GUN WATCH: GA: Business Owner Requires Employees to be Armed

In Georgia, a business owner has taken a pioneering step in employee relations.  He is requiring his employees to obtain a concealed carry permit and to carry guns openly in his places of business.  I have been predicting that this would happen for a while. There are so many advantages, and so few disadvantages, that it is hard to see the idea failing to be adopted all over the country.  The only refinement that seems likely, is to require job applicants to have a concealed carry permit *before* they apply. From wsoctv.com:

An Atlanta business owner with several offices in Georgia is now requiring all of his employees to get a concealed carry license and be armed. 

Business owner Lance Toland said after hearing about recent home invasions and violent crime in the metro Atlanta area, he came up with the new office mandate. 

“They all had their conceal carry permit within three to four weeks of me announcing that this was something you had to do,” he said. “With the presentation of their license, they all got a 410 Judge Pistol.”

It seemed likely that this would start in Wisconsin or Kansas.  In both of those states, but particularly in Wisconsin, allowing employees to carry guns gives the business a clear competitive advantage.  In Wisconsin law, if the business allows the carry of guns, the business is immune from torts that rise from an employee carrying guns in the business.  If the business does not allow guns, no immunity.  The Kansas law is similar, but not quite so clear.  The advantage in tort immunity is obvious, but there are several other advantages.  Now that Toland has broken through the wall of innovation, others see them more clearly:

Toland says several high-profile business owners who have private planes he insures may follow his lead.

“A lot of my clients are high fiving when they hear this. They think it's the best things for a company to mandate gun ownership and be responsible,” he said.

Here are a few of the not so obvious advantages.  They have been hidden behind a smoke screen of media misinformation and stereotypes.

First, employees with a concealed carry permit are a deterrent to robbery and physical attacks on the business premises.  This may seem obvious, but you will find many who claim, without support, that it is not so.  Having more than one employee armed at a location makes it an extremely unattractive target.  There are too many variables, and too much to go wrong for any thinking robber.

Second, there is an obvious, clear screen to limit employees to a very select, high quality level.  This is where requiring a permit for application become critical.  Permit holders are self selected to be one of the most law abiding, responsible, and forward thinking groups in the nation.  Their crime rates are only a fraction of those of police officers; they are many more times as law abiding as the general population.

Third, the giving of a gun is a brilliant management move by Lance Toland.  It speaks volumes about his leadership skills.  He is boldly proclaiming to his employees that their lives are important to him.  He is whispering to them, "I trust you so much, I am putting my life and the life of others in your hands."  A clear subtext is "We are a team.  We take care of each other." This is the sort of thing that builds loyalty that money cannot buy.

Fourth, your employees are have shown themselves to be in a select group that puts a high value on personal responsibility and self reliance.  This is precisely the group least likely to blame you for personal failures, or to see your business as a potential source of a "liability lottery".  They are likely to see a failure in your business as part of a personal failure on their part.  They look ahead, see problems, and do things about them.  Who does not want employees with that attitude!  In the 15 years that I taught concealed carry in Arizona, I never had a bad check.

Fifth, the state is now doing a continuous screening process for you, one that is actionable and clear.  If an employee becomes likely to have problems (according to the state, not the employer), their permit will be taken from them.  The employer then has an obvious and clear reason to dismiss the employee.  They can no longer fulfill one of the stated requirements for the job.  It is a good reason to have the employees open carry on the premises.

There are other advantages.  I leave those as an exercise for the reader.  Here is a prediction.  We will see more of this.

Posted by Dean Weingarten 

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2016/02/ga-business-owner-requires-employees-to.html

Why are these grown men crying? - DailyKenn.com

When forming mobs to attack white women in Cologne, Germany, they're bad ass Muslims. 

When massacring old people and children during village raids, they're bad ass Muslims. 

When kidnapping young women and girls for sex slaves, they're bad ass Muslims. 

When commandeering airliners to fly into skyscrapers, they're bad ass Muslims.

When they form gangs to attack helpless German children, they're bad ass Muslims. 

When strapping bombs on little girls, they're bad ass Muslims.

But when they're taken captive by Kurds, they're sniveling cry babies.

See video…

http://dailykenn.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-are-these-grown-men-crying.html#more

The Pope Gets Medieval On Capitalism

Frank is just a typical Latin American whiner.  They blame  their poverty on everyone but themselves – John J. Ray, MA PhD, Brisbane, AU – Dissecting Leftism - Blogspot
  Indeed, Socialism is what impoverished the Pope’s own country of Argentina. It’s economy collapsed in 2000 and still hasn’t recovered completely. Argentina now goes from one financial crisis to another.

