1910s," Simpson wrote, "when the United States invaded countries and took over their financial systems and ran them as effective colonies. Flagrantly illegal, enormously corrupt. Where is the organization of American states or UN in denouncing this?"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56029120

Latest five-year plan omits figure for jobs growth, a fixture of economic planning, for first time in decades.

Archived

China has declined to set a target for urban employment for the next half-decade, the first time it has not done so in decades, amid signs of growing pressures across the world’s second-largest economy.

A five-year plan released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on Thursday said only that China would “maintain” new urban job jobs of “a considerable scale”, without offering a specific number.

The previous six such plans set targets of new urban jobs in the tens of millions for each five-year period. The most recent plan, for 2021-2025, aimed for more than 55mn new jobs.

The omission of the target, a fixture of economic planning since the 1990s, comes amid a sharp slowdown in overall urban employment growth in recent years.

[...]

Urbanisation has been a critical engine of China’s growth for decades, as the economy shifted away from agriculture and the factories and construction sites of its booming cities swelled with migrant workers.

But the country’s roaring property sector entered a slump in 2021 from which it has yet to emerge, and persistent deflationary pressures have reflected weak consumer demand.

[...]

Labour market indicators, such as urban vs rural jobs, point to wider challenges across the job market.

One such indicator from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that out of about 180mn rural migrant workers who sought work last year — probably mainly in cities — 49mn returned to their villages, a sign that they could not find work in urban areas.

“The share of the workforce engaged in agriculture rose for only the second time in decades, as fewer urban job opportunities pushed more people into farming,” said Gavekal Dragonomics analyst Ernan Cui in a report.

Chris Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal, said: “When we look at these other ancillary indicators, very clearly it shows that there’s been a shock to the labour market.”

[...]

In 2023, China also discontinued reporting of youth unemployment data after the metric rose to 21 per cent. It later reinstated the data series under a new methodology and at a lower rate.

The gig economy has also drawn scrutiny, where an estimated tens of millions pursue informal work such as ride-hailing and delivery driving.

Shenzhen, the southern tech hub, said at the end of May its ride-hailing industry was saturated.

[...]

I'm not sure if there's a better title for this series, but basically I'll be sharing unlicensed games that have political messaging relevant to the time the game was made. I was originally going to focus on console games but there's exactly one old Windows game I wanted to include so whatever.

Terrifying 9.11 is a bootleg Game Boy Color game developed by Ruanxin (based out of Fuzhou, China) and released sometime 2002 (or possibly end of 2001). The game opens with a video montage of the planes hitting the twin towers while a chiptune rendition of Shir LaShalom plays. Pressing start brings up a little story crawl about 9/11 and the plan to send super soldiers into Afghanistan. Pressing start again opens a map screen and again into an exchange between Bush and Bin Laden. And then finally... Metal Slug. It's a Metal Slug port. A surprisingly decent one!

Join our public Matrix server!

https://rentry.co/tracha#tracha-rooms

As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.

Also, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It's for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.

Here is a screenshot of where to find the spoiler button.

spoiler

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56028522

Archived

The country’s pivot from low-end manufacturing towards advanced technology may leave millions of workers behind.

https://mod.gov.ua/en/news/total-russian-combat-losses-in-ukraine-as-of-july-13-2026

By Mean Gene https://xcancel.com/mean_gene_real/status/2075597505442509191

https://wuzzy.neocities.org/comic/414/

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/9010502

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/63872

Some critics of the Trump administration are reacting with horror to revelations that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as the de facto ruler of Venezuela.

According to a Saturday report in The New York Times, Rubio for the last several months has been acting informally as the "viceroy" of Venezuela ever since its recognized president, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by the American military in January and brought to the US to face charges related to "narco-terrorism."

The Times' sources revealed that Rubio "effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources, and its government" and "is deeply involved in the country’s day-to-day operations," while maintaining regular contact with acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez.

Under current arrangements, the US Treasury Department takes in revenue from Venezuela's exports, including its petroleum, and then disperses the money back to the country through its private banks with strict conditions set by Rubio over what it can be spent on.

In explaining the system, the Times likened it to "parents handing out allowances to children," adding that it gives Rubio "immense leverage over... Rodríguez, who depends on the money to pay workers and prop up the national currency."

Elizabeth Saunders, professor of political science at Columbia University, described Rubio's power over Venezuela as "insane," as well as "derelict, unconscionable, and impeachable."

"The secretary of state's time is scarce, valuable, and not outsourcable," Saunders emphasized.

Orlando J. Pérez, professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas at Dallas, said the Times report made a mockery of Rubio's professed claims to want to bring democracy back to Venezuela.

"It appears Rubio has transformed from democracy promotion warrior," Pérez commented, "to transactional realpolitik operative!"

Kenneth Roth, former executive director at Human Rights Watch, wrote that US control over Venezuela appeared similar to the kind of imperial power wielded by European nations in the 19th Century.

"Trump has turned Venezuela into an effective US colony," said Roth, "with Marco Rubio as the viceroy and Washington controlling the country’s oil revenue and dictating major foreign and domestic policies. Democracy has been relegated to the distant future."

Bradley Simpson, historian at the University of Connecticut, also saw the current US arrangement with Venezuela as a return to overt imperialism.

"We are literally back in the Dollar Diplomacy days of the 1910s," Simpson wrote, "when the United States invaded countries and took over their financial systems and ran them as effective colonies. Flagrantly illegal, enormously corrupt. Where is the organization of American states or UN in denouncing this?"

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