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Canada Has Pulled Off a Brain Heist (axios.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Seoul-born Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, a professor at Brown University known for her work on fake news, is moving to Canada. So is Alan Aspuru-Guzik, a Harvard chemistry professor working on quantum computing and artificial intelligence. They are among 24 top academic minds around the world wooed to Canada by an aggressive recruitment effort offering ultra-attractive sinecures, seven-year funding arrangements -- and, Chun and Aspuru-Guzik said in separate interviews with Axios, a different political environment from the U.S. The "Canada 150 Research Chairs Program" is spending $117 million on seven-year grants of either $350,000 a year or $1 million a year. It's part of a campaign by numerous countries to attract scholars unhappy with Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and other political trends, sweetened with unusually generous research conditions.
Any president has a year of overlap with the previous one with respect to economics. Trump was elected in November, generally wouldn't pass a budget until about March, and then you have 2-3 quarters before those policies are enacted and the economy feels those policies in earnest. Trump dragged his feet with respect to his first budget, so that shifts the curve. When the economy finally caught up to Trump's big mouth, you not only saw a decline in the market but chaotic fluctuations not seen since the global economic crisis of 2008 and a short hiccup in late 2016/early-2016.
Dubya was able to relish in Clinton's strong economic policies, and Obama kicked off his term facing the aftermath of Dubya's poor economic policies. Trump exploited Obama's economic policies to a ridiculous level to the point of actually trying to take credit for the booming economy during his first year, yet with the Dow down more than 2000 points since Janauary, alone, where's President Shitgibbon to take credit for *that*?
Trump is going to run the country like any of his businesses, which is to say, drive it directly into the ground. We're talking about a man who whent bankrupt selling wine, steak and gambling to the American people. Nothing about that suggests he's a saavy businessman, let alone a capable politician.
Perhaps you forgot how the economy did just fine in the beginning of the Dubya years, and only imploded somewhere near the end. It kept on doing bad in the beginning of the Obama years, and only started improving somewhere near the end. I wouldn't be so quick to laud Trump's excuses for economic policy...
You are aware that Obama's the ONLY President in US history to never have a year the economy grew 3%, right?
That's not surprising, since I'm sure you remember Obama's statements about "remaking the US economy" and his "war on coal".
Wrong, there was no surplus, it was all Washington doublespeak. There are two parts to the national debt - public debt and intragovernmental holdings. During the Clinton years the public debt part was paid down by borrowing money in the intragovernmental holdings mostly from Social Security. So the debt was not paid down, excess Social Security funds that by law are required to be re-invested into securities became additional intragovernmental debt. During the Clinton years the national debt total continued to rise:
FY1993 $4.411488 trillion debt
FY1994 $4.692749 trillion debt, increase of $281.26 billion
FY1995 $4.973982 trillion debt, increase of $281.23 billion
FY1996 $5.224810 trillion debt, increase of $250.83 billion
FY1997 $5.413146 trillion debt, increase of $188.34 billion
FY1998 $5.526193 trillion debt, increase of $113.05 billion
FY1999 $5.656270 trillion debt, increase of $130.08 billion
FY2000 $5.674178 trillion debt, increase of $17.91 billion
FY2001 $5.807463 trillion debt, increase of $133.29 billion
FY2001 was Clinton's last budget submitted before Bush took office.
Perhaps you forgot how the economy did just fine in the beginning of the Dubya years, and only imploded somewhere near the end. It kept on doing bad in the beginning of the Obama years, and only started improving somewhere near the end.
Definitively untrue: http://www.taintedalpha.com/wp...
They got Jordan Peterson too, from Harvard, though he's from Canada and he went there 20 years ago.
Nope. I used to be malcontent where I was working. After leaving, I am very happy. My motivation is higher than anybody else here. Malcontentment is not a permanent state, everything is about context.
Do not underestimate the people that are brave enough to take radical decision in their life. Be suspicious of the malcontent people who are unable to take the right decision.
In the 80's, several of my best Physics and CS professors were ex-Americans who had fled the draft for the Vietname war in the 60's.
Canada was all the better for it.
However, in the interest of fairness, it should be noted that there's a constant brain drain (rather slower of late) from Canada to the US of talented individuals seeking the greater opportunities that a country as large as the US can offer. This is more of a small flow of academics in the other direction rather than a huge reversal in the regular brain drain to the US.
#fakenews
The far-right "Front National" reached the second round of the presidential elections - only the second time ever that they've managed this - and recorded their best ever score - 33.90%.
Not arguing that FN isn't an issue, but you do realise that the nature of the French presidential run-off system has the potential to create these sorts of overdramatic situations? A more representative level of support for them would be from the first round, where they got 21.3% vs Macron's 24%. If they had got just 1.3% less, or about 10% of Fillon's supports had backed Melenchon instead, then there would have been no 'big drama' in the second runoff.
Also, while Macron gained significant votes from other candidates in the second round, FN did not (when you account for those who voted in the first round but not the second and the 11.5% who nulled their ballots), so they remain a narrow but fervent group on the outside of mainstream French politics. Unless they can fix that, there is (and this was clear during the election) zero chance they can take over the presidency.
It is scary that 1/5 French voters support them, and France needs to deal with this, but there is not about to be a French Brexit/Trump. That part of it was the sensationalist media trying to drum up a story out of nothing.
Did you know about 1/2 of the White population has a below average IQ too?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Um, the CBO would disagree with you. Or, rather, disagree the random conservative weblogger you're using as a source. Let us look at their "The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2010 to 2020" document, which also has historical data going back decades:
* https://www.cbo.gov/publication/41880?index=10871
Let's start with Summary Figure 2, "Total Revenues and Outlays", where the Revenues line goes above the Outlays line. Then we have Figure 1-1, "The Total Deficit or Surplus, 1970 to 2020", where the line goes above 0 (i.e., a surplus). Finally there's table F-2, "Revenues, Outlays, Deficits, Surpluses, and Debt Held by the Public, 1970 to 2009, as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product", where the years are 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 have a "Total" (Deficit or Surplus) that is positive in surplus.
And even if your (blogger's) numbers were correct, it would mean that Clinton manage to reduce the deficits by almost 95%. Not a bad accomplishment in its own right.
For all their bluster about fiscal conservativism, the GOP never bother being fiscal conservatives. All they seem to do when they get into power is cut revenues (i.e., taxes for the folks at the top percentiles of income (trickle down!)), and increase military spending.