The Pope Gets Medieval On Capitalism

Pope Francis chose the U.S.-Mexican border for his angriest attack yet on the free market, comparing private employers to slave owners. Pope St. John Paul II, who lived under statism, knew better.

Speaking to Mexican businessmen and union officials on his final day after nearly a week in Mexico, in the heavily industrialized Ciudad Juarez across the Texas border from El Paso, the Catholic Church’s Supreme Pontiff declared, “God will hold the slave drivers of our days accountable.” He added that “the flow of capital cannot decide the flow of people,” and blasted a “prevailing mentality” in favor of “the greatest possible profits, immediately and at any cost.” He later celebrated Mass practically on the border.

The message couldn’t be clearer: The people of God are south of that line, and their oppressors are north of it.

This most casual of Popes has a now-infamous penchant for ill-considered, off-the-cuff remarks that the Vatican’s damage control operation routinely has to walk back or explain away. But in this case the sentiments were too well-planned and orchestrated for excuses to work. Francis is an enemy of economic freedom and many of the policies that have made America and the rest of the Western industrialized world great.

One might be tempted to charge that he is bringing the Catholic Church’s moral teaching back to the “dark ages” of many hundreds of years ago, before man liberated himself economically and conquered so much poverty via technological progress.

In fact, even in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church strongly defended the principle of private property.

St. Thomas Aquinas, a doctor of the Church still held as its greatest theologian, wrote in his Summa Theologica: “Because the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement … the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto devised by human reason.”

The Church’s traditional concerns with capitalism have focused on abuses that are alien to modern-day America, such as lack of a just wage, rest time and days off, an unhealthy workplace, the absence of unemployment benefits, pensions and health insurance, and no right to form a union.

Pope Leo XIII in his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” stated that “the poor and badly off have a claim to especial consideration … and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should be specially cared for and protected by the government.”

In 1991, Pope St. John Paul II wrote an encyclical commemorating the 100th anniversary of Leo’s, titled “Centennimus Annus.”  And in that teaching, he asked if it could be held that “after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?”

According to John Paul, “The answer is obviously complex. If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a ‘business economy,’ ‘market economy’ or simply ‘free economy.'”

That Pope, unlike the current one, was a Pole who lived under both the Nazis and a collectivist state ruled by Moscow. The current Pope ought to consider the reflections of his saintly predecessor.

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-pope-gets-medieval-on-capitalism/

FBI Had a Way to Circumvent Farook's Passcode

This is of course a privacy issue and I would normally agree that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.  But with an out-of-control administration even the innocent have something to fear -- so I am in favour of hobbling their intrusions in all ways possible.  I certainly wouldn't buy a used car from them. -John J. Ray, MA PhD, Brisbane, AU – dissecting leftism - Blogspot

The government bungled its initial attempts to access the cell phone.

Amidst the FBI’s demands that Apple create software to break the security the tech company engineered into the iPhone, the underreported fact is that the government bungled its initial attempts to access the cell phone the San Bernardino County Health Department gave to eventual terrorist Syed Farook. The first mistake was the county didn’t set up the phone so that it had administrative access over the device. If it had taken that preemptive step, investigators could have easily gathered everything the phone could provide.

The second mistake was hours after the shooting when San Bernardino, working with the FBI, reset the phone’s iCloud password, allowing investigators to see the data the phone was automatically backing up to a remote location on Apple’s servers. Problem was, the last time the phone updated to iCloud was on Oct. 19 — weeks before the Dec. 2 shooting. There was information still on the phone. Investigators [could have teased that information from the phone by turning on the phone’s automatic updates, going to a location frequented by Farook and the device would have automatically sent information to iCloud. Voilà! With the recent information in the cloud, then investigators could have reset Farook’s iCloud password. Instead, the government is trying to force Apple to destroy the security protocols it has built into its current devices because a series of government mistakes.

“Do we have freedom of speech, or freedom to speak only what law-enforcement can monitor?” wrote National Review’s Andrew McCarthy. “Does the Fourth Amendment guarantee freedom from unreasonable searches, or afford only whatever expectation of privacy the government, not the society, decides is reasonable — and cabined by what the government is technologically capable of searching?” What the FBI misses is that our rights are given by the Creator, not an incompetent mid-level bureaucrat.

http://patriotpost.us/posts/40831

Japan Admits 27 Refugees, Two Already Arrested For Gang Rape

That’s about an 8% gang rapist rate:

Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested two Turkish nationals currently applying for refugee status for allegedly raping a woman in Kita Ward, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Feb. 22).

