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St. Onge: Inflation – who’s really at fault?

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

Did greedy grocers and grabby workers cause the inflation?That’s what the central bankers of the world would have us believe. Apparently losing confidence that they can fix the inflation they created, they’re turning to Plan B: blame the people, so we fight each other.As the European Central Bank succinctly put it on Twitter: “What really drives inflation? Profits or wages?”Get it, voter? Is it the greedy right-wing capitalists or the greedy left-wing socialists?Central bankers actually have a name for this scapegoating: “greedflation.” As in, double-digit inflation had nothing to do with central bankers printing up $7 trillion and handing it to governments, bankers and to the rich in asset purchases. Rather, it all happened because people like you and me suddenly got greedy.In fact, something sudden did happen: By early 2022 one of every three dollars in existence had been printed in just two years. For centuries, economists have known that reckless money printing causes inflation....

Editorial: Wu & security guard union should return to table

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

The Boston city budget is apparently flush with cash when it comes to funding Mayor Michelle Wu’s pet projects, from the establishment of new City Hall departments, to the $18M+ proposed overhaul of the West Roxbury Education Complex. But when it comes to a better boost in pay for municipal security guards, the cupboard is bare.That’s the gist behind Wu’s plans to give lower raises than what a municipal security guards union is seeking. As the Herald reported, her administration said the two sides have reached an impasse and the city can’t afford the group’s demands.Another sticking point: the raises the union sought were voted in by the City Council as part of this year’s budget, but Wu nullified them. A Wu spokesperson stated that “this union’s and the City Council’s attempts to circumvent the collective bargaining process through the budgeting process were unfortunate and unfair to all of the city’s labor partners” who respect the proper protocols for nego...

Want to be scared out of your wits? See ‘Talk to Me’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

I’m going to bet that this buzzy Aussie fright film is going to become the thing-to-see with a group. This is what going to the movies is all about, right, the shared experience of being scared out of your wits?Written and directed by brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, who hail from Adelaide, Australia, making their feature film debut, “Talk to Me” is the story of a group of young people, who get their, ahem, hands on an embalmed hand encased in hardened clay and covered in runic signs. The hand allegedly once belonged to a psychic. In a pre-credit sequence, we see a young man looking for his brother at a raucous party, breaking down a door, getting his brother out of a room, only to have two very horrific things happen. This is BEFORE the opening credits.“Talk to Me” is about the terrible trouble young people can get themselves into, and Lord knows they can. We are introduced to an extended family. The single mother is Sue (the great, dazzling Miranda Otto of “The Lord of ...

Graham: Parents’ rights hot topic on campaign trail

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

MANCHESTER, N.H. — During a recent campaign stop in New Hampshire, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took time from throwing elbows at Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis to land a few jabs at the current Garden State governor. The issue? Parents’ rights, a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail.Asked about education policy by a New Hampshire voter, Christie took the opportunity to call out New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy for suing schools that want to keep parents informed about their children’s behavior at school regarding sex and gender.“My successor is actually suing school boards in New Jersey who say that when a child comes to a teacher or counselor or a principal and says that they’re having confusion about their gender — he’s suing to prevent them (school officials) from telling the parents,” Christie said. “If you don’t tell the parents, who’s going to be counseling that child? Either no one or someone in the school who … quite frankly, may not be trained to do that.“We nee...

‘War Pony’ a gritty realist take on reservation life

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

“War Pony,” which won a Gold Camera at Cannes in 2022, was co-directed by Gina Gammel and Riley Keough, making their debuts. It was written by Franklin Sioux Bob, Bill Reddy, Gammel and Keough. The film follows the misadventures of two indigenous men on the Oglala-Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and Nebraska and will remind some of Chloe Zhao’s superior 2017 effort “The Rider.”The parallel protagonists in “War Pony,” are Matho (Ladainian Crazy Thunder), a young wayward boy, who lives with his substance-abusing father in a rundown home, and Bill (the Pete Davidson-like Jojo Bapteise Whiting), a tall, unemployed young man with two sons with two different indigenous women and a beat-up car. When Matho and his “Lost Boys” buddies find meth hidden in Matho’s father’s display case, they run around the neighborhood selling it and spending the proceeds on junk food at a convenience store. Matho, who is forced to move in with a Fagin-like woman running ...

