Fed officials declined to provide a specific figure for the size of that new loan program, but made clear it would be large enough to cover trillions of dollars in potential requests.
The series of crisis maneuvers by federal authorities — announced just hours before the start of trading in Asia — reflected the fear that has rippled through the banking sector just a few days after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which many financial experts thought initially was an isolated episode.
The decision by Treasury to backstop all deposits at SVB and Signature — not just those up to $250,000 that are insured under federal law — rested on a judgment that it was necessary to avoid a wider “systemic” meltdown. The move will likely ignite a political firestorm over the decision to protect the assets of tech firms, venture capitalists, and other rich people in California.
Sorry, but this is making the best out of a bad situation. Depositors should not be penalized (including companies with payrolls to make) for the bad management of bank officials and for the rollback of Dodd-Frank reforms in 2018, pushed by SVB execs and by the Malignant Loser. It certainly wasn't, as racist right-wingers would have it, because the bank was "woke." And it's not a "taxpayer bailout," either.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders approved a bill on Tuesday eliminating a requirement for children under 16 to obtain state documentation in order to work. The new Arkansas law is just one of a number of state bills loosening child labor restrictions, despite evidence that young children are already engaged in dangerous and exploitative labor throughout the country.
State GOP legislators have used the rhetoric of protecting children and giving parents more choice over their children’s lives to justify extreme policies such as Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s drag show ban and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on any instruction about gender identity or sexual orientation in elementary schools. Sanders’s spokesperson, Alexa Henning, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “The Governor believes protecting kids is most important, but doing so with arbitrary burdens on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job is burdensome and obsolete.”
The new law, called the Youth Hiring Act, will eliminate the requirement that children aged 14 and 15 seeking a job acquire a document issued by the director of the Division of Labor, which includes the child’s work schedule and a description of their work duties, as well as proof of age and parent or guardian consent.
Sanders signed the bill just weeks after the Department of Labor released the results of an investigation that found 102 children aged 13 to 17 illegally working dangerous jobs like cleaning meat processing equipment. Ten of those children were working at facilities in Arkansas, according to the investigation, and 25 were working in Minnesota, another state considering looser child labor laws. [snip]
Republicans have long sought to erode labor protections, often by attacking labor unions and pushing right-to-work legislation that limits their power. The Arkansas law presents a new, troubling frontier in this trend; it erodes protections for some of the most vulnerable people in society under the guise of liberty.
Sorry we have to keep reminding everyone about the Republican ethos: "Comfort the comfortable, and afflict the afflicted."
Twitter overlord Elon Musk showed sympathy on Friday for the Capitol rioter dubbed the “QAnon Shaman,” in the billionaire’s latest effort to downplay the deadly events of Jan. 6, 2021.
“Free Jacob Chansley,” Musk tweeted to his 130 million followers, apparently suggesting the rioter’s sentence was unwarranted.
Chansley had earned his nickname by raiding the U.S. Capitol bare-chested on Jan. 6 with a furry Viking-style hat and face paint, carrying an American flag zip-tied to a spear.
For making threats and disrupting Congress as its members attempted to certify the results of the 2020 election, Chansley got 41 months in prison, or just shy of three and a half years. [snip]
Yet Musk has recently begun to promote the false idea — pushed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other conservatives — that the Capitol attack was actually a mostly peaceful event. [snip]
On Friday, Musk reacted to a video clip that showed Chansley using a bullhorn to read a tweet sent by former President Donald Trump at around 3:15 p.m. on Jan. 6.
“Respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue,” Trump wrote, as read out by Chansley.
This, combined with other footage that showed Chansley walking alongside law enforcement through the halls of the Capitol, seemed to absolve him in Musk’s mind.
“Chansley got 4 years in prison for a non-violent, police-escorted tour!?” the Twitter and Tesla CEO marveled. (The sentence was less than four years.) In another tweet, Musk claimed Chansley “was falsely portrayed in the media as a violent criminal who tried to overthrow the state and who urged others to commit violence.”
Once again, the credulous, surprisingly simple- minded Chief Twit reveals his true colors. He's also on the "prosecute Fauci" fascist bandwagon. What a piece of work.