At approximately 12:30 a.m. on December 27 of last year, Onder Pinarbasi, 22, and a 16-year-old boy allegedly took the woman, aged in her 30s, to a public toilet near JR Akabane Station and sexually assaulted her. The suspects also stole 9,000 yen in cash from the victim.

Pinarbasi, who has been charged with rape and robbery, claims the boy committed both crimes. The boy admits to only the robbery charge. “I did not force myself upon her,” he is quoted by police in denying the rape accusation, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun (Feb. 22)…

They applied for refugee status in August and October, telling the Immigration Bureau of Japan that they did not want to return to Turkey due to “problems that exist between relatives.”

Migrants will tend to be r-strategists, in search of high dopamine at low cost. If a person can kiss goodbye to their family and their homeland easily, as these male migrants without families apparently can (or if they can’t even get along with their family, as in this case), they will tend to have low loyalty and high selfishness. If they travel to the other side of the globe in search of free resources, that is driven by a dopamine addiction. Since dopamine requires money, food, and sex, to be released, you are admitting selfish people, with no loyalty, who have such a strong need for the neurochemical rewards produced by money, food, and sex that they traveled across the globe, abandoning every familial tie at home to do it.

It is not surprising when they go that extra mile and simply take money and sex from vulnerable individuals by force, nor is it surprising that in the sidebar of the article is a story about another migrant molesting a child.

I’m sure leftist rabbits, including the feminists who want men to rape them, think the migrant psychology is great, but normal people are bound to be repulsed by it. The civil war they are setting up by importing these savages will be incredible.

Fortunately for Japan, they will have far fewer individuals to eject from their nation than Europe when the turning point comes. American politicians would be wise to note, the American desire to enjoy a similar advantage is the entire reason that Trump is dominating the Presidential election.

http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/japan-admits-27-refugees-two-already-arrested-for-gang-rape/

How the Liberal Media is Picking the Republican Nominee

  Good point. Yes The Liberal media ALWAYS seeks to pick the Republicans candidate for them. The Liberal Media endeavors to promote a Republican Candidate that, ‘A’ ,they believe they, the Press, can discredit and Democrats can then beat, and, ‘B’, one the Conservative Base of the Republican Party doesn’t like and won’t vote for. In the case of Trump there is a part, ‘C’, Trump distracts attention from Hillary Clinton’s scandals and generally poor performance. So once Trump becomes the Republican nominee we can expect the Liberal media to cease promoting him and to go all out to destroy him. The Media will attempt to paint Trump as the definition of what a Republican is: a crass, loud-mothed, misogynistic, privileged buffoon with no consistent ideological grounding. Also remember, the GOP “war against women” is the current Democrat narrative, which the Dems and Media feel will play well to Democrat voters once Trump faces Hillary. The Media has lot of video and audio clips they are sitting on that doesn’t make Trump look very good; it will all come out should he get the nomination. Believe it! Will Trump be able to survive this onslaught and remain electable? On the other hand Trump is the only one talking about stopping runaway mass immigration and that is what most average Americans think is the greatest threat to the survival of the country now. Actually the Trump candidacy is shaping up much like the candidacy of Barack Obama: a blank slate on which people are writing their hope and fears. Other than that we don’t really know what we are getting and there is much in the candidate’s past that we should be concerned about. Hope we don’t get fooled again.

 | Common Sense Central | News/Talk 1130 WISN

One of the more stunning things about Donald Trump’s victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary was the fact that he spent only $1.78 million to win.

By contrast, second-place finisher Marco Rubio spent $4.71 million on television advertising and third-place finisher Ted Cruz spent $2.34 million.  In addition, Rubio and Cruz had more than $11 million in total Super PAC support, while Jeb Bush—who suspended his campaign after a disappointing finish in South Carolina—received a whopping $13.7 million in Super PAC support himself.

Trump received none.

So how did he win? Because he has the unwavering support of the nation’s most powerful Super PAC: The mainstream liberal media.

Even though Trump declared his candidacy midway through 2015, he had more than twice as much coverage on the three nightly network newscasts as all of his Republican rivals...combined.

Television analyst Andrew Tyndall found that the evening news programs on ABC, NBC, and CBS dedicated 327 minutes to Trump in 2015 compared with 57 minutes for Jeb Bush, 57 minutes for Ben Carson, 22 minutes for Rubio, and 21 minutes for Cruz.