Dear Abby: 40-year-old daughter shuns responsibilities

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

Dear Abby: My 40-year-old daughter has never grown up. Until recently, she relied on her grandmother to make ends meet. Her grandmother passed away, and now I’m all she has. After she was fired from her civil-service job and evicted from her apartment, she broke her leg in a hiking accident. I got her into an apartment and have been supporting her for a few months now.Once her leg has healed, she has an entry-level job to return to, however long that lasts. I don’t think it pays enough for her to live on. I offered to pay for training in ANYTHING she’s interested in, but she shows no interest in a part-time job to help with bills. I can’t believe what she tells me because she never learned responsibility, accountability or honesty.She has now quit texting me because I called her out on her continual excuses, lies and half-truths. I’m committed to paying her rent until her leg is fully healed, but then what? Do I let her go to the street in hopes sheR...

Trump, DeSantis and other 2024 GOP candidates set to address Iowa Republicans at Lincoln Day Dinner

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump and rival Ron DeSantis will appear for the first time at the same campaign event in early voting Iowa on Friday at a pivotal moment for the Republican presidential candidates.Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, is making a rare appearance with the rest of the field at an Iowa Republican Party fundraiser a day after he was charged with additional counts over his retention of classified documents after leaving office. He is also bracing to soon be charged in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Trump has typically avoided attending events that put him in the lineup with the rest of the crowded field and has questioned why he should share the stage with his trailing rivals.But with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses less than six months away, Trump and a dozen other GOP hopefuls are taking advantage of the chance to speak to about 1,200 GOP members and activists at Friday’s Lincoln Day Dinner.DeSantis, Trump’...

Florida woman who stole nearly $3 million from Holocaust survivor gets over 4 years in prison

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida woman who drained an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor’s life savings by posing as a love interest and then lived lavishly off the $2.8 million she got was sentenced Thursday to over four years in prison.Peaches Stergo, 36, of Champions Gate, Florida, was described by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos as “unspeakably cruel” and motivated by greed as he announced the sentence in Manhattan federal court.Given a chance to speak, Stergo said: “I’m sorry.” She pleaded guilty in April to wire fraud, admitting that she drained the life savings of a man she met on a dating website seven years ago.Stergo began asking the once successful businessman for money in May 2017, claiming she needed money to pay a lawyer who was refusing to release the payout from a bogus injury settlement, prosecutors said. He paid her $25,000. Over the next four years, she used lies to coax the man to write 62 checks totaling over $2.8 million until he was broke, they added.She got him ...

Russian and Chinese delegates join North Korean leader Kim at a parade showing his newest missiles

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shared center stage with senior delegates from Russia and China as he rolled out his most powerful nuclear-capable missiles in a military parade in the capital, Pyongyang, marking a major war anniversary with a show of defiance against the United States and deepening ties with Moscow as tensions on the peninsula are at their highest point in years.State media said Friday Kim attended Thursday evening’s parade with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese ruling party official Li Hongzhong from a balcony looking over a brightly illuminated Kim Il Sung Square, named after Kim’s grandfather, the founder of North Korea.The streets and stands were packed with tens of thousands of mobilized spectators, who roared in approval as waves of goose-stepping soldiers, tanks and huge, intercontinental ballistic missiles wheeled out on launcher trucks filled up the main road. In recent days, according to KCNA reports, people have ...

Stock market today: Asian shares mixed, Tokyo falls as Bank of Japan adjusts bond purchase policy

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:44:17 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Friday after the Bank of Japan adjusted its bond purchase policy but kept its negative benchmark interest rate unchanged. Tokyo and Sydney slipped while Hong Kong and Shanghai advanced. U.S. futures were lower and oil prices fell. Japan’s central bank opted to keep its benchmark interest rate at minus 0.1% but fine-tuned its bond purchases to allow greater flexibility. The Bank of Japan said that extremely high uncertainties for the economy and prices required a more nimble approach than its previous policy. It said it would offer to buy 10-year Japanese government bonds at 1% each business day, instead of the upper limit of 0.5% that was imposed under its “yield curve control program.”The aim is still to keep long-term interest rates near zero percent, it said. Markets in Japan wobbled before Friday’s announcement. Afterward, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.2% to 32,144.47. The dollar weakened against the Japanese yen, slipping to 138...