Even though Cruz was the first major candidate to enter the race—a full three months before Trump did—he received just 7% of the coverage that Trump did. Rubio entered two months before Trump but received just one minute more than Cruz...and 305 minutes less than Trump.

Shockingly, the network newscasts devoted more than double the amount of airtime to Trump than to presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who got 121 minutes of coverage in 2015.

2015 was, of course, the year in which Clinton’s email scandal exploded; so it is only natural that left-leaning network news programs would want to avoid coverage of this potentially devastating and criminal development.

Instead, it seems, they focused on Trump.  In an illustrative example, all three networks completely ignored the one of the most recent releases of Clinton’s emails on January 19th and instead devoted 10 minutes and 31 seconds across five different segments on Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Trump.

And it’s not as though the emails released on the 19th weren’t newsworthy: They contained “intelligence from the U.S. government's most secretive and highly classified organization operation.”

Yet they were ignored in favor of Trump.

That has been a consistent hallmark of a 2016 election cycle in which negative news about Clinton and nearly any news about other Republican candidates is ignored so that the media can focus on Trump.

This goes well beyond just network newscasts, though, as Trump coverage is nearly wall-to-wall on the cable news networks—especially MSNBC and CNN, which seem to revel in showcasing the latest Trump event or outburst.

Remember, MSNBC hosted what amounted to a Trump infomercial last week as Cruz and Rubio took part in a town hall meeting on CNN and every cable news network offered at least partial coverage of the Trump town hall held opposite the Republican debate in Iowa that Trump skipped.  

On the Monday before the South Carolina primary, all three major news networks (CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News) aired a Trump press conference that a Rubio Super PAC argued amounted to $2.8 million in free advertising.

On that same day, video emerged of Clinton literally barking like a dog in an embarrassing attempt to attack Republicans.  This, however, was all but ignored in favor of Trump.

Noticing a pattern yet?

Since the moment he announced his candidacy, Trump has proven to be a convenient distraction from the trainwreck that is the Clinton campaign while simultaneously allowing liberal-leaning news networks to deprive other Republican candidates of much-needed airtime.

In essence, this helps to create a “bandwagon effect” in which voters who don’t generally pay much attention to presidential elections many months ahead of time gravitate toward the only candidate whom they know.

Trump entered the race with nearly universal name-recognition, which afforded him a massive advantage over other Republicans.  By quickly becoming the only candidate who was extensively covered, Trump prevented any of those Republicans from getting traction (or even noticed) in a crowded field.

George Washington University political science professor John Sides noticed this almost immediately, writing:

Donald Trump’s surge to the front of the GOP presidential polls has occasioned not a little media attention and endless speculation as to why. You can disregard most of that speculation. The answer is simple: Trump is surging in the polls because the news media has consistently focused on him since he announced his candidacy on June 16.

Seven months later, nothing has changed.  The news media is still consistently focusing on him almost exclusively and still refusing to allow either Rubio or Cruz to gain any real toehold with voters—even after Cruz won the Iowa caucuses.  

The obvious reason for this is that Trump is simply more of an audience draw than either Cruz or Rubio, but Trump’s dominance of traditionally liberal news coverage likely goes deeper.

In December, the liberal-leaning site POLITICO asked Democratic Party insiders about the Republican field and their answers were eye-opening to say the least:

Democrats think Donald Trump would be the easiest Republican to beat next November but they fear Marco Rubio.

That’s according to a majority of the Democratic insiders in this week’s POLITICO Caucus, our survey of the top strategists, operatives and activists in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

Nearly 60 percent of Democratic insiders in the first four nominating states say the businessman — who has mostly avoided tapping his vast personal fortune to fund his campaign — would be the easiest of the leading GOP candidates to defeat in the general election.

Roughly two out of three picked Rubio from a list of five leading GOP contenders — including Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush — as the most formidable GOP hopeful due to his biography and political skill.

See how this works?

Rubio is feared by Democrats...and subsequently ignored by news outlets that back Democrats.  Trump is cheered by Democrats...and subsequently promoted by news outlets that back Democrats.

Trump received 327 minutes of network coverage in 2015, and searches of the largest left-leaning online and print news publications shows that he dominates coverage there, too.

“Donald Trump” registered 2.48 million hits on the New York Times’ website, 169,000 hits on the Washington Post’s site, 147,000 on POLITICO, and 134,000 on USA Today’s site.

In contrast, “Marco Rubio” registered just 110,000 hits on the New York Times’ website, 52,300 on the Washington Post’s site, 88,600 on POLITICO, and 58,000 on USA Today’s site.

A Google search of all news outlets found 87.7 million results for “Donald Trump” but just 13.1 million for “Marco Rubio.”  

Could this massive discrepancy have anything to do with the admission that liberals are far more scared of Rubio as the Republican nominee than of Trump as the Republican nominee?

Could covering Trump incessantly to the detriment of every other Republican have anything to do with the admission that liberals desperately want their candidate to face Trump in a general election?

According to RealClearPolitics.com’s poll tracker, Rubio, Cruz, and even John Kasich all consistently beat Clinton in hypothetical general election matchups.  

Among Republicans, only Trump consistently loses to her.

Only one poll out of five shows Trump beating Clinton, while four out of five show Cruz defeating her and all five show Rubio topping her.

Is it any wonder, then, that in a media environment where only 7% of journalists identify themselves as Republicans and self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans 4-to-1, media outlets would tend to provide coverage that is friendly to the presumptive Democratic nominee and hostile to any challenges to her general election chances?

This friendly coverage has extended to the Republican race, as Trump is both a convenient excuse not to cover Clinton email stories extensively or cover at all more real threats to Clinton in a general election.

The liberal media covers Trump not only because Trump provides ratings, but also because they believe Trump will provide them with what they really want—a Hillary Clinton presidency.

In refusing to cover any other Republican, the liberal media has made it perfectly clear who they want to represent the Republican Party in November’s election.

They want the candidate whom they believe makes the Republican Party look most ridiculous.  They want the candidate whom they believe will lose to Clinton.

They want Donald Trump.  So why should we?  

Read more: http://www.newstalk1130.com/onair/common-sense-central-37717/how-the-liberal-media-is-picking-14409215/#ixzz41CHgOdhr
http://www.newstalk1130.com/onair/common-sense-central-37717/how-the-liberal-media-is-picking-14409215/

US Air Force unveils picture of new stealth bomber

Washington (AFP) - The US Air Force on Friday unveiled the first image of its next-generation bomber that will replace antique B-52s first developed during the Cold War.

The all-black plane has a distinctive, zigzagging shape and a super-low profile that will make it hard to spot on radar, and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Air Force's B-2 bomber, which is also made by Northrop Grumman.

The new stealth bomber has yet to be built, so Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James displayed an artist's rendering at an Orlando event.

She said the plane, previously known as the Long Range Strike Bomber, would be called the B-21 until a new name has been agreed on, and she invited air crews to help.

"This aircraft represents the future for our Airmen, and (their) voice is important to this process," James told the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium.

"The Airman who submits the selected name will help me announce it at the (Air Force Association) conference this fall."

The Pentagon in October announced Northrop as the winner of the contract to build the bomber in a decades-long program that will likely end up costing in excess of $100 billion.

The Air Force wants 100 of the warplanes, which will replace the ageing B-52s and the B-1 bombers that first saw action in the 1980s.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-air-force-unveils-picture-stealth-bomber-160158472.html;_ylt=AwrC1C7.f9BW2m0AiN3QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByNXM5bzY5BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--

Man Slashed On Subway In Midtown; Latest Crime Stats Reveal Disturbing Trend Across NYC

All these slashing attacks in NYC are black on white, but the Liberal news media refuses to notice that. Imagine if the reverse were true, what would the Liberal media have to say about it then?

A man was slashed on the subway Friday morning in Midtown in an incident that’s part of a disturbing trend across the city, both above and underground.

A 53-year-old man was on his way to work when he accidentally bumped into another man on a subway train at 57th and 7th Avenue around 8:15 a.m., police said.

The suspect slashed the victim with a sharp object in the chin and face before taking off, police said.

The victim continued on his way to work and then called 911.  

The victim was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital where he received six stitches, CBS2′ Steve Langford reported.

The suspect is still at large.

Reported stabbing and slashing attacks in New York City are up 21 percent — from 503 to 609 — this year compared to last year. In the transit system alone, there have been 15 slashings this year, compared to 10 for the same period last year.

“I think that, being that the media has talked about it so much, that it has caused like a ripple effect and people are just doing it because it’s in the news so it still causes a concern whether it was a dispute amongst two people or it’s random acts, still the same,” one commuter told WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb.

Recent incidents across the city this month include the slashing of an anti-crime officer in Brownsville on Sunday. She was slashed from her neck to her cheek as she tried to break up a fight.

A teen is also facing charges in connection with the recent attack on a Greenwich Village restaurant worker, who needed 137 stitches after he was slashed in the face.

Police are also looking for a suspect wanted in connection with a slashing that took place outside of a clothing store in SoHo.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/02/26/midtown-subway-slashing/

Japan's population declines for first time since 1920s – official census

  Japan will use robots to replace workers. They won’t want to dilute their culture through immigration. Especially not with immigration from the Third World.  They see how that is working for Europe.

Fall of nearly one million in official figures shows that demographic problems will be a reality for country in the future

Japan’s population has fallen by nearly one million, according to new statistics – the first decline since official census records began in the 1920s.

The country lost 947,345 people – more than the population of San Francisco – between 2010 and 2015.

Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

What happens to a country when its young people stop having sex? Japan is finding out… Abigail Haworth investigates

Read more

The decline of 0.7% to 127.1 million has been predicted by the government annually but the new statistics confirm the trend.

It is an indication that as the nation gets older, and people have fewer babies at a later age, a demographic crisis is looming.

According to the United Nations, Japan’s population is likely to shrink to 83 million by 2100, with 35% of them older than 65.

Economists fear that the decline in population spells trouble for the world’s most indebted economy.

Prime minister Shinzo Abe’s government has tried to tackle the coming crisis by installing lawmaker Katsunobu Kato as the “minister for 100 million active people”.

Kato is tasked with stabilising Japan’s birthrate at 1.8, up from 1.41 in 2012.

Experts, however, view the efforts as futile. “What they are talking about and what they are going to try and get minister Kato to do is not doable,” Michael Cucek, an adjunct professor in the faculty of the social sciences at Waseda University, told the Guardian.

Japan under pressure to accept more immigrants as workforce shrinks

Ageing population and prediction of 8 million fewer workers spurs calls for government to accept migrants and refugees

Read more

“They have a goal of 1.8 births per woman, but to maintain a population of 100 million would require 2.1 births per woman,” he added.

For Cucek, the determining factor is that women are marrying later in Japan and only 2% of births take place out of wedlock.

“Unsurprisingly, throughout east Asia, where out-of-wedlock births are frowned upon, no matter where you go they have the similar, extremely low levels of childbirth.”

According to the census in 39 areas of the country, the population shrunk, while eight logged growth.

Greater Tokyo, which continues to attract more residents, is now home to 28.4% of the population; the nation’s nine major urban areas account for 53.9% of Japanese.

Central Tokyo alone attracted 326,870 more people over the five-year period.

Rural areas, however, are emptying out. Fukushima, the site of the nuclear disaster in 2011, was among the worst hit prefectures. The entire Tohoku region in northern Japan, of which Fukushima is a part, saw a population decline of about 5%.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/26/japan-population-declines-first-time-since-1920s-official-census

America’s Senator Jeff Sessions: America’s Economy Needs Fewer Immigrants

  Senator Sessions has figured it out: America doesn’t need immigrants anymore. Certainly not the mass of people from backwards Third World countries the powers-that-be insist on importing. America is no longer an empty country in need of people to settle in it and it no longer has a rapidly growing industrial manufacturing economy in need of unskilled or semi-skilled workers. In as little as a decade more than half of the manufacturing and logistic jobs (not to mention all kinds of white collar jobs) will be preformed by robots and other automated systems. What few jobs that will be left in the future that will not require advanced education must be saved for native born American citizens In the working class. As the Leftist SLWs are wont to say “this is 2016!”, things have changed.

Appearing on the Fox Business Network Wednesday, Senator Sessions reasserted his position that immigration must benefit the American people, not wealthy elites. He also allowed that a reduction in legal immigration would be advisable, since “There’s just not enough jobs for people today” as a result of robots, advanced software, outsourcing and immigration. He is the only one in Washington who connects the dots between automation and immigration.

Interestingly, he was careful to speak positively about both candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Senator Sessions’ support could influence voting in the important primary elections coming up in March and he apparently is not ready yet to make a public choice. But Sessions did recognize Trump for focusing on the immigration issue and bringing it to the center of public discourse. Not only that, but Sessions thinks Trump could win in December by attracting Democrats disappointed with their party.

SESSIONS: For thirty years, maybe more, the American people have asked their politicians to end the lawlessness, have immigration system that serves their interests, not the world’s interests, and politicians have promised that but not delivered, and so this is a decisive event. The Gang of Eight bill would not have delivered. And so Donald Trump, as I’ve been suggesting for some time, got out there in front and talked about it, used the image of a wall and has surged to the top. I think the American people are fed up. They want action on this and Donald Trump is symbolizing it. Ted Cruz opposed that bill, and there are others that have opposed it and and have good ideas, but right now it does seem to have helped him, and I think it’s being faithful to what our constituents want.

MARIA BARTIROMO: And you’re saying in terms of the issues, have a clear cap on the number of green cards issued, the number of people coming into the country and understand fully what those numbers are.

SESSIONS: Maria, we admit a million a year lawfully to full-time pathway to citizenship, a green card, every year. That’s the most of any nation in the world. We have 700,000 here on work visas of various kinds in addition to that. We need to ask ourselves: is that number legitimate? Who should be in that one million? Do we need a full million? Maybe at this time of unemployment and low workforce participation, we need to reduce that number. I think so, but we ought to discuss it at any rate, and the test should be: does it benefit Americans? That’s the first test.

BARTIROMO: So are you supporting Donald Trump given that he has brought this up?

SESSIONS: I am real proud that he has. He’s also opposed the Obama trade plan, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Pacific commission that would be created as a part of that. Also Ted Cruz opposes that. I think those are two big issues. I think it’s driving this election and I don’t think a nominee is likely to win who favors the TPP and who favors more immigration.

BARTIROMO: Because at the end of the day, the issue becomes American jobs, right?

SESSIONS: I think so. i think our candidates need to be talking about — we have robotics, we have computers, we have outsourcing of manufacturing — there’s just not enough jobs for people today, there’s just not. And to bring in millions is impacting adversely American workers I think and I’m pretty sure of it.

BARTIROMO: Senator, do you think Donald Trump can actually win the general election? Can he beat Hillary Clinton?

SESSIONS: Well I think so, if what happened in Nevada last night, it looks like working people who may have been voting Democrat voted for Trump in huge numbers. What they say is correct: you cannot win an election with the simple Republican base. You have to have a nominee who can reach beyond that base. Trump is reaching out to working Americans in a way others so far have not been able to do. That’s the way you get over 50 percent. I’ve been talking about that for seven years. Our consultant geniuses said you’ve got to be more moderate. you have to have more amnesty and that’s the way to win elections. I think Trump is proving that’s not so.

http://www.vdare.com/posts/americas-senator-jeff-sessions-americas-economy-needs-fewer-immigrants

This woman is getting famous for building hilariously terrible robots

This woman designs terrible, and hilarious, robots.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/peopleandplaces/this-woman-is-getting-famous-for-building-hilariously-terrible-robots/vi-BBpZZtN?ocid=spartandhp

Mega Retailers Close Stores: Hard to Shop “When People Are Just Trying to Pay Their Mortage”

As average Americans continue to struggle just to get by, we have an economy that is in the process of failing.

SHTF Plan - When It Hits The Fan, Don't Say We Didn't Warn You |

This article was written by Michael Snyder and originally published at his Economic Collapse blog.

Editor’s Comment: This is where the rubber meets the road, and the next collapse isn’t just procedural like the last one. Even the big retail giants are losing out to the bigger trends – that is, many of the Americans who only recently counted themselves among the Middle Class, are finding it more and more difficult just to make ends meet. With tens of millions of people closer to the line between OK and desperate, there just isn’t extra cash to buy lavish novelties and luxury items that help boost profits.

Most are buying only what they can afford, and going for bargains that put pressure on the old box stores of the now failing American dream. As Snyder put it succinctly: “It’s hard to support large-format retail in those suburban areas when people are trying to just pay their mortgage.”

Economic Recovery? 13 Of The Biggest Retailers In America Are Closing Down Stores

by Michael Snyder

Barack Obama recently stated that anyone that is claiming that America’s economy is in decline is “peddling fiction“.  Well, if the economy is in such great shape, why are major retailers shutting down hundreds of stores all over the country?  Last month, I wrote about the “retail apocalypse” that is sweeping the nation, but since then it has gotten even worse.  Closing stores has become the “hot new trend” in the retail world, and “space available” signs are going up in mall windows all over the United States.  Barack Obama can continue huffing and puffing about how well the middle class is doing all he wants, but the truth is that the cold, hard numbers that retailers are reporting tell an entirely different story.

Earlier today, Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert released a letter to shareholders that was filled with all kinds of bad news.  In this letter, he blamed the horrible results that Sears has been experiencing lately on “tectonic shifts” in consumer spending…

In a letter to shareholders on Thursday, Lampert said the impact of “tectonic shifts” in consumer spending has spread more broadly in the last year to retailers “that had previously proven to be relatively immune to such shifts.”

“Walmart, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Staples, Whole Foods and many others have felt the impact of disruptive changes from online competition and new business models,” Lampert wrote.

And it is very true – Sears is doing horribly, but they are far from alone.  The following are 13 major retailers that are closing down stores…

#1 Sears lost 580 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2015 alone, and they are scheduled to close at least 50 more “unprofitable stores” by the end of this year.

#2 It is being reported that Sports Authority will file for bankruptcy in March.  Some news reports have indicated that around 200 stores may close, but at this point it is not known how many of their 450 stores will be able to stay open.

#3 For decades, Kohl’s has been growing aggressively, but now it plans to shutter 18 stores in 2016.

#4 Target has just finished closing 13 stores in the United States.

#5 Best Buy closed 30 stores last year, and it says that more store closings are likely in the months to come.

#6 Office Depot plans to close a total of 400 stores by the end of 2016.

The next seven examples come from one of my previous articles…

#7 Wal-Mart is closing 269 stores, including 154 inside the United States.

#8 K-Mart is closing down more than two dozen stores over the next several months.

#9 J.C. Penney will be permanently shutting down 47 more stores after closing a total of 40 stores in 2015.

#10 Macy’s has decided that it needs to shutter 36 stores and lay off approximately 2,500 employees.

#11 The Gap is in the process of closing 175 stores in North America.

#12 Aeropostale is in the process of closing 84 stores all across America.

#13 Finish Line has announced that 150 stores will be shutting down over the next few years.

These store closings can be particularly cruel for small towns.  Just consider the impact that Wal-Mart has had on the little town of Oriental, North Carolina…

The Town’n Country grocery in Oriental, North Carolina, a local fixture for 44 years, closed its doors in October after a Wal-Mart store opened for business. Now, three months later — and less than two years after Wal-Mart arrived — the retail giant is pulling up stakes, leaving the community with no grocery store and no pharmacy.

Though mom-and-pop stores have steadily disappeared across the American landscape over the past three decades as the mega chain methodically expanded, there was at least always a Wal-Mart left behind to replace them. Now the Wal-Marts are disappearing, too.

Of course there are many factors involved in this ongoing retail apocalypse.  Competition from online retailers is becoming more intense, and consumer spending patterns are rapidly changing.

But in the end, the truth is that you can’t get blood out of a rock.  The middle class in America is shrinking, and there just isn’t as much discretionary spending going on as there used to be.

And now that we have entered a new economic downturn, many retailers are finding that there are some local communities that can no longer support their stores.  The following comes from CNBC…

Though the shift to online shopping is no doubt playing a role in lighter foot traffic at malls, there’s more to their changing economics than the rise of Amazon. Changing demographics in a town are another reason a shopping center could struggle or fail — for example, if massive layoffs in a particular industry cause people to move away to find employment.

“A lot of people want to try and tie it to the Internet or ‘that’s not cool,’ or teens don’t like it,” Jesse Tron, a spokesman for industry trade group International Council of Shopping Centers, told CNBC last year. “It’s hard to support large-format retail in those suburban areas when people are trying to just pay their mortgage.”

In order to have a thriving middle class, we need good paying middle class jobs.  Unfortunately, our economy has been bleeding those kinds of jobs quite rapidly.  For example, Halliburton just announced that it is eliminating 5,000 more jobsafter getting rid of 4,000 workers at the end of last year.

During the Obama years, good paying middle class jobs have been getting replaced by low paying service jobs.  At this point, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

And there is no way that you can support a middle class family with children on $30,000 a year.

We have an economy that is in the process of failing.  We can see it in the explosion of subprime auto loans that are going bad, we can see it in the hundreds of retail stores that are shutting down, and we can see it in the tens of thousands of good paying energy jobs that are being lost.

During the Obama years, interest rates have been pushed to the floor, the Federal Reserve has created trillions of dollars out of thin air, and the size of our national debt is getting close to doubling.  Despite all of those desperate measures, our economy continues to crumble.

We stole from the future to try to paper over our failures and it didn’t work.  Now an economic downturn that will ultimately turn out to be even worse than the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009 has begun, and our leaders have absolutely no idea how to fix things.

I wish I had better news to report, but I don’t.  Get prepared now, because very rough times are ahead.

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/mega-retailers-close-stores-hard-to-shop-when-people-are-just-trying-to-pay-their-mortage_02262016